Miller: Guard Madlock is ‘best defender in the state’
When Mike Miller came to coach Houston this season, a lot of the attention was focused on him and the three top-100 recruits in his starting five.
But the Mustangs also have one of the area's best point guards in TJ Madlock, the son of Memphis men's basketball assistant Tony Matlock.
Madlock, a 6-foot-3, 180-pound senior, has offers from New Orleans, Little Rock, and Florida Atlantic among others. He's also No. 8 on the Commercial Appeal's Elite Eight, a collection of the Memphis area's top college basketball prospects.
He is a three-star guard and No. 9 prospect in the state according to 247Sports.
"High-level athlete. Great size and strength for a point guard," said Miller, who played 17 years in the NBA and spent two years as an assistant at Memphis under coach Penny Hardaway. "I think he's the best defender in the state, maybe one of the best defenders in the country.
"At certain levels of his game in college, he can guard all the way up to almost a four. A unique basketball player, especially for a high school kid."
He can score too, using his size and a quick first step to get into the lane and create opportunities for himself and teammates. He finishes through contact, and has enough bounce to throw down dunks with ease.
As Houston's primary ballhandler, it's Madlock's job to run the offense and figure out the most efficient ways to distribute the ball to a group that features last year's Class AA Mr. Basketball winner (Johnathan Lawson), one of the finalists for this year's Class AAA Mr. Basketball award (Mason Miller), and the top overall prospect in the state (Jerrell Colbert)
"It hasn't' been too difficult," Madlock said. "I know they want touches, but at the end of the day we all want to win. So if a certain guy is hot we'll go to him. It's not really about me, me, me it's about us as a team."
He credits his basketball knowledge to his dad.
"After every game we go home and watch that game that night. We watch everything. We watch film, we'll talk about the game," Madlock said. "If Memphis plays we'll talk and watch those games when he gets home.
"It's a basketball life at the house for sure. It's like that with everybody in my family. My mom will watch film with us. My sister will watch it with us too. The whole family is a basketball family."
The family moved to Memphis three years ago when Tony Madlock was hired as a part of Penny Hardaway's staff.
TJ Madlock said that he's planning on waiting until after the state tournament to sign and that Army, Little Rock, New Orleans, Troy, Valparaiso and Drexel are the main schools he's keeping in contact with. He's been consistently working on his jump shot, getting extra shots up at Houston, Memphis, or wherever is available on that particular day. That's the next step in his development, Miller said, taking his shooting ability to another level.
"The next thing for him is being a more consistent shooter, and he's doing that. I think he's proving that this year," Mike Miller said. "He had a game where he hit five or six threes, so that's huge. Just learning how to play with the pace and use his size and finish and he's gotten way better at that. He continues to grow his game has been fun to see."