They knew these kids way back when. And man, were they proud Tuesday night.
Duane Simpkins' high school coach made like Muhammad Ali.
"He was the greatest," Morgan Wootten said.
Johnny Rhodes' high school coach was only slightly less restrained.
"I'm so happy for him, I don't know what to do," Mike McLeese said.
Wootten and McLeese had seen this before, back when Simpkins was at DeMatha and Rhodes was at Washington Dunbar. Heck, the kids once played against each other in a city championship game.
Back then, no one wondered if Rhodes was overrated, or if Simpkins was over his head. Only after they arrived at Maryland did the questions begin.
Wootten, the legendary coach at DeMatha, and McLeese, the first-year coach at Howard, never lost faith in their former players.
And when Simpkins and Rhodes took apart the No. 1 team in the country Tuesday night, their faith was rewarded.
Their faith, and Maryland's faith, too.
The way Simpkins ran the team and controlled the game -- that's what coach Gary Williams envisioned when he was at DeMatha, much more than a 21-point game against North Carolina.
The way Rhodes scored 11 straight points to spark a comeback and went 4-for-5 from three-point range -- that's what Williams always dreamed of, knowing the rest of his game was complete.
And so it was that Maryland saw its dreams come true Tuesday night, exorcising the demons from the Lefty Driesell and Bob Wade eras once and for all.
This is a winning program now, built around kids who knew only triumph in high school, kids whose mental toughness preceded their arrival in College Park.
They were bound to succeed.
It just took time.
Rhodes needed a year at a Maine prep school before coming to Maryland, then two years to prove worthy of his hype.
Simpkins needed a year on the bench after Williams deemed him "a little cocky," then time to develop as an ACC point guard.
The moral of the story? These are college kids. Only a handful are like Joe Smith, supernovas the moment they step on the court. The rest are like Simpkins and Rhodes. Works in progress.
Rhodes shot only 41.9 percent his first two years at Maryland. This season, he's shooting 56 percent. Against Carolina, he shot 72.7 percent (8-for-11), and also contributed nine rebounds and four assists.
"I know he's capable of shooting the ball that way," McLeese said. "He's done everything at Maryland but shoot the ball well."
So, what took him so long?
Think back to when Rhodes arrived, the most heralded player in a class that also included Simpkins and Exree Hipp. Maryland was coming off two years of NCAA sanctions and a seventh-place finish in the ACC.
"The hopes of the people were on Johnny," Williams said. "They wanted something good to happen. Nothing had been good for a while.
"He felt that pressure. How many freshmen do you see come in and shoot great, no matter how good they were in high school? It was unfair to put that pressure on Johnny. But that was the situation we were in."
McLeese recalled listening to a radio talk show in Washington and hearing jokes about Rhodes' shooting. It seemed almost too much to bear.
"There was so much hype, so much expectation about him coming to Maryland," McLeese said. "I was just hoping people would be patient. Now, they're seeing the true Johnny Rhodes."
And perhaps the true Duane Simpkins as well.
Like McLeese, Wootten had been waiting for this moment. DeMatha was 87-10 with Simpkins as a starter. Maryland is 36-16. Both Wootten and Williams see the connection.
"Red Auerbach used to say, 'How do you put stats on a winner?' " Wootten said. "Duane is a winner. You go back through his whole history as a basketball player, and look at what he does. His team wins."
Or, as Williams put it, "There are guys more talented than Duane who aren't the winners Duane is. I've seen Duane do it. He plays better against better players. And down the stretch, that's when he plays his best."
Simpkins shut down Jeff McInnis by forcing him left Tuesday night, then converted that huge three-point play in the final minutes. He also scored 20 points in last year's NCAA tournament victory over Massachusetts, so two of his best games have come in two of his biggest games at Maryland.
In fact, Williams admits now that maybe he should have started Simpkins as a freshman, and moved Kevin McLinton to small forward. But his thinking then was that Simpkins needed to work harder to succeed in the ACC. He has added 10 pounds of bulk since then.
Ten pounds, and two years of experience.
"The point guard is the last guy to come around in a college class," Wootten said. "It's the hardest position to play in basketball. You're all alone out there. You've got the ball all the time. In a way, it's the loneliest position in the world."
Rhodes faced the pressure of meeting others' expectations, Simpkins the pressure of leading a team. Their high school coaches were watching Tuesday night. Watching everything come together at last.
"I just kept saying, 'He's feeling it. They've got to get him the ball,' " McLeese said.
Wootten got home late after coaching DeMatha to an overtime victory over Gonzaga.
"I turned it on just when they were making their run," he said. "I was cheering loud."