GREENSBORO ? Where did the time go? It can't possibly 20 years ago. Can it?
And yet, yes, it is.
UNCG basketball is back in the NCAA Tournament this year, continuing a remarkable run that features five straight 20-win seasons, two NIT and two NCAA berths.
The 13th-seeded Spartans (21-8) will play fourth-seeded Florida State (16-6) in the first round of the East Regional at 12:45 p.m. Saturday.
These Spartans are the real thing.
And so were those Spartans back in 2001.
It's the 20th anniversary of the team coach Fran McCaffery led to The G's first Southern Conference title, a milestone in the history of UNCG basketball.
"My goodness, it's hard to believe it's been so long," says Nathan Jameson, the starting shooting guard and senior captain of the 2001 NCAA Tournament team. "… Honestly, I get chills thinking about it, because it feels like it happened just yesterday."
STILL A FAMILY
Just yesterday, point guard Courtney Eldridge averaged 14.6 points and 5.8 assists to lead the Spartans (19-12) in scoring.
Just yesterday, Jameson (10.7 ppg) made a team-high 61 3-pointers and shot 40 percent from the arc.
Just yesterday, SoCon freshman of the year Jay Joseph (13.3 ppg, 4.3 rpg) threw a 79-foot pass to big man David Schuck (14.5 ppg, 8.3 rpg), who dribbled once and beat the buzzer with a left-handed layup to win the Southern Conference Tournament championship game and send UNCG dancing.
It's an anniversary well worth celebrating. And it's a team that has remained close – and successful – down through the years.
Eldridge, whose No. 23 is one of three retired jerseys at UNCG, played pro basketball overseas for 12 years and is now the recruiting coordinator on McCaffery's staff at Iowa.
Schuck settled in Oak Ridge and owns Club Pilates, a fitness business with studios throughout North Carolina and Texas and expanding soon into Florida.
Jameson and Joseph both live in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Jameson, who was married as a senior at UNCG and celebrated his 20th anniversary last summer, is a father of four who runs a run real estate business that invests in affordable housing.
Joseph is still in the game. He opened the Pennsylvania Basketball Shooting Academy, home to the PA Running Aces AAU team, and has taught basketball skills for the last nine years.
They remain in touch with the rest of the team, too. Guys like James Maye and Ronnie Taylor, Luke Boythe and Nathan Popp.
"We still feel like a family," Joseph says. "With Facebook, it's easier to keep in touch with everyone. Courtney and I text and talk a lot, and there's still that strong bond like we were on campus. Nathan lives up here, and I've had a chance to have his son in a few of my workouts, and that was cool."
And every March for the past 20 years, they're kids again at heart as the memories from their own taste of Madness flood back.
"That run was very remarkable," Eldridge says during a break from practice with Iowa at the NCAA Tournament. "It's something that I cherish and still think about to this day. It's one of the most influential weeks of my whole life. To get to the NCAA Tournament from a one-big league is very, very hard to do. … It's something I always wanted to be a part of, something you can hang your hat on, because you're a champion. To be on a team that was able to accomplish that, it's just a phenomenal feat."
THE 'TAP' PLAY
It started with the phenomenal finish at the SoCon Tournament at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, S.C., where Schuck's lefty layup lifted UNCG to a 67-66 win over Chattanooga.
All basketball teams have set plays for end-of-game situations. In the final timeout, McCaffery drew up a quick inbounds pass to get the ball to half-court before calling another timeout.
One problem: The Spartans were out of timeouts. So the plan changed quickly to the full-court "tap" play.
"So at the last minute," Schuck recalls, "Coach McCaffery says, 'Forget it. Just run tap play.' So we roll out of the timeout, and we didn't have a lot of time to think about it. That was probably a good thing. It didn't give me or Jay Joseph time to overthink it."
Joseph got the ball at baseline with a tall Chattanooga defender in his grill.
"Out of the huddle we tried to stay positive," Joseph says. "We had a choice. We could go home, or we could make it happen. It was either going to be spring break, or we would keep playing. And we wanted to play.
"When I had the ball out of bounds, I knew I could move. So I gave my guy one quick little jab left, and then went hard right. I saw a little opening, and Schuck had such good position, such a strong base. All I had to do was get it near him, and I knew he would make something happen."
Schuck was at the opposite free-throw line, his back to the basket. The way the play was designed, he had the option to "tap" a quick pass to a shooter on either wing, or keep it and drop-step to the basket.
"The funny thing is," Schuck says, "we ran the same play at the end of the first half, and Chattanooga put two (defenders) on me. They intercepted the pass. … But this time, there was just one guy behind me, and I remember thinking, 'When I catch it, I'm going to make a move.' And that's what happened."
