Morris twins' bond goes deeper than basketball

SAN ANTONIO - The twins take the same classes, always, although Marcus Morris admits to preferring math while Markieff likes English. One twin runs on the court for the warm-up, the other, typically Marcus, is right behind. They have the same tattoos in the same spots on their arms, reaching consensus on what to celebrate as important in their lives. Both twins cite oversleeping as their worst habit, Will Smith as the actor who should portray them in a movie, and Africa as their dream vacation spot.

The Morris twins - central figures in this NCAA tournament; star forwards for the Kansas Jayhawks; North Philadelphia natives; and maybe, who knows, playing their last games together over the next week - would make the trip together.

The bond between these two who talk about wanting to be the best brother tandem in the game obviously goes deeper than movies or food. (Markieff did say: "I think he eats candied yams. I don't eat that.") Their high school coach said he doesn't believe the twins have ever had an argument above a whisper. When Kansas coach Bill Self replaced Markieff with Marcus in the starting lineup early last season, it was Marcus who went to Self and complained how that wasn't fair to Markieff. They also don't mind being addressed as twins - "85 percent of the time," Markieff said of how their coaches talk to them. They expect that. If you're not sure which one you're talking to, they answer to "Twin," always have.

"I never get tired of being around him," Markieff Morris said Saturday afternoon of being with his brother, talking after Kansas practiced to face Virginia Commonwealth on Sunday (2:20 tip, CBS3) in the NCAA Southwest Regional final. "If anything, if I haven't seen him in a while, I text him and ask where he's at."

And even when they get in trouble, Markieff Morris said, they get in trouble together.

Their house on Erie Avenue had gone up in flames, all possessions lost, when the Morris twins, Marcus and Markieff, were juniors at Prep Charter. Nobody was in the house. They had been at school when a neighbor called.

Their new bedroom became their grandparents' basement in Hunting Park.

Marcus and Markieff shared a bed, pushing two mattresses together. (Twin mattresses, as it happened). For the rest of high school, they lit kerosene at night to stay warm. "People were in Philly that don't even have houses, so I never felt sorry for myself - I never want anyone to feel sorry for me," Marcus said.

Another thing Marcus remembered. They had a game that night. The twins played the game.

They got down, the brothers said, but Prep Charter coach Dan Brinkley said: "They were still happy so soon after that, which is a credit to the grandparents, to their mom. They had lost all their material possessions. The one thing they had was family."

Did all that bring the pair closer? Brinkley thought it did. But Markieff Morris said that wasn't possible. Their upbringing in Philadelphia may have shaped them, but not as much as being a twin.

"There's a certain power to having someone just like you with you all the time," said Nancy Segal, a psychology professor at California State University-Fullerton and a twin herself, who has made studying twins her life's work.

Not having arguments, even in stressful times, isn't unusual either, Segal said.

"Twins are like that," Segal said. "One triplet once told me, it's hard to have an argument when you know what the other is thinking anyway."

Another thing about twins, Segal said, "they have extra cooperation - if one twin wins, the other is happy. You think, how can this be? But an achievement by one is celebrated by the other."

They are not the same person or the same player. Self, whose team won the national title in 2008, the year before the twins arrived, calls Marcus Morris the best player he's ever coached, far more than just a scorer, a top post passer, and adept with his midrange game, an "expert pick-and-pop" guy. He's expert at leaning his shoulder in, making sure it's a physical night for an opponent. Earlier this season, Self had to talk with him about flying elbows.

Marcus is also the Jayhawks leader, a willing spokesman internally and in the press. Morris did get more attention than he bargained for, and maybe a chat with his coach, when he told Richmond players to "be ready" when he encountered some in a hallway the day before the Southwest semifinal. Marcus said there had been an awkward silence and he was just trying to fill it.

"People look at it like we're trying to fight," Marcus said Saturday, after some high-spirited pregame talking between the teams in a hallway at the Alamodome. "It was nothing like that. We're just kids trying to have fun. . . . If you watch the NBA guys, those guys trash talk. We don't curse. Just [say] little things on the side."

He provided no bulletin-board material Saturday, though, in talking about VCU and Rams coach Shaka Smart. He'd said he wouldn't do that.

"They're a good team," Marcus said. "I like their coach. I like his name."

"They have distinctly different personalities, yet they're still so close to each other," Brinkley said. "Marcus takes more of a leadership role, just naturally. He's more, I don't want to say focused, both of those guys are really driven. But he's more businesslike. 'Keef is always lighthearted, till he steps on the court."

Markieff's ascent at Kansas has been steady. His minutes rose from 15.6 to 17.6 to 24.4. His points from 4.6 to 6.8 to 13.9. His rebounds from 4.4 to 5.3 to 8.3, tops in the Big Twelve. Since Marcus, the Big Twelve player of the year, averaged 17.3 points and 7.4 rebounds, put their accomplishments in this context: Would you take any single player in this NCAA tournament for your team, or the twins? It might be hard to find a coach who wouldn't take the twins. And they find each other. In the Big Twelve title game against Texas, Markieff lobbed to Marcus for a dunk with 2:38 left. Marcus reciprocated for a Markieff dunk with 1:37 left.

