Too bad Raiders and Flyers won’t SHAKE THAT THANG

By Tom Archdeacon | Thursday, November 5, 2009, 11:54 PM

FAIRBORN — While it was nice to see Wright State show itself so well Thursday night — romping over Central State, 83-55, in the Raiders exhibition opener at the Nutter Center — I’d rather have seen the game be close.

Not a lot to cheer for CSU

That way the sizeable contingent of CSU fans who showed up at the game would have had something to cheer about. Instead the plug was pulled on the party before it ever got started.

Some five minutes into the game, WSU was up 15-4 and it only got worse from there. The Raiders led by 29 at the intermission and by as many as 38 midway through the second half.

Although CSU did show up with all its cheerleaders in tow and some fans in the stands occasionally held up three big signs that read SHAKE THAT THANG, there really wasn’t much to shake about.

It would have been great to see the two cheering sections go back and forth. No school around here has more animated and vocal backers than the Marauders, Anybody who’s been to Beacom Lewis Gym when CSU hosts its across-the-road rival Wilberforce will attest to that.

Thanks to CSU, Wright State had a crowd that was bigger than most it drew to last season’s games. The official count was 5,137 — which seems a little stretched, but not that bad.

Regardless, this was a good event to help build a bridge between the two Greene County schools. And in the end that’s good for the community.

Of course, so would be a Wright State -Dayton game again — especially in a town that can use all the good-time events it can get now — but you know all the tired, old arguments impeding that one.

Too bad because it would be like CSU vs. Wilberforce — only times 10.

And this would be a good year to see it.

Todd Brown

The Dayton Flyers appear to have the best team they’ve had in decades. And from what you could see Thursday night, Wright State — even with seniors Vaughn Duggins (suspended) and John David Gardner (injured) not in uniform — has a very good team that should make some real noise this season.

Senior forward Todd Brown — who had 17 points, Thursday — looks like he’s ready to wear the mantle of the team leader. The Raiders can shoot the ball — they were 10 for 21 from three-point range — and, as is a coach Brad Brownell trademark, they can play some tight defense.

They have a deep bench and while all three newcomers had their moments against the Marauders, I was especially impressed by guard Darian Cartharn, a 6-foot freshman from Canal Winchester. He’s a catch-‘em-napping passer, can shoot and has a little bit of swagger to him.

With the way this WSU team appears capable of playing, I think it will draw plenty more crowds this size and bigger during the season. Thing is, I don’t know if opposing fans will get much more of a chance to SHAKE THAT THANG than did the Marauders mostly-silent masses.

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Greatest Backcourt Ever Now Gone

By Tom Archdeacon | Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 08:21 AM

Phil Lumpkin

The greatest backcourt in Ohio high school basketball history is now gone.

At least I think they were the best pair of guards ever to play side by side for a prep team in this state.

Back in the late 1960s and into the first few months of 1970, Phil Lumpkin was the point guard and Donald Smith the shooting guard for Roth High School. Both averaged over 20 points a game and then Lumpkin went to Miami University and Smith to the University of Dayton.

When they played Chaminade — which starred Dan Gerhardt, had a stronger inside game and would later win state — the game sold out UD Arena.

Donald Smith

In college both ended up in their school’s Hall of Fame. Smith averaged 20.4 p.p.g. for his college career, Lumpkin 16.1.

Both were picked in the second round of the NBA draft — Lumpkin by Portland, Smith by Philadelphia.

Lumpkin, a successful high school coach in Seattle, was found dead in his apartment Monday. He was 57. Smith died five years ago at age 53.

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High praise for Tamika — but is she Dayton’s best?

By Tom Archdeacon | Monday, November 2, 2009, 11:41 AM

I just got a copy of “GENO: In Pursuit of Perfection,” the book University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma has done with Jackie MacMullen..

In it he makes several mentions of Tamika Williams, the Chaminade Julienne High School All American, who was one of the fixtures on two of the six national titles UConn has won with him.

Tamika

Auriemma tells about getting her out of Dayton to be part of one of the most celebrated recruiting classes in women’s basketball history. He recounts various games she played and the way she often was the glue that held the various personalities of the team together.

He talks especially glowingly of the impact she made at UConn before heading off to her pro career and then — after marrying former college athlete Ben Raymond — becoming an assistant hoops coach at the University of Kansas.

Here’s Auriemma on Tamika:

“Tamika Williams was — and still is today — maybe the most popular player among the coaches of anybody that came here. I just think her personality is so terrific. Her father was a Vietnam vet and he came back and was a DJ, among other things, and he is absolutely the most outgoing guy. He is funny and embracing and Tamika takes after him. She’s a lot of fun and very nurturing, always bringing people together.

“If you talk to Tamika and you’re not laughing, you don’t have a sense of humor Tamika and Meghan Pattyson, to me, epitomize the spirit of UConn basketball.”

