SMU coach Larry Brown shares wisdom of a legendary career
By Bronte Erwin
When you have a team with the depth of SMU how do you manage minutes?
I don’t know yet. I don’t know what kind of depth we will have. You might have depth at certain positions; you might have no depth at others. So it depends. And then foul trouble, injuries. Generally early on you want to play a lot of people. Like last year we had a lot of winnable games early on, so we got to play everybody. So it was pretty easy to manage minutes. But then we started getting into the heart of our schedule, Yanick (Moreira) getting hurt helped manage minutes, even though we missed him; it shortened our rotation.
But I usually like to go into season knowing who is going to come in when Nic (Moore) goes out; Ryan (Manual) goes out; Markus (Kennedy) goes out. You like to have kids have an understanding of when they are going to play. But foul trouble, injuries and other things dictate a lot.
Who is the toughest player you played against?
I remember when I was a young boy the toughest guy I played against was Larry Costello. I don’t know how many people remember him but he was an old pro. And mean as a snake. [Costello had a twenty year pro career winning a championship as both player and coach.] I was a young kid and he just kind of taught me how to play a little bit. I grew up on the playground with a lot of older guys, a lot of old pro players and they all taught me how to play.
Having grown up in the northeast, what type of Texas foods do you like?
I like all the food down here. You know this is a cosmopolitan city, so I’ve found a lot of neat restaurants. There is a lot of Tex-Mex stuff that I like. Dallas is a big city so you can get anything you want. I haven’t had a bad meal yet.
You have worked, coached or played with some of the most successful people in basketball. What are common attributes you see in successful people?
Great players. Obviously you’ve got to have good players and be lucky enough to have a great staff; which I have always been fortunate in that regard. I think most teams that are successful they defend and rebound; play hard and share the ball. And having high character kids. Even if they are not great players they give you a chance to win.
