JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Every season has its mileposts. For High Point, February 15 would be one of those mileposts.
I stood in the hall outside the High Point locker room
waiting for High Point coach Alan Huss to emerge. He eventually did, wearing a
purple High Point hat and a purple long-sleeved shirt – a far cry from the
suits he usually dons for the Panther home and tournament games.
The result wasn’t all that notable – the Panthers had just drubbed Winthrop by 22 – but Huss’ words were. The Panthers had just played two nights prior, beating Longwood by 11 but not escaping the wrath of their coach. Huss aired out his team during that game with the Lancers but showed significant restraint when his Panthers struggled that day.
There was no hastily-burned 30-second stoppage. No fiery speech ever came. Instead, Huss let his team work through it. His words at the
time set a tone.
“I felt like we just needed to re-center,” Huss said then. “We
were not doing a good job of self-policing and re-centering as a group without
the coaching staff. We just felt like we had to let them work through it. It’s
a game of runs, but how are you going to respond? Are you able to go from
whatever bad thing just happened to the next thing being a positive play?”
Huss then mentioned not using all his “verbal bullets” at
one time.
Roughly a month later, Huss found himself in a similar quandary.
His Panthers were down 10, 39-29, to the same Winthrop team in the Big South
championship. Most probably expected Huss to help expedite a paint job in the
Freedom Hall locker room. Instead…
“We talked about the progression of team and going from
coach-fed to player-led,” Huss said after Sunday’s championship game. “The last
60 days or so, we’ve progressed into that space. Today at halftime, we were in
a bad place. We were getting completely manhandled physically. We hadn’t
attempted a free throw. They were the aggressor in every way, shape, and form.”
“Instead of me ranting and raving at halftime, I walked in
to a group that was self-policing. They were talking about the processes that
needed to be corrected and leading themselves to the space we needed to get to.”
Guard Abdoulaye Thiam was one of those who keyed the team
concept. Thiam was a holdover from G.G. Smith’s staff, a transfer from
Minnesota who started 65 of his 67 games in his first two years at High Point.
The 6-foot-4 guard saw his scoring sliced by greater than half and his starts
sliced further than that in his senior year. Don’t tell Huss that those minutes
were any less valuable, though.
To go back to the previously-mentioned milepost, Thiam had a
big day that day. The Panthers had a similar game with Winthrop that day as
the one Sunday – a Winthrop run, a High Point run that broke the Eagles’
spirit, and a day to celebrate Thiam.
“I liked the way we won,” Huss said. “I liked the fact that we got punched
and responded. I like that our bench stepped up and responded. I like that
(Thiam), who’s done all the right things and has kept the right attitude – it touches
you a little bit as a coach when the guys that handle things that way are the
guys that finally get to have some success.”
Huss appeared to fight back a bit of emotion when speaking about
Thiam after Sunday’s game.
“His progression is just as a man,” he shared. “He’s a guy that – the staff
before me were playing really fast, and he had a total green light. He fought
really hard that first year on what my vision for his game was and what he
thought it was. He really came out of that.”
“He’s so much about the name on the front of that jersey, as
much as or more so than anyone in our program. He cares about winning. He cares
about the right things. He hasn’t complained about his role. He just shows up
and goes to work. He never has a bad practice. He doesn’t take a day off. He
doesn’t have a bad workout. He does everything as hard as he can possibly do
it. For him to be maybe the most critical guy with his full-court defense
today, it’s fitting. It makes sense. There’s not a lot I’m sure about right
now, but that’s justice for that young man who’s battled so much. I’m so
pleased for him.”
To be sure, the stars at High Point are the focal points. Guard
Kezza Giffa made the all-Big South first team alongside forward Kimani Hamilton.
Guard D’Maurian Williams and center Juslin Bodo Bodo were second-teamers. When
it came time for the MVP award to be distributed, instead of one of those four
decorated performers, one of those parts of Thiam’s bench crew stood next to
Big South commissioner Sherika Montgomery and took photos with the award.
Guard Bobby Pettiford, who battled through injury all season
and was part of the 49-point bench effort when High Point won at Winthrop in
February, did himself one better – almost literally – on Sunday. Pettiford, who
has been part of a national title team at Kansas and played at East Carolina
before transferring to High Point, scored 17 of his team’s 50 bench points in
the title tilt.
“I was going through a lot at the time and trying to figure
some things out,” Pettiford said of the time after he committed to High Point. “They
stuck with me and told me to keep being patient. Everything happened exactly
how they said (it would).”
“There was a time over the summer when I really didn’t know what
basketball was going to look like anymore. I had a couple surgeries and had to
deal with some things. I’m just honored.”
“Bobby, since he’s been back and been healthy, I think he’s
been the MVP of our entire season,” Huss said. “His unselfishness – his willingness
to come off the bench and he never complains. His willingness to play minutes
that go up and down and he never complains. This guy has won a national
championship and was a top-whatever recruit. He played at Kansas. He’s played
at Allen Fieldhouse. He’s played in the biggest games and on the biggest
stages. He complained none. When you add those things and his unselfishness to
his skillset, it makes him the most valuable piece of our team. He makes
everyone better.”
As High Point advances to its first-ever NCAA Tournament –
it had not even played for a berth in one in 21 seasons – Huss drew on the
words of a former Panther great who was a part of several great High Point
teams who never got this chance. Guard Derrell Edwards played in 62 games over
two seasons for the Panthers between 2012 and 2014, and is now part of a NASCAR
pit crew.
Huss invited Edwards to speak to the team. During that
conversation, the significance of being the first was discussed.
“He’s an elite winner,” Huss said of Edwards. “He’s won at everything. He won a
junior college national championship. He won his butt off at High Point. He’s
just been a winner in NASCAR. Derrell is a guy who tells an unbelievable story.
He’s talked to our guys over the past two years about being the first ever. We’ve
borrowed those words. We’ve plagiarized them. We’ve reused them.”
“It hasn’t hit anybody on this stage. It certainly hasn’t
hit me, the significance of all that. For all the people who showed up and
supported us before we did the special things, it’s awesome for them. It’s
something this group will never forget. I know our fans will never forget. I’m
ecstatic for all involved. I love the fact that Derrell gave us those words. We
were in dark moments. We weren’t playing very well and just having some bad
moments in practice. We leaned on Derrell’s words a lot of times. Those really
helped lead us forward and bring us back together when we started to fracture.”
Giffa’s words may join those of Edwards in summing up how
special this season was for the Panthers.
“It’s just surreal for me right now,” Giffa said. “I’m just a kid from France who came here four years ago with a dream. I watched the NCAA Tournament when I was young. I never thought that I would be there one day. I just stayed down and worked really hard. I thank God every day for this opportunity, and I thank Coach Huss for believing in me and taking me under his wing. I don’t take that for granted. I’ll be forever grateful for that.”
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