TOWN OF WALES - Dwyane Wade's voice was in rough shape Monday morning.

The former Marquette star's vocal chords were collateral damage from a few days – and late nights – of swapping stories and needling ex-teammates from the Golden Eagles' run to the Final Four in the 2003 NCAA Tournament. But Wade couldn't get enough of the camaraderie, so he was shaking off the cobwebs and getting ready to play 18 holes at The Legend at Brandybrook in an event put together by the school's M Club.

It was just like old times, with Wade paired up with former backcourt mate Travis Diener while former MU coach Tom Crean watched with a wry smile.

"Like Coach Crean said, I haven’t laughed like that in so long," Wade said. "We all have went on in these 20 years and become husbands and fathers and businessmen and owners. Whatever it is, right? But ultimately, we all knew each other when it was just pure.

"It was purity of life, of teenage years and all of that. So when we get around each other, we’re all just like in the locker room. We rag on each other. We tell stories about each other. And it’s good for us. I went to sleep last night and my soul felt happy."

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Wade retired in 2019 after a 16-year NBA career, so now he has more time to reflect on the season that set the 6-foot-4 guard on a path that will lead to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame when he is eligible for induction next year.

‘We live in the world where we just move to the next thing," Wade said. "I moved to Miami and moved to the NBA and I was off. And I went into that career and then that career ended, so it takes a while to process everything. I’m just processing it now.

"First of all, that it’s 20 years. Ya’ll can’t see all the gray hairs because I covered it up with a little dye, but it’s just incredible. But now we get a chance to come back here and process. This is the first time that I’ve sat down and downloaded the Final Four. Because I’ve just been off …. father, husband twice, all this. So this is the first time that I’ve sat in it and I got a chance to do it with the guys. You look around and you feel it. Hopefully you’re not the last one that’s going to have this experience at this university, but you know that you were a part of something that was special for the community.”

The players spent most of their time together replaying the greatest hits of that season: the rally from 19 points down at Louisville, clinching the Conference USA regular-season crown at Cincinnati, the big shots by Diener, Steve Novak and Joe Chapman in the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament and, of course, Wade's triple-double against Kentucky in the Elite Eight. They focus on the good times instead of the loss to Kansas in the Final Four.

With most of the members of the 2002-03 roster now in their 40s, there is also a different dynamic with their hard-driving former coach.

"It ends up going a little too late," Diener said. "But the stories and the reminiscing are incredible. Other people remember stories that maybe I forgot or Dwyane forgot or Steve.

"Now we’re at the point in our lives where we can really give it back to Coach and what he put us through. It more turns into a roast of Coach Crean, which I think is funny for everybody. Our team was so special and so close and that continues 20 years later when obviously we’re living different lives. But we come back and it’s like we never left the locker room together."

But while Diener can now joke about tossing a ball in frustration that accidentally hit Crean in the face, breaking his designer eye-wear and causing a gushing nose-bleed, the ex-coach cautions to take every story with a grain of salt.

"I would think probably at some point in time, that if even half of it’s true, I should have been arrested, locked up, done all kinds of different things for the way I coached," Crean said. "There’s a little embellishment in there."

Yes, just like any reunion, it's hard to separate fact from fiction in some of the details.

"The stories get better, just like fishing," Chapman said. "How many points you averaged and all that stuff, it goes up."

But the undeniable truth is that the Golden Eagles that year reached the Final Four for the first time since MU won the 1977 national championship. The excitement around that run and the work to get there have created a unique bond.

“There’s a group chat that we still have," Crean said. "That when it gets going at times can go for four, four-and-a-half, five hours. I’m not kidding. It’s unbelievable.

"The word love is so over-spoken and undervalued at times and you really don’t have it unless you really go through a lot of really hard things together. And this team did. And what it did was it made them all closer. And they’ve remained that way 20 years later.”

That's why everyone is comfortable needling Wade despite his three NBA championship rings, career earnings north of $150 million and status as a global celebrity. Wade gifted his former teammates blazers that included images from that season stitched into the interiors.

"Dwyane’s greatest strength, and it was 20 years ago, was his ability to sacrifice and his humility," Diener said. "He was a superstar back then. But he didn’t play with an ego. He didn’t play selfishly. When your best player does that, it just infiltrates the whole team."

MU's current coach, Shaka Smart, brought his players around the 2002-03 team on Sunday to soak up the stories.

"I was telling Shaka last night, I was like, ‘Look can you guys go back? Can you get to the Final Four so they can kind of forget about us?’ " Diener said. "Because when we were in college, all we heard about was the ’77 team. It was like ‘All right, enough about the '77 team.’ The players were there last night with us, and I’m sure they’re like, ‘Well, we’re sick of hearing about this Final Four team. They didn’t even win it all, so what are we celebrating?’ But it’s time and the expectation should be (on returning).

“I think obviously there are challenges at any program. Shaka is the right man for the job, and I think give him a few years and we’ll have a chance. But obviously you need luck and a good draw and all that. There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s really hard to make a Final Four.”

After all, only special teams are afforded 20-year reunions.

"You realize you’re only as good as the people around you," said Crean, who coached at Indiana and Georgia after MU. "You’re only as good as your staff, you’re only as good as the work ethic and character of your players.

"And your job is to bring the most out of them every day. My job was to drive them further than they thought they could go and know that I was doing it from a place that was going to benefit them in life. Not just benefit us in the moment, but benefit them for their life. So when you’re going though that, that’s what you're most proud of. The Final Four, the rings, the memories … those are great memories. But the memories of how we did it, which was what was talked about last night and environments like that, those are the lasting things.”

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dwyane Wade, others reflect on Marquette's 2003 Final Four run