Texas men’s basketball lands local star Greg Brown III

By Riley Zayas

AUSTIN, Texas — There were just four seconds left on the clock in a game between Southlake (Carroll), Texas and Austin (Vandegrift) in late November 2019. It never should have been close, never should have gone into overtime. With the game tied, Vandegrift head coach Cliff Ellis drew up a play for his star senior forward, Greg Brown III, fully confident Brown would execute this next play to perfection. Brown received the inbounds pass, took a hard step back and hit up a long two from 18 feet out, giving the Vipers a dramatic 52-49 victory.  

Now six months later, Ellis will be watching his best player seek stardom at the next level, after the 2020 Gatorade Texas Basketball Player of the Year announced his commitment to play for the Texas Longhorns. The No. 1 player in Texas and[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] No. 10 in the country, according to 247sports.com, the 6-foot-9-inch Brown chose UT over offers from Big 12 schools like Kansas, Baylor and Oklahoma, as well as national programs like Michigan, Memphis, Auburn, North Carolina and Kentucky.

The local standout is the only player committed to Texas head coach Shaka Smart’s 2020 recruiting class.

“He’s a great kid. I can’t say enough positive things about Greg,” said Ellis. “He could have had an ego, it could’ve been a miserable experience to coach (him), and it was far from that. I think that is because Greg is such a positive kid and he’s so humble. As long as he wasn’t in foul trouble, we knew we could beat anybody.”

Brown’s performance against Southlake Carroll was not an uncommon occurrence, in practice or on gameday. Brown’s stellar play and leadership helped the Vipers achieve a 33-3 record, and go undefeated in games against District 13-6A opponents. The Vipers went 89-48 in Brown’s four years as a varsity starter.  

Brown has big goals and high hopes for his time as a Longhorn.

“We’re about to win the Big-12 championship because God said so,” Brown said in an interview with Marc. J Spears that appeared Friday on espn.com. “We’re going to win the ‘natty’ (NCAA championship).”

Texas fans certainly hope so.

Even from the time when Brown was in the eighth grade, Ellis said he knew he had something special on his hands — after all, there are not many middle schoolers who stand 6-4 and can play the post just as well as the perimeter. Brown’s strong work ethic, which Ellis described as “second to none,” only aided his dramatic improvement over his high school years, including his three-point shooting, on which he improved from 18 percent in his freshman season to nearly 40 percent as a senior.

“He hates to lose,” Ellis said days before Brown made his decision. “If he lost a drill, he was going to hear about it. That and his work ethic — he’s an absolute gym rat, whether it is in the weight room, or in the gym. There are literally times at 8 o’clock at night where I’m like, ‘Greg, I have a family, I need to go. I have to kick you out because I’m not allowed to keep you in here,’ and he’s like, ‘Coach, just give me the key.’ When you have a gym rat who is ultra-competitive, that is driven, wants to win, knows where he wants to go, (and) you put all those things together, you have those intangibles to make a superstar.”
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