One last run: the story of Temple’s 2001 Elite Eight team

Lynn Greer glanced into the stands at the Spectrum.

He noticed some fans were starting to put their jackets on before making their way out into a brisk early March night. George Washington’s bench had just erupted in celebration after another made basket.

Temple simply hadn’t been able to put much of a dent into the Colonials’ second-half lead and with just 3:15 left, the Owls were still trailing by 10 at 70-60. Time was running out, and a loss would assuredly put an end to their NCAA Tournament chances.

But Greer told his teammates, “This game isn’t over.”

What happened over those last 3 minutes and 15 seconds of the 2001 Atlantic 10 semifinal game – with Greer hitting three free throws with 2.9 seconds remaining to win the game – remains etched into Temple basketball lore. Temple followed its comeback victory by winning the Atlantic 10 tournament the next night and launching a surprise run to the Elite Eight as an 11 seed, one of the crowning achievements of the late John Chaney’s Hall of Fame career.

While Temple did not recognize the 25th anniversary of the 2001 squad this past season, it did honor the 20-year anniversary back in 2022, with the Covid pandemic delaying that celebration by a year. Five players – Greer, Quincy Wadley, David Hawkins, Kevin Lyde and Ron Rollerson – as well as assistant coach Nate Blackwell and trainer Cary Huggard were on hand, while Chaney was represented by his son John Jr. and grandson John III.

Owlscoop.com caught up with four players – Greer, Wadley, Hawkins and Rollerson – all of whom played vital minutes for the team, in addition to the two assistant coaches,  Blackwell and Dan Leibovitz, to talk about the ups-and-downs of the season, the surprise run, and, of course, Chaney.

The foundation of the roster

Chaney’s core tenet on the basketball court was simple: no turnovers. But in terms of personnel, it seemed like the exact opposite was occurring in the months after Temple had suffered a crushing upset at the hands of Seton Hall in the 2000 NCAA Tournament. That infamous loss spoiled what many felt was Chaney’s best chance to win a title and reach a Final Four.

Do-everything point guard Pepe Sanchez graduated, as did four-year starting forward  Lamont Barnes and defensive specialist Keaton Sanders. Leading scorer Mark Karcher surprisingly left early for the NBA, his departure hastened by his daughter’s sickle cell condition.

Heading into the next season, Greer, the reigning conference Sixth Man of the Year, was expected to slide into Sanchez’ spot in the all-important role as Chaney’s starting point guard. The Philly native’s dynamic scoring ability from just about anywhere on the floor differentiated him from the prototypical Chaney floor general, but replacing an All-American and A-10 Player of the Year in Sanchez would be no small feat.

Things were a little less clear for his backcourt mate Wadley, the team’s most vocal leader and best defender, who started 31 games in his third year of eligibility. Under previous NCAA bylaws, players such as Wadley that had been deemed Proposition 48 academic nonqualifiers as high school recruits were precluded from participating in any team activities, including all games and practices, during their true freshman seasons. 

Wadley had achieved the necessary SAT score, but a discrepancy on his transcript regarding two core classes didn’t pass through the NCAA clearinghouse. Despite making up the classes over the summer at Temple and achieving a 3.0 college GPA through the 1996 fall semester, the NCAA refused to approve him even halfway through that season, which left Chaney rightfully fuming.

Prohibited from official affiliation with the program, non-qualifiers were further penalized as they were ineligible for any scholarships and financial aid for their first year and would only receive three seasons of eligibility to play, rather than the standard four, if they met the requisite academic benchmarks as freshmen.

But there was some glimmer of hope in Wadley’s case, however, as the NCAA mulled over an amendment that would give Prop 48 non-qualifiers their year back, provided they had graduated in four years. With a handful of classes left to complete his degree in African-American studies with a focus on child psychology, he was on track to do so by the summer.

The only starter guaranteed to be back was junior big man Kevin Lyde, who would be counted on to shoulder an even larger role with Barnes departing. Reserves Rollerson, Alex Wesby and Greg Jefferson were also expected to see a major uptick in minutes, with the fan-favorite, 6-foot-10, 290-pound Rollerson potentially starting next to Lyde in the frontcourt and Wesby starting on the wing or playing a stretch four type role offensively.

