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GREENSBORO — How do you build a winner?

The one-word answer is the same at every level of college basketball.

Recruiting.

Plain and simple. Because at every level, no matter how good the coach, no matter who's on the schedule, no matter what style of play, winners all have one thing in common: Great players, like the guys who wear Guilford College's crimson and gray uniforms.

The No. 3 Quakers (30-2) will play in their second consecutive NCAA Division III Final Four in Salem, Va. They face No. 2 Williams College (29-1) of Massachusetts at 5 p.m. today.

Guilford is 104-18 over the last four seasons. That's the best winning percentage (.852) of any four-year men's basketball program in North Carolina, regardless of division.

Where did tiny Guilford get the players to do that?

Homegrown

The Quakers didn't look far — 17 of Guilford's 22 players are from North Carolina.

"There's so much talent in the state," said Matt Parke, Guilford's associate head coach and recruiting coordinator. "We don't really go farther than three (hours away)."

Guilford's top four scorers are seniors Tyler Sanborn, Clay Henson and Rhett Bonner and freshman Josh Pittman. The homes of all four North Carolinians are within a two-hour drive of campus.

In six years at Guilford, Parke has never flown to see a recruit.

"It's a lot of travel, but it's not nearly what it would be for a Division I (recruiter)," Parke said. "I've taken trips to the coast, to Virginia and up into West Virginia. But they're all day trips."

The right fit

Believe it or not, basketball talent isn't the first thing Parke or head coach Tom Palombo look for in a player.

They start off the court.

"It's a lot harder to find a good kid than it is to find a good basketball player," Parke said. "Honestly, we look at basketball talent as secondary. Maybe not even second. Maybe fourth or fifth. We look at character No. 1 and work ethic No. 2 and academics No. 3."

Palombo, who gave up his role as primary recruiter three years ago when he was named Guilford's athletics director, said getting the team chemistry right is vital.

"If you have people who don't buy into what you're doing, it doesn't matter how good they are," Palombo said. "It's going to tear your program apart. That's why we don't always take the best player."

Parke does a lot of his recruiting in the spring and summer, at AAU tournaments and other showcase events. What he's looking for is often rare in that brand of basketball.

"We're looking for kids who aren't selfish, who aren't ball-hogs," Parke said. "We're looking for kids who don't want the limelight, but who play good team basketball."

One deficiency

The 449 NCAA Division III schools live by different rules than the Division I teams on TV from November through March. In Division III, there are no sports scholarships.

If a player at Guilford gets financial aid, it's need-based or an academic scholarship.

The NCAA monitors financial aid to keep the playing field level. Each Division III school must report how much money it gives to athletes and how much to students who don't play sports.

Eric Hartung, an NCAA research director, told U.S. News and World Report last year that 21 percent of the students at Division III schools are athletes, and they receive 22 percent of all scholarship money.

"Finding a good fit for Guilford is difficult," Parke said. "Roy Williams has the problem that he has to find players talented enough to play for North Carolina. We need to find players who are talented enough for Guilford, but not too talented.

"We need to find kids who usually have one deficiency in their game," Parke added. "Everything else is great, except that one thing that keeps them out of Division I. Maybe they're not tall enough or strong enough. ... There's one thing that's missing in their game, and that's why they fall to Division III."

Projects

The truth is, Division I coaches don't take a lot of risks when offering scholarships.

"That's the good and bad of the scholarship," Palombo said. "The good thing is you have scholarships to give. The bad thing is if you give one to somebody who doesn't work out, your hands are tied."

With no scholarships to fret over and a junior varsity team that plays 14 games, Guilford will recruit players who are projects.

"We've got a 6-9 kid who doesn't play, a 6-10 kid who doesn't play," Palombo said. "But we've got a 6-10 kid, Tyler Sanborn, who does play. Those other two guys, we'll take a chance on them and hope they're going to develop like Tyler and (2007 national player of the year) Ben Strong did. But even if they don't, they're great kids. And none of our kids cost us a scholarship, so it doesn't mean we can't recruit another 6-10 kid if we see one this summer. That's the advantage we have."

Sanborn is the ultimate project. He was 6-8 and a doughy 280 pounds as a high school senior in Elkin, Palombo said. Four years later, he's 6-10 and a muscular 260 pounds.

Palombo saw potential when he met Sanborn. He saw past the big body. He saw a nice kid who yearned to get better.

So he recruited a winner.

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com