Tim Winn built Hall of Fame hoop legacy in both high school and college

Tim Winn easily would have made the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame just off his career at LaSalle High School from 1992-96 that left him as one of the most decorated basketball players in Section VI history.

But then Winn went to college but decided to stay close to home. The pride of Niagara Falls became a key cog in one of the most iconic teams at St. Bonaventure of the last 50 years. Talk about becoming a slam-dunk choice for the Hall.

"It's just a testament to hard work really," Winn, who turned 45 in June, said during an interview earlier this year to unveil the 2022 Hall class. "When you come into it, you're not really thinking hall of fame. You just want to leave a legacy behind, you want to win as much as possible, you want to do whatever it takes to get to that point where you can win. It really just speaks to the dedication that you put into this sport and it speaks to the teammates you have as well. You can't walk this walk alone."

The 5-foot-10 Winn was a whirling dervish of energy. Sure, he could shoot and score. But his game was about so much more. There was his vision, his passing ability and his defense. And his leadership.

One of his more heralded performances was the defensive effort that held New York State Mr. Basketball Stephon Marbury to 12 points in a semifinal loss to Abraham Lincoln of the Bronx at the 1995 State Federation Tournament. Marbury went on to Georgia Tech and to a long career in the NBA.

"He's very quick and a great defender," Marbury said of Winn that day. "He stayed in my face the whole time. He gets his team involved in the game on offense, too. He's going to be a great one."

Marbury was right. Winn's high school resume was monumental while playing for LaSalle coach Pat Monti, a 2008 Hall inductee. Winn finished as LaSalle's all-time scoring leader with 1,897 points, is one of just seven three-time All-Western New York players and shared what's now known as the Allen Wilson Player of the Year Award with Traditional's Jason Rowe as a junior and senior. Winn is unquestionably one of Monti's all-time favorite players.

"As I've always said, give me a good, solid, smart, heady point guard over a big man," Monti said in a 2008 interview with The News prior to his Hall induction.

There were chances to go to bigger programs – and Georgia Tech was deep into the process with Winn – but he ultimately chose to play at St. Bonaventure under Jim Baron after the dogged recruiting of assistant coach Rob Lanier, the former Bona and Mount St. Joseph's guard and now the head coach at SMU. Monti had an established program at LaSalle but Baron was still struggling to get Bona to have consistent success when Winn arrived.

He struck gold with Winn, as the Bonnies made the National Invitation Tournament in 1998 and posted a 21-win season in 2000 that resulted in the school's first NCAA berth since 1978. Winn finished his Bona career with 1,407 points, 449 assists, 319 steals and 192 three-pointers. He remains second in Bona history and fourth all-time in the Atlantic 10 in steals. He was a two-time All-A-10 player and his senior year saw him make the first team and earn All-Defensive honors.

"They were different in a lot of ways,” Winn said of Monti and Baron. “But the one common denominator was that they were super competitive. And that rubbed off on me.”

Winn takes deep pride in his Hall call as the first player inducted out of Niagara Falls.

"I kind of feel like I'm carrying this for the city so people no longer say that we don't have someone in here," Winn said. "To be the first from my hometown to be acknowledged at this level, it motivates me now to pay it forward."

Winn lives in Charlotte with his wife, Tamaron, and three children. He has worked as a teacher's aide and school administrator in Buffalo and has been in the IT division of Bank of America in Charlotte. He has often returned to Niagara Falls to counsel and help train basketball players and last fall, he opened a basketball training business in Charlotte that has quickly mushroomed into several dozen clients.

"It blew up a lot faster than I ever expected," Winn said. "I went from having like, maybe two or three kids a week to I'm up to 50 or 60 kids a week now. And it's not just about putting cones out and having kids dribble around or shoot jumpers. It's, it's more so mentality, right? This is what it requires to make it. There's a deeper commitment, there's a deeper dedication that has to show up. There's a deeper passion that has to show up in order for you to get to where you want to go."

Winn helped lead Bona to a 21-10 record in his senior year and finally got the Bonnies to where they wanted to be with a berth in the 2000 NCAA Tournament. They played the first game on the first day, a Thursday matinee at the Cleveland State Convocation Center. It was one of those classic potential 5-12 upset specials, with the Bonnies battling Kentucky. Bona led late, until a 3-pointer by future NBA champion Tayshaun Prince tied the game with 7.1 seconds left in regulation.

Near the end of the second overtime, Winn had a 3-pointer to forge another tie that rimmed out. The Bonnies lost, 85-80. But how could anyone be considered a loser when they played in a game that will stand the test of time and forever be remembered by Big 4 fans?

To this day, Winn said he's never sat down and watched the game. He regrets that Bona didn't foul Prince to prevent the 3-pointer, a move analytics would often call for now but was considered out-of-the-box and controversial back then.

"You take the lesson. You walk off, we went back to campus and we were heroes," Winn said. "It's for a university. Our chest was poked out further in a loss than it had been for any win that we had. When I went to St. Bonaventure, the idea was to pull them up and put it on a national stage. And when you look back, that's what we did."

After that game, Winn sat on a stool in the Bona locker room still in his uniform and memorably held court with reporters for a half-hour, as if it was a way to keep his career going just a little longer. He analyzed the drama of regulation and the two overtimes, reminisced about his Bona career, laughed at some of the memories and even told a Buffalo News reporter, "You're going to get me all emotional" when asked what the season had meant to him.

"Despite the loss, I had a lot of fun," Winn said that day in Cleveland. "That's what it's all about. If you can't have fun in a game like this, why even do it?"