I don’t know that I’d actually heard the phrase “cool as shit” in 1999, because I was 12 and raised Christian in the South, so I had to pretend I didn’t know any swear words for the longest time, but I knew Pepe Sanchez was absolutely cool as shit.
This was a long time ago, obviously. Time makes fools of us all, and Pepe Sanchez’s College Basketball Reference page proves it. Like how he averaged 8.5 ppg for his entire career, descending from his freshman season high (10.0) to his senior year (5.6) and leaving him a decent NCAA Tournament appearance as a senior from 1,000 career points; instead, he shot 1-for-9 from the floor against Lafayette and Seton Hall and the second-seeded Owls were dispatched because Ty Shine—replacing an injured Shaheen Holloway, last seen ascending to heaven as head coach of 2022 NCAA Tournament darlings Saint Peter’s—elected to have the game of his life with 26 points and seven threes.
Sanchez didn’t fill the stat sheet in a contemporary way save one—steals. He led the Atlantic 10 in 1997 (86) and 1998 (93), and his 365 career thefts remain fifth in NCAA history and second in the A-10 behind Richmond’s Jacob Gilyard, who got an extra season thanks to COVID-19 (and who, in fairness, was trending toward breaking the mark before the 2020 season was suspended).
That’s nice. Those are numbers. You didn’t come here for numbers; you were promised vibes, and late-90s Pepe Sanchez exuded them.
On offense, he was Jason Williams Lite—not just seeing two steps ahead but occasionally seeing things that weren’t there yet or teammates who weren’t aware they were about to be open. I didn’t get a chance to watch Temple often, but when I did, or when the Owls made a SportsCenter appearance, it was invariably because Sanchez had made an opponent look ridiculous thanks to a perfectly-timed offensive maneuver.
Defensively, there’s really no other way to say it—Pepe Sanchez was rude as hell. Quick hands, perfect footwork, good size (6-4, 195) for a point guard in his day, Sanchez gave no quarter and yielded no space and was able to guard whoever needed guarding in the opposing backcourt. The A-10 during Sanchez’s tenure featured cut-throat scorers and dynamite playmakers like Cuttino Mobley (Rhode Island), Shawnta Rogers (George Washington), Zach Marbury (Rhode Island), Mike James (Duquesne), and free-throw artist Chris Monroe (George Washington)—there was no shortage of work for a capable defender like Sanchez, and he never shrank from those moments in league play or in the NCAA Tournament, when he squared up against future pros like Bobby Jackson, Pete Mickeal, and William Avery and always held his own. He played his share of future accountants and real-estate agents—that’s college basketball then, now, and as long as it exists—but never lost shine against bigger names.
(That was probably a meandering description of Sanchez’s defensive prowess. You’ll get used to it. The meandering. Hey, subscribe!)
The indelible Sanchez game didn’t look like anything in the box score. The then-junior scored 11 points, mostly on free-throws, in a nationally-televised contest pitting the seventh-ranked Owls against fifth-ranked Michigan State. He hit the go-ahead free-throws with less than a second left to put Temple up for good. The enduring image is of a relieved Sanchez falling backward onto the floor after sinking the second freebie to put Temple ahead.
What time forgets is the hounding he put on Mateen Cleaves, forcing the All-American into 10 turnovers. It forgets that Sanchez and his wild-boy defending helped drag the Owls back from a double-digit deficit with 3:36 left. It forgets that Temple used to be on par with Michigan State, that John Chaney was every bit the head coach Tom Izzo is lauded to be (threatening to whup John Calipari’s ass merely burnishes such a rep), that so much of what made Temple in Chaney’s later years such a tough out was an Argentine guard long on swag who would play 38 total NBA games. That said Argentine guard, who was told by Chaney in the timeout meant to ice him to get off the floor as soon as he sank his free-throws and was instead injured in the ensuing court-rushing and missed the next game.
Our patron saint is a three-time All-Atlantic 10 selection who didn’t average double figures for his collegiate career, who earned two A-10 Defensive Player of the Year honors and three nods to the All-Defensive team and who earned 2000 A-10 Player of the Year honors with an underwhelming 5.6 points per game. That’s college basketball; that’s what Sons of Pepe Sanchez will try to keep at its heart.