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Jimcs50
03-11-2005, 08:52 AM
March 11, 2005, 1:45AM

Gillispie sees A&M squad as template
By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Billy Gillispie was standing in a stark corridor under the Kemper Arena grandstands, promising himself he wouldn't cry but knowing he would.

Gillispie's Aggies had just lost a Big 12 tournament heartbreaker to Kansas State. It was a 68-62 upset. The term tells you how far this Texas A&M team has come. Upset?

The only upsets A&M basketball used to suffer were upset stomachs. From fans having to watch. From knowing it would never get any better. From never earning legitimacy or demanding respect.

But it was not the loss that made Gillispie pause, compose himself and wipe tears from his eyes as he stood with a couple of writers. It was knowing this would be the A&M team he never will forget. It was knowing that if the Aggies ever arrive at future Big 12 tournaments with more than just three legitimate players, it will be because of what this team started.


Mutual respect
If A&M ever takes the floor with something more than a gutsy rec-league player, a couple of raw freshmen with no business playing at this level just yet and a point guard thrown to the fire too soon, it will be because of what happened with this team.

"They love me, and I love them," Gillispie said, trying to explain something that is inexplicable to anyone outside the Aggies' practice gym. "They're just special."

If Gillispie can ever build on this 19-9 season, if he can ever recruit McDonald's All-Americans like a Texas or a Kansas, this will be the team to which he will point.

Whenever someone with more press clippings than guts sets a halfhearted screen or doesn't dive for a loose ball in practice, Gillispie will shout in that Texas drawl of his. He'll talk about this A&M team and say something like this:

Those guys didn't have half the talent you have! Those guys had no right winning! Those guys knew how to play the game!

If Gillispie has shown Big 12 basketball fans anything this year, it has been that he is a superb basketball coach. He's made something out of mostly nothing. He's made the once-underachieving Antoine Wright, who led the Aggies with 28 points Thursday, a likely first-round NBA pick.


Coaching talent evident
He's drawn the most out of point guard Acie Law, a top talent who struggled Thursday but whose head was spinning nearly every night a year ago. He's pulled the 6-5 Chris Walker off the A&M intramural courts and made him a force, the defensive and hustling equivalent of scraping fingernails on the chalkboard.

He's made Joseph Jones one of the best post players in the league, even as a true freshman. And he's made sure that this time the end of the Big 12 tournament won't also mean the end of the season, with a National Invitation Tournament invite likely.

But this team has shown Gillispie something, too. For all his success at Texas-El Paso, his ability to sell his style of play and constantly demand the most of his players — even running full-out practices on game days — Gillispie understands what has been at the soul of this turnaround.

Basketball souls.

These players bought what Gillispie was selling. Had they not made this coach-player relationship work, Gillispie could have had them running all night, every night, and this team would not have been much better than the 7-21 squad of a year ago.

That's why Gillispie fought back tears. That's why this team has left as big an impression on him as he has on it.

"If we could have all our (future) teams have the intangibles this team has, we'd be awfully good," Gillispie said. "I don't know how you wouldn't love this team. They've overachieved every way you could."

Gillispie will start putting more talented teams on the floor next year, although losing Wright to the NBA is likely. He has started landing top Texas players and is making his way into the living rooms of All-America types.

But how much do credentials mean if there is not the effort? How much does ability count if styles and personalities don't mesh?

Gillispie won't say one bad thing about this squad. He can't. He loves it too much, and it's meant too much to his career, which could well get a boost to the tune of a multimillion-dollar contract extension in a matter of days.

But physically, this Aggies team likely won't come close to matching most future A&M squads. The closest Gillispie will get to admitting such a thing is saying, "We need to work on our roster."

But this was the building block. A bunch of rec players, overmatched teenagers and overlooked role players set a standard. If Gillispie becomes some kind of savior of Aggies basketball, he'll never forget how it all got started.

"We're on the map now," Gillispie said. "We're closer to where we want to go. I love these guys so much for what they've done."

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