Gary DeCesare had seen Julius Hodge in late-game situations many times in the past, so there was no doubt in his mind what the North Carolina State star was going to do Sunday in the final seconds of the Wolfpack’s NCAA second-round game.
“As soon as he got the ball, I knew he was going to take the shot,” said DeCesare, who coached Hodge at St. Raymond’s. “That’s what he’s always done.”
Hodge’s drive past UConn’s Rudy Gay provided the game-winning points and sent N.C. State into the Sweet 16, where the 10th-seeded squad faces Wisconsin on Friday in Syracuse.
DeCesare, now an assistant at Richmond, will be there. Not just to see Hodge, but also another former Raven – Villanova’s Allan Ray. The Wildcats play North Carolina in the region’s other semifinal.
“If they both win and have a chance to play each other to get to the Final Four, that would be great,” said DeCesare, who won four CHSAA titles at St. Raymond’s before leaving prior to the 2003 season. Hodge was the MVP when the Ravens won the crown in 2000, while Ray got the same honor when they repeated the next year.
If they were to meet this weekend, it wouldn’t be the first time Hodge, a senior, and the junior Ray have been pitted against each other. The two were perhaps the fiercest competitors during early-morning practices at the Bronx school.
“I remember them being there at 6:30 and Julius just going after Allan,” DeCesare said. “And it was to make Allan better and he understood that.”
That’s why he’s not surprised by either player’s success.
“They both have a work ethic you don’t see anymore,” DeCesare said.
Hodge, in particular, has a passion that has made him a sometimes controversial player.
“He gets a bad rap because he plays with a fire,” DeCesare said of Hodge, who was criticized especially during a stretch when the Wolfpack went 3-9 and Hodge struggled to regain the form that made him the ACC Player of the Year as a junior. “He’s misunderstood. He’s played the same way since he was a ninth-grader. He went back to school to get his degree and to make a run like this. He deserves it.”