Dogus Balbay, the Texas basketball energizer of old, finds his way back home | Bohls
Dogus Balbay is back home.
His second home, anyway.
He spent only four years here in Austin, but they were an impactful four. They shaped his identity as a person and a basketball player for Rick Barnes and helped launch a very successful, 12-year professional career in his native Turkey.
Oh, and he met a cute Texas pom girl named Erica who eventually became his wife and mother of their two children. They even got married at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.
All in all, it's been a pretty fruitful journey for a guy who was discovered at the private Brewster Academy in New Hampshire by former Longhorns assistant Ken McDonald and played here from 2008 to 2011. He fell in love with Austin and the campus almost the instant he arrived and never took another recruiting visit.
And now the globetrotter who has played all over Europe has a homecoming.
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The former point guard moved back to Central Texas in December with Erica, their son Austin — are you noticing a pattern in his fondness for his time in Texas — and daughter Mila and has returned to develop the next stage of his life.
Dogus hopes to become a full-time coach and is paying his dues.
He started thinking about the next stage of his life after his playing career. He had a couple of stints in the NBA summer league for three years, two of them as an observer with the San Antonio Spurs, hung around Gregg Popovich and soaked up all the insight he could. “Had a great experience with Pop,” he said.
Last summer he had a visit with new Texas head coach Rodney Terry and told him of his plans, and his one-time assistant coach was all for it.
Now you can find Balbay sitting a couple of rows behind the Longhorns bench at every home game at Moody Center as a staff volunteer. He's not on Terry’s official staff, but he attends practices. He’s here to add some counsel where he can, mentor some young Longhorns and learn a different side of the game as well.
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“He was one of my all-time favorite players,” Terry said of the defensive-minded guard. “I know a coach is not supposed to have favorites, but he was one of the toughest guys we had. He was one of those guys you wanted in the foxhole next to you. He’s doing a good job mentoring our young guys.”
He’s even gotten into a couple of Texas scrimmages when Terry needed an extra body.
Such as his body is.
“I try to bring that toughness to scrimmages,” Balbay said.
At 35, he’s hardly over the hill, but he can see the hill. At least when he’s on a basketball court where he thrived.
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With his defensive game, Balbay was the OG Weaver
To put his career into perspective, Balbay was Chendall Weaver before Chendall Weaver. You know, the frenetic Longhorns defensive pest who shadows his man to the point of exhaustion. That was Balbay's stock in trade. Never anything close to a prolific scorer, he made his name on defense.
The way he played the game — intense and fully committed — he has had to endure six surgeries along the way. That’s four on his knee, one on a hip and another to repair a broken hand. You’re not a fierce on-ball defender like he was and come through unscathed, but he never had a muscle tear.
“I’m 35, but my knees are probably 50, and my hip around 45,” Balbay said. “You know, you pick up your guy for 94 feet and do that for 40 minutes, which is what I’ve done the last 15 to 20 years. I don’t see many guys doing that anymore. It kind of wore me out.”
Thrust into the spotlight, Balbay excelled at Texas
Enough was finally enough. So he retired after last season following a dozen grueling seasons as a pro in Turkey from 2011 to 2023 and one-time MVP of the Turkish Cup in 2018. He was as popular and beloved in Austin as much as he was in Turkey, where he played for two Istanbul teams that won the Euro Cup titles in back-to-back seasons, a streak that probably would have been three but for the pandemic.
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Texas knew what it was getting in Balbay some 15 years ago.
While he was actually recruited to back up D.J. Augustin at point guard, he was pressed into a starting role when Augustin turned pro early. Balbay was never a top option offensively. But he can recall the first college basketball game ever played at the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium.
Balbay scored the first points in that historic game, a 2009 win over North Carolina, when he hit a layup.
I’ll never forget the day at a shootaround at Kansas City’s Sprint Center before a Big 12 Tournament game when Balbay was lighting them up from the 3-point line. I told Barnes, “You know, if he’d take 1,000 shots in practice, you never know.” To which Barnes replied, “He’s already taken 1,000 shots.”
That’s OK.
Balbay knew his role. He was there for the dirty work.
He can still recall J’Covan Brown’s hot streak to help their 2011 Texas team with Tristan Thompson and Jordan Hamilton knock off Kansas to snap the Jayhawks’ 69-game home-court win streak at Allen Fieldhouse.
Balbay eager to find his coaching path
Not all the memories were great ones.
He’ll never forget the controversial call by referee Richard Cartmell on a — how shall we put — the quickest, five-second call on an inbounds pass in history that ultimately and unfairly cost No. 4 seed Texas an NCAA Tournament second-round loss to Arizona and Pac-12 player of the year Derrick Williams.
He’s not over that one yet.
“We watched that film over and over,” Balbay said. “Was probably 3½ seconds. Maybe four. Derrick played for teams at Bayern Munich and Fenerbahce, our big rival in Turkey, and every time I saw him, I remember that five-second call.”
Balbay never made it to the NBA. But many Turkish players have. Hedo Turkoglu did, and the forward probably had the best NBA career of them all. Five others of Turkish descent are now on NBA teams, including Spurs wing Cedi Osman.
Balbay has deep connections within the NBA and Europe and will weigh his options this summer for what’s next. Heck, maybe he could start a recruiting pipeline from Turkey to Austin.
“We’d love to recruit more internationally,” Terry said. “Ours is a world-wide brand.”
What’s one more thing to Balbay’s already overflowing plate?
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Former Texas basketball guard Dogus Balbay returns to launch career
