Bellbrook graduation 2012
Fairfield Senior 2012 graduation
Kroger Aquatic Center opens
Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > February
February 2009
blog: Flyers Look Their Best in Win
As a portfolio stuffer for NCAA Tournament consideration, the Dayton Flyers 70-65 victory over Temple Saturday at UD Arena was huge.
Except for a bit of a lull for a few minutes than began around the 6:00 mark, this was as good as I’ve seen this team look this season. The official bracket builders saw it too and a quality performance late in the season goes a long way to erasing a few of the stumbles you’ve had along the way.
Before last year’s Temple game, Flyer walk-on Dan Fox — at the prompting of a coach — stood before the team and gave it a from-the-heart pep talk in hopes of rousing it from two straight losses.
It worked. UD defeated the Owls, 77-66.
Though the Flyers again were coming off two losses, Fox said before Saturday game that no repeat speech was needed:
“We’re a lot different team than last year. We’re gonna come at you every game no matter what. There’s more energy, a lot more camaraderie. We truly believe in each other.
The kid knows his team.
The game opened with five different Flyers — Marcus Johnson, Stephen Thomas. Paul Williams, Chris Johnson and Mickey Perry — draining three pointers.
After that — along with the team’s harassing defense and a superiority on the boards — the Flyers two stars took over.
Chris Wright scored 10 straight points in the middle of the game to break the contest open and finished with 20, including an assortment of dunks and even some jump shots.
At the same time, Marcus Johnson was giving another all-around performance. He ended with 14 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
I’m not sure who the MVP of this team is at this point — probably Wright, though Johnson is just as worthy — but I will bet this. Those two guys don’t care.
Like Fox said, this is a true team.
A team that is now 24-5 and had it’s head coach singing their praises afterward.
“I’m really proud of our guys,” coach Brian Gregory said. “The last five games they’ve poured their guts out on the court evey single game. We won three of them, lost two, but if you’re just worried about wins and losses, you’re missing a pretty good group of guys and what they’re all about.
“After losing those two games (at St. Louis last Saturday and Rhode Island on Wednesday) people were worrying that the sky was falling. But these guys didn’t worry about anything. They’re just worried about the next game….They lay it all on the line. It’s as courageous a group as I’ve been around.
“The energy and passion that these guys play with is really fun to be around. We’ve played that way all year long and won 24 games.”
And if they continue to play the way they did Saturday, it’s going to make these next few weeks fun to watch for Flyers fans.
Tweetblog: At WSU — Cream Rises to the Top
Here are three quick thoughts on Wright State basketball:
1 — I agree with Bill Coen, the Northeastern University coach who had high praise for his Raiders’ counterpart Brad Brownell when their two teams met last Saturday:
“Brad’s one of the brightest coaches in country. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, his program and the way he does things. I’ve come to know himfairly well from being on the road and recruiting circles with him and as good as he is as a coach, he’s even a better human being.”
Even with a rugged 0-6 start this year — and some of that was due to injury and formidable opposition — Brownell has done a masterful coaching job with an ever-dwindling pool of players.
Since that stumble out of the gate, the team has gone 17-6, even though it lost its leading scorer and top defender in Vaughn Duggins after four games with a season-ending broken finger and now has lost his replacement, John David Gardner — who had become the heart and soul of he team — to injury for the last nine games. And Thursday night, the Raiders also played — and won — without two of their big men. Senior Gavin Horne was hurt and Kyle Pressley quit the team.
It’s like playing solitaire with about two thirds of the deck and yet Brownell keeps the game alive. With an upset of Green Bay Saturday night and a couple of wins in the Horizon League Tournament he’d have his third 20-victory season since coming to WSU three years ago.
2 — Todd Brown has proved the old adage — cream always rises to the top — to be true. After starting the season in a woeful shooting slump — 1 for 9 from the floor against Central Michigan, 0 for 5 against Miami, 1 for 5 against Sam Houston, 1 for 7 against Green Bay, 0 for 8 against Toledo — he’s become the team’s most consistent scorer and is a definite All League player. He’s hit double figures in 17 of the last 18 games.
When Brown was struggling one guy who stepped up in his defense was senior Will Graham:
“We talk to him, tell him to keep his head up, but you don’t want to be his conscious, you don’t want to tell him when to shoot and when not to. He’ll figure it out on his own, he’ll find his jumper and he’ll be just fine.”
And that’s exactly what has happened. In scoring 21 points Thursday against Milwaukee, Brown became the 27th player in WSU history to hit the 1,000 point career mark.
3 — And that brings me to Graham. Saturday is Senior Night. It will be his last regular season game at the Nutter Center and I hate to see him leave.
Every Raider fan remembers one of his greatest moments at WSU. Against Butler in the title game of Horizon League Tournament two seasons ago, he hit four free throws in the final 11.6 seconds to help seal the WSU upset and send the Raiders to the NCAA Tournament.
But that’s not what I’ll remember about him. I’ve covered the Raiders for two decades now and he is one of the most personable, most delightful players I’ve ever dealt with at WSU.
Other people see it too. That’s why after his Nutter Center victory over Wright State this year, Valparaiso coach Homer Drew sought out one Raiders player for a sincere post-game chat.
He put his arm around Will Graham and told him how much he thought of him.
Once again, cream had risen to the top.
Tweetblog: War Dead Coffins May Be Photographed
An 18-year ban on photographing the flag-draped coffins of U.S. troops returning from war has been lifted — with the blessing of one leading military families’ group — by a new Pentagon policy announced Thursday.
As reported by the Associated Press, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has decided to allow news organizations to photograph the caskets at Dover Air Force Base, Del….IF AND ONLY IF the families of those fallen troops agree. Each case will be decided by the family.
The current ban was put in place in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush and was enforced without exception during the administration of Pres. George W. Bush.
Gates said he originally asked for the ban to be reevaluated last year, but was told then that families might feel uncomfortable with opening the homecomings to media.
Those who supported the lifting of the ban pointed to two reasons. Some families wanted their fallen soldier celebrated in death as well as life. Other people thought the American public should see first hand the sobering costs of war.
Shortly after President Barack Obama took office, Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and John Kerry of Massachusetts asked the White House to roll back the ban.
John Ellsworth, who lost a son in Iraq in 2004 and is president of Military Families United, told the Washington Post that the survivors should be able to make the decision on whether the coffins should be photographed:
“We don’t necessarily think it should be banned. I think they could modify it to give a little latitude to the families,. Some people want to celebrate the lives of their fallen and share their fallen hero with the American people, while others want to hold them a little closer to the vest and keep it private. We should respect that.
“It shouldn’t be up to the government to hide these images from the public. But at the same time, I don’t know that we can allow the press to overstep the bounds of good taste in some of these instances.”
Tweetblog: Watching the Bears for $28,000
Here’s a story coming out of Chicago.
Wayne Burdick is a big Bears fan and on the first weekend of November last football season, he was scheduled to depart on a Caribbean cruise from the Port of Miami.
The Bears were playing the Detroit Lions that Sunday and with a few hours to kill before the ship left the dock, he set up his laptop, stuck in his AT&T wireless card, clicked on his Slingbox connection and watched the game via the internet.
After the Bears had won, 27-23, he shut off the computer and left on his cruise. When he got home, he was hit with a bill from AT&T for $28,067.31
AT&T charged him the international rate which is two cents per kilobyte.
