MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. _ When asked the importance the family placed on basketball when EJ Montgomery was growing up, the Kentucky player's father was succinct.
"Basketball is everything," Efrem Montgomery said.
Both Efrem and his wife, Glenda, played college basketball for North Carolina Central. Their daughters, Brittni and Brandy, also played college basketball. They are now playing professionally in Australia and Greece.
Staples of the family dinner were more likely to be the pick-and-roll rather than macaroni and cheese. Efrem and Glenda _ who coached together on the junior-college level with Glenda as the head coach _ would use salt and pepper shakers to diagram plays or show on-court actions.
"Oh yeah, there was a lot of that going on throughout the household," Efrem said. "A lot of teaching. A lot of telling them what they should and shouldn't have done after a game. We tried not to coach too much from the stands. But once the games were over, we'd tell them what they should and shouldn't have done."
In speaking to reporters at the Southeastern Conference's Media Day on Wednesday, EJ Montgomery said his earliest basketball memory is being a fourth-grader begging his parents to let him play on an AAU team. But according to Glenda, his attachment to basketball goes back much further.
"My mom told me when I first started walking, I was chasing a basketball," he said.
