High Point kept falling short of March Madness. Now the Panthers are finally getting their moment

Alan Huss knew High Point had been close.

The Panthers had never been to the NCAA Tournament even after winning the Big South regular-season race five times previously, repeatedly being undone by losses in the conference tournament to deny them the league's automatic bid. That included last year in the former Creighton assistant’s first season leading the program.

Maybe that explains the prevailing feeling now - beyond the joy and buzz on the private university campus in central North Carolina - after High Point finally rallied from 15 down in its league title game to punch a March Madness ticket in a year that started with being a big league favorite.

"There’s only two emotions in being a heavy favorite," Huss said in an interview with The Associated Press. “There’s disappointment and there’s relief. And relief is the best you can hope for.

"The beautiful thing is once you kind of get it all done, at some point in the future we'll pivot from relief to, 'All right let's look back on this and enjoy it.' Because we have a special group of kids that's been as enjoyable as any group I've been around."

The comeback against Winthrop on March 9 has brought High Point (29-5) to this point, as the 13-seed in the Midwest Region to face fourth-seeded Purdue in Providence, Rhode Island. Thursday’s tipoff will mark a breakthrough moment for the program since its move to Division I in 1999, one coming after Huss brought experience from his time with Creighton’s perennial tournament program.

Huss - with roots back in high school and AAU coaching - played four seasons for the Bluejays under Dana Altman and alongside future NBA player Kyle Korver. He returned to his alma mater in 2017 to spend six seasons as an assistant under Greg McDermott, with his last game there being a 2023 loss to San Diego State in the South Region final.

He had to build a roster quickly when he took over at High Point - "You’re drinking from a firehose when you take one of these," Huss said of the job - with players jumping into the transfer portal as is common with a coaching change. The Panthers unexpectedly won the Big South regular-season title in a 27-win season last year, only to blow a 15-point lead at home and lose in overtime to Longwood in the Big South semifinals (they later reached the College Basketball Invitational title game).

Now Huss can top that, to no surprise from his former boss.

"He was terrific when he was with us and had some of the attributes of someone who was going to become a great head coach,” McDermott told the AP during the Big East Tournament. "Did I see it coming this fast? Probably not. But he's pushed all the right buttons. He's done it the right way."

It starts with the offense, where High Point enters the NCAAs ranked No. 25 in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency by averaging 118.5 points per 100 possessions. Gonzaga (123.6) and Utah State (120.7) are the only teams from outside the Power Four or the Big East to rank ahead of the Panthers in the 68-team field.

The team has depth that starts with talented returnees like senior guard Kezza Giffa (team-best 14.8 points) and junior forward Kimani Hamilton (13.4), along with new transfers like No. 2 scorer D’Maurian Williams (13.5) from Texas Tech and senior guard Bobby Pettiford - who was part of Kansas’ 2022 NCAA championship as a freshman and spent last year at East Carolina.

Yet that group, Huss said, wasn’t playing to its potential early while awaiting key players like Pettiford (abdominal surgery), junior forward Simon Hildebrandt (stress fracture) and senior forward Terry Anderson (knee surgery) to recover from offseason injuries.

It took a while for the Panthers to find their form, fittingly down to waiting until the second half of the Big South final to rally past Winthrop behind Pettiford.

"It’s just surreal for me right now," said Giffa, a Frenchman who played his freshman season at UTEP. “I’ve been watching the NCAA Tournament when I was young and never thought I would be there one day."

The program’s quick rise under Huss is befitting a century-old school with its own run of rapid growth over the past two decades.

There were about 1,500 students, 100 full-time faculty members on a campus of a little more than 90 acres in 2005. Those numbers now are up to more than 6,300 students and 500 full-time faculty members on 560 acres of campus as of last year.

Now the school gets a long-sought March Madness close-up.

"We really support our program here," Huss said. "We've got one of the best homecourt advantages in mid-major basketball. Our student turnout is fantastic. And I think this just validates it.

"Now we get to show the rest of the world that doesn't know about High Point, North Carolina, and High Point University that we can can compete on a national stage. I think everyone's excited for that possibility."