That got me thinking. Tamika had a great prep and college career — she remains UConn’s all-time leader in field goal percentage — and then played several years in the WNBA.

Is she the most celebrated woman’s athlete ever to come out of the Greater Dayton area prep scene?

I’m not sure. Here are five other women I’d put in the mix:

LaVonna in Sports Illustrated photo

LaVonna Martin (Floreal) — The Trotwood Madison High track star became a University of Tennessee All American and then ran the 100 meter hurdles at two Olympics, Seoul in 1988 and Barcelona in 1992, where she won a silver medal. Her husband Edrick Floreal is the Stanford track coach.

Tonja

Tonja Buford (Bailey) — The Meadowdale High sensation went on to star at Illinois, where today — married to former pro football player Victor Bailey — she’s the head women’s track coach. She competed in three Olympics, Barcelona, then Atlanta in 1996, where she won a bronze medal in the 400 meter hurdles and finally the Sydney Games in 2000. She also won a silver medal at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg

Megan

Megan Duffy — After starring in hoops at Chaminade Julienne and then Notre Dame — where she was an Academic All American and won the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association as the best senior player under 5-foot-8 — she played for Minnesota and New York in the WNBA, played overseas in Wales, Italy Slovakia and Romania and now is an assistant women’s basketball coach at St. John’s University.

Alison

Alison Bales — A high school All American at Beavercreek High, she starred at Duke University — where, at 6-feet-7, she became the third all-time shot blocker in women’s college basketball history — then played for three WNBA teams as well as playing pro in Moscow and Turkey.

Brandi

Brandi Hoskins — Another CJ hoops star, she became a cornerstone player for Ohio State — where she was the MVP of the Big Ten Tournament in 2005 — then went on to the WNBA and plays overseas.

I’m not sure who I’d rate as the best of that group and likely I’ve forgotten someone who is deserving, but I do agree with Auriemma on his assessment of Tamika.

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For OSU — Aggies were like shooting fish in a barrel

By Tom Archdeacon | Saturday, October 31, 2009, 02:01 PM

COLUMBUS — Ohio State’s annual Scarlet and Gray spring game is more riveting than was the Buckeyes 45-0 rout of New Mexico State, Saturday, at Ohio Stadium.

The athletes are better on both sides of the ball in the practice game, you’re bound to get a surprise or two and anything a player does, you know likely was hard-earned.

Saturday’s game was like shooting fish in a barrel.

New Mexico State took this game strictly for the money. The Aggies — now 3-6 — are the equivalent of a fight game palooka, a boxing opponent. They got $850,000 to let OSU hammer on them.

At least the Aggies are used to it. They haven’t had a winning season since 2002, haven’t been to a bowl game in 49 years and came into Saturday’s game — where they were 44-point underdogs — with the worst offense (statistically) of the 120 teams playing major college football this season. Their defense was No. 75.

Saturday, the over-matched Aggies had just 62 total offensive yards for the day. OSU had 559 and played back-ups a substantial part of the second half..

That said, here are a few observations:

— Receiver DeVier Posey’s tight-spiralled 39-yard touchdown pass to Dane Sanzenbacher in the second quarter was more impressive than any pass OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor threw in his one half of action Saturday.

Pryor over threw several receivers and two of his passes hit New Mexico State defenders in the hands and could have been intercepted.

He didn’t play in the second half, finishing the game with 11 for 23 passing with 135 yards and a 19 yard TD pass to Sanzenbacher. He was more impressive on the ground, running nine times for 89 yards and another score, an eight-yard run.

— Back-up quarterback Joe Bauserman, played the entire second half and was even less impressive throwing the ball, completing 2 of 9 passes for 75 yards.

— If you’re looking for an OSU star from the Miami Valley in this one, how about the special teams play of Donnie Evege, the sophomore from Wayne High, who is a one-man wrecking ball on the kick team. He put jarring hits on three Aggie kick returners Saturday.

— Brandon Saine’s 3-yard touchdown run later in the second quarter was the Piqua High product’s first rushing score of the season. That’s a telling stat about your team’s rushing attack when your starting tailback doesn’t get his first TD until the ninth game of the season

— When OSU kicker Aaron Pettrey suffered a sprained knee in the second quarter — an injury that could prove to be quite troublesome going into next Saturday’s game at Penn State — he was replaced by Devin Barclay, who is not your typical college player.

He’s 26 years old and was a pro soccer player — playing for four teams including the Columbus Crew — before joining the Buckeyes as a walk-on.

Barclay had his own struggles, missing two field goal attempts — from 47 and 36 yards — while making one from 29 yards.

— This was likely a deja vu moment for New Mexico State coach DeWayne Walker. He had been to Ohio State once before. He was a junior defensive back for the 1980 Minnesota team that lost to the Bucks, 47-0, at the Shoe.

