www.roanoke.com

BLACKSBURG -- Markus Sailes has been at Virginia Tech for five seasons and has toiled for two head coaches.

He played for a team that wasn't good enough to even make the Big East tournament. Now he's part of a team that appears headed for the NCAA tournament.

Sailes is glad he got to be around for the Hokies' restoration.

"I've been through all the struggles and everything. For my last year to end like this, ... it's a dream come true," said Sailes, whose team will play in an ACC quarterfinal Friday. "[My] first year, it seemed like we [were] a middle-school team with how the crowds were here. ... Now they're ... loud, they're screaming our names. ... It's a big turnaround."

As one of Tech's top reserves this season, Sailes has been part of that turnaround.

He yearns to start, which he did for every game of his sophomore season and for 16 games last year. But he does rank sixth on the 20-10 Hokies in minutes (16 mpg), seeing time at both guard spots and small forward.

"I won't even lie and say I don't want to [start]," he said. "But as long as we're winning and ... I'm contributing and the fans and the coaches and my teammates appreciate it, I'm all right with it."

Sailes is averaging just 2.2 points this year and has never averaged more than 4.9 points in any season at Tech.

He used to feel down about not being the scoring threat he was at Varina High School in Richmond, but he now accepts his role.

"My dad raised me on Magic Johnson -- sharing the ball, team first," Sailes said. "I take joy out of it, just trying to shut down one of the team's best players, bringing energy and finding open guys.

"When things get rough, they bring me in ... to hopefully change the tide of the game. I take a lot of pride in that. ... It's not all about scoring."

Sailes' father and former AAU coach, Michael Sailes, was once a forward at Arkansas State. He made the All-Southland Conference second team in 1982, the same year the first team included McNeese State guard Joe Dumars.

"I was always taught the best player on the floor always made his teammates better," Michael Sailes said. "Magic Johnson to me was the guy that always did that. I kind of saw Markus as being that type of guard."

Sailes was a backup point guard on ex-Hokies coach Ricky Stokes' final Tech team, which went 12-17 in 2002-03. Sailes often called his mother that season because he was depressed with losing and with not playing much.

The following season, Sailes was the starting small forward for coach Seth Greenberg's first team, which not only made the Big East tournament for the first time but beat Rutgers in the first round thanks in part to Sailes' 10 points and seven rebounds.

Sailes played only three games two seasons ago, when he sat out as a medical redshirt because of a fractured leg.

He was only a spectator as Tech finished a surprising fourth in its inaugural ACC season and reaped an NIT bid. But thanks to that redshirt, he is still around this season.

"At the time, I was sad because it was the first year in the ACC and [with Tech] being so good, I wanted to be part of it," Sailes said. "It worked out. ... We're going to make the [NCAA] tournament ... and I'm a part of it."

Last year, Greenberg tried Sailes, A.D. Vassallo and then-Hokie Wynton Witherspoon as the starting small forward. This season, Sailes is a backup again. But Greenberg often uses him in crunch time because he values Sailes' passing and defensive ability.

"It's funny because in high school I rarely played defense," Sailes said with a laugh.

"I just kept practicing [at Tech] ... and I realized it wasn't hard for me."

Sailes isn't a great shooter, but Greenberg likes the fact that he has turned the ball over just 13 times this season. Greenberg considers Sailes his "security blanket" because he knows what he is getting from Sailes whenever he steps on the floor.

"Markus knows the hows and the whys, the whens and the wheres of everything we do," Greenberg said.

"He's got a very high basketball IQ. At times he can be a terrific defender. ... He doesn't try to do things he can't do. ... It's very rare that you get a guy that really understands his role. He really understands his role."

Sailes' other role is to lift his teammates' spirits.

"I can make anybody laugh," he said.

He is the one who cracks jokes in the locker room when Tech trails at halftime. During the game, he will tease a player who did something wrong. He lightens the mood at practice, too.

"When something happens, you can look for a reenactment from Markus -- with a funny twist to it," guard Zabian Dowdell said. "He does all these impersonations of coaches and everybody on the team. Any time Coach says something funny, he's the first to repeat it."

Sailes does hurt opponents at times by driving to the basket.

He had three layups in a win over Virginia in which Dowdell didn't play much because of foul trouble.

"I'm not Allen Iverson or [Michael] Jordan, but I feel like I can score," Sailes said. "If they're sagging off me and basically forcing me to score, then I'm going to make the play.

"I don't see it as disrespect. ... If I was playing defense and I knew my guy wouldn't shoot, I'd sag off him too."

Well, Sailes can at least dream of being a great scorer. He will sometimes tell Dowdell or Gordon before a game that he is going to have a triple-double that night.

"But it never happens," Sailes said with a smile.

Still, he is glad he became a Hokie.

"I wanted to go somewhere where the tradition wasn't already set," he said. "I wanted to be part of changing it around.

"That's something I did accomplish."