After arguing his case to several people at the company, he got the charge reduced to $6,000. Still exasperated, he called The Chicago Sun Times trouble shooter — Team Fixer.
The paper put some heat on the phone company, which — saying Burdick’s computer had picked up a wrong signal — agreed to settle for $290.63
The Sun Times’ Stephanie Zimmerman first reported this and then it showed up in a Yahoo sports column, where one respondent insinuated that, even at $28K, Burdick got a better deal than the Bears did when they made our own Curtis Enis from Mississinawa High, a multi-million dollar first round draft pick, several years back.
Tweetblog: Hammer Time and the UD Flyers
A couple of days ago, as he began preparations for tonight’s game with Rhode Island, Brian Gregory admitted that in Saint Louis last Saturday night — where his Dayton Flyers were upset by the Billikens, 57-49 — his team “didn’t get a very good whistle…
“With nine minutes left in the first half, I’ve got three starters on the bench with two fouls. Chris Wright played just over two minutes and already had two fouls.”
Were the Flyers just hacking a lot? Was it just a case of of the home team always seems to fare a little better when it comes to the transgressions referees see? When Dayton lost to UMass last month, it was called for 27 fouls while the hosts had just 10. In the loss at Charlotte, UD had 25 fouls, nine more than the home team.
Of course, that’s the case at UD Arena, too. Take the Fordham game, which UD won by one point. The Rams were whistled for 25 fouls, Dayton 19.
But last Saturday night was there something else in play as well? Were the refs feeling some extra scrutiny?
The Saturday prior, Saint Louis had played at Rhode Island without head coach Rick Majerus on the bench,. He had skipped the game to be with his girlfriend. who had been injured in an auto accident. In his absence, assistant coach Porter Moser ran the team.
Saint Louis lost 69-61. In the game 21 fouls were called on the Billikens, just seven on Rhode Island.
In a league conference call with media members two days later, Majerus, who by then had watched replays of the game, was critical of the officiating trio of Joe DeMayo, Frank Scaliotta and Jackie Sanders.
“I was disappointed with the officiating,” Majerus said, “and anyone will tell you in any league I’ve ever worked, I very rarely, if ever, address the officials. … However, the foul count was 21-7. In no way do I mean to detract from Rhode Island’s performance. Rhode Island played well and deserved to win. But in my absence, I think the respect and equity of refereeing, relative to fairness to both sides, was absent.
“I think sometimes, subliminally or psychologically, it’s easy for officials to look upon someone (like Moser) who’s there on a one-game basis and doesn’t have a hammer of sorts and not afford the respect to the team and coach, as opposed to had I been there.”
So Saturday night — as Saint Louis hosted the Flyers — sitting courtside was Joe Satalin, the coordinator of men’s basketball officials in the Atlantic 10 Conference. He had flown out from New York — bypassing five other conference games on the way — to see what was up in Saint Louis.
Was it to keep an eye on Majerus? Reassure Majerus? Did the officials feel any pressure after Majerus’ criticisms, especially with their boss now sitting just a few feet away as they worked?
By game’s end, UD was whistled for 25 fouls and Saint Louis 16.
Did the Billikens have, as Majerus put it, the benefit of the “hammer” and, as such, where afforded special “respect.”
With a smile, all Gregory would say is “You know what, in this profession Rick has earned that right.”
Was the foul discrepancy the reason UD lost? No, a few other recurring ills showed themselves again. And with Chris Johnson and Rob Lowery sidelined for the game, the Flyers were short-handed.
And as the games go by now, Lowery’s loss to this team is going to become more and more evident. Beneath all the braids and smiles, he gave this team, as Gregory put it, “a toughness on the court and in the dressing room.”
And so once again Rhose Island gets a break. They gotr Saint Louis without Majeris. tonight they get Dayton without Lowery.
Althopugh he’s half ther size of the Billikens coach, the Flyers junior guard was a hammer in his own right.
Tweetblog: Murdoch Apologizes For Chimp Cartoon
New York Post owner Rupert Murdoch offered his mea culpas this morning for last week’s editorial cartoon that ran in his paper and many saw as likening a violent chimp shot to death by police to President Barack Obama.
In an apology in today’s Post. Murdoch wrote:
“Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.
“Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused.”
One of the many people who took issue with the cartoon was R&B singer John Legend, the six-time Grammy winner from Springfield. In a letter to the Post editor, Legend wrote:
“Did it occur to you that this suggestion would imply a connection between President Barack Obama and the deranged chimpanzee? Did it occur to you that our President has been receiving death threats since early in his candidacy?” writes the 30-year-old singer. “Did it occur to you that blacks have historically been compared to various apes as a away of insult and mockery? Did you intend to invoke these painful themes when you printed the cartoon?”
Although Murdoch said the cartoon was meant to “mock a badly written piece of legislation”— and not be “racist” — he said the Post will try to be more sensitive.
An example of the Post’s sensitivity showed in its actual coverage of the dead chimp and the woman who owned him. One tasteful article was headlined” “IT’S ANIMAL ATTRACTION — Weird Jungle Love Behind Chimp Tragedy.”
As for the Sean Delonas cartoon published last Wednesday — and playing off the news of a Connecticut chimpanzee shot dead by police — the cartoon showed a chimp with three bullet holes in him and his tongue hanging out as he lay in a pool of blood. Two cops, guns drawn, stood over him. One said to the other: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
Although Obama didn’t write the bill, he promoted it, signed it and is the face of the legislation.
Protestors — including New York Senator Eric Adams and NAACP president Todd Jealous — picketed the Post last week. The Rev. Al Sharpton is pushing the Federal Communications Commission to review policies that permit News Corp. — which owns the Post — to control multiple media outlets in the same area.
Legend had said he was personally boycotting the paper and called on colleagues in the entertainment business and advertisers to follow suit.
“You should print an apology in your paper acknowledging that this cartoon was ignorant, offensive and racist and should not have been printed,” he wrote. “Please feel free to criticize and honestly evaluate our new President, but do so without the incendiary images and rhetoric.”
Tweetblog: Brian Gregory’s E-mails
Although the Dayton Flyers are 23-4, have quality wins against Marquette and Xavier and are 7-1 against Top 100 teams, some folks only are focused on Saturday’s loss to Saint Louis, Monday’s fall from the AP Top 25 Poll and the three tough games — beginning Wednesday at Rhode Island — ahead.
The Flyers’ making the NCAA Tournament is the fodder of internet forums, radio call-in shows, water cooler debate and even some emails to coach Brian Gregory.
We talked about some of them Monday before the Flyers practice.
“One guy sent the Four Steps of Great Free Throw Shooting,” he said. “Others send suggestions on who should be playing. Another guy talked about how our guys weren’t mentally tough enough to make free throws.
“My suggestion back was: ‘So you’re saying Shaquille O’Neal and Wilt Chamberlain — two of the worst free throw shooters in history — weren’t mentally tough?’”
He said he understands the great interest and fan support his team has and said he does have any problem with the suggestions he gets. At least most of them. Every once in a while somebody goes overboard.
“Mostly though people are great. Not to be glib, but when we came up with the theme this year — Your Team, Your Town — there’s a connection.
“This town is going through some tough times and the way people always do here, they’re rolling up their sleeves and figuring a way to work through it. That’s how our guys are, too. People appreciate hard work and our guys are busting their butts when they play. And more often than not that pays off.”