“We got killed,” was the way he recollected that game a few days ago.

It was the same Saturday.

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“Buxom Blonde” strikes out at World Series

By Tom Archdeacon | Thursday, October 29, 2009, 11:23 AM

One game into the World Series, they are the two most talked about pitchers linked to the Philadelphia Phillies:

Susan Finkelstein and Cliff Lee.

One you can hit on — one you can’t.

Lee put on a one-man show Wednesday night, handcuffing the New York Yankees in a 6-1 Phillies win. The left hander threw a complete game, striking out 10, walking none, the run he gave up was unearned and, for good measure, he even caught a ball behind his back.

Susan Finkelstein: Phillie fever

Finkelstein’s cuffs came Tuesday night after her pitch — an ad for World Series tickets — came out on Craigslist.

“DESPERATE BLONDE NEEDS WS TIX — Diehard Phillies fan—gorgeous tall buxom blonde — in desperate need of two World Series Tickets. Price negotiable— I’m the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!”

An undercover cop met with the 43-year-old married University of Pennsylvania grad student in a suburban Philadelphia bar, allegedly, stating that he and his brother had World Series tickets for sale.

According to the cop, Finkelstein offered to perform sex acts on both of them, saying “Well, I’d rather have two tickets and I could take care of both of you.”

That got her busted on a prostitution charge.

Finkelstein claimed Wednesday she was just flirting with the undercover cop.

“I was hoping maybe I could get a cheaper price flirting with him,” she said on the satellite “Opie and Anthony” radio show. “You know, batting my eyes. It’s not unheard of….It was him who brought the whole thing up anyway.”

As she told Inside Edition: “If I can flirt with someone and maybe get cheap tickets, more power to me.”

Finkelstein: Looking for two

Finkelstein claims she was a bit smitten by the cop, who was “kind of cute,” she said: “They sent out the good-looking, blonde, kind of Marine guy.”

Finkelstein may be in luck after all. A Philadelphia radio station and a car dealership have both offered her free tickets to Sunday’s game.

As for the charge — which sounds a little like looking-for-some-pub police work here — her lawyer hopes to get the charges reduced, if not dropped altogether.

Throwing a bit of a curve ball himself, lawyer William J. Brennan said Finkelstein is just “a nice lady overcome with Phillies fever.”

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Michael Jordan’s son steps into a dispute

By Tom Archdeacon | Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 03:15 PM

They recruited Marcus Jordan because they hoped he would be following in his famous dad’s footsteps . Now he is and the University of Central Florida wishes he was not.

Marcus Jordan

UCF has a problem stuck to the bottom of it’s basketball sole — maybe its soul, too — and right now the school can’t figure out a way to scrape it off.

As the son of NBA legend Michael Jordan, Marcus is the Golden Knights most famous basketball player.

But as one Chicago sports columnist puts it, the 18-year-old Heir Jordan is about to become Err Jordan.

I like the line — I’m not so sure of the logic.

The problem is over the brand of shoes the kid will wear when UCF tips off its hoops season with an exhibition game next Wednesday, Nov. 4

For decades Michael Jordan’s name has been synonymous with Nike — sometimes to a fault.

UCF has an exclusive $1.9 million contract with Nike rival Adidas that requires all its athletes and coaches to wear adidas footwear and apparel.

When he was being recruited, Marcus brought up the issue — saying he only wanted to wear his dad’s Air Jordan brand Nikes on the court — and he, and some UCF officials, have said he was told that wouldn’t be a problem.

Adidas though — which is in the midst of negotiating a new six-year, $ 3 million contract with UCF — has said no to that proposal. It wants EVERYBODY in Adidas gear.

Marcus though has balked. He said he’ll wear the Adidas apparel, but he plans to wear Nike Air Jordans, just as he was assured he could.

“When I was being recruited, we talked about it,” Marcus told the Orlando Sentinel. “They said they had talked to the Adidas people, and it wasn’t going to be a problem. I think everybody understands how big of a deal it is for my family.

“I have a high level of respect for Adidas, but I’m going to be wearing Jordan shoes. I’m wearing the Adidas uniform, and all my other UCF gear is Adidas, but the shoes are going to be Jordan brand.”

Now supposedly UCF’s new deal with Adidas is in some jeopardy because of the flap. And for the cash-strapped Golden Knights’ athletic department, $3 million is significant. It’s at least 5 percent of the entire athletics budget.

The school is the one that screwed this thing up. It never should have made the arrangement with Marcus. While some have tried to dismiss it as just another over-inflated ploy used on the recruiting trail, the bottom line is that a promise is a promise.

So what are the choices here?

Besides Adidas relenting or Nike — which already has the the state’s three most prominent programs under contract, Miami Florida and Florida State — stepping in and offering a more lucrative deal or UCF releasing Jordan’s son from his scholarship, there is one other possibility.

