Their Final Four celebrations still fresh, Saddi Washington and Drew Valentine couldn’t wait to see each other, to share in this remarkable moment.
Michigan and Loyola-Chicago, somehow, were days away from meeting in the Final Four.
And that meant Washington and Valentine were days away from coaching against each other in the Final Four. They couldn’t believe it.
So, as they often do, they FaceTimed each other Sunday morning from their respective hotel rooms in Los Angeles and Atlanta.
“We couldn’t do anything but just kind of laugh,” said Washington, who is in his second season as an assistant coach on John Beilein’s staff at Michigan. “Just really appreciate the moment, that here are two kids from Lansing, walked the same halls in high school, walked the same streets, worked together, coached together. And now we get to share this experience this week. It’s pretty special.”
They are both sons of preeminent Lansing basketball families. Their fathers, Stan Washington and Carlton Valentine, played at Michigan State. Their brothers were or are big-time players (Kareem Washington played Division I basketball; Denzel Valentine plays for the Chicago Bulls.)
They both starred at Sexton High School, Saddi Washington in the early 1990s, Drew Valentine in the late 2000s, and then played at the mid-major level in college — Washington at Western Michigan, Valentine at Oakland, where Washington recruited Valentine.
Later, they coached together for one season at Oakland, before Washington left for Michigan. A year later, last summer, Valentine took the job at Loyola.
“Our paths have aligned quite a bit, just at different stages of life,” Washington said.
Washington sees Valentine as a younger brother. Valentine sees Washington as a mentor. Both cherish what has become a deep and close friendship.
Several weeks ago, before the NCAA tournament selection show, they joked over FaceTime that they hoped they wouldn’t meet in the first round. When the brackets were announced, they thought they were clear of each other.
Not quite, it turns out.
“Lo and behold, we’re freaking sitting here days away from playing in the Final Four,” Washington said.
“It’s going to be probably the most cool and awkward moment of my life at the same time,” Valentine said. “Playing against one of your mentors and really good friends and people you look up to … I don’t even know what I’ll say to him.”
Drew Valentine, left, and Saddi Washington stared at Lansing Sexton 15 years apart. (Photo: LSJ file / Illustration)
Living a Cinderella story
Valentine thought Loyola had a chance to make some noise in the NCAA tournament, but this?
“Not the Final Four, man,” Valentine said. “This is nuts.”
The 11-seeded Ramblers might not have made the NCAA tournament at all if they hadn’t won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. Since then, they’ve won four games — the first three by a combined four points — to earn their place in San Antonio.
The media attention, all the talk of Sister Jean and 1963, Valentine said, hasn’t caused this team to lose focus. It’s a mature group. If anything, they’ve thrived on it.
“They’re really good kids. We don’t really have to worry about them like that,” Valentine said. “It just seems like, the more media attention we’re getting, the better we’re playing.”
Valentine has been to the NCAA tournament three times before — twice as a player at Oakland, once as a graduate manager at Michigan State, in 2015, when the Spartans made their own improbable Final Four run as a 7 seed.
That team didn’t capture the college basketball world like Loyola has. But it helped Valentine to understand what’s ahead this week.
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His parents, Kathy and Carlton, will be there. As will his wife, Taylor, and brother, Denzel, who’s in his second season with the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls play Friday in Orlando, then at home on Sunday.
“He’s going to come on Saturday, take a flight up first thing in the morning,” Drew said of Denzel. “I think he might even fly private home to try to get back. He’s going all out, and he wants me to give him some more (Loyola) gear.”
Lansing's Saddi Washington is in his second season as an assistant coach on John Beilein's staff at Michigan after a long run at Oakland. (Photo: University of Michigan)
Life under Beilein
Michigan is not the Cinderella story Loyola is. It is no less a dream come true for Washington, who spent his playing and coaching career at schools where the Final Four seemed as unattainable as it did to Loyola two weeks ago.
