Jensen: No jitters when SMU's Kennedy returns to Philly
Markus Kennedy didn't need to list his hometown in Southern Methodist's media guide. His favorite basketball memory took care of it.
Markus Kennedy didn't need to list his hometown in Southern Methodist's media guide. His favorite basketball memory took care of it.
Meeting Larry Hughes.
Sure, listing Markieff and Marcus Morris as your role models completely gives it away - Kennedy is a pure Philly guy, of similar build with kind of a similar-type game as the Morris twins - but it takes a Philly guy of a certain age to come up with meeting Hughes as a top memory, since Hughes was in town for less than two seasons.
"I loved watching Larry Hughes. He was my favorite player," said Kennedy, who was 7 years old living in West Philadelphia, near 61st and Pine, when Hughes was a Sixers rookie guard.
Kennedy, now 24, didn't mean he'd met Hughes as a kid. This happened just last year, when Hughes showed up to see his old Sixers coach, Larry Brown, now Kennedy's SMU coach.
"We were talking about games I remember watching, plays that happened in those games," Kennedy said. "Me and him and Coach Brown were sitting up in the office talking."
Coming home to play Temple, now scheduled for Sunday at noon at the Liacouras Center, is always a big deal for Kennedy, who was last season's American Athletic Conference tournament most outstanding player and the league's sixth man of the year. He had 21 points and seven rebounds last year when SMU won, 60-55, at Temple.
"Just the thought is enough to give you an extra edge," Kennedy said of playing in front of his mother, sister, and grandmother. Nerves? No. "You're comfortable. I'm home. Nothing can go wrong is kind of the feeling."
The 18-0 Mustangs, ranked eighth nationally, are the last undefeated team in Division I. They also aren't going to the NCAA tournament, on probation because a former men's basketball staffer was found to have completed coursework for a prospective Mustang, to get him eligible.
Since Kennedy wasn't that prospective Mustang, obviously he's as happy as you'd expect him to be about missing the tournament. Put it down as another extra edge.
As part of that probation, Larry Brown had to sit out SMU's first nine games.
"It was difficult, being so used to having him around," Kennedy said. But he added, "Coach Jank is just as good as a coach," referring to associate head coach Tim Jankovich, who is officially SMU's coach in waiting. "So it wasn't too difficult."
Talking to Kennedy, it's obvious he's taking the long view on the whole thing. He didn't lose "85 to 90 pounds" after transferring from Villanova just to play a little better in college. Another line on that bio is basically the same as for every other NCAA hoop ballplayer. Dream job: NBA player. That wouldn't have seemed possible when Kennedy, a 6-9 senior listed at 245 pounds, had the Villanova version of his body.
"You've got to be real with yourself at some point in life. What can you do to be better?" Kennedy said of the fitness work he put in. "A lot of time beating yourself up, on the treadmill, on the track, all this stuff you don't like to do. There's no way around it."
And, he now realizes, it doesn't stop.
"It's been a battle," Kennedy said. "At times, I've shot up 10 or 15 pounds."
It's natural that Kennedy ended up at SMU, with Brown, since not only did Kennedy grow up watching Brown's Sixers, Brown was a regular presence at Villanova practices when Kennedy was there and Brown was between jobs.
"He'd be right there at practice. You'd go and get water, he'd always be there," said Kennedy, who played some high school ball at Living Faith Christian Academy in Pennsauken. "I'd always talk to him."
That relationship obviously changed when Brown became his coach.
"Now, as a senior, you can kind of predict what he's going to do," said Kennedy, whose points are down slightly to 9.4 a game because his shots are down slightly, in similar minutes, to 7.1 a game. "My first year, first two years, were probably some of the hardest adjustments I ever had. All the stories, they're true. He's never happy. Never smiles. All true. But he's the most genuine person I ever met. Even though someone is the best player, he doesn't treat him as the best player."
His bottom line on Brown: "As long as he's teaching, he's happy."
Before Kennedy ran off mid-sentence Thursday afternoon when he was called into a pre-practice film session, he added this about his own weekend plans: "I don't want to come up there and stink it up."
@jensenoffcampus