Tweetblog: Will Flyers Fans end up in a Vicodin Haze?
So does Rob Lowery know what he’s talking about or not?
Last week — as the out-for-the-season-with-injury point guard and I were talking at the Frericks Center before one of his academic study sessions — he made this point early in the conversation and then came back to it a second time:
“We’re going to the (NCAA) Tournament, I can just feel it. This isn’t gonna be last year again: Beating Louisville and Pitt, being 14th in the country and then it slips away.
“This team’s got a lot tighter hold on it. People are not gonna let it slip away twice…..I know this team has a chance to do great things here.”
Then again, as he sat there talking, his bottle of Vicodin was on the table right in front of him.
He’d been prescribed that for the pain from his knee surgery six days prior. As for the pain that has come since his pronouncement, well that has some in the Flyers’ nation sounding a bit anxious.
— Three days after Lowery’s “no slip” pledge, the Flyers get upended in Saint Louis in a game where Lowery’s absence was a key factor. He’s at least a threat to score from the outside and that way defenses can’t pack it in on the Flyers whose half-court game is not its strong suit. Plus he always seemed to come up biggest in big games. He was the leading scorer against Marquette and George Mason and the tight contest at Duquesne. Even in two of the losses — Creighton and U-Mass — he held up his end of the bargain and led the team in scoring.
— Today the Flyers — just a week after they cracked the Top 25 — will certainly be dropped from the list. As long as they remember what Charles Little said last week when he learned they had earned the distinction — “it’s not that big of deal, it’s only a number and the only number that matters to me is where we’re seeded on Selection Sunday,” — they’ll be fine.
So how do they get a Selection Sunday number?
While they’ll be hard pressed to beat either Rhode Island or Xavier on the road, I think they handle Temple and Duquesne at home. Win just one in the A-10 Tournament and I think they are just fine.
Even though that would mean they had lost four of their last seven and their strength of schedule (as of Monday) was 124, they’d be 26-7, have key wins over Marquette, Xavier and Temple, would be at least 9-3 against Top 100 teams (they are 7-1 Monday) and would have created enough of a buzz during the season to sway the bracket builders.
But should the Flyers lose the two road games AND to Temple — say the Arena does have a Christmas in February celebration, say the A-10s leading scorer Dionte Christmas goes go off for the Owls — well Lowery better start doling out those Vikes to the Faithful.
Tweetblog: Mickey Rourke & Top 12 Sports Movies
I figure Sean Penn wins tonight’s Oscar for Best Actor. His portrayal of murdered San Francisco gay rights activist Harvey Milk is pretty memorizing.
But the guy I want to win is Mickey Rourke.
He nailed the role of the faded, broken down wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler. Maybe it was because he understands the game, or at least wrestling’s more legit cousin, the fight game.
He’s hung around boxing much of his life and I can remember seeing him at Miami Beach’s famed Fifth Street Gym in the the 1980s when I was a regular there myself.
But I suspect he really pinned this part because he was pretty much playing himself. After some fine performances in the 1980s in Rumble Fish, 9 1/2 Weeks and Angel Heart — when some dubbed him the next Marlon Brando — his life became a train wreck.
He made some terrible career decisions — he turned down lead roles in Rain Man and Beverly Hills Cop — had a tumultuous, sometimes violent, love life, messed himself up with too much plastic surgery and for a while became a paranoid hermit who wouldn’t leave his house.
All that only adds texture to his portrayal of The Ram.
I always liked the guy — especially in the bad times because I pulled for him all the more — and now I want him to get this Oscar. Plus he loves his dogs and that tells you something about a person.
I covered pro wrestling for several years in Miami and this movie is right on the mark. I’d put it in my all time Top Twelve sports movies.
As for that Top Twelve list, I have to make an admission: I don’t like Kevin Costner, so I was going to exclude both Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. I know that’s wrong, so I did go with one of them.
My Top Twelve:
1 — Raging Bull
2 — Rocky
3 — Hoosiers
4 — Slap Shot
5 — The Hustler
6 — Bull Durham
7 — The Wrestler
8 — Caddyshack
9 — Hoop Dreams
10 — When We Were Kings
11 — The Natural
12 — North Dallas Forty
Tweetblog — OSU lineman: “I’m older than I act.”
As Ricky Ricardo used to tell Lucy: “You got some ‘splainin’ to do.”
At the NFL Combine this week in Indianapolis, Alex Boone, the former Ohio State left tackle who has massive size — and mounting concern from pro teams thinking about drafting him — has found himself explaining his recent actions as much as showing off his skills.
On Super Bowl Sunday, California police zapped the 6-foot-8, 328- pound former Buckeye twice with a stun gun and finally arrested him because they said he was jumping on car hoods and tried to knock out a tow truck windshield.
Not only was it bad timing for a guy trying to get drafted, but it raised real red flags when you add it on to his other alcohol transgressions and his claims to the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he first started drinking in the eighth grade.
Over the years he’s also claimed he sometimes drank 30 or 40 beers a day — probably braggadocios overstatement — but it made you wonder about him.
Now — with his draft status has been damaged — he’s trying to defuse the concern to anyone who will listen in Indianapolis.
“Is it going to happen again? No, no sir,” he told Joe Lapointe of the New York Times. “Absolutely not. I’m getting help for it. I made a big mistake that I regret. I hope it doesn’t hurt me too much.
“And maybe this lesson has proven to me that I just can’t ever do it. That’s one of those things me and the counselor talk about now. Right now it’s a day by day battle.”
“I really have to prove to people that I’m older than I act.”
Tweetblog: “Once a Flyer, always a Flyer.”
Brian Gregory’s first recruiting class was heralded as the cornerstone of his rebuilding plan for Dayton Flyers basketball.
While the group that debuted five seasons ago experienced mixed results — two stayed, three transferred — all still play basketball.
Brian Roberts — who became the Flyers fourth all-time soccer —plays professionally in Israel and Jimmie Binnie, the other four-year Flyer, is a pro in Denmark.
Departee Norman Plummer iplays in Kuwait and Trent Meacham, who transferred to Illinois, is the Illini’s point guard.
The most beloved player of the bunch his first two years here was Chris Alvarez, the 6-foot-8 forward from Miami, Fla. While he stunned many when he transferred to Northeastern University after his sophomore season, he’s back in town today, Feb. 21, as his team takes on Wright State in a nationally -televised BracketBuster game at the Nutter Center.
And though Alvarez — who I write about in Saturday’s newspaper — has been gone three years, there’s still a bond here. As his mom Nancy put it: “Once a Flyer, always a Flyer.”
Proof of that comes in many ways.
Alvarez and UD star Chris Wright correspond regularly. Some Flyers fans have said they are coming to cheer him on today.
And down in Miami, Nancy said she’s been tempted several times to call into UD’s postgame radio show — Flyer Feedback — the way she used to do: “I wanted to say hello, but I’m too nervous. I don’t know what they’d tell me.”
Most would say they miss her son.
With him it’s true:
Once a Flyer, always a Flyer.
Tweetblog: UD campus embraces Rob Lowery
They did all they could to shoulder some of his pain.
Teammates escorted him to class. Workers in the Kennedy Union snack bar came out to talk when he passed. A guy working at the United Way table asked how he was doing. A woman on the elevator told him a prayer chain had been started for him.
