Given Buzz's connections and roots in the Lone Star State, this article from The Wall Street Journal is interesting:
How Texas Basketball Rose From the Dust
Thriving College Teams Should Thank Mr. Kunstadt
By DARREN EVERSON
Texas is home to the No. 1 team in women's basketball, the Baylor Bears, and the hottest team on the men's side, the No. 3-ranked Texas Longhorns. After No. 1 Kansas lost to Kansas State Monday, the Longhorns—who collapsed late in the season last year—may vault to the top spot. They've devastated opponents with defense and won all of their Big 12 Conference games by at least nine points. "I can talk big right now and say I expected this, but I didn't," said Texas coach Rick Barnes. "I didn't know what to expect."
Meanwhile, high school recruiting experts say Texas is leading the way in the class of 2013 with four of the nation's top seven prospects.
So here's a question nobody seems to be asking about this burgeoning hardwood dynasty: Why did it take so long?
It's inconceivable that a state this big, and this athletically minded, has done so little in one of the nation's most popular sports. Texas has the second-highest population of any state (25 million) and the third-most Division I schools (21), yet it has only one national title in men's basketball—1966, when Texas Western started five black players and beat Kentucky. According to Basketball-Reference.com, fewer NBA and ABA players have attended high school in Texas than in far-smaller states like Michigan and Indiana.
This Lone Star turnaround surely has something to do with better arenas and stronger recruiting: Texas' top two players—sophomore swingman Jordan Hamilton and freshman forward Tristan Thompson—are from California and Canada, respectively. But the turning point in Texas basketball history can be traced to something far more obscure: a 1984 speech delivered by a little-known sports bureaucrat named Mike Kunstadt.
At the time, Mr. Kunstadt was president-elect of the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches. He was scheduled to make a presentation to the University Interscholastic League, the state's governing body for high-school sports. His speech was a plea for something that sounded simple enough: that high schoolers could be permitted (as they were in nearly every other state) to enhance their development by playing in summer basketball leagues and camps. Before then, high-school players who participated in these activities lost their eligibility to play varsity basketball the following season.
Mr. Kunstadt's proposal, which after years of pleading by the basketball community was accepted, set off a cultural revolution. For years, Texas had been retarding the development of basketball players on purpose, in all kinds of ways, for the same essential reason: nobody wanted basketball to interfere, in any way, with football.
Back then, basketball teams were often coached by members of the football staff who didn't necessarily know what they were doing. Even joining the coaching association was taboo. "When we started this association back [in the 1970s], I remember my athletic director saying, 'Why y'all doing that?'" said Rick Sherley, who is the association's director now. "They felt threatened. They didn't want to lose players to basketball."
For years, few top talents emerged, and those that did often attended college elsewhere. Former Cleveland Cavaliers guard Craig Ehlo, a Lubbock native who went to Washington State, said his high-school coach had surreptitiously left the gym door open by a crack so his players could play in the offseason. "You went ahead and did what you had to do, but we had to do it like that: sneaky," said Mr. Ehlo.
Since the rule change, Texas's annual production of Division I scholarship players has soared from the 50s in the mid-1980s to the 200 range in recent years. Texas owes some of its rising basketball profile to Kevin Durant, a Washington-area native who played for Texas and now stars in the NBA. But when it comes to recruiting, "there's no question we start in Texas," said Mr. Barnes. Last month, Texas got a verbal commitment from in-state big man Cameron Ridley, who is considered one of the top 2012 big men nationally.
Basketball will likely never reach football's stature in Texas, but that's fine, say its supporters. "We don't ever want to be No. 1," said Mr. Sherley. "We just wanted to close the gap."
—Ben Cohen contributed to this article
Write to Darren Everson at darren.everson@wsj.com
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