Wake Forest Athletics
Prosser Era Began On A High Note
3/22/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 22, 2002
By Sam Walker
They met at the crossroads. As one era was winding down, another was just beginning. The Skip Prosser era at Wake Forest began April 24, 2001, with a called news conference held inside Bridger Field House as five rising seniors watched intently at the man who would lead them through their final season of collegiate basketball.
Prosser, a rising star on the coaching scene, inherited the most experienced team in the ACC, but the Deacons were also a team many said had underachieved. Last year, the Deacs started the season 12-0 before it all unraveled. The Deacons earned a NCAA Tournament berth but were then blasted 79-63 by Butler in the first round. The previous two seasons Wake spent the postseason playing in the consolation NIT, which it won in 2000.
Almost a year after Prosser's hiring, the Deacons, led by those same five seniors - Darius Songaila, Craig Dawson, Ervin Murray, Antwan Scott, and Broderick Hicks - secured a third-place finish in the regular season, two places higher than the preseason prediction, and tallied 19 victories while playing one the nation's toughest schedules. Wake Forest is the only team to play four of the nation's top five highest-ranked teams (Kansas, Cincinnati, Duke and Maryland). They met at the crossroads back in April, Prosser and the highly touted senior class, but once there they turned and traveled the same road.
"It's been a great four years for me and a great year this year," guard Broderick Hicks said. "The change in the coaching staff and the way they do things, it's been great for me and my college experience. It's like you transfer without having to sit out a year. It's the same school but a new program. To see how another program has run, how they do things has meant a lot to me.
"He (Prosser) said we've embraced him, but he didn't have to embrace us. Some coaches come in and ride it out until they get their guys, but he hasn't done that. He's pushed us, wanted the best for us, and at the same time wanted to make sure there are a lot of good recruits coming in. I'm excited to see what they're going to do with this program."
There were some detours along the way, but it all came together right where it always does - at the ACC Tournament. The tournament, while old hat for Songaila, Murray, Dawson, Scott and Hicks, was fresh and new for Prosser. While a high school coach at Wheeling, W. Va.'s Central Catholic, Prosser admired the ACC and attending coaching clinics at North Carolina held by former North Carolina head coach Dean Smith.
Prosser knew ACC basketball but had not experienced it first-hand from the sideline until he became head coach at Wake Forest. He was overheard telling former North Carolina player and coach Phil Ford early on quarterfinal Friday that he was "soaking up the atmosphere." All the while, he wore a kid in a candy store smile on his face. "I like March," Prosser said after his Deacons defeated N.C. State in the final regular season game. "March is cool." Inside the Charlotte Coliseum and surrounded by almost 24,000 fans one could tell Prosser was in his element.
And after his team defeated Georgia Tech in the final quarterfinal game of the 2002 ACC Tournament, he seemed to feel even better about being a real part of the ACC Tournament.
"It was neat," Prosser said. "I came over here this afternoon. We had an excruciating long time before we played and I wanted to come over, brought my son over, just to see what it was like. I was really impressed. There is an unbelievable atmosphere. I look forward to one of these days when I can be up on the next to the last row, up by the air filters, there sipping on some soda, eating some popcorn and watching. It is pretty neat."
Prosser has already begun to make a mark on the ACC landscape. He is the first Wake Forest coach to produce a winning season in his first season since James Baldwin led the Deacons to a 22-3 record in 1927. He is the first Wake coach to win at UNC and N.C. State in the same season. He is also a candidate for the Naismith National Coach of the Year Award. But perhaps his greatest accomplishment was to quickly gain the trust of its seniors, and assimilate junior transfer Steve Lepore and freshmen Taron Downey, Jamaal Levy and Vytas Danelius.
"He's great," senior Craig Dawson said. "Coaches will bicker at some point when he feels his team can play better, but he's always positive about it. He laughs and jokes with us, but he gets on us when we need to have that done. That carries over to this team and we take pride in that and try to play a little bit harder.
"(When Prosser first was hired) he basically told us it was our team. He said he was the coach, but he couldn't get out there and play, and everything was going to fall on us. The five seniors were going to have to carry this team. They (the coaching staff) didn't know us, were just getting here, and when somebody tells you something like that and they really don't know you, it gives you a lot of confidence. To have a coach instill confidence in us day by day has been great. He's more personal, a player's coach. You can talk to him about anything. He likes to have those conversations."
The five seniors have already made their ACC marks. The senior class has played in the postseason every year and over that span is a combined 77-50 (.606). There was the 2001 postseason NIT championship. The five seniors have combined to play in 618 career games and by playing in the ACC, Prosser said those seniors can say they have accomplished something special.
"Back when I was a coach in the Atlantic 10 at Xavier and I had all the answers, I thought this league was a blue-blooded aristocracy, hype and hyperbole and all that," Prosser said. "But it's good. It was a lot better than I had envisioned. I think there is a depth of talent. There are good coaches everywhere. The Atlantic 10 has good coaches, and the ACC obviously has Hall of Fame type coaches.
But I've been really impressed with the depth of talent of players in this league. You hold your head above water in this league, and you've really done something because you have to play every night out. Honestly, there were some games you go on the road in the A-10, and you think if we play we'll be alright. Here, you can play and still not be alright.
"I've been very happy for the seniors," Prosser said. "They've been very gracious to me and to our staff and I'm happy they can go out as a winning ACC team."
There is still more for this team. A NCAA Tournament bid gives the Deacons a chance for another fresh start. "There's something about March that makes the energy come back," Hicks said. "In December, January and February, it's like a grind. But when March comes, it's like spring time, a new beginning and a chance to start fresh. Our record's 0-0, and either you win or you go home."
The season will end at some point, and when it does, both Prosser and the seniors he inherited will be able to say they did it together. They met at the crossroads but turned and traveled the same road.
