Greg Lewis would shake off the covers and crawl out of bed, long before first light, dress and walk the three or four blocks to the bus stop. By then, it would be 6:30 and just the beginning of his 16-hour day.

Four hours a day round trip on the bus. In between, school and basketball - and the thoughts of where the journey was going to lead.

Now, several years removed from those early morning rides and hours staring out the window at the streets of Akron, Ohio, Lewis doesn't want to think about where he'd be or what he'd be doing this week if John Saucier hadn't jumped into his life with both feet.

Lewis is quite sure he knows where he wouldn't be.

He wouldn't be at Winthrop University closing in on his degree in business management. He wouldn't be the 2001-2002 Big South Conference player of the year and a two-time league tournament MVP. He wouldn't have had the chance to show off his basketball talents against the likes of Clemson, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio State, North Carolina, Maryland and Missouri.

He wouldn't be preparing to lead his team into Thursday's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament against defending national champion Duke.

"I'd probably be working and playing rec league," Lewis said recently. "I don't know."

He might have even been in jail.

"There really was no man in my life," Lewis said. "My mother did all she could, but I still was a little wild. I needed somebody I could trust.

"I always wanted to go to college, play basketball and do the right things. I just didn't know how I was going to get there."

Saucier, an ordained minister who has helped hundreds of youngsters like Lewis over the years through his TEAM JAM outreach, showed him the bus.

Showed him the way.

"He's the father figure in my life," said Lewis, who has met his real father just once since his dad left the family 22 years ago. "John's helped me with so many choices and decisions. He's always been there to listen to my problems and help me with them."

Saucier met Lewis through a mutual friend in the mid 1990s. Lewis' story was no different from that of most of the young men Saucier encountered in and around Akron.

Saucier founded TEAM JAM (Jesus, Athletics and Ministry) in 1991 with one objective - using sports to help area youth realize their potential for leadership as positive role models among their peers. To that end, Saucier made plans to involve six seniors, representing four different high schools, in an evangelistic basketball tournament.

Saucier had met the players through his work as a youth pastor and as a counselor at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp. Since that time, over 290 different athletes have participated in the basketball programs.

"The first thing I did was get Greg involved in some of our evangelistic tournaments," Saucier said. "Then I convinced him and his mother that transferring him to Medina First Baptist School would be the first step in the right direction.

"He was playing at Akron East, but he was so far behind academically that he wasn't going to graduate. Greg had the option of working for a GED or going to Medina First Baptist for a fifth year of high school."

Winthrop coach Gregg Marshall calls Saucier "a lifesaver."

"The man has impacted a tremendous amount of lives, but none more dramatically or positively than Greg Lewis," Marshall said. "Greg Lewis wouldn't be in college and have a chance to play basketball at the professional level if it wasn't for John."

Saucier said his first impression of the troubled Akron teen-ager was one of a very polite young man with an engaging personality, but with no idea of where he wanted to go. Saucier felt he could impact Lewis' life just as he had so many others over the years.

It would just take a lot of faith and hard work on both parts. From the get-go, Saucier told Lewis there would be obstacles to face and mountains to climb.

And buses to ride.

Once he arrived at Medina, there was one cultural shock after another. He was the only black kid in the school and had to adhere to a strict dress code. He had to take Bible classes and go to chapel each week.

Saucier is the first to admit he's had to have help from the congregation at Medina First Baptist. In Lewis' case, the people of the church contributed to developing a scholarship fund for tuition, raising money for transportation, providing lunches and dinners and clothing.

The one thread that connects Lewis to other young men Saucier and TEAM JAM have helped over the years is books come before basketball. No on-court average is high enough to keep a student on the team if academics suffer and the discipline code isn't met.

Books, not just baskets, are what Saucier is all about.

"Greg had missed over 180 days in his four years at Akron and had something like an 0.9 GPA," Saucier said. "He really worked hard. He had like a 2.9 GPA when he graduated, and we were all very proud of him."

Despite the dazzling numbers on the court - Lewis averaged 29.6 points and 13 rebounds on the way to earning all-state honors - and his hard work in the classroom, Lewis faced what Saucier called a "very tall mountain" qualifying for a NCAA Division I school.

There was, Saucier said, just too much ground to make up.

