AUSTIN, Texas -- So, Chris Ogden, you secured a commitment from the prospect at least one recruiting service has labeled the nation's best incoming freshman, and you did it less than six months after becoming a full-time assistant at Texas.
That's quite impressive, young man.
Please tell your secret.
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| Avery Bradley is showing his stuff in Austin. (Courtesy University of Texas) |
Rick Barnes has a roster that could return him to the Final Four this season, and if the Longhorns win the national title, it won't surprise me one bit. They are experienced, talented and deep enough to accomplish anything. And if they do accomplish everything, one of the key reasons will be a freshman from Seattle named Avery Bradley, who turned down offers from each Pac-10 school to enroll at Texas thanks largely to a phone call from a guy who at the time was just 27 years old and only a few weeks on the job.
That was assistant Chris Ogden.
You might remember him as a four-year letterman at Texas and the captain of the 2003 team that went to the Final Four. Upon graduation, Ogden was hired by Barnes as an administrative assistant. He remained in that role until he replaced Ken McDonald, who left to take over for Darrin Horn at Western Kentucky in April 2008.
Fresh on the job, Ogden did what any new assistant would.
He turned to the World Wide Web.
"I was just reading, and I read Avery's name on the Internet; it was in the spring of his junior year, right after I got the job," Ogden said. "I just read a little something about him, just read his name, just a little blurb."
It's important to understand that this was not like reading about Renardo Sidney or Xavier Henry. At the time, Bradley was merely a borderline top 75 recruit, a guy best known as Abdul Gaddy's sidekick. There was nothing elite about him. And considering he lived 2,200 miles from Austin, there was no reason for Texas to be recruiting him, especially when you consider that Ogden had never even seen him play.
But Ogden thought he might have an in.
There was this guy he knew who he believed was involved with Bradley.
So Ogden called that guy one day.
"And he told me he didn't have anything to do with Avery because he wasn't associated with that summer team anymore," Ogden said. "But before he hung up, he said, 'You know Avery used to live in Texas, and that he's always liked Texas, don't you? You ought to get on him.' I was like, 'Oh, this is great.'"
And it was true. Unbeknown to Ogden, Bradley had lived in Arlington, Texas, from fourth grade to seventh, during the years Texas won a total of 98 games and went to a Final Four. Bradley was a basketball player, remember. So naturally (and predictably), he was attracted to the winning and transformed into a Texas fan.
"When Avery was the age when you become a fan of a team, he was living in Texas and we were in the Final Four with T.J. Ford," Ogden said. "It just aligned that way."
So Ogden grabbed the phone and called Bradley.
"And when I got that call, I was happy," said Bradley, who already had -- and still has back home in Seattle -- a T.J. Ford Texas jersey. "Texas was always at the top of my list. I was just waiting for them to start recruiting me."
Ogden spent that summer recruiting Bradley.
Bradley spent that summer dominating the circuit.
By the time it was over, the 6-foot-3 guard had established himself as a consensus top five prospect nationally, and ESPNU labeled him as the No. 1 player in the Class of 2009. Last September, he committed to Texas over UCLA, and now he's on campus and determined to be the next great UT freshman, but one who dominates defensively more than offensively.
"He's going to find ways to put the ball in the basket, but he doesn't care about scoring," Barnes said. "Avery wants to be a lockdown defender. He wants to be the best defender in the country, and he's not just talking it. It's what he does."
Thanks to three qualities -- 1) a solid and ripped frame shaped like a capital 'V'; 2) freakish athleticism; and 3) a proper mental makeup -- Bradley is a strong candidate to establish himself as the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and more. Honest to God, the guy just loves to guard. He takes pride in it, thinks about it, yearns for it. And to stress this point, Barnes told a story from July 2008, when Bradley was playing in a summer event that did not allow teams to pressure full court.
"Avery was so mad," Barnes said. "He would just stand right at the half-court line and wait for the guy, and some of those people having to bring the ball up the court were like, 'Oh, boy.' I mean, he's just tenacious. How many guys in high school want to go down and guard somebody 94 feet from the basket?"
Answer: Not many.
How many freshmen are going to be better this season?
Answer: Not many (if any).
"Avery is the total package," Barnes said. "Whatever it is, he's got it."
Combined with upperclassmen like Damion James and Dexter Pittman -- plus other talented newcomers like Jordan Hamilton and J'Covan Brown -- it's not a stretch to suggest Bradley is now a part of the most talented team Barnes has ever assembled. A national title is the goal. And it's wild to think that it might never have materialized had Bradley lived somewhere other than Texas in those four influential years, or if Ford wasn't the National Player of the Year in 2003, or if Ogden hadn't read that blurb and made that call.
But all those things did happen.
So now a star from Seattle is about to be a star at Texas.
ready,set,go 