University of Dayton president Dan Curran met him outside a classroom. Baseball coach Tony Vittorio sent a message telling him how much he thought of him and one girl signed his cast with a tongue-in-cheek “break a leg.”
Rob Lowery was back on the UD campus Thursday, Feb. 19, for just the second day since he had surgery eight days ago to repair a torn patella tendon in his right knee. The junior point guard suffered the injury in the Flyers rousing victory over Xavier the night before.
“We all feel for one of our brothers,” center Devin Searcy said as he and teammates Marcus Johnson and Chris Wright walked with Lowery from a class in the Humanities building. “Even though I haven’t felt exactly what he’s feeling, I can empathize and give him as much help as I can.”
And right now Lowery can use that help.
As the Flyers — 23-3 and now ranked No. 25 — are soaring, he’s hobbling on crutches and wrestling with his emotions:
“I been waking up in the middle of the night, it’s pitch dark out and I just start crying and cant’ stop. It’s just hard knowing you helped your team become what they are and all of a sudden, just when our dreams are starting to come true, mine got yanked away in the snap of a finger.
“That’s the hard part. I know this team has a chance to do great things here. We’re going to the (NCAA) Tournament, I can feel it.
“This isn’t gonna be last year again: Beating Louisville and Pitt, being 14th in the country and then it slips away. This team’s got a lot tighter hold on it. People are not gonna let it slip away twice.”
These Flyers are a better team than last year and some of it is thanks to him. Sharing the point guard position with London Warren, he was third on the team in scoring (7.5 p.p.g.), second in assists, fourth in steals and No. 1 in cheerleading his new teammates, a trait that made him a favorite of everyone.
And that’s why so many reached out to him Thursday.
Tweetblog: New York Post’s Offensive Cartoon
The New York Post always goes for sensation, for outrage, for humor on its covers and more than not it hits mark.
But on page 12 of today’s paper, the cartoon by Sean Delonas is nothing but offensive.
Playing off the news of the day — the pet chimpanzee that had to be shot dead after it mauled the woman friend of its owner — the cartoon shows two cops, one with his gun drawn, standing over a dead chimp.
As the one cop looks down at the animal that’s lying in a pool of blood with three bullet holes in him and his tongue hanging out, he says:
“They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
Rush Limbaugh saying he hopes President Barack Obama fails is one thing, but this is another.
The way I read it, it’s flat out racist.
View the cartoon for yourself.
Maybe they’ll try to say it means something else — that everyone interprets things differently — but the newspaper is already drawing protesters to its offices and it should.
This story will continue to grow as the day goes on.
Tweetblog: Flyers Ranked No. 25 in Nation
The Dayton Flyers are ranked 25th in the latest Associated Press college basketball poll that was released this afternoon. The last time the Flyers — who are currently 23-3 and tied for the lead in the Atlantic 10 Conference with a 9-2 record — were in the Top 25 was the last week of January in 2008. They were ranked 16th, but then lost to Xavier.
UD was 31st in the AP poll released last Monday, but then upset No. 14 Xavier 71-48 on Wednesday and beat Richmond, 69-63 this past Saturday. The 23 victories through 26 games has matched the best start ever by a UD team. This is the first time the Flyers have been ranked in the month of February in six years,
“It’s a nice recognition and it means a little more when you finally do it than when you just talk about it for a couple of weeks,” UD coach Brian Gregory said before Monday’s practice. “And it’s great for the program. It’s the second consecutive year that we’ve cracked the Top 25. When you are looking at the type program you want to be, those are some of the numbers, some of the things, you want to accomplish.
“With 23 wins, with some of the teams we’ve beaten and obviously with the really quality week last week, I’m pleased for our guys…. So we’ll enjoy it now for a couple of minutes and then we’ll get back to practice.”
Like most of the players, Chris Wright had no idea of the national ranking — it was released by AP just about the time players were driving to the Arena from campus — until he was informed when he walked into the Donoher Center:
“Being in the Top 25, it’s something to be proud of, but you’ve also got to understand there’s still games to be played. I’m a sole believer that you can’t settle, you can’t be complacent, because if you are, you lose sight of what’s ahead.”
Center Kurt Huelsman had similar thoughts:
“It’s an honor for any team to be in the Top 25 — it’s a great accomplishment. I was talking to somebody just before and I heard ‘em say, ‘There’s only one way to go when you’re on top.’ I’m not saying we’re No. 1, but now we have recognition and I know it becomes a lot tougher to stay up there.
“I know it kind of puts a target on you and people will try to prove themselves against you. But we’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
Senior Charles Little said he knows the ante has now been raised, but he didn’t flinch:
“Us being in first place in the league — and now with a national ranking — that will fire teams up when they play us. I’m sure it will put a target on our backs, but we’re not gonna change one bit.
“We’re still going to be the hunters, not the hunted.”
Tweetblog: Dayton’s Dream Week — UD, Daequan, Hockey Arena
If you are a fan of this city — and especially the Dayton sports scene — the past seven days have been beyond-your-dreams delightful.
The area finally thaws out, the last of the snow melts off and what do we see?
Three invigorating bolts out of the blue….and then some well-earned national recognition:
1 — Tuesday, Dayton Bombers owner Costa Papista finally makes public his proposal to build a two-rink, multi-purpose ice arena right in the heart of downtown Dayton — on the site of Dave Hall Plaza.
Far more than just a home for the pro hockey club, it would have the hard-to-find sheets of ice to accommodate youth, adult and high school hockey teams, figure skating, learn-to-skate programs and it could draw regional youth hockey tournaments to the facility.
There are all the other things, too: how it would provide additional space for the Convention Center, could host other events and how many of the necessities, including parking garages, already are in place.
The bottom line is that — if proper funding is found and that’s not the pipe dream some detractors are trying to make it out to be — it would help revitalize the downtown and bring much of the same excitement to city that the Dayton Dragons do.
In some ways — because you could park your car in one spot and walk to everything — I think it would bring far more traffic to the Downtown/Oregon District restaurants and bars.
2 — Wednesday, the Dayton Flyers dismantle 14th ranked Xavier, 71-58, at a bustin’-at-the-seams-with-joy UD Arena. After six straight losses to its next-door nemesis, UD simply over-whelmed the Muskies.
The Flyers showed their athleticism, deep bench and harassing defense that often forces frustrated opponents into a desperation heave as the shot clock drains off.
Add in Saturday’s victory over Richmond and the 23-3 Flyers were headed for a Top 25 ranking, something they last had just over a year ago when they were ranked No. 16 late in January of 2008. And this team — even without Brian Roberts — is better than that one.
While the NCAA Tournament has been just out of grasp the past few years, the Flyers — barring some kind of monumental flop in the final five games — have their hand on the brass ring this time.
3 — Saturday night in Phoenix, Dunbar High grad Daequan Cook — now a second-year sharpshooter with the Miami Heat — was the surprise winner of the Three Point Shoot-out on the eve of the NBA All Star Game.
Before the competition, some NBA folks questioned if he deserved to be in the field. Although he had made 105 of 256 (.410) three-point attempts this season, he was the youngest Shoot-out contestant (he’d still be just a junior in college) and lacked the experience and star power of the other four guys in the competition.
He had been bypassed for the Rookie Challenge game Saturday between first-year and second-year players and that snub had disappointed him. But when the spotlights went on in the Shoot-out, he showed himself to be a headliner.