Before his team got demolished by Kansas, Richmond coach Chris Mooney said the Jayhawks were better than anybody he'd seen at staying committed to getting the ball into the post. If nothing came of it, the Jayhawks would do it again later in the same possession, Mooney said. The twins were involved in almost every play.

Greg Wright, in charge of the Hunting Park Warriors AAU team, remembers when Brinkley brought the twins into his program at the end of eighth grade.

"When they first worked in the gym, you can tell that one wouldn't do one thing unless the other would," Wright said. "It was almost like a carbon copy. I don't think I've ever seen them apart since I've known them. When they come over to visit, they're both together."

Even at a young age, Wright said, Marcus was usually the spokesman, "more vocal. But you could believe that Markieff was all in. And the way twins are . . . when one is sick, usually the other is sick, also. And they basically encourage each other. If one made a mistake, the other would pat him on the back. I don't know if you've ever noticed, when they've got something to say to each other, they're up in each other's face. They'll look each other right in the eye."

Seeing their toughness now, Wright said, "the period when they were learning the game. They weren't that talented and they got pushed around a lot, and they figured it out. They took their beatings. They said, 'OK, if the game is supposed to be played this way, we can do it too. They're not going to back away from anybody. Whatever you do to them, they're going to learn from it. They worked at it. They truly worked at it. If one called [to work out], you better believe both were coming."

That work always benefited both, Wright said.

"At one point, Marcus wanted to be a guard," Wright said. "When one started to dribble, they both worked on dribbling."

He understood how far it was for other AAU teams.

"If you focus on one, the other was definitely going to go off on you," Wright said. "Certain teams would key on one player at the beginning. Marcus may start out hot. Then Markieff would unveil something. You could see the other coach like, 'Wait a minute, which one of these guys is it?' "

One time in Las Vegas, Wright said, a foul was called on Markieff, who already was in foul trouble. Wright argued that it was on Marcus. "You got the wrong guy." It turned out he was mistaken, but he said he wasn't trying to be shady. He had the wrong guy himself. The refs switched the call. "The ref had it right. I had it wrong. The twins kept quiet. They thought I was doing that intentionally."

He just had his own issues telling them apart.

"I used to mark the back of the shoes in the beginning," Wright said. "I didn't know who I was hollering at. I just put a triangle on Markieff's shoe, he was 21/2 sizes larger when I put it on, so I knew. As they were running away [during practices], I could see who did what."

Brinkley explained to him how to tell them apart.

"The cheeks, one was fuller than the other," Wright said of how Markieff was a little heavier. "But if I looked at one, I couldn't tell. When one started to grow facial hair, that was great. Markieff had the little sideburns. Marcus always kept them neat. I was in heaven."

The Morris brothers identify themselves as fraternal twins. However, when Segal, who wasn't aware of them, Googled photos of them during an interview, she said: "These guys are identical. There's no question in my mind."

This isn't a scientific issue, Markieff said. "I asked my mom. She said fraternal. What she said goes."

In sports that demand precision, twins have succeeded with uncommon frequency, Segal said. She devoted a chapter to a book, Indivisable by Two, about twins who were athletes. She studied synchronized swimmers who flourished. The Winklevoss twins depicted in the film The Social Network reached the 2008 Olympic final in pairs rowing, finishing sixth.

The most famous sporting twins in recent years were the Barber brothers, Tiki and Ronde, although by college Tiki was a running back and Ronde a defensive back. In basketball, former Stanford stars Jarron and Jason Collins moved on to the NBA - Jason is still playing - while Tom and Dick Van Arsdale were the longest lasting NBA pairing. In the NHL, Daniel and Henrik Sedin have starred for the Vancouver Canucks for a decade, playing not only on the same team but on the same line, and amassing near identical career points totals.

"One of the advantages, you have a constant practice partner," Segal said. "The other thing, if one twin does it a little bit better, the other knows he can do it too."

Could this be it for their playing days together? The Morris twins can't know that. Both are mentioned as NBA prospects, Marcus as a possible lottery pick, with Markieff also having a chance to go in the first round. Both gave the standard answers Saturday about not thinking about that right now. But they did talk about the idea of being apart, which they've never been for more than a few days. When Marcus was on a national team last summer, they Skyped every day, and Markieff eventually joined him, although he was not on the team.

"Somebody out there might think we play real good together and see the success we had together in high school and college, and they might just take us both," Marcus said. "If they don't, then they don't. It's going to be hard. We'd definitely make the effort to see each other, talk to each other every day."

Asked about the prospect of separating, Markieff put his head down: "I'm not ready for that to happen. That plays a big role in coming back."

But later in Saturday's press session at the Alamodome, Markieff said: "It's a long time for two people to be together. I think it prepared us to be apart."

Whether it lasts another day or a week or another year or longer, the twins are enjoying this ride to its fullest, right down to the lob Marcus threw for a Markieff slam late in Friday's game. But sitting at his locker, his brother at his side, Markieff said there was no mystical connection in play that time.

"I called his name," Markieff said after the game. "He saw me and threw it."