Joining the returning players was the highly-touted Ronald Blackshear, a consensus top-50 recruit coming out of Camilla, Ga. Blackshear, a 6-5 guard with incredible shooting range, had been a Prop 48 casualty in 1999-00 himself. In the spring signing period, the Owls added another sharpshooter – guard Brian Polk out of Delaware – as well as big man Carlton Aaron, a Bronx native playing prep school ball in Massachusetts. Originally a Tennessee signee before prepping, Aaron had landed on some top-100 recruiting lists. He fully qualified and was eligible to play as a freshman, but Polk did not, making him Prop 48 casualty as well.

In June, the program suffered arguably an even more consequential blow. Chaney’s right-hand man and longest tenured assistant coach, Dean Demopoulos, left to take the vacant head job Missouri-Kansas City. Demopoulos had served in his role at Temple for 17 seasons, playing a vital role in identifying and recruiting many of the best players of the Chaney era, including future stars such as Aaron McKie. But against Chaney’s strong wishes, the school declined to name Demopoulos as successor and coach-in-waiting after the season had ended, with school President Peter Liacouras stating that the assistant needed to prove himself. Demopoulos even tabbed then Owls graduate assistant Jason Ivey to join his UMKC staff as a full-time assistant.

After Demopoulos’ exit, Chaney promoted Blackwell, himself a star player for Temple in the 1980s, to be his top lieutenant, while Leibovitz moved up from the third assistant job to the second. The Owls’ head coach considered, but ultimately passed on, naming a replacement for the vacant spot.

For a program that had been built on year-to-year stability from the top down, it certainly was a period of transition, but most inside the program felt like things were business as usual.

“It wasn’t as difficult as [with] some other programs because, you know, we pretty much do the same thing,” Blackwell said. “Practice was the same, Coach [Chaney] takes the lead most of the time doing stuff, and then I would follow behind him.”

Things started to look a little promising as the summer wound down. Wadley finished up his bachelor’s degree requirements just as the NCAA had amended its stance in allowing Prop 48 players to get their lost year back. Wadley and UMass guard Monty Mack became the first two beneficiaries of the new policy.

For Wadley, it felt cathartic to get a year of basketball back after it had been robbed from him. It was also the culmination of a four-year plan from which he never wavered.  

“I believe I did everything that I needed to do,” Wadley said. “That was a part of the plan ever since I stepped foot on Temple’s campus. I never missed a class or any summer session. So, I went to school the entire time. There was never any breaks. I was there in class to make sure that when it came time for that, I was prepared to walk (at graduation).”

Wadley’s return wasn’t their only fortuitous development, as former Tulane signee David Hawkins was poised to join the program as a late addition. Hawkins, a powerful, athletic wing out of Archbishop Carroll in Washington, D.C., was a consensus top-100 recruit. Ranked as high as 48th by FastBreak Recruiting and 72nd by HoopScoop, the 6-4 Hawkins had originally chosen Tulane over Temple the previous fall, much to the chagrin of the staff.

“David Hawkins is just an extremely talented individual,” Blackwell said. “We knew that, and that’s why we were recruiting him. We knew he was going to be a very good basketball player wherever he went. And we recruited David very, very hard. It was somewhat disappointing that he wasn’t going to come at first.”

But the domino effect of coaching vacancies provided an unexpected boon to the Owls. In June, Washington Wizards President of Basketball Operations Michael Jordan decided to hire University of Miami head coach Leonard Hamilton. In response, the Hurricanes plucked Tulane coach Perry Clark.

As a result, Hawkins subsequently requested out of his letter of intent, despite new Tulane coach Shawn Finney’s best efforts to retain his commitment. Rather than follow Clark to Miami, a school that had also coincidentally intently recruited him under Hamilton, Hawkins enrolled at Temple just as the fall semester began.

It was something of a full circle moment for Hawkins. His mother had been born and raised in Philadelphia and his grandfather – his mom’s father – lived just a short walk from Temple’s North Philly campus at 15th and Cumberland Streets.

He would, however, be required to sit out a season unless he showcased that he had extenuating circumstances that required immediate eligibility at Temple. He indeed had valid grounds for an exemption, though, as another family member from Philadelphia was dealing with some health issues and had spent an extended stay at the hospital during that time.

The day before practices were to begin, Hawkins received the waiver; he would be able to play the entire season.

