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Tuesday, January 3, 2023
Chasing More Than A Number
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Multnomah U. Basketball 2022-23 Season Preview
By Harry Cummins
Seeking to bring order out of the chaotic forces that concern every basketball coach, seasoned mentor Curt Bickley at Multnomah University has experienced a recent metamorphosis in his methodology.
Bickley arrived at unheralded Multnomah Bible College in 2003, on the wings of a decorated 10-year high school coaching career that netted him nearly 200 wins, 2 Iowa state championships and 4 Coach of the Year honors.
At Multnomah, Bickley found himself saddled with limited financial resources, few scholarships, and only the promise of playing time at a no-name school in which to attract future players. As a result, Bickley soon adapted an offensive scheme dominated by the 3 point shot and a school identity was soon formed on the feats of undersized practitioners of basketball's most celebrated shot.
The landscape was altered in 2015 when a renamed Multnomah University joined the NAIA as a member of the Cascade Collegiate Conference. In 2018, a 5'9" shooting guard, Justin Martin, catapulted Multnomah into the national spotlight with his whirlwind heroics and back-to-back national scoring crowns. His 70 plus point games became the stuff of legends. Still, the team continued to lack any roster depth to support a starting five.
One by one, the Lions began enticing taller and more skilled players to their Portland, Oregon campus, culminating in their current 2022-23 roster that now features no less than 8 players ranging from 6'6" to 7 feet. Bickley no longer will live and die with the 3 point shot and can now deploy a deep bench that can be maneuvered in shifts much like an ice hockey coach does with changing lines. The coach also has the 'upward mobility' backing of new university President Eric Anthony Joseph, himself a former triple- jump champion, along with Michael Anderson, a personable VP of Athletics, who comes with impressive power lifting credentials of his own.
Propelling the Lions into the new season will be returning cornerstone players Zach Richardson and Tyrese Taylor. Richardson is a 5th year graduate senior whose 27.6 ppg scoring average was runner-up in 2020-21 to NAIA National Player of the Year Kyle Mangas. Richardson has registered 50 and 49 pt single-game scoring outbursts in past seasons. Taylor is an all-conference center nightly posting double-double performances.
Charles Jones, an NAIA pre-season All-American and a former Juco Player of the Year transfers to Multnomah this season from cross-town NCAA D1 Portland State. Quentin Jones is an athletic 6'9" transfer from North Carolina A&T and LSU Shreveport. Containing the Jones boys will be an essential task for Multnomah opponents this year.
Returning for his senior season, Taylor Peppinger is back as the leading returning 3 point shot maker in the Cascade Collegiate Conference. 6'9" forward Dante Sofia from Liverpool, England looks to collect a cluster of rebounds for the Lions in their journey down the yellow brick road that hopefully will lead to the 2023 NAIA National Basketball Championships in Kansas City come next March.
Filling up the stat sheet every game along the way will be Jr. guard Neyland Block, whose all-around game resulted in 10 pts, 6 reb's and 5 assists per game last season in a limited capacity. His emergence in pre-season workouts stamp him as a serious breakout candidate
Key contributions are also expected this season from steadying veteran guard Wallace Ungwiluk discovered in an Alaskan outpost on the edge of the Bering Sea, and from explosive Texan Amande Uchime, while other NCAA transfers 'Squeaky Wilkins and Zen Goodridge bring much more than their colorful names to the party. Mix in Nigerian Michael Okoye and talented Pacific Northwest natives Will Casebolt, Leonel Gallegos, Alex Newkirk and Brady Grier and this team is loaded.
So much so that rapidly developing 7 foot post Will Kietzmann and heralded San Diego prep star Derrien Carter-Hollinger may be forced to take a red-shirt season when they could well start for most teams.
Coach Bickley will celebrate 20 years as the Lions head coach this year, poised on the threshold of the journey that is the 2022-23 season. A new basketball theology, so to speak, has evolved at the small college with spiritual beginnings. A new reading of traditional text is emerging and Bickley and assistant coaches Tayo Gem and Quinn Curry will be deeply challenged to unify this treasure- trove of scattered talent.
Interdependence cannot be an elective study . Sacrificial integration must be quickly cultivated and forged thru the crucible of one game at a time.
Game 1: October 29 Multnomah University vs Pacific Union College (Calif.)
P.S. Fallback plan still remains... 22ft, 1 3\4 inches away
hcummins@aol.com
Nomah Nation
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Astonished Onlookers Report Local Phenomenon
Reports keep filtering in from what shall remain, for now, an unidentified Portland, Oregon track. Sources close to the scene have reported seeing a man closely resembling Craw's Corner founder Greg Crawford circling the cinders at speeds that are simultaneously turning heads and stopping timing devices.
At present, accounts of this phenomenon are not completely verified. However, late this afternoon I received a phone call from both the National Masters News and the USA Senior Track and Field Federation, both asking for confirmation of the recently reported mile time for Mr.Crawford. They also requested media credentials along with copies of the upcoming workout schedules of Mr. Crawford.
They also asked for his birth certificate.
hcummins
Monday, September 12, 2022
Oregon High School Varsity Girls and Boys Basketball Soon Will Have a Shot Clock
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Non-Podium Performance Deemed 'Best Moment' at World Championships
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Lost in the headlines surrounding one of the greatest 1500 |
After spending 10 days lodged in Eugene, Oregon at the recent World Athletics Track and Field Championships, I am now in possession of a dazzling disarray of milliseconds and memories from one of the greatest athletic competitions in history. It was the kind of far-reaching event that both demands yet defies one's summation.
To attempt to name a best performance of the meet is a fool's errand, of course. Record breaking performances by Noah Lyles, Sydney McLaughlin and Tobi Amusan top most such lists. Instead, I choose here to highlight what persists thru the filter of my own definition of 'awe-inspiring'.
On Day 5 of these Championships, set in the evening gloam, the world was treated to a scintillating stretch duel in the men's 1500m final. Great Britain's Jake Wightman shocked Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen to grab the gold in a spectacular time of 3:29.23, the fastest time ever run on U.S. soil.
Closing fast in 4th place, but narrowly missing the podium, was Mario Garcia Romo, a 23 year-old college runner from the University of Mississippi and representing Spain. With 200 meters to go, Romo ran 27.9 for the last 200m and 13.70 seconds for the last 100m to move from 7th place to 4th, just missing the podium by three hundredths of a second to countryman Mohamed Katir. Garcia Romo's final 200m split was identical to that clocked by the hard charging winner, Wightman.
Converting to a spectacular 3:46.8 mile, Garcia Romo's final clocking of 3:30.20 was the fastest 1500 meters ever run by a collegiate runner and would have won every Olympic Games since the modern Games began, except for the 2021 Games in Tokyo.
Thru the eyes of this old miler.... I saw nothing quite like it all week.
hcummins@aol.com