Pair of star freshmen collide
Longhorns not revolving around Brown as Cowboys dowith Cunningham
AUSTIN — For the past four years, Vandegrift was the Greg Brown show. He was the leading man, the highlight factory, the fulcrum of all the Vipers did.
That’s not the environment Brown occupies these days. The 6-foot-9 freshman forward isn’t the star around which Texas orbits.
Just seven games into Brown’s first, and likely only, college season, he’s learning to adjust to life as a cog, albeit a vital one, exuding more NBA potential than anyone in Austin. It’s a tricky transition, one Texas redshirt junior Andrew Jones confronted in 2016 as a freshmanwho’d nearly averaged a 30-point triple double as a senior at Irving MacArthur.
“When you’re in high school, you really don’t have that much support,” Jones said Friday. “You get to do everything. You take all of the shots, and the teamis really on your shoulders. They live and die with you.
“When you play on a team full of other guys who were superstars in high school before they come to college, it’s really hard to be just the alpha guy who gets 30 or 40 points a game because our offense is just not run through just one guy. One thing he just has to learn is to find his niche within the offense.”
Brown will soon get a chance to measure his own growth against that of a freshman many consider the best in the nation and a future No. 1 overall NBA draft pick.
Unlike No. 11 Texas (6-1, 0-0 Big 12), Oklahoma State (6-1, 0-1) is steered by 6foot-8 guard Cade Cunningham, the 2020 Naismith High School Player of the Year and near-unanimous top 2021prospect. Cunningham leads the Cowboys in scoring (18.3) and ranks second in rebounds (six), assists (3.9), steals (1.1) and blocks (1.1).
Brown hasn’t been that prolific, averaging 10.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and1.3 blocks per contest. He hasn’t had to be on a team crammedwith experienced vets, and coach Shaka Smart doesn’t expect, or really evendesire, 30points a night. That’s not how the Longhorns are built.
Adjusting to Smart’s guard-dominant, egalitarian ecosystem has been most visible issue in Brown’s opening month, which featured three straight sub-37 percent shooting performances in a Maui Invitational still won by Texas.
“It’s been a kind of a struggle for me on the offensive end,” Brown said after scoring 18 and sinking three 3s against Texas State last week. “But what I’m trying to keep learning is just like how to play the pace, play off my teammates and help the game slow down for me. And just how to get my teammates involved more because in high school Iwas a one-man show. Now I have other good players on my team, I got to use them.”
Brown has averaged 17.5 points, six rebounds, 2.5 blocks and 2.5 3s over his past two games, both double-digit wins. He’s also dished just one assist on the season against 16 turnovers, a staggering ratio.
It’s clear from watching the freshman operate that the trust coaches and teammates have harped on hasn’t been put on full display yet. Neither has Brown’s chops as a playmaker who can collapse a defense and create open looks for teammates on a consistent basis.
But it’s clear in watching Brown operate that he’s making strides toward that. He’s learning to rely less exclusively on an explosive 40-plus-inch vertical, instead looking for seams to slither through, unbalancing defenders with a hard jab or head fake, slinging the pass that leads to the assist. And his disruptive abilities on defense have helped create easy run-outs for Texas.
“He’s so used to going one-on-one,” Jones said. “He’s so used to, he gets the ball, everybody spread out and let Greg go have fun. Everybody knows he wants to jog around and do highlight dunks. Another coach is not gonna let him jog to the rim and do highlight dunks.
“So once he starts to make the one-dribble pass, he becomes unpredictable. Then it’ll be hard for the team to actually guard him.”
Brown can make a statement Sunday in the Longhorns’ Big 12 opener against Oklahoma State at the Erwin Center. He doesn’t need to outplay Cunningham, and Smart certainly doesn’t want this to turn into some sort of mano-a-mano prizefight.
What Brown needs to do is just continue growing, trusting teammates and expanding his own game. He’s the skeleton key that can unlock the Longhorns’ ultimate potential, the one who can elevate this team from above average to dominant.
“The main thing Iwant to get better at is just playing with pace and knowing where the next play is,” Brown said. “Just having that next-level basketball IQ. And once I get that, then everything else will fall into place.”