by Dick Weiss, for The American
DALLAS - The biggest celebrity at SMU's impressive 85-64 victory over Houston here Saturday at sold-out Moody Coliseum was iconic Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown, who started the resurgence of basketball at this elite private school in The American.
Brown built a winning culture here and established the Mustangs as a top-25 team before stepping into the background last spring.
But the coach in waiting that Brown brought with him in 2012 -- Tim Jankovich -- has made a seamless transition to his new job in Jankovich’s first full year as head coach. Jankovich has produced a 17-4 team that is fun to watch, has enough talent to make a run at an American Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament championships and should be a lock for an NCAA bid.
Jankovich, who studied under some of the greats in the game like Eddie Sutton, Jack Hartman, Lon Kruger, Boyd Grant, Gene Iba, Kevin Stallings and Bill Self as an assistant. He was a successful head coach at Illinois State, winning 20 or more games during four of his five years when Brown called and offered him a chance to accompany him to the Hilltop with the likelihood that Jankovich would get the job when Brown finally retired. It was a crash course in advanced basketball physics, much like the one Brown conducted for new Olympic coach Greg Popovich of the NBA Spurs back in 1986, when Popovich took a year off from his Division III job to work for Brown at Kansas.
When Brown and the SMU administration didn’t come to an agreement on a new contract extension, Jankovich was given the opportunity to demonstrate what he had learned and build his own legacy a little ahead of schedule. The Mustangs put on a show against Houston Saturday, blowing by a solid Cougars team, 85-64, to improve their record in The American to 7-1.
SMU is a dangerous team, and the Mustangs' Feb. 12 rematch in Dallas against nationally ranked Cincinnati (which defeated the Mustangs, 66-64, on the road earlier in the season) should be epic. In a year in which perennial contenders UConn and Temple have started slowly in conference play, SMU and Cincinnati, along with UCF, Memphis Houston and Tulsa, are propping up the league and should make The American Championship in Hartford wide open and fun to watch.
Sophomore guard Shake Milton put an exclamation point on a sensational week against Houston, shooting 10 for 15 and scoring a career high 27 points, to go with the 23 points he scored Thursday night against UConn. Forward Semi Ojeleye, a junior transfer from Duke, added 20 for SMU, which shot a blistering 65.4 percent in the second half and 56.6 percent for the game, putting five players in double figures while running an offensive clinic against the Cougars.
"We're a very unselfish team, so whoever's hot is going to get the ball,'' Milton said.
Milton showed flashes of brilliance as a freshman, averaging double figures and making seven 3s against Tulsa and making The American’s all-rookie team. He has moved to the point now that the ultra-competitive Nic Moore has graduated and looked like a blossoming star after shooting 6-for-8 from the three against Houston.
"Did anyone in the country have a better week than Shake?'' Jankovich asked. "I don't follow every single team, but man oh man, was he good. In every single way, his confidence is sky high. He's thinking the game at a very high level.''
The Mustangs have changed their offensive philosophy since Jankovich took over, relying a lot more on the 3-point shot as a major part of their offensive repertoire. Two years ago, when the Mustangs won 27 games and received an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, they averaged 4.3 3-pointers a game. Against Houston, SMU made 13 of 27 3- point attempts.
"I think it's the elephant in the room,'' Ojeleye said. "Different coaches - Coach Jank wants us to take more 3s. Coach Brown wanted us to take it to the rim more often.''
"I yell at them to shoot them,'' Jankovich admitted. "I love 3- point shooting if you are a true 3- point shooter. I do not like 3- point shooting with guys who are not good shooters. That is one of many reasons I love this team. They're fun. It's fun to coach them offensively. A lot of guys can shoot 3s. That means every game we go into, there's usually a matchup we can exploit. It's a good weapon and it's part of the reason for our success. It's not an accident. We've tried to recruit to the way we want to play.''
This SMU team has a limited, seven-player rotation, but the Mustangs have lived up to their nickname with five quick, face-the-basket players who compliment 6-8 senior center Ben Moore and have done some serious damage by spreading teams out, shooting it from distance and scoring on the bounce.
"I really liked the way we passed the ball,'' Jankovich said. "Obviously we shot the ball, but shooting comes and goes. I will say when you are really making the extra pass, spacing and are in the flow, there's a lot of confidence.''
Having said that, this was the Mustangs' second game in three days and there was some concern SMU might not have any legs left for Kelvin Sampson's up-tempo Cougars, who have two legitimate long-range shooters themselves in guards Rob Gray and Damien Dotson, and like to tee it up from outside.
Jankovich wasn't taking any chances in practice Friday. "Yes, I was very worried about legs, which is why practice was eight minutes of shooting and five to seven minutes of five-on-zero,'' he said. "That was practice. It was the easiest practice I've ever been involved in. Your first mistake in my opinion is to have your guys tired. You can only do so much in a day. We prepared. We're there and we're walking, talking, watching film, trying to put in a game plan but we're not expending any energy. I was wondering, 'Gosh can we really do this?' But we did and I thought we had a lot of bounce.''
The Mustangs went on an 18-3 run to take a 42-25 lead at half, limiting Houston to just 30 percent shooting. But then Dotson went off, scoring 15 of his 25 points in the second half. He and Gray, who added 16 points, combined to make 10 3s as the Cougars shot 52 percent in the final 20 minutes. But the gap was so much too make up, especially when the Mustangs were lighting it up.
"I thought we guarded well in the first half,” Jankovich said. “In the second half, I thought maybe we got an little tired and Dotson was fantastic; we couldn't get him under control. But we were able to hold on to our cushion by trading baskets.''