The slide before the resurgence

Despite the relative upheaval, the Owls were still expected to maintain their usual place at the top of the A-10, projected second out of 11 teams in the conference behind Xavier. Wadley and Greer were selected to the Atlantic 10’s preseason second team, but questions lingered about a team replacing so many key parts from the previous year.

But for Wadley and Greer, they had no qualms about having to step into their larger roles, having already spent time deeply entrenched into the rotation. The backcourt pairing had averaged more than 20 minutes per game the previous two seasons and had developed a sense of camaraderie dating back to the mid 1990s when they won an AAU national championship for Tom Flocco’s Philadelphia Freedom team.

“Playing together, that chemistry was always there because we played a lot even when we were coming off the bench,” Wadley said. “When we were first starting, we came in together.” 

“Even though Lynn came off the bench prior to that, he still played minutes as a starter and performed like a starter,” Wadley added. “So, it wasn’t difficult now that he had to take over full time once Pepe moved on.”

Greer acknowledged that while he had succeeded in his role being the top option in high school – he had graduated as the second all time leading scorer in the history of the Philadelphia Public League behind Wilt Chamberlain after all –  his time coming off the bench helped prepare him in smaller doses for what Chaney was looking for from his point guards at the collegiate level.

“My whole career prior to coming to Temple, I was a starter,” Greer said. “I was kinda the man, and I was able to lead teams, right? But my two years at Temple prior to this year I had to learn the role of coming off the bench, being effective coming off the bench. So it was kind of like, ‘OK, now I’m getting back to my old role,’ but at the same time with new values of being efficient, being a leader, [committing] no turnovers. So it was a mixed feeling, but it was kind of a familiar territory.”

The season started in typical Temple fashion, a good start against a highly challenging nonconference slate. The Owls grinded out wins in their first two games at home as part of the first two rounds of the Preseason NIT – against Delaware to open the season, then against Fran Fraschilla’s New Mexico team. They followed it up by defeating their old arch-nemesis John Calipari on the road in his first game as the head coach at Memphis, then over Indiana at Madison Square Garden in the Preseason NIT semifinals. In the finals, the Owls fell a bucket short of eventual national champions Duke, going toe-to-toe with the AP second-ranked team (No. 1 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll), a group led by eventual national player of the year Shane Battier and two-time first team All-American Jay Williams. It was a quite formidable and promising showing for Temple to come so close to defeating Duke at the absolute height of its powers under Chaney’s good friend Mike Krzyzewski, a bunch so talent laden that a future two-time NBA All-Star in bruising forward Carlos Boozer and top-three draft pick in lanky, sweetshooting swingman Mike Dunleavy Jr. were considered secondary options. 

But then the team went into freefall. The Owls dropped their next six contests as well, at Miami of Ohio, Duke, at Villanova, at Penn State, Wisconsin and Wake Forest successively – the longest losing streak in the Chaney era. Just eight days after their first meeting in New York, the Owls got blown out in a rematch with Duke in which Temple’s typically suffocating and confounding matchup zone defense – the one that had given up the second-fewest points in the entire country the year before – wasn’t playing up to its usual standard.

The losses didn’t just pile up in the standings. During their December slide, Wadley suffered a separated shoulder in a collision with a Villanova player while diving for a loose ball late in the first half. The senior missed three-and-a-half weeks, and the Owls lost all but one game for which he was sidelined. He returned only at the end of the month in Temple’s final nonconference contest against Penn.

While Wadley’s absence was critical to his team’s misfortune, his was only temporary. The team had also lost two players – Aaron and Blackshear – for good. Aaron had been the team’s third big man, but he and his family had disagreed with Chaney about his lack of playing time. After “giving some lip” to Leibovitz during the Villanova game, Chaney suspended Aaron. Shortly after, Aaron decided to transfer, landing with Demopoulos at UMKC.

A week later, Blackshear decided to follow Aaron out the door, and sought his release as well. He had fallen behind Hawkins on the depth chart at the wing spots, in particular struggling with his positioning in the matchup zone defense. After some thought, he decided to return, but Chaney felt as though he would be better off elsewhere. Chaney’s premonition was indeed correct. Blackshear blossomed at Marshall as a 20 points-per-game scorer in two seasons with the Thundering Herd.

But for a program not used to losing much, a significant amount of frustration had built up. The Owls’ 66-60 loss at Penn State had been a tough one. They had taken a five-point lead with about five minutes remaining, but ran out of steam, ceding a 13-2 run to end the game in which they did not score on seven straight possessions.