Needing to make four of his final shots in the semifinal round to survive, he delivered and then went on to easily defeat Rashard Lewis in the extra period and win the $35,000 check.
In a nod to his Dunbar education, he claimed afterward he’s always been good in math.
“My last two racks (of balls), I was doing the math in my head as I was shooting” he told reporters. “It just shows hard work pays off.”
He dedicated his performance to his mother and Sunday he returned to Dayton to give her the trophy and see his old high school team rally to beat Wayne in overtime in a showdown game at UD Arena. Today Cook returns to Miami.
4 — This afternoon the AP Top 25 Poll will be announced and Dayton will be ranked 25th.
All in all — and that’s not even counting Wright State’s romp over Detroit Saturday night at the Utter Center — that’s’ as good of a seven-day sports span as we’ve had in this town in some time.
Tweetblog: Szczerbiak & Davis — Valentine Treat for Miami fans
OXFORD — It was appropriate that on Valentine’s Day, Devin Davis and Wally Szczerbiak were honored at Miami University.
RedHawks fans loved them when they played basketball here and — as evidenced by the standing ovation they received at halftime of Miami’s 64-46 victory over Western Michigan at Millett Hall Saturday night — they still are.
They came to Oxford from different backgrounds and neither looked or played alike when they were here.
Davis — from a tough inner city neighborhood in Miami Fla. — was all wild, flopping dreadlocks, gold-capped teeth and non-stop effort beneath the basket. Szczerbiak — with his upbringing in the Long Island suburbs — had boyish good looks and one of the sweetest jump shots college basketball has ever scene.
And yet they were very much alike. They ended up two of Miami’s greatest career scorers and each helped take the program to some of its greatest heights ever in the NCAA Tournament.
Today both are still playing professionally. Szczerbiak, a 10 year NBA vet, is a Cleveland Cav and Davis has played professionally for 12 years, most in Spain.
Saturday night the Szczerbiak-led Miami team that made the Sweet Sixteen round of the 1999 NCAA Tournament was honored before the game and at halftime, Szczerbiak and Davis — along with Bill Gunlock (football), Kelly Davis (swimming), Ben Burnau (baseball) Gaby Downey (women’s basketball), and Maarten van den Berg (golf) — were inducted in the Miami Athletics Hall of Fame.
“I got so fired up I wanted to put my uniform on and go out and play,” Davis laughed after the game. “But truthfully this is something I’ll always remember. This place is really special to me.”
Szczerbiak agreed, saying his time at Miami was “probably the best years of my basketball life.’
Tweetblog: Miami Hoops All-Time Starting Five
OXFORD — Today Wally Szczerbiak and Devin Davis will be inducted into the Miami University Athletics Hall of Fame. They will be honored at half-time of the RedHawks game with Western Michigan tonight at Millett Hall.
That got me to thinking who would make my All-Time Starting Five of Miami basketball players. Certainly Szczerbiak and Davis would be on the list, but who else?
Here is my Top 5 and two of them are from Dayton:
Point Guard — Phil Lumpkin…Dayton Roth product….16th all time scorer at Miami…great ball-handler as shown when he led Miami to victory over a pressing North Carolina team laden with future pros.
Two Guard — Wally Szczerbiak…Mid-American Conference Player of the Year in 1999…led team to Sweet Sixteen of NCAA Tournament…first team All-American in 1999…second leading career scorer in Miami history…now with Cleveland Cavs, is in his 10th NBA season.
Forward — Ron Harper…Dayton Kiser product…Miami’s all-time scoring and rebounding leader…second leading scorer in MAC history …two-time MAC player of the year…long NBA career, won five NBA championships, three with the Chicago Bulls and two with Los Angeles Lakers..
Power Forward — Devin Davis…Miami’s third leading scorer and third leading rebounder all time…three-time All MAC first team selection
Center — Wayne Embry….two-time MAC Player of Year…led MAC in scoring and rebounding as junior and senior…Miami’s all-time best rebounding average . …inducted into national Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. …played 11 years in NBA and was 5-time NBA All Star.
As for those who just missed the cut, there are several players including: Fred Foster, Archie Aldridge and Damon Frierson.
Tweetblog: UD’s Stephen Thomas Gets My MVP Vote
Who was the biggest hero of the night in the Dayton Flyers, 71-58, victory over Xavier?
In a vote of court-side media, Chris Wright was chosen the game’s Most Valuable Player and he did put a dramatic exclamation point on night.: a game-high 19 points, six rebounds, three blocked shots and a steal.
And in the showdown of local talents, the Trotwood Madison grad slightly outshined Xavier’s similar high flier, Derrick Brown, from Chaminade Julienne. Brown had 17 points, five rebounds, four assists and one blocked shot. He had no turnovers to Wright’s three.
Seventeen of Wright’s points came in the second half and he was a big reason the overwhelmed Muskies had trouble making up ground. And believe me, on this night Xavier was overwhelmed by UD’s tenacious defense and its hordes of players, 11 of whom played and scored.
And, I can also tell you this: Away from the court, Wright is every bit the embraceable presence he is a game. He’s affable, introspective and sometimes just flat-out funny. When you are a sportswriter looking to write about somebody, he’s the whole package.
But my MVP vote Wednesday night — considering circumstance and rising to the moment more than just stats — goes to little-used sophomore point guard Stephen Thomas.
He saved the day for Dayton.
First starting point guard London Warren picked up two fouls in less than nine minutes and was exiled to the bench. Then, just 90 seconds later, Rob Lowery — the other half of the Flyers’ hyper-kinetic point guard tandem — had a lay-up attempt forcefully blocked and he crumpled to the court with a torn tendon in his right knee.
The team’s third -leading scorer and the effusive No. 1 cheerleader of his teammates’ good deeds, he is lost for the season.
He’ll have surgery Thursday.
“It’s bad,” one team insider said of the knee. “Real bad.”
At that moment, UD held a tentative 18-14 lead.
Over on the bench, Thomas — who hadn’t played in two of the last three games and had seen only one minute’s action in the other — readied himself for the most pressurized moment of his college career.
What made things even tougher for him was that he was still stricken with the flu-like symptoms that kept him from from traveling with the team to Charlotte for last Sunday’s game. He had tried to practice Tuesday but got so dizzy he had to sit out most of the session.
Wednesday night he was sick to his stomach and three times during the game would have to run to the trash can behind the bench and throw up. It was more of the same at halftime said teammates.
“He hadn’t even practiced much the last couple of days because he was sick,” guard Mickey Perry said. “At halftime he looked like he was going to (keel) over. But he gave everything he had tonight… He had too.”
No one knew that more than Thomas himself.
“I’ll admit I was a little nervous,” he said. “I said a prayer to myself — ‘God give me the strength to perform’ — and then I just went in. I didn’t have time to think.”
Nor did he need much time to perform
It took him just 22 seconds to drive and score. Then at the other end of the court, he immediately forced Xavier to turn the ball over. By game’s end he had played 20 minutes and scored five points. Most of all, he had given the Flyers a steady hand out front in their most important game of the season.
Not only did he help the Flyers end the dominating six-game reign of the Musketeers, but team now has favorably positioned itself for selection into the NCAA Tournament. Barring a total collapse in the final six games of the season, they’ll make the tournament for the first time in five years.
That’s why Thomas was every bit the MVP of Wright or anyone else Wednesday night.