WAY OUT WEST
What happened next was the Spartans ended up with a No. 16 seed, getting shipped to San Diego to play top-seeded Stanford in the West Regional.
"That was OK with us," Eldridge says. "That's where we wanted to go. When we saw the sites, we wanted to go way out West to San Diego to get the full NCAA experience. We wanted to go to the sun and fun, but we just didn't want to play Stanford. It was a quicker trip than we wanted."
Stanford was loaded with three future NBA players in the Cardinal's starting lineup: 6-foot-6 shooting guard Casey Jacobsen and the 7-foot twins Jarron and Jason Collins.
Stanford won, 89-60.
"It was such a good experience, but it went by so fast," Schuck says. "I wouldn't trade it for the world, though. Every kid who plays basketball dreams about going to the dance, and we got to do it.
"Even today, all these years later, I'm one of the few people who gets to say, 'I played in the NCAA Tournament.' I'm 6-foot-8, so it doesn't happen too often that I'll talk with people I don't know and they'll ask, 'Did you play basketball?' I get that question a lot, and when it comes up I get to tell them about that experience. … It's been so much fun to watch tournaments since then, and realize I was a part of it."
Jameson and backup guard Geoff Williams were the only seniors on that UNCG team.
And the trip to San Diego brought a career's worth of memories back to Jameson as he tried to prepare for Stanford.
"It was surreal," Jameson said. "As a kid, you dream about that. You watch the 'One Shining Moment' montage, and you think, 'I want to do that.' That may be the one time all season I felt a little alone. We had labored through two really difficult years when I was a freshman and sophomore, and to end up where we did meant so much. I'm a contemplative and reflective guy, and it was time for me to think about what had transpired over four years and a lifetime of basketball. It was a really rich experience, and I wanted to thank everyone who had been part of my journey. …
"I probably reflected a little too much, instead of figuring out how to go out and play well when we got there. We wanted to be more competitive against Stanford. They were good. Somebody showed me a picture the other day of the opening tip. In my mind, I was just as tall as Casey Jacobsen. In my mind, but definitely not in the picture."
Joseph's experience was the opposite of Jameson's. For the freshman, it was instant gratification.
"To have such quick success out of high school, that was an amazing experience for me," he says. "Going out to the west coast was such a cool experience, being part of that atmosphere. We were out there with Saint Joe's, another east coast team, and I had some friends on that team. … It turns out, it was a once in a lifetime thing."
TODAY'S SPARTANS
Which brings us full circle. Those Spartans from 20 years ago find themselves marveling at these current Spartans and the run of success.
"The cool thing about this UNCG team is they're not happy just to be there," Schuck says. "They're there with a goal of winning. They have that attitude. They had that attitude the last time against Gonzaga, and that game went down to the wire. I think they're in an even better position this time. They realize that they not only get to cherish the ability to play in the tourney, but they have an ability to make a run.
"It's been fun watching these guys play, and they're peaking at the right time. The talent they have is unreal. I don't remember being able to jump as high as these guys. College teams today, man, the guys who never play can jump out of the gym. … I hate they've been playing in empty arenas this year, because they're pretty special."
The older Spartans believe they set a tone with their first SoCon title, and they all say
Wes Miller has made the alumni feel part of the current program.
"These guys the last few years, especially Francis (Alonso) and Isaiah (Miller), have been so much fun to watch," Joseph says. "What they've done the past few years has been awesome. I love watching those guys compete.
"And seeing UNCG have so much success the last few years has helped bring all of us together, too. It gives us something to connect over, and Wes has been awesome. He has kept all of us in the loop, and whenever any of us come down to Greensboro he's hosted us and showed us around so we can see anything that's new. It's an exciting time to be alumni and feel part of it all. Everyone is proud. It's nice to hear, 'They did it 2001, and now they're doing it again.' That's our legacy."
It's a legacy that stretches beyond basketball.
To a man, the members of that 2001 team say the UNCG experience changed their lives.
Jameson, the lone senior starter, sums it up best.
"I had a sense at the time of what Fran McCaffery and his staff had brought to the program," he says. "It was something I could carry with me through life. It's hard to put into words, but I've come to the conclusion that when we lose at anything in life, there's a million ways to lose. … But when you learn how to win, there's only a very few ways to win. What Fran knew and what his staff taught us was how to win. And I'm talking off the court as well as on the court. It's work ethic. It's character. It's transparency. It's leading by example. I've carried that with me to everything I do in my work, as a parent, in my marriage. It has application across all of life."
And it has application across time, too.
Twenty years later, The G matters.
Since 2010, journalist Jeff Mills has won 10 national and 10 state writing awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors, the Society for Features Journalism, and the N.C. Press Association.
