Athletes Connection - Short Galliguez brothers play tall for regional champion Dulles

	Short Galliguez brothers play tall for regional champion Dulles
	Monday March 03, 2008
	Written by Dave Purpura

If there are two things Thomas Galliguez is used to, it’s taking charges and being overlooked.

Thomas and his twin brother Abel, both 5-foot-9 senior guards for the Fort Bend Dulles boys basketball team, each have taken more than 35 charges this year.

And on a team where the tallest player is 6-foot-4 – though Thomas says sophomore post Adrian Kuyinu is closer to 6-2 – the Galliguezes thrives when opponents glance over his team.

So the brothers make it their job to be noticed, whether that’s by hitting shots or harassing opponents with defense. They’re definitely not loud; coach Mike Carrabine called them silent leaders. And now, the Vikings are in the state tournament for the first time.

Abel has been a starter since halfway through his freshman season, when both brothers were promoted to varsity. Thomas has started since the beginning of his sophomore year.

Dulles (33-4) plays Klein Forest (33-3) in a 5A state semifinal at 3:30 p.m. Friday at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin.

“I guess that (playing young) prepared us for today, how we’re doing,” Thomas said. “It taught us the basics of everything we need to know about the offense. We have well-coached players in every area and it’s because of the experiences and everything that (Carrabine) has put us through.”

The Galliguez brothers usually are the shortest players on the court now. They definitely were three years ago, when as freshmen they stood no taller than 5-2 against players often more than a foot taller. Their older brother, Jonathan, a senior when the twins were freshmen, was 5-9 then.

But according to Carrabine, their knowledge more than made up for their height. Even now, Carrabine sticks Thomas at the high post because of his intelligence.

“For being such young kids, you can tell they’d been coached well and picked up things as they went along. Positive things, not all the other stuff that goes on,” Carrabine said. “They did the correct things. That makes an impression on a high school basketball coach.”

The twins owe much of their savvy to their family. Their father, Percy, coached them in AAU. Their older sister, Priscilla, was a standout for the Dulles girls basketball team and now plays at McLennan Junior College in Waco.

A younger sister, 5-year-old Annalise, already is showing interest in basketball.

“When we moved here (from the Bellaire area in ninth-grade), Dad already had taught us the fundamentals,” Thomas said. “He always instilled fundamentals. That’s mainly why we’re so successful. Here, all the kids were well-coached. Coach said we basically already knew a lot of what we needed to know.

“A lot of players have talent but they think more about street-ball and other things. That’s not what we do.”

That’s a discipline the twins carry constantly.

Perhaps never was that more evident than in Saturday’s regional final win against Madison. At one sequence in the second quarter, a Madison player shoved Thomas to the ground twice in a short span – once knocking him out of bounds.

Thomas asked the official to watch that player, but said little else.

“I was getting shoved left and right. One time I got shoved out of bounds and the crowd got upset,” he said. “That happens to me almost every game. I’m gonna get shoved, I’m gonna get this-and-that, but if I keep working hard they’re gonna call a foul or (the other players) will give up. Just keep running.”