Larry Brown: Don’t sleep on SMU
SMU Men’s Basketball Coach Larry Brown talks with ESPN’s Andy Katz about why the Mustangs are good, and “we’re going to be good for a long time.”
By Andy Katz
On Monday afternoon, Larry Brown was making sure his son, L.J., got settled into his freshman dorm room at SMU.
And then he went back to his office, settling in for yet another grind of a day to ensure the Mustangs will matter.
Suddenly, a year after Brown decided to go back to college coaching for the first time in three decades, there is a sense that he is fully comfortable with this new life, not ready to retire or bolt to the next gig, as he's done so many times in his storied career."I want to see my son graduate,'' said Brown, whose son wanted to attend SMU for its performing arts program. "This helps in recruiting.''
But does it really mean he is going to stay as the coach for the next four years?
Who knows. But he may not have to wait that long to get SMU into the college basketball public consciousness.
"We are going to be relevant,'' said Brown, whose Mustangs head from the relative obscurity of the bottom of Conference USA to the new American Athletic Conference. SMU will have two games each against Louisville, UConn, Memphis, Cincinnati and Temple in a league that will be featured quite a bit on ESPN's platforms.
"We've got a JC center [Yanick Moreira] who can play,'' Brown said. "We've got Keith [Frazier] who can play. We've got two other kids [Sterling Brown and Ben Moore] who can play. We've got all five starters back. We've got Nic Moore [transfer point guard from Illinois State]. I don't know if any of the starters will play. We have competition at every position."We're pretty good and we're going to be pretty good for a long time."