Mom’s touching advice
Longhorns rising star Disu credits mother’s persistence for his success
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Michelle Anderson had a confession to make.
“I was kind of a mean mom,” she said by phone this week.
This, of course, wasn’t the honest truth. But kids tend to view disciplinarians with a wary eye, like a barbed wire barrier blocking their path to the playground. With time, Dylan Disu would see his mother, a former collegiate basketball and volleyball athlete, in a different light.
But back then, little Dylan couldn’t yet see the big picture. He’d pout some, though never enough to defy mom. So when Anderson told him to go supine, he did.
“I taught him how to shoot when he was little — oh, he hated me,” Anderson said, chuckling at the memories. “I’d make him lay on his back in his bedroom and just shoot the ball in the air to learn touch. And that’s why he has the touch he has today.”
Now a fully grown 6-foot-9 senior, Disu and his immaculate floater have become the topic du jour of college hoops with Texas back in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in 15 years.
There’s a new breakout star every March. Disu is being fawned over by the likes of Kevin Durant, LaMarcus Aldridge, Tom Penders, ESPN’s Jay Bilas — really, anyone who’s watched the second-seeded Longhorns (28-8) rampage through the postseason.
Even the opponents he’s ‘floatered’ into oblivion have voiced their awe and admiration for the blossoming big man from Pflugerville.
“I don’t know who the best team we played all year is,” Penn State guard Seth Lundy said last Saturday after Disu’s 28-point, 14-for-20 second-round masterpiece, “but I do know that we’ve never played against a big man with that type of touch. I don’t remember him missing not one floater. He would do it from 10 feet, 15 feet, 5 feet. He made it every single time.”
Disu’s ascent began with fifthyear senior forward Timmy Allen’s absence.
With Texas locked into a No. 2 seed regardless of its performance in Kansas City earlier this month, interim coach Rodney Terry and the team’s medical staff decided to hold Allen (right lower leg injury) out of the Big 12 tournament so he could be 100 percent for the NCAA tournament.
Like Disu, Allen makes earns his bread inside the arc. With the latter out, Terry empowered Disu to setup shop — the “flotation station,” as teammates now call it — at his spots around the high post, elbows, short corners and in the lane.
Playing three games in three days, Disu totaled 44 points on 73.9 percent shooting (17 of 23) in 76 minutes. This breakout didn’t feel forced, either. He decimated teams running pick-and-pops with guards Marcus Carr and Tyrese Hunter and spotted up with space to get off that feathery push shot before defenders could contest.
Two years removed from the knee injury and subsequent surgery that cut short his sophomore season at Vanderbilt, Disu was honored as the tournament’s most outstanding player after hanging 18 points on Kansas in Texas’ title game blowout.
“Him winning the most outstanding player was so deserved because y’all didn’t see the year and a half of him getting back from injury, of him sitting on the sideline in practice in Cooley (Pavilion) with (former coach Chris) Beard last year and we’re having to go dap him up because he can’t even practice,” Allen said. “And for me coming back off injury, I’m playing off him now. He’s outstanding.”
Anderson had a system for honing Disu’s shooting touch. It was the same one her high school coach used, simple and frill-free but necessary in building a solid foundation.
For this exercise, Disu could stay upright. An actual hoop even entered the picture. Still, Anderson at first had to battle against the alluring tug of the deep ball.
“We’d go to gyms and of course, kids, the first thing they want to do is go to the 3-point line,” Anderson said. “I wouldn’t let him. I would make him start down low and shoot from the right side of the basket using the backboard, to the left side of the basket, in front of the basket, shooting with one hand. Once he made 10 from each spot he could move back. I was big on fundamentals.”
Again, she giggled, “I was kind of a mean mom.”
Now, Anderson might be the proudest mom on the planet.
She was on hand last week in Des Moines, Iowa, to watch her son terrorize No. 15 seed Colgate with 17 points and 10 rebounds and follow up with a mid-range masterclass (28 points on 14 of 20) in a 71-66 win over No. 10 seed Penn State.
And heading into Friday night’s game against third-seeded Xavier (27-9), all eyes will again be on Disu, the big man with the softest touch in the land.
“She’s been a big part of this,” Disu said of his mom. “She’ll tell anyone who asks who taught me to shoot. She would just have me on the floor shooting for a long time. At the time, I didn’t like it. I thought it was boring. But everything has a foundation and that helped me a lot with my touch on those shots. Obviously, it’s paid off.”
If only all mothers could be so “mean.”