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WSU's Mays playing hard despite pains

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer 12:20 AM Saturday, January 28, 2012

FAIRBORN — As soon as the final buzzer sounded Friday night, Wright State trainer Jason Franklin headed back to his Nutter Center quarters — as he does after every Raiders game now — and waited for one player.

Julius Mays had just played 39 minutes in WSU’s 47-41 victory over Loyola and Franklin knew the junior guard would head to the training room as soon as he finished with a few postgame comments in the media room.

“I’m gonna claim Julius on my taxes this year,” Franklin said. “He’s with me so much.”

Mays, similar to the way since-graduated Vaughn Duggins did last season with a back fracture, takes playing hurt to the next level.

Every game, he wears a long black support sleeve on his left arm. That‘s from the mid-December night he bruised his elbow and whiplashed his neck — while also suffering a concussion — when he was upended and crashed hard to the court against Cincinnati.

He wore another long black brace on his lower left leg to help support a severely strained calf muscle he suffered in another spill against Valparaiso early this monh.

And at the end of Friday’s game — after he’d scored a game-high 16 points to go with a couple of rebounds, a steal and an assist against no turnovers — you couldn’t help but notice him moving in a herky-jerky motion as he pushed the ball up the court one last time against the Ramblers.

“Yeah, my hip’s still not right,” he said. “I tore something in there right before we went to Italy this summer and it still hurts sometimes late in a game.

“I’m not a young guy like a lot of these guys and my body is definitely not young either,” said Mays, who, counting the year he sat out to meet NCAA transfer rules after coming in following two seasons playing for North Carolina State, is in his fourth season of college basketball.

“After all these little freak accidents I’ve had on the court, it’s taking me a while to heal. Coach understands that. Basically any more I’m not even practicing. I shoot around at practice and then I show up for games.”

First, though, he shows up in the training room.

He was there four times Friday.

“When things like this happen to a guy, I spend a lot of time with them,” Franklin said. “First you work on the pain, then range of motion and finally strength.

“Like he does every game day now, he came in at 9 this morning for some more intense exercises. Then he was back at noon for stretching and he was in here again at 5 (p.m.) for pain control, stretching, massages — whatever we could do to loosen him up. Afterwards he comes back again to ice down.”

Mays said he sees Franklin more than anyone in his life right now:

“Jason is my main man. I spend more time with him than Coach (Billy) Donlon and the team ... I’m with him more than I am my girlfriend (Terah), too. She understands ... I guess.”

Donlon certainly gets it. “You want a guy like Julius Mays on the floor. I’ve coached and been on teams with good players who were on the court 38 or 39 minutes a game.

“When Duke beat Butler in the national championship game, Michigan State was in the Final Four, too And I remember all three of those teams played their starters 33 minutes or more every night, every game.

“We need Julius Mays playing — not only for what he does himself, but what he does for the other guys. He gives them confidence when he’s out there.”

He gave them something else Friday, as well.

Early in the second half, he stripped the Loyola point guard, but no one dove on the loose ball. The Ramblers picked it up and scored an easy layup to go up 25-21.

Donlon immediately called time and before the players got back to the huddle Mays was letting his teammates have it.

“We were all yellin’ at each other,” Mays said. “I was telling them, ‘This is bull. This can’t happen. We go after 50-50 balls.’ We were all calling each other out. Me and Johan (Mpondo) went at it pretty good in the huddle and Coach let it go for a minute or so and then stopped it and made us focus.

“I was still mad when we went back on the court. We all were, but we knew we couldn’t go at each other so we took it out on Loyola.”

Within five minutes, Wright State had the lead for good.

“Mays and a couple of other guys lit a fire under each other and it woke us up,” Donlon said. “He gave us a lift tonight.”

When he finally met up with Franklin one final time after the game, Mays got his treatment but found himself upended again when he tried to set up his next session this morning.

“I told him my daughter had a basketball game,” Franklin said with a laugh. “He looked at me kind of surprised and said, “Oh...but I thought I was your son.’ ”

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