Baylor’s Smith, Michigan’s Hillmon meet in Sweet 16.
to pick up me and my mom, just completely cleared his schedule and did all of it in snow and bad weather,” Nixon said. “He took us to Long Island, and we spent the day there getting treatment on my hamstring. It’s
just a testament to who Coach Dave was as a person.”
Edwards, like Nixon a New Yorker, also was well known at A&M as a flashy guard in the early 1990s. He averaged 41 points per game as a senior in high school was one of the top recruits out of New York City in 1989.
He started his career at Georgetown before transferring to A&M, where he starred for then-coach Tony Barone. Nixon began her career at Notre Dame before transferring to A&M two years ago.
Nixon, known for her clutch shooting and general unflappability, made both the game-tying shot in regulation and the game-winning basket in overtime of the Aggies’ 84-82 escape of seventh-seeded Iowa State on Wednesday.
An emotional Nixon afterward dedicated the victory to Edwards. Edwards, mentor to hundreds of New York youth in basketball, had died a year and one day earlier from COVID-19, just as the coronavirus was becoming a known threat across the United States.
Around the same time, the 2020 men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments were canceled because of the pandemic, and this season Nixon has taken full advantage of her opportunities in A&M’S first two games of the NCAA postseason.
She scored a combined 56 points in the Aggies’ victories over Troy and Iowa State, knowing Edwards would be thrilled with what she’s accomplishing at his old school.
“Coach Dave was always brutally honest with me, both in the basketball world and just life in general,” Nixon said. “You find a lot of people in basketball who are ‘yes men’ or ‘yes women,’ who will see a kid and see potential but not push that person to go beyond themselves and really strive for more.
“Coach Dave, as much as he pushed me, I knew it came from a place of genuine love and concern.”
Edwards, nicknamed “Dave Boogie” back home in Queens 30 years ago, could back up his demands of Nixon with skins on the wall. He finished his college career as A&M’S leader in assists (602) and steals (228), and remains second in those categories only to guard Alex Caruso, who won an NBA title last season with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Edwards in 1993-94 finished third nationally in assists behind Marquette’s Tony Miller and California’s Jason Kidd. Most importantly that season, he led the Aggies out of the abyss of previous coach Kermit Davis’s scandal-soaked lone season of 1990-91, and back into the postseason with an NIT appearance — the Aggies’ first postseason showing since 1987.
Edwards carried that fearlessness into coaching youth and high school basketball, and coach Gary Blair’s surging Aggies — who won their first SEC regular-season title this year — have benefited from Nixon’s bravado.
“Coach Dave always challenged me to be myself, to not be afraid to take over or stand out,” Nixon said. “If I wasn’t doing those things, he’d call me out and we’d talk about it. I just knew he loved me unconditionally, regardless of what happened on the basketball court.
“Coach Dave — he was one of my biggest fans.”
The Aggies (25-2) behind Nixon will on Saturday night try and advance to their fourth Elite Eight in program history, all under Blair, who won a national title 10 years ago. The Wildcats (18-5) are competing in their first Sweet 16 since 1998 and will try and make their first Elite Eight in program history.