Lewis signed with Seward County Community College in Kansas, but lasted just a semester because of differences with the head coach. Again, Saucier was there to help Lewis pick up the pieces of his fragile life and guide him in another direction.

Lewis enrolled at Howard College in Texas and led the Hawks to a 26-6 record in 1999, averaging 17.9 points and 8.0 rebounds.

It was time to move to a Division I school. Lewis wanted to attend South Alabama, but his mother, Brenda, felt uncomfortable about the selection and wouldn't sign the scholarship papers. Saucier agreed.

"Her exact words were," Saucier recalled, ""They did not have his best interest at heart.'''

That opened the door for Marshall, who needed a forward and had one scholarship remaining. Saucier felt Marshall, his coaching staff, Winthrop and Rock Hill would be a perfect fit for Lewis.

But the ride, just like that early-morning bus, hasn't always been perfect.

Like most college students, Lewis has had his share of ups and downs on and off the court. The celebrity status that accompanied his individual basketball exploits and Winthrop's team success the past four years have magnified any bump in the road. Lewis and Saucier talk at least once a week whether or not things are going well.

"He's like most kids, he wants to talk most when things are the darkest," Saucier said. "He faced whatever came up, and he's a better person for it now. I believe his faith and resolve have been strengthened."

Lewis' most publicized on-court problem came this season in Alabama during Winthrop's game with Birmingham-Southern. Lewis and Marshall butted heads in the locker room at halftime with the Eagles losing by double digits. Marshall felt he needed to make a statement to Lewis and the rest of the Eagles.

"To understand Greg Lewis and me, you have to have been there from the start to the finish," Marshall said. "There's been so many conversations with so many degrees of seriousness. At the same time, I'm trying to get him on the right path."

Lewis accepts full responsibility for what happened and said he fully understands why the Winthrop coach told him not to come back to the court for the second half.

"I got a little beside myself and mouthing off a little bit which I shouldn't have, and he did what he was supposed to do," Lewis said. "He did his job. I appreciate that. He brought me back down, and ever since then I've been playing pretty good and we've been on a winning streak.

"We were playing bad, and I kind of felt like he was blaming it all on me, and we went back and forth in the locker room."

When the Eagles returned to the floor, Lewis called Saucier, who was listening to the game via Internet.

"I'm sitting there listening, and all of a sudden here's Greg on the telephone," Saucier said. "I didn't know what was going on. Greg was pretty distraught and wanted me to tell him what to do.

"I said, "Greg, you know what to do.' He needed to be on the bench supporting his team, but he was afraid he might cause a scene. He wasn't going to go, but I told him to give it a try."

Saucier felt that Lewis would probably stay in the locker room without a little on-site "friendly persuasion." Saucier called Dante Booker, a defensive lineman from Auburn University, who he had worked with at TEAM JAM. Booker just happened to be at Bill Battle Coliseum that night to watch Lewis, a close friend.

"You see how God works," Saucier said. "God had arranged for somebody very close to Greg to be at that game. God knew that Greg would need a friend that night. Dante is very imposing person. He's like 6-3, 283 pounds. He walked in and told Greg he could stay in the locker room and face him or go out and face Coach Marshall."

Lewis, who had showered and changed into street clothes, pulled his uniform back and walked back to the bench.

"That's where I think he turned the season around," Marshall said. "He came out with about 12 minutes left and sat on the end of the bench and cheered the team on, and we won.

"When two hard heads butt together, only one can come out of that locker room, and it's going to be me. He understood that. We talked about it later, and we moved on. I've got to make sure that there's one man running the show."

Since then, Lewis has played with more fire and intensity. After a loss to Radford, the Eagles won four straight to close out the regular season, earn a share of the Big South Conference regular-season championship and capture their fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Lewis was named the BSC player of the year and the tournament MVP.

"He's a guy that at times you feel like he's a hot-air balloon, and you have to make sure you have him well grounded," Marshall said after the tournament championship game. "There are other times when you want to let him go sail off into wherever he can take you because he can take you to heights that very few players at this level can.

"When he's grounded and has his head where it needs to be, there's nobody like him in this league."

Some time Wednesday, Lewis will get on another bus, this time with his teammates, and head down I-85 to Greenville for a date with Duke.

You can't blame him if he looks out the window and remembers all those mornings in Akron.

Only this time he knows where he's going.

And where he's been.