This Transfer Figures to Get a Big Following

Mike Lanier is the tallest player in college basketball and the tallest twin in the world. He’s used to being the center of attention.

But never like this.

Lanier is turning heads at more than 80 universities, where recruiters promise to stitch a custom uniform to fit his 7-foot-6 frame.

He is leaving Hardin-Simmons University at the end of the season because the small Baptist school in West Texas decided to drop its basketball program from NCAA Division I status next year.

The school that lands Lanier also will have to remodel his dorm room, raise the shower head and build him a special bed. And when the team travels by air, they’ll have to make sure Lanier sits alone in a first class row or at least gets the seat by the emergency exit. It has more leg room.

Lanier, who weighs 285 pounds, is just a tad taller than twin brother Jim, who plays for the University of Denver. They’re identical in weight and appearance, though Mike is a better basketball player. The Guinness Book of World Records lists them as the world’s tallest twins.

Hardin-Simmons Coach Dennis Harp said he gets an average of five calls a day regarding his 20-year-old center, who stands 7-7 when he dons his sneakers and can dunk the ball without jumping.

“Here’s one from Drake,” Harp said, flipping through pink call-back messages on his desk. “UCLA, another from Kansas State. N.C. State. Kentucky.

“And I’ll probably have two or three more at my house when I get home tonight. And every last one of them wants to know about Mike.”

Nobody knows him better than Harp, the only Division I coach who offered Lanier a scholarship when he graduated from high school in Troy, Mich., two years, 20 pounds and 2 inches ago.

At the time, Lanier was another undiscovered, uncoordinated big center.

Hardin-Simmons Athletic Director Merlin Morrow, who has supervised strenuous agility drills for Lanier, said Lanier’s rampant growth rate had outstripped his body’s ability to keep up in muscle development and coordination.

Already as tall as Manute Bol of the Golden State Warriors, the tallest man in the NBA, Lanier said he could grow a few more inches by his senior season.

But his growth has been stopped for a year now, and that has allowed him to improve his game dramatically.

“I have to keep adjusting my shot every time I grow,” Lanier said. “I hope this is it. I don’t need to get any taller.”

Lanier is averaging 7.5 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.2 blocked shots, a modest output, but considerably better than last season, when he averaged 2.1 points, 1.7 rebounds and fewer than 10 minutes in 14 games. He blocked seven shots as a freshman.

But observers say that because of his height and stubborn work ethic, Lanier could develop into an effective professional player, much like Utah Jazz center Mark Eaton, who scored only 53 points in his final two college seasons at UCLA but since has emerged as one of the foremost defensive players in the NBA.

One college coach who saw Eaton as a sophomore at Cypress College, recently visited Hardin-Simmons to see Lanier.

“Mike is farther along at this stage than Eaton was,” said the coach, who asked not to be identified because he is recruiting Lanier. “Mike is a little more mobile and has a little more skill in his shooting touch.”

Although Lanier “won’t ever run down any rabbits, he will always have an impact on every game he plays simply because of his size,” the coach said.

Also, the numbers are deceiving, said Harp, suggesting that if there were such a statistic as affecting an opponent’s shot, Lanier would be the clear champion.

“Watching films, you notice that he alters his man’s shot at least eight times a game, forces them to try something they usually don’t do,” he said. “When you can do that, you’re awesome.”

No explanation exists for the Lanier twins’ size. Both were 7-4 by their sophomore year in high school, and medical tests reveal no abnormalities, Lanier said.

Their father is 6-3 and their mother 6-1. But they have a 5-6 sister and a 5-9 brother. Lanier jokes that he used to think his mother “might have taken some kind of growth pill when she was pregnant.”

Lanier has never had a car, because he doesn’t fit in them. His parents had to tear the middle seat out of the family van in high school so that Mike and Jim could fit in the back and not have to walk everywhere.

Hardin-Simmons had to remodel Lanier’s dorm room, building a 7 1/2-foot bed, raising the ceiling and lowering the floor in his shower.

“And the shower head still hits me in the chest,” he said.

He cannot work out at Hardin-Simmons’ weight room because the angles of adjustment on the equipment are mismatched for his height, and the university has no free weights.

Lanier, who would be eligible to play immediately after his transfer, hopes to redshirt a year so his skills can catch up to his height. And a key to improving his agility and strength are good weight training facilities.

He plans to announce his choice of schools in late March.

The winner will have a tall order to fill: Lanier doesn’t want to play a run-and-gun offense. “I can’t play for a fast team,” he said. “My body won’t let me.”

Lanier, who said he “used to hate being this tall,” now describes his enormous height as “a burden that’s becoming a blessing.”

“I realize I got a shot to play pro ball, if only I can find the right college program,” he said.

Lanier said he’s looking forward to the summer, when he will hit the weights again and play some one-on-one with his twin. “That’s my favorite game,” he said, “one-on-one with Jim. He’s the only one I can find that’s my size.”