Texas Basketball: Shaka Smart Pumped About New Five Star Addition Greg Brown III
It is rare to have a one-man recruiting class in college basketball.
It's even less often that that one-man recruiting class has a chance to be as trancendent as Texas' 2020 haul with Greg Brown III.
The No. 1 power forward in the country, Brown may be the most-hyped prospect to come to Texas during the Shaka Smart era. With a young team going into the season, Smart always approached the 2020 recruiting class with a kind of tunnel vision.
"Greg's been our number one priority really not even close to anybody else in this 2020 class, and we're just really, really excited and grateful that you decide to join our program," Smart said during a teleconference on Monday. "He's one of those guys who you can watch in a layup line and see that he's a little bit different."
Smart's relationship with Brown when the young power forward was still in middle school. The Texas coach recognized Brown's talent before stepped foot on a high school basketball court at Vandegrift in Austin, but the way he's refined that ability over the past five years has impressed the Longhorns head man.
"His actual game has grown a great deal," Smart said. "How he sees the game, how he approaches the game, certain components of basketball and then the way that he interacts with his teammates, h e's really done with what you hope guys do from from ninth grade through 12th grade. He's really grown up a lot."
With every starter expected to return, Texas has quickly risen up the preseason rankings and is already getting talk as a dark horse Big 12 title contender. It goes withoug saying that winning one of the country's premier basketball leagues would probably put the Longhorns on the radar as a team that could do some damage in the "postseason as well.
We're excited about finally having an older team," Smart said. "Excited about the lessons that our guys have learned this past year. And previous year's for guys that are upperclassmen. And we do think that that Greg really adds a significant piece to our program and our team. He brings an added level of violence on the court and aggressiveness. He brings a confidence to them that is always a welcome sight."
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