Barbee, A Schoolboy Fan Of Butler, Now Out To Beat Them

While UTEP men’s basketball coach Tony Barbee attended North Central High School in Indianapolis, he was a big Butler fan.

He regularly attended games and more than once dreamed about playing for the Bulldogs, according to a column in the Indianapolis Star newspaper.

Later, as a high school senior, Barbee was recruited by Butler but chose instead to play at the University of Massachusetts for then UMass coach John Calipari.

Thursday afternoon, Barbee and the Miners will play Butler in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Doug Mitchell, now the coach at North Central, was then an assistant at Butler and the man who was recruiting Barbee.

“I remember he was a pretty doggone good player and he was pretty much out of our league,” Mitchell said in the Indianapolis Star column. “He was big and strong and could move, and he may have taken a quick look at us but then was moving even more quickly toward UMass.”

Read the full column here.