SMU basketball head coach Larry Brown, in a continued effort to quickly turn around a struggling program, is searching for answers inside the SMU community.
Coach Brown will be holding tryouts Sept. 18 for students at Southern Methodist University to walk onto the team.
“Walk-ons are an important part of our team, they have a special place in every good college basketball program,” Larry Brown said in an interview with smumustangs.com.
“We hope to find one or two students that can help our team.”
According to SMU’s website, students must have a completed physical on record at the Health Center to be eligible to try out.
Prospective players must meet all the NCAA eligibility requirements and be enrolled in at least 12 hours of academic credit to be eligible.
Any walk-ons would add to the six newcomers Brown recruited to turn this team around in anticipation of their move to the Big East at the start of the 2013 season.
In May, SMU welcomed transfer Crandall Head from Illinois to add some scoring at the shooting guard position for the team.
In April, Brown opened many students’ and players’ eyes when he cut four players from the team, including former starting point guard and team captain Jeremiah Samarrippas.
This move was bold and many wondered why Brown would scrap part of the roster so soon after arriving on campus.
“He basically told me I wasn’t good enough to play for him,” Samarrippas told Daily Campus reporter, Mercedes Owens, in April.
This shocking move set the tone early that Brown was going to drastically change the roster around at SMU.
Brown was close to landing a big transfer in July when former Arizona standout Josiah Turner originally committed to SMU before deciding to turn pro.
This, combined with Crandall Head, would have provided a massive boost to this roster.
Brown is certainly looking to try and find one or two players that can help create a foundation for the team to build upon in their opening years in the Big East. He also wants to provide a nice opportunity for students at SMU to say that they tried out to play for a Hall of Fame coach.