On the three-hour bus ride back to Temple from State College, the team watched the game they had just played in, as they customarily did. As Chaney watched some of the mistakes the team had made on tape, he grew irate.

“He’s just going ballistic because we lost,” Rollerson said. “He’s just looking at it like, ‘Oh my god, like how could you … ?’ He’s just going off.”

The contest had been a Saturday afternoon 4:30 tip, meaning the team would be back home around 11:30 p.m. But Chaney had seen enough of the film that it didn’t matter.

“He just said, ‘Look, we’re gonna have practice tonight.’ At first it was like, ‘Are you serious?,” Rollerson recalled. “Normally, we would have the next day off ’cause we was just driving back on the bus, but he couldn’t even wait for that next day off.”

Chaney had director of basketball operations, the late John DiSangro, call ahead to get the lights and heat turned on at the Liacouras Center, and the bus pulled straight into the ramp down to the arena off Broad Street. Though it was just a short walk-through session, totalling no more than 45 minutes, that they even had to do so was crazy enough in the players’ eyes.

“We literally had to get dressed and walk through a practice again,” Rollerson said. “We knew it wasn’t going to be a hard practice, but just the fact that we had to practice the midnight after we just lost because he was just so … He just had to get it off his chest. He couldn’t wait till the next morning.”

What had been made abundantly clear, though, was that the team missed Wadley, its captain, emotional leader and most experienced player, as well as its second-leading scorer. He was completely indispensable. The team did not win a single game he had missed.

Wadley and Greer to the rescue

Since his freshman season, anyone inside the program would rave about Wadley’s contagious energy, a competitive spirit that served to raise the bar for his teammates.   

“He was one of those guys that you know you could never slack off [with] because you saw how hard he was working, right?,” Greer said. “With him working so hard it was like, ‘Man, how can I not match his energy, match his passion?’”

Blackwell added that Wadley’s work ethic stemmed from his background as a multisport (basketball and football) star at Harrisburg High School, and that he was the type teammates would want in “the foxhole.”

“He had a physical toughness to him and a mental toughness to him,” Blackwell said. “And you could see it in him. He just wasn’t one of those guys who was going to lay down and when you’ve got a leader that’s like that, guys got a tendency to follow. Quincy was certainly the leader of that team, and we pretty much followed him. Wherever he went is where we went.”

Wadley’s tough-as-nails mentality translated directly to his game. He suited the program’s ethos, its hard-nosed defensive identity, as well as maybe any Temple player ever, something Rollerson effusively praised.

“Quincy was one of the most underrated defenders,” Rollerson said. “Quincy played bigger than his size. He would go in there and get rebounds that other guards might not want to fight for and he played a physical style of game.” 

Rollerson’s observations were consistent with the numbers as well. Wadley collected 120 defensive rebounds, good for 3.6 per game. That ranked 11th and 16th in the conference, respectively, impressive figures considering Wadley’s lack of size compared to the big men that populated the leaderboard.    

Rollerson also saw him as an incarnation of Chaney on the floor. He was the team’s best defender and its most complete and versatile one as well. He was so well-versed in the positioning, shifts and movements of the various matchup zones, in part because he had played in several different positions within it over his career. 

“We watched a lot of film so, with that, he was always good at dissecting,” Rollerson said. “He was always good at seeing things kinda like how Coach could, dissecting the way plays are going to materialize, the way how things are gonna unfold. A lot of times, off the court or behind the scenes, he would pull a guy to the side and tell him, ‘You need to hedge out more. You need to get in here.’”

Wadley ascribed his ability to be the team’s steward to his personality, something he shaped during his Prop 48 season. Chaney had recognized the type of future leader he had in his program and had Wadley sit in at every practice and implored him to take notes, even though Wadley was officially not a member of the team that year. The Harrisburg native was one of Chaney’s chief conduits for much of his time in college, going so far as to learning some Spanish to mitigate the language barrier with his Argentine-born, Spanish-speaking backcourt mate, Sanchez.

“[It was] always about uplifting my teammates and giving them confidence. That’s the type of player I was,” Wadley said. “I know we’re always going back to the group dynamics component and going back to [there being a] psychology to us – knowing and helping to understand the mindset of the players that I’m playing with. … Understanding when they might not be feeling as confident in their shot at the moment, or in their body ’cause they may be banged up, but knowing their talent, their potential.”

