Fw*telegram Lebreton Article On Jj..mg Coach Knows What It Takes

[OldTimer]

Posted on Wed, Mar. 14, 2007 Mean Green coach knows what it takes

By Gil LeBreton

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

DENTONJohnny Jones' basketball credentials are on his office walls.

First, a photo from his playing days. It shows the young Johnny Jones, just after his freshman year at LSU. His whirlwind summer was capped by playing for the South team at the 1981 U.S. Sports Festival.

Jones was the point guard on that talented team, which included Matt Doherty, Mike Wacker and a kid from Wilmington, N.C., that Johnny said was "pretty good."

It didn't matter. Jones told his teammates that his college coach, Dale Brown, had ordered him to "pass, pass, pass" all season long.

"So I was there to shoot," Jones said.

Johnny Jones spent the whole summer of '81, therefore, not passing the ball to Michael Jordan.

They still laugh about it.

On his North Texas office's opposite wall is a photo of Jones with UCLA legend John Wooden. If you were a kid from DeRidder, La., thinking of one day becoming a basketball coach, bending the Wizard's ear was a good place to start.

Near that is a picture of Jones with another former LSU guard, Pete Maravich, taken just months before Maravich died suddenly from a congenital heart defect.

In the photo, Jones is pretending to guard Pistol Pete. He had been teasing Maravich, Jones recalled, saying how if they had been contemporaries he could have shut down college basketball's all-time points king.

Maravich ended Johnny's argument by launching a windmill hook shot over Jones from midcourt - and nearly making it.

Lastly, near his desk is a picture of Jones from his early coaching days at LSU. His mentor, Brown, is shouting instructions. Jones is all ears.

On April 4, 2001, Rick Villarreal was named athletic director at North Texas. Twelve days later, he hired Johnny Jones to run the basketball program.

"He had the pedigree," Villarreal said Tuesday. "He had the background. He had been to the Final Four, both as a player and as an assistant.

"I knew he knew how to develop a team and get them to the NCAA Tournament."

Nineteen years have passed since a Mean Green team last played in the tournament.

Johnny Jones, inspired by John Wooden, mentored by Dale Brown, ball-hogger from Michael Jordan, is the man who finally got them there.

Jones is proud his coaching career is linked to the always controversial Brown.

"The four years that I played for him [1980-84] were a tremendous experience," Jones recalled. "People used to call him 'Daddy Dale,' and that's not far from the truth. He was like a father figure.

"I spent four years playing for him and another 13 years coaching for him. After leaving LSU, as you would do your own father, I call him on the phone all the time."

The offense that the Mean Green runs has traces of Dale Brown in it. The system features variations of UCLA's high-post and pressure-release offenses, same as Brown ran at LSU.

Defensively, North Texas occasionally employs Brown's "Freak Defense."

"Except I can't call it the 'Freak Defense' here, or I'll have to pay him," Jones said, laughing.

From Brown, as much as anything, Jones said that he learned how to deal with young players. Too many coaching careers are scuttled by coaches who stubbornly cling to their own system.

"From coach Brown, I learned that you have to implement your system," Jones said, "but at the same time, he allowed them the freedom to play and to enjoy the game."

It's no coincidence that two senior guards, Kendrick Davis and Calvin Watson, have played major roles in the Mean Green's 23-10 season.

Brown coached two Final Four teams in his 25 seasons at LSU -- one laden with talent (1980-81) and the other (1985-86) making it to the national semifinals as a No. 11 seed.

Jones borrowed a page from Brown's book when the Mean Green played in the Sun Belt Conference tournament last week. At the last practice at the UNT Super Pit, before leaving for Lafayette, La., Jones had a student manager bring a ladder onto the floor.

He handed his players a pair of scissors and told them he wanted them to practice cutting down the net.

"If we're going to do this," Jones explained, "we need to look good doing it."

One by one, Davis, Watson, Rich Young, Ben Bell -- every Mean Green player -- took his turn with the scissors. Some raised their arms and practiced waving to the empty gym.

The odds this week, Jones knows, are not in favor of his No. 15-seeded North Texas team. There is irony -- or maybe NCAA whimsy --that the committee chose to pair Jones' first UNT tournament team against one that he formerly coached, second-seeded Memphis.

Plus, the Mean Green will be playing in Jones' home state of Louisiana. Brown has already called, asking for tickets.

After the clock ticked down at last week's Sun Belt tournament finals in Lafayette, Jones looked up to the seats and saw his mother, 78-year-old Delorise Jones, standing there cheering. Her raised hand was clenched with Dale Brown's.

Johnny Jones is headed back to the NCAA Tournament, just as the AD that hired him believed he would.

Gil LeBreton, 817-390-7760 glebreton@star-telegram.com

[eulesseagle]

Wow!

Great article.

Basketball Jones and Dale Brown are two "class acts."

I also remember that Dale Brown was standing with Coach Jones at UNT when he was hired.

[CMJ]

Fantastic article.

Has anyone heard from Coach Blakely? I heard that he and JJ had gotten close in the last year or so. I wonder how excited Coach B must be right now.

[Charlie NT 73]

This is one point that has been in the back of my mind-

Coach Jones is friends with Coach Blakley.

Coach Jones is close friends with his mentor, Coach Dale Brown.

I am sure, Coach Jones has talked to both Blakley and Brown about

the Memphis game--sharing ideas, strategies, and how to handle memphis!

I think Coach Jones has developed a good game plan to slow down

the high power memphis attack, and a good game plan to score points!

I beleive there is something here that we do not know about.

If I were Coach Jones, I sure as hell would talk to both of these

great coaches!