After he forced that early turnover, Thomas had thrown his arms skyward and bellowed to the heavens as the rowdy minions of the Red Scare — and soon most of the rest of the amped-up, sold-out crowd of 13,435 — began to chant his name:
“STE-ven THO-mas!…STE-ven THO-mas!”
“That felt good right then,” he said as he stood in a dressing room alcove right after the game, “but this, this feels so much better.”
Then he walked toward his locker, never even glancing at the trash can as he passed.
Tweetblog: Best in college — Tillman over Wright, Brown?
I was having coffee with some guys this morning and the conversation quickly moved to tonight’s Xavier-Dayton game. As they discussed the pros and cons of various players, a debate arose over who is the best college basketball player from the Greater Dayton area right now.
The debate centered around Xavier’s Derrick Brown and Dayton’s Chris Wright — both dynamic players — but finally I said it just may be — and I emphasize may — Ohio University’s Jerome Tillman.
A couple of the guys dissed that idea, but I said the question was who is the best college player right now. Not the highest flier, the guy with the most spectacular alley-oop dunks or swatted shots. Not the guy who will be the best pro.
If you’re going on this season - right now — how can you argue against Tillman? The senior from Beavercreek High almost certainly will be the Mid-American Conference Player of the Year.
The bulky 6-foot-6 forward leads the MAC in scoring at 19 p.p.g. and rebounding 8.8 p.p.g. That makes him one of only three players in the nation to lead his conference in both categories. The other two are Blake Griffin at Oklahoma and Luke Harangody at Notre Dame.
Tillman is one of just five players in the history of OU basketball to be among the program’s all-time top ten scorers and rebounders
Granted OU is just 12-10, but Tillman doesn’t have the supporting cast that Wright or Brown do.
Wright is averaging 12.6 points and 6.7 rebounds for the 21-3 Flyers. Brown — playing against the best talent of the three — is a 13.9 point-6 rebound man for No. 14 Xavier.
After tonight, I ma well think differently on this debate and I’m sure I will when the players move on to the next level. But right now, Tillman may just be the best.
Tweetblog: UD-Xavier — The game within the game
You could call it the game within the game.
When Dayton plays Xavier Wednesday night at UD Arena — especially if you are a fan of prep basketball in this town — you almost certainly will be paying close attention to see how UD’s Chris Wright compares with the Musketeers’ Derrick Brown.
Except for Daequan Cook, the Dunbar product with the Miami Heat — and maybe Jerome Tillman, the Ohio University forward from Beavercreek High who’ll likely be the Mid American Conference Player of the Year — Brown and Wright are the two highest profile basketball players from Greater Dayton right now
Both are 6-foot-8. Wright, a sophomore, is averaging 12.6 points and 6.7 rebounds for the 21-3 Flyers. Brown, a junior, is a 13.9 point-6 rebound man for No. 14 Xavier.
Both are athletically-gifted, high fliers, but right now — thanks, in part, to two extra years of seasoning (including a red-shirt season) — Brown is the slightly better college player.
Both almost certainly will end up in the pros.
Wednesday night — whether they are guarding each other or not — people will be comparing them.
And Wright knows that:
“Since we each grew up in this area and still are around the city, it’s a big game for both of us,” he said. “Right now, people say ‘You from Dayton? From Trotwood? You know Derrick? You know Chris?’ That’s gonna be the type it game it is Wednesday night
“I used to hear about him when I was in middle school and he was in high school. First time I saw him play was against Trotwood and you could see right away how good of a player he was.”
When Brown signed with Xavier, the Musketeer coaches already were recruiting Wright, as well, he said: “Yeah, Xavier recruited me pretty hard. The end of my freshman year in high school Xavier, Dayton and Michigan already were around. They were the first three.”
Although he chose Dayton, Wright said he and Brown have a mutual respect for each other:
“But on the court against each other, we both know, there are no friends.”
Tweetblog: Six things I’ll remember from Wright State, Saturday
After spending much of Saturday at the Nutter Center — taking part in the Wright State Athletic Hall of Fame induction dinner in afternoon and then sitting on press row and watching No. 11 Butler give a thorough 69-51 thumping to the injury-depleted Raiders in the evening — here are six things that struck me.
1 — With 7:49 left in the first half and Wright State already trailing 28-9, the public address man announced that the guys from the Raiders 1983 NCAA Division II national championship team should report to the bottom of Section 222.
I thought maybe they were being called into action and though they really were being assembled for the halftime festivities, Anthony Bias, one of the stars of that ‘83 team, seemed to embrace that idea when I brought it up to him.
He looked at the cream colored suit he was wearing and laughed: “Yeah, maybe we could have just ripped our suits away and our uniforms would have been underneath.”
In their day, the ‘83 Raiders would have more than held their own against Butler. Although a Division II team, they had D-1 talent and went nose to nose with Louisville — which went to the Final Four that season — and trailed by just six with less than two minutes left.
The current Raiders are hurt deeply by the loss of both Vaughn Duggins and now John David Gardner, both heart-and-soul contributors at guard.
Saturday’s night’s Raider guard trio — Troy Tabler, Will Graham and N’Gai Evans — were a combined 0-for-22 from the floor.
2 — The most heart wrenching moments Saturday involved Ralph Underhill, the legendary head coach of the ‘83 team, who is grieving the death of his former wife, Marilyn — whose funeral is today — and is fighting his own kidney disease that will require a transplant.
He broke into tears at the induction ceremony of his ‘83 team when he brought up Marilyn. Then at halftime — when he took the floor to a standing ovation — his two tearful daughters and his two granddaughters joined him as a banner trumpeting his 356 wins at WSU was unfurled from the rafters.
“Afterward it was like trying to get Bruce Springsteen off the stage,” joked WSU assistant athletics director Matt Liddy, who orchestrated the return of the 1983 team. “The game was about ready to start and people — old fans, players, everybody — surrounded him liked he was a rock star.”
3 — At the Hall of Fame ceremony, former associate athletics director Paul Newman also was enshrined, as was former assistant coach Jim Brown, who told a now-funny story about his oldest son Matt, who is now married, has two children and was sitting at a front table along with brother Anthony and his wife.
Brown told how — during that ‘83 tournament run — the WSU team went into Bloomsburg State in Scranton, Pa. and found themselves under fire as soon as they walked in the gym:
“It’s an hour and a half before the game and the gym is already packed and they’re all yelling at us as we walked past on the way to the dressing room.”
Then assistant coach Bob Grote remembered the scene, too: “These are all Iron City guys — Steelers fans — and they were fired up.”
While it would be daunting for any team, it was especially tough for little Matt, who was eight. “We get in the dressing room and Matt — he lived and died with these guys — starts hyper-ventilating,” Brown said. “The doctor had to save him first before we did anything else.”
With Matt okay, the Raiders roughed up Bloomsburg, 73-53.
4 — It was great to see a sell-out crowd of 9,735, the eighth largest crowd in WSU basketball history. It felt like the early ’90s in the arena.
“The reason the Nutter Center is here today is because of that national championship team,” Brown said. “Oh, a smaller arena would be here, but nothing like this.”
5 — I’m glad Scott Grote made some noticeable contributions after a roller coaster season so far. First there was the “horrendous start,” as coach Brad Brownell described it Saturday night, and then there was the two-game suspension in late January.
