7 Texas bids reflection of improved programs
It gets lost amid the romanticism of football, but 2021 offered another stark reminder: Texas is a basketball state.
Houston, Baylor, Texas, Texas Tech, North Texas, Texas Southern and Abilene Christian make up a nation-best seven men’s teams from the Lone Star State in this year’s NCAA Tournament. Three years ago, Texas had the same number to set its record.
At one point this season, the state had four of the top-10 teams in the men’s Associated Press poll: second-ranked Baylor, No. 5 Texas, No. 6 Houston and No. 10 Texas Tech.
Baylor is a No. 1 seed for the first time. Houston’s No. 2 seed is the best for the school since the Phi Slama Jama era of the 1980s. Texas Southern, sharing the Third Ward neighborhood with UH, has its fifth tournament berth since 2014. UT won its first Big 12 tournament title. North Texas won its first Conference USA tournament crown.
More local flair during March Madness: Eighteen teams in this year’s field feature a total of 35 players from Houston-area high schools.
The state’s prep and grassroots basketball communities are watching. The talent has always been here. Perhaps it hasn’t always been exposed properly, but it is now more than ever in the social media age.
The AAU circuit and Texas high school basketball programs, for example, are locked at the hip, much like in other states. Clear Lake High School coach Tom Penders Jr., whose father is College Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and former UH and UT coach Tom Penders Sr., senses positivity and like-mindedness between the entities in Texas.
Penders Jr. also gives credit to the state’s college head coaches, particularly citing Baylor’s Scott Drew, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson, Texas’ Shaka Smart and Texas Tech’s Chris Beard, the last of which is a McCullough High School (The Woodlands) graduate.
What those coaches stand for mirrors what their players produce. They’re recruiting a different kind of in-state player today and it fits perfectly with their philosophy.
“Their emphasis is on gritty, gutty players now,” Penders Jr. said. “Just think about it. Rather than the coddled superstar, I think that’s what’s really helped make Texas such a special state in basketball is they’ve turned away from stylish players that want all the big headlines. Instead, they get the tough kids that are loyal to their community like Tramon Mark at Houston, (Greg Brown) at Texas. These are kids that could have gone to any prep school around the country. They could’ve gone to Miami to go to high school, but they chose to stay loyal to their community.”
Shadow Creek’s Ramon Walker fits the description.
The senior three-star recruit is signed with UH and helped jump-start the early days of Shadow Creek High School’s program, which has been successful and earmarked by this year’s 22-3 mark and Class regional-quarterfinal run.
Shadow Creek coach David President says instate programs have done well finding talent outside their own borders and could keep the recruiting base close to home if needed, too.
“I think it’s a tribute to kids developing,” President said. “There’s a lot of great programs, summer programs, guys that are just giving back to the game and developing kids and kids spending the time developing their craft, which has now given them the opportunity to be a part of one of these programs. We’ve always had the talent. But I think now you’re really starting to see it and it’s starting to show especially on the national scale.”
Penders Jr. reinforced the notion of the extra work players put in, saying, “You’d be surprised to see what some of these kids do to be successful.” He refers to how common it is for players to have extra trainers and coaches with everyone on the same page being the key.
Players never stop playing, either.
Erven “Big E” Davis, founder of AAU basketball organization Dallas Showtyme, prefers players give themselves a break sometimes, but the mentality is too strong to thwart.
High school and AAU seasons often blend, with players wasting little to no time between the two. The multifaceted AAU scene isn’t as restrictive as it once was. There’s rarely ever a moment in the year where players aren’t challenged. It hasn’t always been like that in Texas.
“They’re not fazed when they go to college,” Davis said. “They’ve already been doing it.”
Huffman Hargrave coach Scott Barrett, who just led his team to the Class 4A state title game and played at TCU in the late 1990s, says staying home is as attractive as it’s ever been for players.
Barrett remembers a time when two NCAA Tournament from Texas was standard. Barrett was on TCU’s 1998 team, one of the school’s last two NCAA seasons. The Horned Frogs’ game against Florida State that year followed Bryce Drew’s buzzer-beater to help Valparaiso upset Ole Miss in the first round.
What many of this year’s college players are about to find out: There is nothing like the magic of the tournament.
“If you’re a college team, it is a big deal to make the NCAA Tournament,” Barrett said. “How many teams don’t even sniff it? Even a lot of college teams that make the National Invitation Tournament, it’s a big deal for them. But to make the NCAA Tournament, it’s top of the world.”