Reece Gaines tried talking over the screaming children participating in Damion Lee's basketball clinic at Shoot 360.

Then, the former Louisville star realized they were speaking for him.

"That's how I'm feeling," he told The Courier Journal. "I'm feeling like those kids yelling right there. That's how I feel inside about this opportunity."

Gaines, 43, was trying to put into words what it means to him to be the head coach of The Ville, a team composed primarily of former Cardinals making its second appearance in The Basketball Tournament (TBT).

For the uninitiated, TBT is a 64-team, single-elimination competition with a $1 million grand prize. The field is split into eight regionals; one of which will be played at Freedom Hall beginning Saturday, July 20.

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn't share Gaines' enthusiasm about getting to coach Peyton Siva, Russ Smith and Montrezl Harrell. He's also looking forward to facing a team of mostly former Bellarmine players, UKnighted, in the first round and starting a "family rivalry;" because some of them were around when he took his first coaching job as an assistant on Scott Davenport's staff in 2012.

But there's a bit of catharsis in his internal screaming. The past three years didn't go as planned.

Gaines had a dream come true when he returned to U of L in November 2021 to serve as director of player development and alumni relations for former head coach Chris Mack. Things only went downhill from there.

Mack and the university parted ways less than three months later. The Cards finished the season 13-19 under interim coach Mike Pegues. When Kenny Payne was named Mack's successor, Gaines was moved into a video operations role to make room for Milt Wagner. What followed was the program's worst two-year stretch in the modern era. Gaines was among those out of a job after Payne's firing in March.

What's next for Louisville's No. 4 all-time scorer? Career-wise, Gaines has no idea.

But what he will tell you is that he's going into TBT with "as pure of a mindset as I can" and that he's "hungry to win."

'Personal pride'

One of Gaines' defining characteristics, Davenport said, is his "personal pride." He saw it on display as a member of Rick Pitino's staff, when the future first-round NBA draft pick walked into a huddle during a game against Marquette and told the Hall of Fame coach he was going to guard Dwyane Wade.

"Everybody looked around like, 'You're going to tell him?'" Davenport said. "It wasn't, like, 'Can I guard him, coach?' (It was), 'I'm guarding him.'"

As his professional career came to an end abroad, however, Gaines admittedly had too much pride.

The thought of coaching rarely crossed his mind, he said, "because I couldn't imagine myself being this unselfish." When it did, he assumed he could easily land a job at Louisville as one of the greatest to don its uniform.

Pitino had other plans. When Gaines came calling, the coach recommended he volunteer as an assistant to Davenport at Bellarmine; which was, at the time, still in Division II.

"At first, that idea did not sound appealing whatsoever," Gaines said, "but I knew Scotty, so I gave it a chance.

"Obviously, I respected Coach P's opinion and his guidance. One thing he told me — he said, "'Trust me, Reece, once this gets in your blood, it'll change you, and you're never going to let it go.' That’s exactly what happened."

Davenport not only got Gaines a full-time position but also trusted him with every facet of running his program. He had three conditions: complete your undergraduate degree, buy into the Knights' motto of, "If it needs to be done, do it" and don't expect to go from "zero to 100 in one day."

Looking back now on that three-year stint, during which Bellarmine reached the NCAA Tournament three times and advanced as far as the Final Four, Gaines said learning "from the ground up" made all the difference.

"What Scotty Davenport did for me was something that, at the time, I didn't know how great it was," he said. "He allowed me to coach and grow on the floor."

It finally occurred to Gaines when, after spending 2015-19 as an assistant at Eastern Kentucky, he landed on the staff of the San Antonio Spurs' G League team and saw correlations between the franchise's core principles and those preached at Knights Hall. He has returned the favor, Davenport said, by stopping by countless Bellarmine games and practices over the years.

'An unbreakable will'

At Louisville, Gaines said, his coaching career "went backward."

He believes the player development/alumni relations and video operations roles made him a better communicator and a sharper basketball mind but said he "definitely missed" partaking in on-court instruction.

"Being hands-on and sweating with the players and working with them is just who I am as a person," Gaines said. "It's in my nature. That's how I’ve been my whole life, trying to improve myself every day, and there's just no better reward for me."

Then, of course, there was all the losing.

The Cards dropped more games by 20-plus points (14) than they won (12) under Payne's regime. Gaines, by comparison, went 75-51 as a player for the late Hall of Famer Denny Crum and then Pitino from 1999-2003.

When Payne's tenure came to an end, athletics director Josh Heird said it was "clear that a change is needed" due to a lack of "sustained progression" and a $1.9 million shortfall in revenue from ticket sales.

"You always try to rationalize it and say, 'Well. it's just basketball.' No, no — I wanted to take all the pain of losing (and) figure out what I could do more to help, if that was possible," Gaines said.

"I didn't want to run from this hurting, because it was a bigger deal for me. Losing games and seeing teams walk in there and jump up and down on your floor that you put your heart, blood, sweat and tears into was difficult; and I wanted it to be difficult every day until we started to win. I never got that chance to turn it around, but that's how I approached it.

"I woke up (and said), 'This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life,' to be a part of a situation where I'm not successful. We're not playing great. I'd feel the disappointment of the fans, the disappointment of the university. I felt all of that, and I wanted to be a part of turning it around. That's what drove me to work so hard, to give what I had to try to help each player each game."

Despite all of the struggles, Gaines said it was "an honor" to coach at his alma mater. He's excited to see what new head coach Pat Kelsey can do and that Siva is going to be along for the ride in a position he once held.

His focus now isn't what happened. It's giving back.

That's why he's so jazzed about coaching in TBT and isn't concerned with using it as a springboard to long-term job opportunities. He'd rather bask in the moment of patrolling the Freedom Hall sideline like his mentors and give fans a tournament run that works in tandem with Kelsey and the Cards' exhibition tour of the Bahamas to bridge the program's past to its future.

Payne tried to do that last summer by asking for a highlight reel of moments from The Ville's first-round win that embodied the Louisville way and showing it to the members of his 2023-24 team. Now, a year later, the man who cut that tape has a second chance to prove it hasn't been lost on him.

"There's an unbreakable will here," Gaines said. "If you can make it here, you can play anywhere; because the fans are so passionate that you have no other choice but to be passionate, as well. It infects you."

Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: The Basketball Tournament 2024: Reece Gaines on coaching The Ville