Saturday night he played with renewed purpose. He led the team with 13 points and eight rebounds. He added two assists and had no turn-overs.
I wondered if it was playing his way out of the doghouse, the hyped game or the audience that included his Uncle Mike, the point guard of the ‘83 team, that spurred him on.
“When it’s the 11th ranked team in the country and a sell-out crowd, everyone wants to show out,” he said. ” Everyone wants to have a good game. And during those two games I was out, I take a lot of responsibility for our loss at Cleveland State. I’m trying to leave it all out on the court now.”
6 - I introduced Jim Brown to the crowd Saturday afternoon and in the evening Anthony Bias shared a story with me about the his old coach:
“I was communicating with him in his office one day and something I said was improper English. He asked me what I’d said and I said the exact same thing and he finally corrected me. So not only was he a good coach, he was great friend and mentor. He was about more than basketball. He corrected my English — got me to speak properly — and that’s something I remember to this day. He made me a better person.”
Tweetblog: Jim Brown finally gets his due at WSU
He was in Tay Ninh, a hellhole three miles from the Cambodian border, a place U.S. soldiers called “Rocket City” because they were under constant mortar attack.
A Graves Registration Officer, his job was to clean up the bodies of American soldiers killed in his corner of Vietnam and often accompany them to Saigon so they could be shipped to the States. Every day, he dealt with death.
Then one day in that fall of 1969, he received a letter bringing new life. It came from John Ross, his old Belmont High School basketball coach, and had an out-of-the-blue proposal.
Ross had been chosen to launch the new basketball program at Wright State, and he wanted Brown to be his assistant coach.
“Right then, that was the furthest thing from my mind,” Brown said. “But I remember writing back and kind of jokingly saying, ‘Yeah, if I make it home from here, I’ll help you.’”
Brown did make it home on Feb. 10, 1970, and a week later he was out recruiting Jimmy Minch and Dave Magil, both of whom became Raiders. And for the next 27 years, he had a hand in recruiting every guy who played for Wright State, first as the top assistant to Ross, Marcus Jackson and his pal Ralph Underhill and then in that 1996-97 season when he served as interim head coach.
Even after he was bypassed for the permanent job and went on to turn Northmont High into a Miami Valley power, he’s stayed committed to Wright State. He still teaches classes at the school, and he and wife, Becky, are regulars at Raiders games.
“Just a great Wright State man,” the 83-year-old Ross said of Brown last year when he made his annual pilgrimage from Florida to a Wright State game with his wife Janet. “He loves this school.”
Today that commitment, that “love” for Wright State will be forever recognized when Brown is inducted in the WSU Hall of Fame, along with former associate athletics director Paul Newman and the Raiders’ 1983 NCAA Division II nation championship basketball team which Brown helped coach.
While all are deserving, no one belongs in the Hall more than Brown, who in one way or anopther has been connected to WSU for the passt 39 years.
“In the beginning we played our games at Stebbins and Xenia High, hauled players around in a minivan and fed them salami and bologna sandwiches in paper bags,” he said.
On game nights, Janet Ross — who also did the team’s laundry — took in tickets, and Brown’s dad kept the score book.
From that came an NCAA Division II national title in 1983 with heasd coach Ralph Underhill, a move to D-I, the school’s first NCAA tournament bid and the knowledge he built the foundation that Brad Brownell and his team continue to build on today.
As he contemplated all this the other day, Jim Brown beamed:
“Answering that letter John Ross sent me was the smartest thing I ever did in my life.”
Tweetblog: Marilyn Underhill dies
Marilyn Mees-Underhill, the former wife of longtime Wright State basketball coach Ralph Underhill and herself a lively sidelines fixture with the Raider basketball program, died Wednesday after an extended battle with cancer. She was 65.
She is survived by daughters Kim Pluess and Melinda Underhill, both WSU grads, two granddaughters and two brothers.
A gathering of family and friends will be held Sunday February 8, from 2-4 p.m. at Tobias Funeral Home on Far Hills Ave. at Rahn Road. A funeral service will follow. Burial will be Monday at 1 p.m. at St. Joseph’s New Cemetery, 4500 Foley Rd. in Cincinnati. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society.
Tweetblog: Homer Drew grabs a Wright State player
FAIRBORN — As soon as the game ended, Homer Drew sought out one Wright State player.
The losing Valparaiso coach grabbed Will Graham by both his forearms — “my alligator arms,” the Raiders guard would call them later — looked him in the eye and talked earnestly for something like 30 seconds, an eternity in post-game salutations between two teams.
Although Wright State had won Thursday night’s game at the Nutter Center, 68-58, the Raiders had nearly blown it with some abysmal free throw shooting down the stretch.
The Raiders made just 8 of 20 free throws in the final 4:41 of the game and were 23 for 42 from he charity stripe for the entire game. That’s just 54.8 percent.
Several players had a tough time at the line — Scott Grote was 4 for 8, Cooper Land and Gavin Horne were both 0 for 2 — but Graham struggled the most at game’s end.
The senior guard missed his last four attempts and made just two of eight free throws in the final 2:35 of the game.
Because WSU kept bricking the free tosses, Valparaiso kept fouling and was able to stay within striking distance. Mostly because he was the one getting the inbounds pass, Graham became the primary target of the Valpo hackers.
“I know they were fouling whoever had the ball at the end, but they made the right choice fouling me,” said Graham, always a candid, stand-up guy. “It was like fouling Ben Wallace out there.”
Wallace is one of the worst free throw shooters in NBA history. The Cleveland Cav — known for air-balling foul shots — is a career 47.3 percent shooter from the line.
Graham lot better than that — 68.9 percent in his four years at WSU — but he floundered at the foul line against Valpo.
“I don’t know, I just got up there and I was alligator-arming them,” he said. “There’s no excuse for short-arming them. That’s one of the basic fundamentals of free throw shooting. I could have put us in position to put the game away, but I extended it by missing them. It was just a bad night out.”
And that’s why Drew came to him afterward.
“He’s a good guy, a genuine person.,” Graham said. “He was telling me, ‘Don’t worry about it…He remembered the championship game two years ago and he said. ‘You’ll hit ‘em again Saturday night against Butler.’”
Against Butler in the title game of Horizon League Tournament two seasons ago, Graham hit four free throws in the final 11.6 seconds to help seal the WSU upset and send the Raiders to the NCAA Tournament.
Graham said while that was his greatest night ever at the foul line, Thursday night was his worst.
He said he was sure coach Brad Brownell would be addressing that at Friday’s practice, but after the game the WSU coach sounded a bit sympathetic:
“Watching it, it’s just a helpless feeling, believe me. But it’s just one of those things where you’re hoping your guy will make it…And if you’re not careful. everybody is wishing it in — the shooter, the coach, the fans. And then it becomes hard.
“That’s where being at home becomes more difficult because with the fans, that the big sigh that you get when a kid misses a shot, it probably puts more pressure on ‘em.
“That’s why I always say, ‘I want to see all these driveway shooters who tell me they’re gonna make 95 out of 100. Because they are not going to be doing it in front of 5,000 or 6,000 people with two minutes left in the game and they’re fouling you…It’s just not quite as easy as it looks.”
While I liked Brownell’s understanding tone afterward, I figure it will gain a bit of fire to it behind closed doors today as the team crams for the Butler game Saturday night.
