Memphis Paper on Today's Game

[max the wonder dog]

Here's the headline: Basketball program at SMU grows under watchful eyes of coaching legend

The story is behind a pay wall, but here are some takeaways:

DALLAS -- On Thursday evening, Shawn Williams stepped out of his anthropology class to use the bathroom. For the better part of three years he had floated around campus almost invisibly, just another face among thousands. . . .

“Somebody actually knew who I was,” Williams, a senior forward, said before practice Friday. “That didn’t happen before.”

Williams offers this anecdote from the underbelly of the Crum Basketball Center, a stone’s throw from freshly renovated Moody Coliseum. A $47 million face-lift transformed the arena into a state-of-the-art facility that has energized students, players and the community. . . .

“The culture of basketball has changed a lot,” senior guard Nick Russell said.

It’s a statement validated by the sky-high excitement surrounding Saturday’s showdown with No. 22 Memphis. . . .

A far cry from the games Williams remembers from three years ago. . . .
Then Brown arrived. . . .

His team is 16-5 overall and 5-3 in the inaugural season of the American Athletic Conference. . . .

Brown has won outside of Moody Coliseum, too. His 2014 recruiting class is ranked 32nd in the nation by ESPN, even though it has but a single player — Emmanuel Mudiay. . . .

Mudiay, a McDonald’s All-American, is rated the No. 2 point guard in the nation and the No. 5 player overall in ESPN’s Top 100. He’s the type of player who, even just two years ago, likely never would have considered SMU.

“Completely different mindset,” Russell said. “The coach is different, and that’s the main reason they’re coming.”

On Saturday, the fans will come too. They’ll pack Moody Coliseum and scream from start to finish. . . .

[SoCal_Pony]

Btw, Memphis averages nearly 17k per game. Quite impressive.