He certainly has the genes for it between his father and his uncle.
"I talked to my Uncle Mike a few weeks ago when the Suns were struggling," D'Antoni said. "I told him we were kind of struggling, too. He said, 'Nick, there's a difference: We're bad right now, you guys are awful.' "
Thanks for the pep talk, Uncle Mike.
"He was joking," D'Antoni said. "Sort of, anyway. Maybe I'll call him tonight, tell him I scored 26 and he ought to think about drafting me."
William & Mary's victory raised its record to 8-20. James Madison finished 6-22. A year ago, JMU Coach Dean Keener ended his season in the national championship game as an assistant coach at Georgia Tech. Friday night, he ended the season nine days before Selection Sunday, exactly one month before the national championship game in a drafty building in front of a tiny crowd.
"It's not exactly the Alamodome," he said with a tired smile. "But I feel just as empty right now as I did when we lost the national championship game. Once the game starts, you don't notice any of the stuff around you. You want to win. You want your kids to feel good about themselves. That's the toughest part of losing this game. The kids don't even get to walk in to the building when there's a buzz because eight teams are getting ready to play."
William & Mary will get that buzz Saturday. The Tribe has won only two games in CAA tournament history (1988 and 1997), a statistic Shaver, the coach, said he first heard "about a minute after I walked in the door. At least we've got that monkey off our back."
If there was any doubt that the people at William & Mary are aware of the school's futility in this tournament, it was wiped out by a sign held by a fan in the Tribe section during the final seconds Friday night. It said simply, "Finally."
Shaver is trying to build a program. For him, the victory over James Madison was, he hoped, a steppingstone to bigger and better things down the road. To his two seniors, it was a culmination.
"We know we have to play again in 16 hours," D'Antoni said. "I can pretty much guarantee we'll be loose when we play that game. The pressure is definitely off. Last night at the banquet somebody said all of us who are seniors should be sure to take in the moment this weekend. That's what I'm trying to do, because I know when it's over, my life will never be quite the same. I can see myself spending a lot of time in the next year or so dreaming that I'm still a player, wishing I still was. At least now, I can think about tonight and put a smile on my face while I'm trying to go to sleep."
The end for D'Antoni and Markham is likely to come Saturday against an ODU team that is 25-5 and has realistic dreams of seeing its name in the bracket on Selection Sunday even if it doesn't win this tournament. Both Tribe players understand there will be sadness when that moment comes. But they aren't dreading it.
"I think I'm ready for it emotionally," D'Antoni said. "I've been feeling it in stages the last few weeks, knowing that it's coming soon. Tonight makes it easier to accept. This was a highlight. I don't want to be one of those 45-year-old guys who goes around telling people that I did this or I did that as a basketball player. But I like the idea that, now, I'll know what we accomplished here at the end. I can promise you that feeling is priceless."
That's not a commercial. D'Antoni and Markham will not be appearing on too many TV screens in the near future. But that's okay. They can look back on their last hours as college basketball players and feel good about themselves.
They got to play on Saturday. Others may not understand why that's a big deal. No matter. They do.
