Fairborn commencement
Badin graduation
Division I regional track finals
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 > 2010 > February > 07
Sunday, February 7, 2010
UD Flyers: Knock Them Suckas Out !!!
I know Chris Wright won the game’s MVP award after Dayton dismantled Xavier, 90-65, Saturday at UD Arena — and with 17 points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots he deserved it — — but I’d give the honor to two other Flyers:
1 — Brian Gregory
2 — Rob Lowery
Gregory — as was the subject of my column in Sunday’s newspaper — showed himself to be the master motivator when, just minutes before the Flyers would take the court for the opening tip, he came bobbing into the team’s cramped dressing quarters to the beat of LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.”
The head coach was wearing a long red and white, hooded fight robe and boxing gloves and he fired off volleys of punches at each of the Flyers as LL Cool J — who Gregory, to the hoots of some of his players, calls “the greatest rapper of all time.” — provided the theme music:
“Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear Makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon…..
“I’m goin insane, startin the hurricane, releasin pain Lettin you know that you can’t gain, I maintain…”
“I’m gonna knock you out (HUUUH!!!) Mama said knock you out (HUUUH!!!)”
“None of us expected that,” senior center Kurt Huelsman said afterward. “He’s usually pretty serious and intense….But that really got to us. It riled us up and it really loosened us up, too…And that’s how we went out and played.”
Senior guard Mickey Perry agreed: “All year he’s just wanted us to get an identity of playing hard every game and today that’s what we did. He just wants us to always be able to show who we really are out there.”
No one did that more on Saturday than did Lowery
If you remember, a year ago when Xavier came to UD Arena, he tore the patellar tendon in his right knee midway through the first half. He crumpled right beneath the basket in front of the UD student section and lay on the court for several minutes cradling his knee.
When the training staff got him to the dressing room and told him the extent of the injury — that he’d need surgery and his season was done — he began sobbing uncontrollably.
He missed almost a year, returning Dec. 5 this season.
“I remember the play he got hurt like it was yesterday,” Chris Wright, who shares an apartment with Lowery, said after Saturday’s game. “We talked about that last night in the living room when we were watching SportsCenter and all the NBA games.”
Lowery admitted the memories of Xavier’s last visit — and what had happened to him — were on his mind Saturday.
“I thought about it a lot and it got me kind of emotional. This game does it to you anyway just because of the rivalry and all. When we go down to Cincinnati, they’re always on us and when they come up here our fans are on them.
“Our crowd makes us feel like we just can’t lose…That’s why I wanted to go out there and play with no fear. And I think I did.”
He finished with 16 points, five assists and two steals.
After the game as Marcus Johnson was about to hoist the Blackburn-McCafferty Trophy above his head to show the crowd, he looked for Lowery and called him over to help.
“I thought about what happened to Rob in this game last year,” Johnson said. “I remember going in the training room at half time and seeing him so upset and I told him we’d take care of things for him. Right after that I wrote 3s (Lowery’s jersey number) on my shoes to support him and, to this day, I still wear them at every practice.”
Lowery said when Johnson called him over, he understood:
“He knew what I had been through. I had cried to him that night it happened and poured my feelings out. And now he wanted me just to help show I was back and we had all done something pretty special.”
As LL Cool J — and Mama — had commanded:
They had knocked them suckas out.
Tweet