While Wadley was noted throughout his career for his remarkable emotional intelligence, leadership and defensive capabilities, he was every bit the offensive player, too. He could handle the ball and do the things Chaney wanted his guards to do, all while also being able to slash, withstand contact, draw fouls and shoot the three. That season, Wadley was actually the team’s leader in three-point makes (86), attempts (227), and percentage (37.9%), topping Greer by a little more than three-hundredths of a percent.

Wadley ranked highly in the conference across other categories in both totals and per-game figures as well – 12th in total points (675), 15th in points per game (15.1), and top 20 in both free throws and field goals made.

At a glance, these were undoubtedly all-conference level figures, but not fully indicative of Wadley’s ability. Ceding much of the primary shot-creation to the dynamic Greer had curtailed his box score output to a degree, but in the interest of winning and for the betterment of the team, he chose to embolden his teammate.

“Quincy took a little bit of a backseat,” Rollerson said with a sense of appreciation. “He sacrificed his game offensively.”

Despite the team struggling to find its footing in the nonconference portion of the season, Greer had flourished as the floor general, quelling any skepticism his coach had going into the season. As a score-first player, his skillset diverged from the long line of Temple point guards in the mold of past greats like Howard Evans. Chaney had even contemplated utilizing Wadley as his lead guard instead, theorizing that he matched the profile more than Greer.

But Greer embraced the demanding responsibilities that came with the position, earning Chaney’s trust by, first and foremost, avoiding what the coach considered the cardinal sin of basketball: turnovers. While playing within Chaney’s desired offensive framework – a philosophy that called for controlling the clock, playing fundamental basketball and making the correct pass, amongst many other core tenets – he earned a significant amount of offensive freedom, the proverbial green light.

His teammates and coaches encouraged Greer to take the lion’s share of shots, recognizing it was the optimal way for this particular team to generate its offense.

“If you can take your man, just take ’em,” Rollerson said. “You can abandon the play and just pick your guy. [We let] him know it’s cool because it wasn’t like he was just playing for himself.”

Greer’s offseason skill work had also been tailored to prepare him for his new role, as he spent the summer perfecting his shot off the dribble. His blend of skill, touch and extreme savvy made him a constant scoring threat from anywhere on the court. He was adept at creating even the tiniest bit of space to get his shot off on his own – without constantly needing special plays drawn up to get him open.

Furthermore, Greer was a maestro at drawing fouls, even without elite size or explosiveness. He had a knack for getting to the free-throw line and was virtually automatic with his attempts. He placed in the top five in the A-10 in free throws attempted (fifth at 189 free throws attempted), and in free throws made (third at 164). At 86.8%, he was perched at the top as the league’s most accurate free throw shooter.

And even amidst the December slide, Blackwell felt the need to re-emphasize to Chaney just how impressive Greer’s start to the season had been.

“This kid with the ball, every time he shoots, even when you think he’s going to miss, it goes in,” Blackwell said of Greer. “And Coach said, I can remember him looking up and saying, like, ‘You know what, Nate? You’re right.’”

Given the coach’s penchant for short rotations and playing his starters as much as possible, as well as the team’s glaring lack of depth, Greer was expected to rarely spend time on the bench. But even for Chaney standards, he had played a staggering amount of minutes.

Through the nonconference portion of the season, Greer had played 514 out of a possible 520 minutes. He played in all 40 minutes in nine of 13 games and unsurprisingly led the country in minutes per game (39.5). Despite the heavy usage, his production remained at a high level as he led the Owls in scoring at 16.4 ppg, assists at 4.9 apg., and free-throw shooting (43-51, 84.3%). For his stellar play, Greer captured an A-10 Player of the Week award in November and two consecutive Big 5 Player of the Week honors in late December and early January.

As Greer was starting to gain some national recognition, Chaney had DiSangro wheel out a TV onto the McGonigle Hall court for what appeared to be just a normal film session. Greer recalled sitting in the second row, ready to go over whatever the coach wanted to show them.

“The video session lasted about six minutes,” Greer said. “Six minutes of short clips, 10-second, 20-second clips, of all my turnovers. He gave a video session of all my turnovers. It was the most humbling six minutes of my life. All the other guys were behind me, so all I heard was laughs.”

