Sasser carries on family’s D-1 tradition
DALLAS — Marcus Sasser does not remember a time when a basketball was not nearby.
“I was really born into it,” Sasser said. “There was always a ball everywhere.”
Basketball is the family business when your last name is Sasser.
His grandfather, Jeryl Sasser Sr., played at North Texas State in the early 1970s.
His uncle, Jason, was the Southwest Conference Player of the Year and an All-American at Texas Tech.
Another uncle, Jeryl Jr., was the Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year and an All-American at SMU.
His father, Marcus Sr., played at Frank Phillips College.
Next in the family line is Marcus, a freshman guard for the University of Houston.
“I’m coming here trying to make my own name,” Marcus said. “They did a good job setting a legacy. Now I’m just trying to follow them.”
Fans at Saturday’s game at Moody Coliseum — No. 20 Houston plays SMU in a key American Athletic Conference game — may pause when they hear a familiar name during the visiting team introduction. A Sasser will be on their court for a college basketball game for the first time in 20 years.
“We’ve had this on the radar for a long time,” Jason Sasser said of the group of family and friends expected to attend the game.
When it came time to play high school basketball, Jason Sasser told his nephew to embrace the family’s basketball history in the state of Texas.
“You can’t escape it,” said Jason, who coached Marcus at Red Oak just south of Dallas. “He couldn’t run away from it. Everybody knows us in the basketball community. It comes with the territory.” Jason Sasser, 46, was part of Dallas Kimball’s 1990 state championship team. At Texas Tech, Sasser was a three-time All-SWC first team selection and was the league’s player of the year in 1996 when the Red Raiders won 30 games and advanced to the Sweet 16. He was a second-round pick in the NBA draft.
Jeryl Sasser, 40, was a two-time state champion, a two-time WAC first-team selection and the league’s player of the year in 1999. Sasser was a first-round pick by the Orlando Magic and played two NBA seasons.
“Some kids’ bloodlines matter. Sometimes the bloodlines don’t matter,” UH coach Kelvin Sampson said. “But when I think about the Sasser name here in the state of Texas … it means something.”
Each member of the Sasser clan has different on-court traits. Jason described himself as a “bona-fide scorer.” Jeryl was more of a distributor as a point guard. Marcus Sr. said his specialty was the 3point shot. “I love getting rebounds … I love being physical.”
“I’m a mixture of them all,” Marcus added. “I try and distribute the ball. I try to shoot the ball. The one thing I try and do is I want to be a better defender than both. I just try and have an all-around game.”
The introduction to basketball came early for Marcus, who began playing in the third grade. By the time he was a freshman in high school, Marcus would wake up around 6 a.m. every weekend and join his father inside an empty gym in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas. He would shoot between 700 and 800 shots.
“That’s where I wanted him to understand the meaning of basketball and the game,” Marcus Sr. said. “That’s where he gets his toughness from.”
UH assistant coach Alvin Brooks is familiar with the Sasser family. Then the UH head coach in the mid-to-late 90s, Brooks made a recruiting pitch to land Jeryl Sasser, who ultimately picked SMU over Cougars.
He describes the family in three words: “Competitive, tough, winners.”
Marcus Sasser, a 6-1 guard, did not receive much recruiting interest at the beginning. His first offer came from Texas State, and Jeryl’s alma mater, SMU, showed some interest.
During the recruiting process, Brooks asked around about Marcus.
“Some of the older people (who watched Jason and Jeryl) told me he’s like those Sassers,” Brooks said. “OK, that’s all I needed to know.”
Before he even took an official visit to campus, Marcus called Sampson to commit.
“I already knew this was the place for me,” said Marcus, who has made 11 starts this season and is tied for the team lead with 40 3-pointers. “I already had my mind made up.”
Once again, a familiar basketball name is back at a Division I Texas school.
“It’s kind of a dream come true,” Marcus said.