Agbai the one who got away

MILWAUKEE -- It was a funny twist of fate only the NCAA Tournament could provide.

If Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt, whose third-seeded Yellow Jackets (24-9) face sixth-seeded Boston College (24-9) in the second round of the St. Louis bracket today at 2:15 at the Bradley Center, had landed the Notre Dame job instead of Matt Doherty in 1999, it's likely Uka Agbai might have never played for the Eagles.

"Would I have been at Notre Dame? If he took me, I would've been there," Agbai said of Hewitt, whom the BC senior captain became fond of when Hewitt was the head coach at Siena and recruited him out of Archbishop Molloy in Queens, N.Y. "That's how much I thought about him."

That feeling, it was evident yesterday, was mutual.

"He's such a quality kid, and good student," Hewitt said. "He has a quality in that he's not only a good player, but he's a hard worker. If you can have one of your best players be your hardest worker, then you've got something.

"I thought, at Siena, he fit in very well with what we wanted to do. We felt we had a very good basketball team, but he would have been a guy that could've separated us from the rest of the [Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference], and the example he would have set would have continued that tradition for a very long time."

Today, Agbai and Hewitt will be reunited in a matchup of future Atlantic Coast Conference opponents. At stake, a berth in the St. Louis Regional semifinals opposite 10th-seeded Nevada, a 91-72 upset winner yesterday over No. 2 seed Gonzaga.

"We're definitely a very physical team inside. With myself and Craig [Smith], we also have a lot of quickness, so I think it'll be a tough matchup for them," Agbai said. "They have big, physical guards, so that's going to be a tough matchup for us, but I think we have guards who have been playing well, especially Jermaine Watson, Louis Hinnant, and Sean Marshall, so I think we'll be pretty good."

Hewitt had hoped to bring Agbai to Siena, but Agbai wanted his high school teammate, Justin Wilson, to come in a package deal. Problem was, Siena was only interested in Agbai. As much as Agbai liked Hewitt, it was no deal for Siena.

"One of my AAU coaches [Kevin Hamilton with the New York City Jaguars] told me that I did sort of break [Hewitt's] heart, I guess," Agbai said. "But I still talk good about him today, because I thought he was the greatest coach ever."

But, as it turned out, Agbai had one lingering concern about Hewitt, a hot young coach whose name had popped up for a number of vacancies.

"I was uncertain that if he left [Siena], I could go with him," Agbai said. "I was committed to him, but I wasn't really committed to Siena. No disrespect to Siena, because it's a great school, but I was not as committed to the school as I was committed to him.

"If he was able to promise me -- as no coach should -- wherever he was going to leave my freshman year that I could go with him, I would've signed with him," Agbai added. "But that letter of intent wasn't to Paul Hewitt, that letter of intent was to Siena, and that was a big problem."

And so they parted ways.

An unheralded prospect at Archbishop Molloy who felt he was better than some of the other New York City players signing with big-name schools, Agbai decided to play for Boston College. Hewitt recovered from losing "the player I recruited the hardest in my career" when he was hired a year later to succeed Bobby Cremins at Georgia Tech.

Hewitt, however, said he always kept tabs on Agbai, especially during his freshman season at BC.

"I'm happy for him, because he's had a great career," Hewitt said. "The year he was a freshman at Boston College we went to the [MAAC] conference finals and we lost a tough, tough game, because the other team pushed us on the perimeter and we didn't score well inside. I remember watching him in the Big East tournament that year and saying, `Well, there's our answer right there, if we had that guy running up and down for us.' "

Agbai will be running up and down the court for the Eagles today. He will set a school record with his 131st appearance and 127th start, surpassing the mark for starts set by Howard Eisley (1990-94). But BC should thank its lucky stars Notre Dame never hired Hewitt, otherwise Agbai would have likely spent his college career in South Bend, Ind., instead of Chestnut Hill, Mass.