But looking back, long removed from the embarrassment he felt at the moment, Greer understood the reasoning behind Chaney’s approach.

“Coach was trying to prove a point [that] in order for us to be good, his leader, his point guard, had to not have so many turnovers,” Greer said. “He did it at a point where I was playing great. I was having these high scoring games and maybe he thought I was feeling myself.”

David Hawkins: The player Temple almost didn’t get

As imperative as Greer’s ascent into a nationally-recognized, all-conference level player as a redshirt junior was, they still needed other pieces to step up. Those in the program anticipated Blackshear would be one of those players.

But Hawkins, despite being a last minute addition, usurped Blackshear’s spot on the wing.

The coaching staff was not entirely surprised however, for the same reasons they had made Hawkins – who would eventually become the third all-time leading scorer in program history – a priority target as a high school recruit. 

“He was Coach Chaney’s player in terms of toughness,” assistant coach Dan Leibovitz, now the newly-minted commissioner of the Atlantic 10, said. “It became apparent that you couldn’t keep him off the floor because of what he brought as a winner. He was hungry to win.”

For a typical freshman, the learning curve in getting acclimated to Chaney’s style and mastering the slides in the matchup zone was particularly steep. But for Hawkins, it was a match made in heaven for his skillset. Despite having just turned 18 in October, he was physically ready for high-level college basketball – a strong and muscular, but a lean, athletic, long armed frame that could withstand contact and play above the rim. He was mentally ready, too – a cerebral and sharp mind with great anticipation skills to get in between passing lanes. The synergy of the two allowed Hawkins to excel in the scheme and force turnovers – fourth in the Atlantic 10 in steals with 55 – regardless of where he was placed in Chaney’s 1-3-1 rover zone (particularly on the wings) or in the 2-3.

Though Hawkins had only received his release from Tulane as Temple’s fall semester was starting and had only been on campus for just over two months before the season, he had made himself indispensable to his coach, knowing early on how he could earn his minutes.

“Well, I just played hard,” Hawkins said. “I tried to listen to everything that Coach talked about and tried to bring that to the court. So just from practicing and asking questions, I just tried to do whatever, all the little things, to stay on the court, because we had scorers. But, rebounding, playing defense, limiting my turnovers, anything to stay on the floor.”

Hawkins had rapidly gained respect from his teammates and coaches, something Greer referred to as “building credit,” with his approach. His spirit and composure displayed a sense of maturity and intensity that transcended his age, and Chaney wouldn’t let his relative lack of experience determine his deployment.

That season Hawkins wound up starting 26 of 37 games, cracking the starting lineup for good following Wadley’s injury. His 34.1 minutes per game as a freshman ranked behind Pepe Sanchez and Mark Macon for third all-time amongst Temple freshmen (now fifth, since passed by Mardy Collins and Mark Tyndale). His play earned him two separate Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week honors over the course of the season, culminating in a spot on the Atlantic 10 All Rookie Team at the season’s end as he averaged 10.1 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game on the campaign.

“Dave was just a warrior,” Rollerson said. “He played with heart and passion on the court. Like, as soon as you’ve seen him get on the court, he played with a different type of energy and he was fearless. He earned his minutes. Nothing was given to him. He got in the mud.”   

“He wasn’t afraid of the bright lights,” Rollerson added. “You know, some guys, they get frozen, on a major team. Dave relished that. Dave loved playing under stressful situations. That brought the best out of him.”

Hawkins cherished having the ball in his hands to make a crucial play, even if the outcome wasn’t to his favor. He recalled one such moment that ended in an agonizing defeat at the hands of Temple’s bitter A-10 foe, UMass. The contest, nationally televised on ESPN as part of Rivalry Week, went into overtime and with just seconds remaining, Hawkins was fouled with Temple down two. He made the first, but missed the second foul shot. He was able to come up with his own rebound and attempted to drive baseline, but couldn’t get a shot off thanks to a controversial no-foul call, giving the Minutemen a 65-64 win.
Hawkins was despondent, but his coach approached him on the floor to console him, offering a bit of lighthearted humor to lift his player up in the moment.

“I thought he was going to be upset,” Hawkins recalled. “And he was like, ‘Don’t worry about it, David. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll get another chance to miss and help us lose another game.’ That made me feel good about it.”

Stay tuned for the second part of OwlScoop.com’s series on the 2001 Elite Eight team this weekend.