After overcoming tragedy and adversity in his past, freshman Tyrone Lewis is flourishing at Niagara

	Freshman Tyrone Lewis has been a rock for Niagara, leading the Purple Eagles to the MAAC title and into the NCAA tournament. AP

By Joseph Santoliquito, Special to SI.com

Every time Tyrone Lewis stopped walking, they stopped. Every step he took, they took with him. The uniformed police officers escorting him at a mid-January game between Niagara and Rider tried to be discreet, but the scene still reminded the 6-foot freshman guard of his painful ordeal last summer, when he grabbed national headlines.

In June 2006, Bristol Township (Pa.) police and Truman High officials, fearing Lewis' life and others might be in danger if he attended his graduation in the wake of a gang-related shooting involving his sister, asked him not to attend the event. Instead, Lewis, the senior class president and a standout athlete, delivered his commencement address via closed-circuit television in a barren meeting hall decorated in black-and-gold cray paper.

He was later featured in a segment on Good Morning America. And what the cameras didn't catch was Lewis crying on the shoulder of his mother, Marlene, after he had put on his cap and gown in an empty hallway. "Mom, why is this happening to me?" he asked between sobs. "That was the saddest point for both of us," Marlene said.

The game at Rider, barely a 20-minute drive from Marlene's Levittown, Pa., home, was supposed to a homecoming of sorts, with mom looking forward to seeing her son play live in a college basketball game for the first time. Close to 50 of Lewis' family and friends would be in the stands. But it started out as a sad reminder to his past.

Credit Lewis for not letting his anger take over and for not letting the situation pull him down. He scored what was then a career-high 23 points in leading the Purple Eagles to an 80-79 victory that day. Afterwards he hugged his mother in the stands, hugged his family and friends and later got back on the team bus, again walking in unison with his police escort.

He finished the regular season with a 12.3 scoring average, reaching double figures in 18 of 26 games while helping Niagara land its second NCAA tournament berth in three years. On Tuesday night in the preliminary round game against Florida A&M in Dayton, Ohio, Lewis scored 12 points in Niagara's 77-69 victory, the Purple Eagles' (23-11) 11th straight. For Lewis, being a part of the NCAA tournament carries extra meaning because playing basketball is a blessing. It's what saved him, kept him going.

Listed at 6-feet, though actually closer to 5-10, Lewis is undersized by Division I standards, a shooting guard in a point guard's body. He received mild interest coming out of Truman High from local Philadelphia schools, like Drexel. But Truman basketball coach Mike Stock had played at LaSalle University when Niagara head coach Joe Mihalich was an assistant there. The connection drew Mihalich to see Lewis play, and he was quickly sold on his skills.

"Tyrone will do something in practice and I'll look at one of my assistant coaches and say, 'How did he do that?'" Mihalich said. "It's the kind of play that only he can make, because of his quickness, his toughness and his anticipation."

Lewis played his best during the most crucial time this season for Niagara. He averaged 14.6 points over the team's last five games and won MVP honors at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament after scoring a combined 47 points in the Purple Eagles' final two tourney victories.

Watching Lewis play basketball, it's easy to forget the long road he's traveled to get here. It was less than a year ago that many wondered whether he would ever make it to college."