"A lot of people doubted me, even my decision to go to Tech. They didn't think I would make it there or ever play. I build off that doubt."   Ronald Ross   Texas Tech guard   StarNet's Sports Extra   » Ross' stats   » Morrison's stats

Gonzaga forward Adam Morrison and Texas Tech guard Ronald Ross have a lot more in common than stardom and basketball. There was a time when they were not wanted - by college basketball programs, at least. Combined, the two had one scholarship offer coming out of high school: Morrison by Gonzaga. "There wasn't much to recruiting Adam," Gonzaga coach Mark Few quipped. "He was overlooked." The two players meet today for the first time in the NCAA second round at McKale Center. Growing up in Spokane, Morrison would slip over to the Gonzaga campus to play pickup games as a 15-year-old, holding his own with such Bulldogs' stars such as Cory Violette and Blake Stepp. "We figured right there we better get this kid," Few said. The irony in Ross landing at Tech was how hard the coaching staff worked to get him a scholarship at other schools. Assistant coach Pat Knight scouted Ross in a couple of all-star games, and was not particularly blown away. He offered to place the rail-thin guard at a handful of junior colleges. "Nobody would take him," Pat Knight said. So Ross walked on and became a Red Raider, working doggedly to acquire a scholarship. His sweat equity paid off two years later. Now, Ross leads the team in scoring at 18.6 points per game and is coming off a 28-point performance against UCLA in the first round. "A lot of people doubted me, even my decision to go to Tech," said Ross, a 6-foot-2-inch, 185-pound guard from Hobbs, N.M. "They didn't think I would make it there or ever play. I build off that doubt." The linkup of Ross and Knight was an instant hit. "On a scale of 1-10, my basketball IQ was at a 1, and coach Knight brought it up to a 9," Ross said with a grin. Nonsense,Knight replied. "It's unfair for him to say he started out as a 1, because that's not the case," Knight added. "Ronald had a really good grasp of playing hard at both ends. … He was a lot better than a 1. God couldn't go from a 1 to a 9." Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson, whose team meets Utah in the other second-round game today at McKale, noted Ross' movement without the ball. "He's the hardest guy to guard in our league without the ball," said Sampson, whose team lost two of three to the Raiders in the Big 12 this year. "When Ross doesn't have the ball is when he's most dangerous." Falling through the recruiting cracks was a minor bump in the road for 6-foot-8-inch Morrison, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 13. He treats his blood sugar with an insulin pump. He plays without the pump, meaning he must administer insulin shots manually during games. "We had a pretty intense huddle during the Winthrop game, and I look over and Adam is soaking it all in and sticking himself in the stomach with a needle," Few said. "That kid is as tough as tough is." Morrison controls his condition with a balanced diet. "I get to eat all the sweets," chimed in teammate Ronny Turiaf. Morrison has taken his message around the Spokane area, and has been invited to participate in a basketball camp run by former NBA player Chris Dudley expressly to educate diabetic children. With his floppy hair and slingshot jumper, Morrison reminds some of a young Larry Bird. Morrison averages 18.8 points per game, and scored in 27 in Thursday's first-round victory over Winthrop. Few recalled watching Morrison for the first time in high school, wondering aloud to an assistant coach about the prepster's shuffling gait and awkward shooting style. At halftime they checked the scorebook. "I looked down, and he had 30 points," Few said. "I remember thinking, 'We might have something here.' " If there is one link to Ross and Morrison, it is Bulldogs' guard Nathan Doudney, who spent two years as a walk-on at Tech before transferring to Gonzaga a year ago. Doudney and Ross shared a lot in common as Red Raiders - working hard to get noticed and adapting to Knight's no-nonsense coaching style. "One thing about Ronald was his work ethic's so high," explained Doudney, who is sidelined with a torn ACL suffered in December. "Ronald has improved as a player tenfold. As soon as Adam walked on campus, he was the best offensive player here." Last week after Ross was named first-team all-Big 12, Pat Knight sent a newspaper clipping to one of the junior-college coaches who passed on Ross, a friend of the program. Above his autograph, Ross had scrawled the following good-natured message in bright, red ink: "Thanks coach, for having so much confidence in me." "A lot of people doubted me, even my decision to go to Tech. They didn't think I would make it there or ever play. I build off that doubt." Ronald Ross Texas Tech guard StarNet's Sports Extra » Ross' stats » Morrison's stats