They left the University of Maryland without acrimony, disappointed that their playing time on the basketball court was limited, but not bitter toward the coaching staff that kept them sitting through most of the games.
Now, Andre Collins and Hassan Fofana are playing a new game. Waiting. Until next season.
They are still sitting at Loyola, adhering to an NCAA Division I redshirt rule that makes transfer players ineligible for competition for a year. To both, it is excruciating, yet enlightening.
"It kills yourself not being able to play because you can see yourself helping the team," said Fofana, 6 feet 10, 290 pounds. "It hurts to sit on the bench watching people go to battle, and you can't."
"Sure, it's tough, but you have to be focused enough to deal with it," added Collins, the 6-foot point guard who was a high school All-American at Crisfield High, the state Class 1A champion during his senior season. "You must understand you can take good things out of sitting out. I'm thinking of maybe getting into coaching later and this year is helping."
"I think kids can learn by sitting," said coach Jimmy Patsos. "Byron Mouton [at Maryland] learned a lot after coming from Tulane. I sometimes go to Andre during games and ask him about little things that he might help with."
Both players were coaches for a day after the Greyhounds scored a mere 35 points in an ugly defeat to Fairfield. Patsos divided the team in half for a scrimmage and put Collins and Fofana in charge of the opposing sides. Two days later, Loyola upset two-time defending Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion Manhattan.
Collins was the first to join the former Terrapins assistant, transferring shortly after Patsos was hired last April. Thus, he can play from the beginning of next season after enrolling in summer school.
At Maryland, he was locked in the pecking order first behind Steve Blake, then John Gilchrist, and considered leaving a year earlier than he did. But, late in his sophomore season, Collins savored some encouraging moments, particularly an eight-point, four-steal, three-assist game against North Carolina that confirmed his fitness for ACC basketball.
He changed his mind, then got discouraged again as a junior and left the Terps in December 2003.
"I was thinking of St. Joe's [Philadelphia], Delaware or Delaware State. But when Coach Patsos left, I wanted to be with him," Collins said. " ... I figured this was something that could be very good for me."
