LAWRENCE, Kan. — Rich Zvosec never saw this coming.
Zvosec, a former UMKC basketball coach, walked into the locker room of the UMKC practice center one day in the summer of 2005 to find the lights turned off. Someone had dozed off on the locker room couch.
“I thought it was one of my guys,” Zvosec said, “but it was Brandon.”
The Brandon he spoke of was Brandon Rush. Rush, now a Jayhawks junior guard, spent several summer days training with UMKC before he made his decision to come to Kansas. Rumors swirled for weeks that Rush was considering signing with his hometown team, which plays the Jayhawks on Sunday. Rush said it was never a serious option, but for one summer he gave people reason to think he’d be a Kangaroo.
City buzz
During his senior year of high school, the thought of Rush playing for UMKC was laughable. Recruiting experts and Kansas City basketball junkies knew Rush had one thought on his mind while he played at Mt. Zion Christian Academy: the NBA.
That all changed on June 22, 2005. Rush, who had declared for the NBA Draft a month earlier, withdrew when it was apparent that he wouldn’t be a first round pick.
Rumors started flying.
One had Rush going to a prep school for a year before trying the NBA again. One had him going to Illinois or Indiana, the schools he listed as favorites during his senior year. UMKC wasn’t on the radar yet.
Then Rush showed up on the UMKC campus.
“My best friend was over there who plays for them right now,” Rush said. “I was there working out.”
His best friend is Tim Blackwell, a senior guard for the Kangaroos. The two met in seventh grade while playing for KC Rocktown, an AAU team. Rush said he played with Blackwell and the rest of team about five or six times that summer.
While he hung out with Blackwell on campus, Blackwell mentioned to Rush the idea of playing in the same college backcourt.
“I took the avenue of we played together a lot during AAU,” Blackwell said. “I told him it would be fun to play together in college.”
If Rush wasn’t serious about the Kangaroos, the media didn’t give that impression. The Kansas City Star reported multiple Rush sightings on the UMKC campus, including when Rush and his brothers JaRon and Kareem were all there. Blackwell said he got phone calls for interviews every day. A radio station once invited him to the 810 Sports Zone where Blackwell answered questions about Rush on-air.
“The buzz around the city just when it was a rumor about him coming was huge,” he said. “It was crazy.”
Kansas City dreaming
Rush’s presence at UMKC was enough to make Kansas City basketball fans wonder about the possibilities. Here was Rush, a top-20 recruit, working out with UMKC, a school that’s basketball team was best known for producing Tony Dumas. Dumas played in the NBA for a grand total of four years and averaged about seven points per game.
Kangaroo seasons have been filled with NCAA Tournament pipe dreams that have never been answered since it became Division I almost 20 years ago. Rush could have changed that.
During the 2004-2005 season, Blackwell and Quinton Day became eligible after transferring from other schools, and the Kangaroos started to click late in the year. Day and Blackwell led UMKC to 11 straight victories. Kansas City loved it. Record crowds of 6,000 people came to Municipal Auditorium to watch two Kansas City boys give life to a program that had rarely shown signs of breathing.
If Rush came, UMKC basketball could have reached the big time. Think about it. Two popular Kansas City players in Blackwell and Day would join Rush, the youngest member of Kansas City’s most famous basketball family. The players would have likely drawn near-capacity crowds and led the Kangaroos to new heights. Blackwell said they would’ve probably made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history.
“Look at what he’s done in the Big 12,” he said. “Just imagine what he would have done in our conference.”
Kissing the Kangaroos goodbye
In the end, UMKC didn’t have much of a chance. Zvosec said he had one serious meeting with Rush but never went further or discussed it with Rush’s family. Rush said he wanted to be close to home but didn’t want to stay in Kansas City. Kansas entered the picture toward the end of the summer and at that point Zvosec said Rush was Kansas coach Bill Self’s to lose.
“We had recruited Tim and Quinton in high school,” Zvosec said. “This was kind of similar where you recruit a kid the first time and if it doesn’t work out, maybe he could come back.”
Rush didn’t return. Instead he led Kansas to two Big 12 regular season and tournament championships and led the team in scoring for two years.
When the Jayhawks play the Kangaroos on Sunday, Rush will be sitting on the bench because of an ACL injury. His best friend Blackwell is also injured and won’t play. The Jayhawks are Final Four contenders, and the Kangaroos are probably headed for another losing season.
As for Zvosec, he’ll have to watch the game on TV if he wants to. He was fired last year after a 12-20 season. Zvosec is out of coaching right now and is getting ready to start doing commentary for the Big 10 Network.
He would have liked to have seen Rush become a Kangaroo and seen where he could have taken the program, but Zvosec always knew landing Rush was more of a dream than a reality.
“It would’ve put us over the top, and I would probably still be the coach there,” Zvosec said jokingly. “But I have to be honest. I’m glad Brandon’s done so well. He’s handled all the attention well. I’ve seen him workout, and I think he’ll have a great junior year.”