I think some of the players feel the same way, which explains a memorable sight Thursday night some 30 minutes after the game.
The Nutter Center was mostly empty, but out on the court, there was center Ronnie Thomas, still in his game uniform, practicing free throws.
Tweetblog: Readers sound off about CSU firings
Last week in the Dayton Daily News I wrote about Central State athletic director Kellen Winslow’s firing of head football coach, Al West, and some of the Marauders’ assistant coaches, including offensive coordinator and former CSU All American quarterback Henderson Mosley.
Since then I have gotten several e-mails from people upset by the firings…Here are just two of the responses:
This first one is from a woman named Millie:
“Kellen Winslow is the worst. Ask him did he ever come to meet the football staff/players? No! How long has he been there? Too long! He is sooo self center (sic) and Mosley is not the kind of man that sucks up.
“(Winslow) didn’t like the fact that the players respected Mosley. He thought Moe had more control than West as a coach. Moe is a leader… a great guy! Al West is too nice.
“Kellen Winslow needed a job — with 6 figures….Winslow’s remodeled his office/new furniture/moved walls so he can have a lavish look $30,000-plus, come on. How much money has he raised for football ???
“Who is Kellen Winslow? Oh, we miss Theresa Check. she cared about the university!
“I hope Erik Williams makes the hall of fame — someone who cares about football and not their (own) name. Kellen Winslow needs to go Who wanted him anyway but Ernie Green?”
And this next one came from a guy named Dan, who lives in the Indianapolis area:
“Upon reading your article about Coach West, I am stunned and disgusted. I have no connection to Central State; however, I would be ashamed of this action if I were. I hope you have received public outrage over the treatment of this coach.
“He had shown unquestioned support and loyalty to this university and to have a new administrator terminate his employment in this fashion is horrendous.”
Tweetblog: A Steelers’ Choke Job
His hair was wild, standing straight up. His eyes were wide open, flashing sudden, maniacal frenzy. His mouth — missing three front teeth — was bared in a fanged, ferocious leer.
As for his powerful, nicked and scarred hands — the ones he’d used to pick up and body slam the Dallas Cowboys’ Cliff Harris in Super Bowl X; the ones he’d used so often to knock Cleveland quarterback Brian Sipe from his senses — those hands were around my neck.
When people think of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl, certain players come to mind.
Now it will be Santonio Holmes, James Harrison or Ben Roethlisberger. A couple of years ago it was Hines Ward.
Back in the day it, Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris and Mean Joe Green.
But not me.
Oh no.
When it comes to the Steelers and the Super Bowl there is only one indelible image for me:
It’s the first time I met the feared linebacker Jack Lambert — the guy they called “Count Dracula in Cleats,” — up close.
And I mean real close.
It was a few days before the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys met in Miami’s Orange Bowl for Super Bowl XIII.
I was a young Miami sportswriter directed to follow the Steelers. I knew lineman Gary Dunn — he had grown up in Miami and played for the Miami Hurricanes — and he told me to meet him at a blue-collar bar called the Ludway not long after he and his teammates hit town.
Over some beers, I said I wanted to interview Lambert. Dunn gave me Lambert’s room number and said he thought the linebacker was back in his hotel room.
I’d talked to one of Lambert’s high school teachers, as well as his mom, and I figured I’d get a good story. We were both small town Ohio boys and I thought we’d have some kind of bond.
I just didn’t think the connection would be between his fingers and my throat.
In those days, Super Bowl security was not the heavy-muscled matter it is today. I went straight to Lambert’s room and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, I pounded harder.
Suddenly, the door flew open and there he was: the guy who Sports Illustrated’s Robert Johnson once waxed so poetic:
“He’s the Grendel of the Gridiron, a cleated and bone-crushing blend of Caligula and King Kong who delights in snatching the soft parts from hapless backs and receivers and who performs open-heart surgery on the enemy using naught but his snaggled, bloody fingernails in lieu of a scalpel.”
If you want that simplified, here’s Mean Joe Green’s description: “He’s so mean, he don’t even like himself.”
Turns out Lambert had been sleeping. He looked at me and growled, “What the hell do you want?”
I started to tell him, but the hard-bitten linebacker was in no mood for chit-chat. “Beat it,” he said as he started to push the door shut.
Eager for a story and blind to consequence, I momentarily forgot who I was dealing with and jammed my scuffed boot in the path of the door.
Lambert took one look at the offending boot and instantly the door was open and he had a vise grip on my neck. When I finally was able to gulp enough air, I managed to gush, “Yeah, well your mom says hi!”
Even the toughest of guys have a soft spot for Dear Old Mom. Soon his grip was loose and the glare faded. And before long we were sitting in his room, talking about small town Ohio — he was from Mantua, north of Canton — about his grandfather, who had been a professional boxer and about the time as a kid he had run after Jim Brown’s green Cadillac until the great running back stopped and gave him an autograph and a wink.
I ended up really liking the guy.
And as interviews go, it was that old deal of making lemonade out of a lemon.
It’s just that sometimes — in between — there is that squeeze.
Tweetblog: Gregory says UD played “best game of year.”
Brian Gregory said his Dayton Flyers gave their best performance of the year season Sunday afternoon when they used a swarming defense to stifle Saint Joseph’s, 69-58, at UD Arena.
“We had to play our best game of the year to be successful,” the coach of the 20-2 Flyers said. “Our guys played with great energy from the opening tap to the final buzzer. That’s the way we’ve been successful all year long. Different guys stepped up at different times, but the energy level never dropped. I thought we got a lot of great performances from a lot of different guys.”
Sophomore forward Chris Wright led the Flyers with 14 points and seven rebounds. Marcus Johnson and Charles Little both added 13 points. Chris Johnson had eight rebounds and Rob Lowery had eight points and seven assists.
On the other end of the court, the Flyers double and triple teamed Saint Joe’s 6-10 Ahmad Nivins,. everybody’s pick so far for the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year While he finished with 12 points and 13 rebounds, he was just 4 for 11 from the floor, his worst shooting performance of the year. And 12 points is his lowest output in the Hawks’ 20 games. . He came into UD Arena averaging 20.2 p.p.g.
Gregory said hitting the 20-win plateau this early in the season is important for a lot of reasons, but none more so than setting the stage for four “tough games” to come in the next 13 days.
He said this win should carry some extra weight because he believes Saint Joe’s is “an NCAA Tournament team…I don’t care what the record is.”
He said while the Flyers are able to bring teams looking for a payday into UD Arena early in the season, the 12-8 Hawks don’t have that luxury.
“Us and some other teams get to have some guarantee teams come in, they don’t,” Gregory said. He said they play home-and-home deals or go on the road, so “you should add maybe three wins to their totals.”
On a good day for the Flyers, the only scare came when Marcus Johnson crumpled at midcourt clutching his knee with just over two minutes left.
The entire Arena crowd watched in dread as he pounded the floor in frustration and pain as trainers huddled around him and Gregory joined the vigil.
Eventually Johnson limped off to a loud ovation. An ice bag was put on his right knee.
Afterward he said he had hit knees with Chris Wright, but he thought her was okay. Tests will be taken.
When someone wondered aloud about serious knee injury in the postgame press conference, Gregory stopped them before the question was finished.
It was like he was worried about putting some bad vibes out there and he tapped the wooden podium for luck.
But on this day the Flyers had much more than luck. They were good.
Tweet