Washington led Western Michigan to the 1998 NCAA tournament, where the Broncos upset Clemson in the first round. After playing professionally overseas, he coached at Oakland for 10 seasons, helping to propel the Grizzlies from a low-major to a mid-major, winning in large part with a recruiting pipeline from Washington’s hometown.
“We have an obligation to that 10-year-old kid (in all of us) to make his dream our reality,” Washington said. “That’s what we’re doing right now.
“I’ve just been trying to take each moment in like it’s the last. Because I don’t want to ever assume, I don’t want to get so bogged down with everything that you forget what it feels like to be in this moment.”
He describes his two years at Michigan so far as an “absolute blessing.”
“I don’t know that I could have scripted it any better,” Washington said. “Coach Beilein is he’s just a high-level dude. In all respects in life.”
Michigan has benefited, too. Washington was Beilein’s only full-time assistant on the road recruiting last summer, evaluating and helping to secure a heralded five-member class, before Beilein made two new hires.
“You quickly understand the power of the Block M, once you arrive,” Washington said. “Obviously, we worked hard at Oakland and tried to recruit at a high level. It’s just something about the University of Michigan and, when you walk into a gym or when you’re on the phone with a young man and his family, the impact that resonates with that kid or with that kid’s family is indescribable. It definitely helps get in the door a lot quicker and stay a lot longer.”
Washington’s understanding of life as the little guy has given him an appreciation for Loyola’s story and for what Valentine is experiencing.
“It’s hard enough as a mid-major team to have the kind of season that they’re having now and then the pressure of going into your conference tournament and knowing that we have to still win the conference tournament to ensure that we make the NCAA tournament,” Washington said. “And Drew was on one of those teams at Oakland. We’re 17-1 back to back seasons (in the Summit League), but, if we don’t win our conference tournament, chances are we don’t get an at-large bid. To be able to persevere through all that and then be able to come into the big show as an underdog and defy the odds …”
Saddi Washington, right, recruited Drew Valentine, left, to Oakland and coached him there. (Photo: Oakland University)
A friendship on many levels
There was a good chance Washington and Valentine were going to be lifelong friends when Washington showed up at Valentine’s knee surgery during his senior football season at Sexton High School.
Oakland had been the first to offer Valentine a scholarship, as a sophomore. They were the only ones not to back away after his injury.
“It means everything,” Valentine said. “Because of that I was given a chance to be where I am right now. Through the recruiting process, my dad always talked about, you’re going to find out toward the end who really wants you. And my dad always talks about, you want to go where you’re wanted, not necessarily where you want to go.”
Their relationship has known many stages — coach and high school recruit, coach and player, then colleagues, now competitors. Still friends, closer than ever, navigating the same world, having grown up in the same world 15 years apart.
“I think we’re both true hard-working people that just love seeing other people happy,” Valentine said. “My wife talks about all the time that there are certain people that you meet and you feel like you’ve known them for 10 years and you’re just super comfortable. I think Saddi’s really like that. Every since I’ve met him, he’s somebody, you want to be around him.”
Valentine and Washington pick each other’s brains about players, about life, about offense. Loyola and Michigan run similar offenses.
Valentine leans on Washington’s instincts.
“I think Saddi is a really good evaluator of talent,” Valentine said. “You’ll see a kid and he’ll say, ‘Yeah, that kid is going to be good. Ya’ll should recruit him. If I was at Oakland, I’d be all over him.’ That’ll make me think, ‘OK.’ Because just look at the guys he recruited. Look at how they turned out and what he’s doing at Michigan and how clean they do things. It’s just super impressive.”
Likewise, Washington could see the coach in Valentine early on.
“As good a player he was, he’s an even better leader, and I think that’s showing out now,” Washington said. “He’s always had a great pulse and basketball mind. You put that together with his enthusiasm for the game and his competitive nature, it’s a great mix.
“We have a lot of similar personality traits: competitiveness, we can be silly. He’s a lot like my little brother. That bond has just grown over the years.
“Our lives are eerily parallel. It’s just one of those things.”
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
