CLEMSON -- Will Wade is coaching against his alma mater in a pretty big basketball tournament, and of course it all has to come back to football.
Or maybe it has to come back to the time when a bunch of football and basketball coaches got together for regular games on a basketball court.
The story this week is Wade vs. Brad Brownell in the NCAAs.
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But for the true old-schoolers it's also about the NTBA.
It's the Noon Time Basketball Association, a weekday game for Clemson coaches and athletics department personnel (and some media members, including this writer) that were staged at the practice court at Littlejohn Coliseum.
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When Dabo Swinney became the head coach in 2008, he gained more clout in the NTBA.
And then when he started piling up the football wins he bought everyone reversible NTBA jerseys -- purple on one side, white on the other -- complete with the iconic Jerry West logo.
When Wade goes through his press conferences Wednesday in Providence, R.I., we're guessing the old NTBA stories might come up.
He was a graduate assistant for Oliver Purnell from 2005 to 2007 and had an exceptional work ethic. One of his mentors was Shaka Smart, who was on Purnell's staff from 2006-08 before leaving to join Billy Donovan's Florida staff.
Consider the names that went up and down the practice floor -- and sometimes the actual game floor at Littlejohn when the normal space was occupied -- in those days:
Billy Napier, current head coach at Florida;
Smart, current head coach at Marquette (and formerly Texas and VCU);
Wade, current head coach at McNeese (and formerly LSU and VCU);
Michael Morrell, current head coach at UNC Asheville;
William Christopher Swinney, a lock for the College Football Hall of Fame and beloved by his fan base as he prepares for his 17th season in charge and his 23rd in Clemson.
"I used to go to Billy Napier's office probably once every couple weeks just to steal ideas on what those guys were doing in recruiting," Smart said. "I had never been around big-time football when I got to Clemson. When I was a kid, my mom didn't even let me play football. So I didn't know much about the game. I'd never been to a college football game beyond some at the lower level. So when I met Dabo and some other guys on the football staff I really started taking an interest in football and learning more about what they do. Because in a lot of ways football coaches are ahead of the curve as it relates to things like recruiting and ideas with team-building."
This conversation with Smart came in September of 2018 when Tigerillustrated.com dropped by his office in Austin the day before Swinney and the Tigers played at Texas A&M in College Station.
That's a long time ago, and of course so much about college athletics is almost unrecognizable now compared to then.
But so much about what Smart shared that day is interesting and even fascinating as Thursday's NCAA Tournament matchup begs for trips down memory lane.
Wade revealed Sunday that he schedules his practices at McNeese around Clemson football games.
This is not a new thing. When Wade coached under Smart at VCU from 2009 to 2013, it was the same drill. Morrell, also a Clemson grad who was on Purnell's staff, went on to be a VCU assistant from 2011-15.
In March of 2011 the Rams became the national sensation with an almost incomprehensible run to the Final Four.
A few months later, Swinney went viral after he screamed that he couldn't think of a better place for Auburn's 17-game winning streak to go down in flames than the city of "Death Valley, South Carolina."
That was really the start of it all as they won the ACC that year and collected 10 wins for the first time in two decades. You probably know the rest.
In Richmond, the old Clemson guys were beside themselves.
"We didn't have football at VCU," Smart said, "so we would schedule our Saturday practices and what we had going on around what time the Clemson football game was. Even if we had a recruit in town we'd find a way to go to BW3 and get that game on.
"It was especially for Will and Mike, who both had degrees from Clemson. But even for myself, there was a real affinity for that football program. We got real prideful about Clemson football at VCU. Again, we didn't have a football team. That made basketball the most important sport.
"When you go to Clemson to work or go to school, you get it in your blood that college football really, really matters. It's something that you care about. It's something that you follow. In that area of Virginia everyone it's about Virginia Tech football and UVA to some extent. So we had our chests stuck out. Because Dabo is going on championship runs. I still have Clemson shorts that I used to wear around just to kind of demonstrate that was my team."
Morrell, who recently completed his seventh season at UNC Asheville and made an NCAA appearance two years ago, said he and Wade still text when the Tigers are playing football. Morrell remembers late nights in the fall and winter at VCU as the staff ordered takeout and watched two screens: one of the Rams' practice from that day, and the other Clemson football.
Smart has guided Marquette to the NCAA Tournament all four of his seasons there, including a Round of 16 appearance last year. The No. 7 seed Golden Eagles face 10 seed New Mexico on Friday night in Cleveland.
Smart knows well the feeling of coaching in the shadow of the football giant from his stops in Gainesville as an assistant and Austin, where he spent six seasons as the Longhorns coach.
But Clemson was just different, and not just because it was his first experience at a place where football is king.
"That's one thing I respect about Clemson is everyone there knows where the bread is buttered, including the people involved in other sports," Smart said. "I knew that as an assistant coach in basketball. What Oliver was able to do in the shadow of that, if you will, was really impressive."
And now Brownell, who encountered plenty of rough patches over his first 13 seasons, has ushered in what might well be the golden age of Clemson basketball.
The Tigers are a remarkable 74-29 over the past three seasons, including an 18-2 mark in ACC play this past season to go along with 27 overall wins.
Purnell's teams changed a lot of perceptions about Clemson basketball, but they fizzled come tournament time with three consecutive one-and-done trips before he abruptly left for DePaul.
Brownell reached the Round of 16 in 2018, and then last year they took it a step further.
Fifteen years ago, Terry Don Phillips and right-hand man Bill D'Andrea zeroed in on Brownell because they thought he could produce deep runs into the NCAAs.
When Brownell took over in 2010, he'd occasionally play in the noontime games. Earl Grant, now at Boston College, was a more regular player. As was Rick Ray, who went on to be head coach at Mississippi State and is now an assistant at Vanderbilt.
On the day we met with Smart in 2018 at Texas, we informed Swinney of the upcoming interview.
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His response: "Shaka has probably tried to forget those nightmares of me raining threes on him. Say hello to him. Great guy."
Smart's recollection was ... a wee bit different.
"I don't remember him making a single three. But I do remember him just running around. He probably covered twice as much ground than any of the other nine guys out there.
"He likes to say he can shoot, but he's the exact opposite of that. If you think about and envision the level of energy he has with his team and with the media and with everything he does, that's how he plays noontime hoops. He's a hustler. He dove on the floor. He plays with an infectious passion for winning. But he's not particularly skilled. At least he didn't show it at that time. But I liked having Dabo on my team when we did play, because there was less of a chance you were going to get hurt if he was on your team than if you were playing against him."
All these years later and the digs were still flying.
That's the way it works when hyper-competitive -- and ultimately ultra-successful coaches -- gather on a basketball court and compete.
Now the competition turns to a floor in New England.
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The memories will come flooding back for a lot of these folks.
Dabo might even wear his old NTBA jersey.
