Austin, Texas ? Texas freshman power forward Alexis Wangmene came to the United States four years ago from Cameroon not knowing a word of English. But he seems to have caught on to life in America.

Actress Jessica Alba is proof.

Walk into Wangmene’s dorm room at Texas and there’s a poster of the four guys from the hit HBO series Entourage and a poster of Alba from the movie Sin City.

“I love her, man,” Wangmene said, laughing. “I was so mad when I heard she was pregnant. But she’s in Hollywood, so it’s only a matter of time before she breaks up with whoever she’s with. By then, she might be ready for me.”

He was joking. We think. Wangmene does know actress Eva Longoria. And she has offered to introduce him to Alba. She was joking. We think.

All of this is a roundabout way of getting into how Wangmene came to be at Texas, how the second-seeded Longhorns will be counting on him today against the lightning-quick Memphis Tigers in the NCAA Tournament, and how he came to know Longoria.

In the summer of 2004, San Antonio Spurs general manager R.C. Buford and his wife, Beth, were in Johannesburg, South Africa, for Basketball Without Borders, the NBA’s global basketball development and community outreach program.

The Bufords wanted to invite one of the players from Africa to come live with them in San Antonio. The fact that Wangmene, now 19, was the same age as the Buford’s son, Chase, now a walk-on at Kansas, meant Wangmene could serve as the big man on Chase’s high school team at Alamo Heights in San Antonio.

This season, Wangmene has developed into a reliable power forward. R.C. and Beth Buford call Wangmene their son. Chase and C.C. call him their brother. Wangmene calls the Bufords his family and can’t go too long without Beth’s chicken pot pie.

Wangmene has also gotten to know all of the Spurs because of R.C. He speaks French, his native language in Cameroon, with Spurs point guard Tony Parker, who grew up in France.

Parker introduced Wangmene to Longoria, who has offered to help Wangmene with his quest to meet Jessica Alba.

“Let’s hope he worries about his books and his team as much as he worries about Jessica Alba,” R.C. Buford said.

And what if Texas and Kansas both end up in San Antonio – of all places – for the Final Four?

“I wouldn’t want that to happen because I wouldn’t want Lexi to lose to us again,” Chase said.

Spoken like a true big brother, picking on a younger brother.