Senior pair shares strong bond
Friendship goes back to youth in New Orleans
DeJon Jarreau remembers the first time he crossed paths with Brison Gresham during ninthgrade basketball tryouts.
“He really didn’t like me that much,” Jarreau said.
“We hated each other,” Gresham said.
Almost a decade later, the “blood brothers” are inseparable, forging a tight bond that has taken them from New Orleans’ Seventh Ward to the University of Houston, where they are preparing for another trip to the NCAA Tournament.
First, however, Jarreau and Gresham will join teammate Justin Gorham for Sunday’s Senior Day ceremony before the regularseason finale against Memphis at Fertitta Center. A win by the Cougars (20-3) would lock up the No. 2 seed in the American Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament.
“I’m a crier,” said Jarreau, a 6-foot-5 guard. “I’m definitely going to cry. I’m not going to be able to hold it in. We went through some stuff early on that could of deterred this.”
Those early days at McDonogh 35, Jarreau admits he would “get on (Gresham’s) nerves a lot.”
“You know how it is for big men,” said Gresham, a 6-foot-8 forward. “He would be screaming, ‘Catch the ball!’ ”
Before long, the friendship went beyond the basketball court. They would hang out together. By 10th grade, they began to perfect a no-look lob pass from Jarreau that often ends with Gresham throwing down a dunk. So close are the two friends that they were born a day apart in 1998 — Jarreau on Jan. 23 and Gresham on Jan. 24.
When it came time to pick a college, Jarreau and Gresham made a pact to stick together. Jarreau was the more sought-after recruit, a unanimous fourstar prospect who was rated as one of the nation’s top guards. Gresham, who picked up basketball at an older age, blossomed into one of the top power forwards in the country.
“It really started as a conversation, ‘What if we were to play college basketball together? Or play professional basketball together?’ ” Gresham said. “It just winded up happening.”
As recruiters passed through, some wanted just Jarreau, others had interest in Gresham. The two made it clear their recruitment would be a “package deal.”
“We wanted to continue what we had going on,” Jarreau said. “If a school came in and didn’t recruit me and recruited him, he would bring it up. ‘Do you have an extra scholarship?’ I would say the same thing. We weren’t going to go to a school without each other. We were going to find somebody who was able to take both of us.”
Eventually the duo picked UMass, where they had formed a strong relationship with coach Derek Kellogg. At the end of their freshman year, Kellogg was fired, and Jarreau and Gresham announced shortly after their intentions to transfer.
Jarreau and Gresham eventually decided to transfer to UH, but first they sat out a season to work on their studies at Howard College. Under the watchful eye of coach Scott Raines, who worked for UH coach Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma, the duo stayed in shape by working out with the team.
When the Cougars expressed interest in Jarreau and Gresham, Sampson turned to two members of his staff, Hollis Price and Quannas White, who were teammates at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans.
“We had to convince Brison and Dejon to basically take a year of their life at another junior college just to meet academic criteria, just to be eligible,” Sampson said. “Those were hard decisions and hard moments in those young men’s lives. They’ve come a long way.”
At UH, Jarreau and Gresham were part of the school’s AAC championship teams in 2018-19, a program-record 33-win season that ended in the Sweet 16, and 2019-20. That same season, Jarreau was named the league’s sixth man of the year.
They’ve also leaned on each other during the tough times. During the first season at UH, Jarreau’s grandmother, Earline Nelson, died at 81, and a few days later his cousin, Theodore Jones — known as rapper Young Greatness — was killed during an armed robbery in New Orleans. Jarreau also dealt with a severe finger injury and bruised knee during that season.
Jarreau received his degree in December, while Gresham is on pace to graduate this spring.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Gresham said. “A lot of good. A lot of bad.”
Jarreau has averaged 10.5 points and 5.2 rebounds this season, both career highs, and needs nine assists for his third straight season with at least 100. Gresham has averaged 3.1 points and 3.3 rebounds, coming off the bench during the final month, and 36 blocks, second-most in the AAC. Gresham is the winningest player (42-3) in the three-year history of Fertitta Center.
“It’s crazy seeing him grow into the player he is today,” Jarreau said. “The things he can do to change the game so quickly, get offensive rebound, a huge block, catch an alley-oop, stuff like that.”
As the “Crescent City Connection” winds down its college career what does the future hold?
“You never know, maybe we’ll be on the same NBA team together,” Jarreau said with a grin. “You never know.”
Friends. Teammates. Brothers.
“He always looks out for you,” Jarreau said of Gresham. “It’s a good thing to have a friend like that.”