Marcus could show himself to be a true team player and agree to wear Adidas and end up standing taller than anyone in this mess.

Although I’d like to see that, I’m not sure that will happen — especially not if Marcus truly is following in Dad’s footsteps.

Michael Jordan’s ploy at Barcelona Olympics

I remember this same kind of flap at the Barcelona Olympics. The gold medal-winning US basketball team was outfitted by Reebok, but Jordan and a few other players were adamant about their Nike contracts.

And so on the medal stand, Jordan draped an American flags over his warm-up jacket. Not a display of patriotism, this was all about profiteering. He wanted to make sure he hid the Reebok logo.

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Chad: ‘We’re a lot more talented’ than 2005 playoff team

By Tom Archdeacon | Monday, October 26, 2009, 10:55 AM

CINCINNATI — Before he’d let the post-game TV cameras roll, he said he wanted to put on a shirt.

“My momma’s out there,” Chad Ochocinco said in reference to a TV audience that may well include the grandmother who raised him.

He turned to his locker, grabbed a tight-fitted black pull-over, looped it over his head, but then got stuck when he tried to push one of his hands — hands that had just caught 10 passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns, one which he celebrated with a tightly-calibrated end zone samba dance — through an arm hole.

“It doesn’t fit,” Ochocinco said starring at his shoulder and biceps. “Look how big I done got. When I came in it was dangling.”

Nothing the Bengals receiver would say in the next 15 minutes — in the kind of oft-comedic monologue that would make him a late-night TV star, as well — was more true.

He and the rest of the Cincinnati Bengals had come out of their stunning 45-10 thrashing of the Chicago Bears Sunday night at Paul Brown Stadium sporting more muscles than anyone had ever dreamed they had:

— Quarterback Carson Palmer completed 20 of 24 passes for 233 yards and five touchdowns.

— Running back Cedric Benson — cut and, he says, disparaged by the Bears a year earlier — made his old team pay, running for a career-high 189 yards and a touchdown on 37 carries. His herculean day now makes him the the NFL’s leading rusher with 720 yards.

— The defense — depleted by injury and flu — sent the Bears to sick bay, picking off three Jay Cutler passes and recovering a fumble.

“This was a statement game for us,” Ochocinco said.

Part of that statement, he said, was that this team is better than the 2005 Bengals, who went 11-5 and made the playoffs:

“We are a lot more talented — talented defensively. Offensively we’re about the same, except that we (now) have a back who can go the distance at any point in time. No disrespect to Rudi (Johnson), but Ced is different and BScott ( back-up tailback Bernard Scott) is different. It’s kinda scary with these two backs.”

Palmer didn’t go quite that far, but he did say his team — which scored on its first seven possessions Sunday — “proved to ourselves that when we have the right mind set and get off early, we’re a tough team to contend with and slow down.”

And on this day, no one was tougher to contend with than Benson and Ochocinco.

When Benson scored his touchdown on a one-yard run in the fourth quarter, Ochocinco quickly embraced him.

“He said, ‘See ya’ in Miami,’” a smiling Benson said of the reference to this year’s Pro Bowl, which will be played in South Florida.

Ochocinco — a five-time Pro Bowler — looks as if he’s about to make it a half-dozen. Injured and disenchanted at times in 2008, he finished the season with an uncharacteristic 53 catches for 540 yards and and four touchdowns.

Now, as the 5-2 Bengals head to their bye week, he already has 573 receiving yards on 39 catches and five touchdowns.

“Before the season, you guys heard me say that by the time we got to the bye week I would have surpassed last year,” he grinned. “Man, I’m good. …I’m not Ali, but I’m good.”

From the dressing stall next to him — where rookie Quan Cosby was eavesdropping with delight — came a giggle.

Ochocinco heard it and with a grin called out, “Hey, I’m serious over here.”

Cosby laughed some more and down a couple dressing stalls further, second year receiver Andre Caldwell stood on his chair so he could watch and listen, as well.

More than teammates, these guys become part of Ochocinco’s post-game audience and sometimes they end up playing the Ed McMahon straight man to his Johnny Carson.

As Ochocinco was wrapping up his locker room chatfest, you heard wave after wave of loud cheers coming from the communal shower room where Benson was being toasted by his teammates.

“We knew what this meant for him today,” center Kyle Cook said. “We all have a chip on our shoulder. We’ve all been cut by some some other team and told we’re not good enough.”

With Ochocinco you didn’t notice the shoulder chip, just the diamond chips.

“I gotta accessorize,” he said as he reached in his locker and pulled out a fancy necklace.

He called out to a passing teammate: “I gotta a table for 20…see you there.”

As headed to the dressing room door, Ochocinco let you know before he’d eat, he’d tweet:

“Gotta go. Got to get to my Twitter.”

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