WSSU basketball coach Cleo Hill Jr. has been around basketball royalty all his life – but even he had to admit that his program’s recent game at NBA All Star Weekend was amazing.
The team got the chance to play in the third-annual NBA HBCU Classic against CIAA rival Virginia Union on Saturday at the 2023 All Star Weekend.
“I thought it was definitely a lasting memory,” Hill said back in his office on Tuesday. “And it’s great that not only the conference can have this kind of experience; the university – both universities – Winston-Salem State and Virginia Union, and the coaches but more importantly for me the managers and the student-athletes, it’s something that they will never forget.”
The men’s basketball team, cheerleaders, and Red Sea of Sound Marching Band were flown out to Indianapolis. The team took part in photoshoots and community service in the days before the game. The travelers also got to see – and meet – some of the top players in the game.
“Just being that there’s so many different entities of the photo shoot and three point contest, that dunk contest, the actual All-Star Game, the actual game that we played, meeting certain players, meeting Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic, my guy Ant Man, and then Steph Curry,” Hill continued. “It was just it was just good to meet and even see all those players got a chance to see LeBron and Giannis, so it was definitely a great experience. “
While Hill says it was great, he admitted keeping focus was a concern.
“There were film sessions, there were scouting reports, there were walkthroughs, there was shootaround – it was practice,” Hill said. “And we wanted to make the main thing, the main thing at that time when it was film session, not thinking about LeBron or Giannis or anybody. And the same thing with scouting reports, same thing with practice shootaround. But when those times were done – the business was done. We had a blast. It was good. It was a lot alumni there as well. So it was great.”
Apparently Hill and his assistants – Ricky Wilson and Lance Beckwith – did a solid job of focusing the squad. WSSU led for better than 35 minutes and came away with a 64-47 win over Virginia Union.
Hill said the game had a “CIAA Championship-level feel” to it.
“I thought it was a very nice crowd when we came out. But when I left with like 8 minutes to go, it seemed like it was jam packed and you saw everybody there. You saw all the people from ESPN, all the people from TNT, people that do the interviews with the NBA players. Everybody was sitting courtside, cameras everywhere. And I thought my guys just did a great job in focusing on the task at hand during timeouts. You didn’t see them looking at the actors, although there were stars sitting right next to me and I didn’t know all of them. The young lady from Power (Book II: Ghost) was sitting there and right next to Stephen A. Smith and his bodyguards. And, you know, I saw afterwards that there were a couple of more stars on that same side of the bench. So I thought they did a good job and just focusing on the task.”
Now Hill’s challenge is to get his team back to the business of winning on the road. WSSU currently holds the best overall record in the CIAA at 17-8, but have lost all four of its CIAA Southern Division road games so far. This week it will travel to two historically tough gyms to play at in C.C. Spaulding against Shaw University and C.E. Trent at Livingstone. Then it will be back up to Baltimore to defend the CIAA title.
Hill is very familiar with Shaw, having coached at the Raleigh-based school from 2008 through 2015. WSSU came away with a tough 72-70 win at home earlier this month.
“I’m sure they probably think they’re different now. We think we’re different now,” Hill said of Shaw. “I think for us it’s going to be on the defensive end. Defense and tempo – how we handle the storm on a senior day. Sometimes we know we could go either way, but it should be good. It should be fun.”