NCAA Basketball: Revisiting Stephen Curry’s strangest college game ever
By Karl Heiser
The Opponent: Coach Jimmy Patsos & the Loyola (MD) Greyhounds
Jimmy Patsos is probably a name few casual college basketball fans recognize. Prior to his coaching job with Loyola, Patsos coached at the University of Maryland from 1991-2004, where he won the 2002 National Championship as an assistant under head coach Gary Williams. He became the head coach of the Greyhounds for the 2004-2005 season, taking over a program that was in shambles after posting a 1-27 record the season prior.
By his fifth season with Loyola in 2008-2009, Patsos had a reputation as one of the more animated coaches in college basketball, often finishing games sweatier than his players and likely picking up a technical foul along the way. A week before the game against Davidson, Patsos picked up a tech against Cornell and proceeded to climb up into the stands and coach the rest of the game from there to avoid another technical and subsequent ejection.
The video above shows a classic Jimmy Patsos moment from coaching Siena in 2017 where he pretended to shake hands with Rider personnel after a heated contest that saw the opponent leave the floor without the customary handshake. This is the same coach that had to figure out how to stop a red-hot Stephen Curry on November 25, 2008.
Before facing Davidson, the Greyhounds were 2-3 on the season and coming off a ten-point victory over James Madison.