College Basketball Capsules: Friends remember N.C. State hero Charles
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Lorenzo Charles provided the NCAA tournament with one of its enduring moments. The video of his basket in the 1983 championship game is replayed every March.
The young North Carolina State forward leaps into the air to grab an errant heave, turns to the rim and lays it in, giving the Wolfpack a two-point victory over Houston and sending the late Jim Valvano running onto the court in wild celebration.
Charles was remembered for that basket Tuesday, along with his imposing presence on the court and gentle demeanor away from it. He was killed Monday when the Elite Coach charter bus he was driving crashed along Interstate 40 in Raleigh. No passengers were aboard.
"He was just a fun-loving guy," former teammate Ernie Myers told The Associated Press by phone. "He was a big, muscular guy — 'Hey, this guy's really intimidating' — but he's a quintessential giant. Goodhearted, loved to laugh. I can hear him laughing right now."
N.C. State said Tuesday its men's basketball players will honor Charles this season by wearing patches on their uniforms, and the school said its fundraising Wolfpack Club is considering endowing a scholarship in his name for a student-athlete. Athletic director Debbie Yow called Charles "a Wolfpack hero."
"The Wolfpack family mourns today as we remember his athletic accomplishments, his excellent character and his winning dunk in the 1983 national championship game," she said.
After Charles' playing career ended in the late 1990s, he began driving buses and limos. He worked for Elite Coach, a limousine and bus company based in nearby Apex, and its clients included Duke's lacrosse team and the North Carolina softball team.
Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who said Charles drove his team to the airport a few times, called his death "a tragedy, a loss."
"To me, he was a fun-loving, good guy," Krzyzewski said. "Just to hear or read the remarks of his teammates, his family at N.C. State, he seemed a very loved person, and it saddens me and our hearts go out to his family and the N.C. State family."
Charles enjoyed a successful career. He scored 1,535 total points — 15th on the N.C. State scoring list — and his .575 shooting percentage in 1985 remains a school record for seniors.
He played one season in the NBA, averaging 3.4 points in 36 games with the Atlanta Hawks in 1985-86, then played internationally and in the Continental Basketball Association until 1999.
But he'll always be remembered for that putback nearly three decades ago.
The Wolfpack were tied with the Phi Slamma Jamma team of Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon in the championship game in Albuquerque, N.M. Time was ticking away when Dereck Whittenburg hoisted a heave from well beyond the key.
Charles pulled the ball out of the air and dropped it in at the buzzer, giving the Wolfpack an improbable 54-52 victory and their last national championship.
"I lost a very good friend in Lorenzo," former N.C. State teammate Spud Webb said. "He always had a big smile and a big laugh that I will always remember. He was a gentle giant."
Dominique Wilkins, his former pro teammate and now the Hawks' vice president of basketball operations, said Charles "left an indelible impact in sports lore that will never be forgotten."
"He will be forever remembered for his accomplishments," Wilkins said. "The Atlanta Hawks family would like to extend heartfelt condolences to the Charles family."
Details began to emerge Tuesday about the one-vehicle crash that took Charles' life at age 47. Video shows the windshield broken out with tree limbs sticking through the frame. The rear wheels of the bus were on an embankment, leaving the right front tire elevated from the road.
In a 911 call, a frantic woman said a coach bus came off the exit ramp, down a hill and onto Interstate 40, before eventually coming to rest on the embankment.
"It must have been exiting or coming onto 40 westbound and instead of taking the ramp down, it went through the trees and over the hill," she said. "It's tilted pretty far sideways."
She later noted that someone got on the bus and appeared to be giving CPR. In radio traffic about the wreck, authorities note the driver was unconscious and bleeding from his head.
Myers said he and his family were driving on vacation Sunday when he last spoke to Charles.
"He said, 'Ernie, I'll call you back.' His wife called him on the other line, and he never called me back," Myers said. "It's just kind of surreal."
Commentary: Charles leaves behind primer in how to handle fame
He never quite believed it himself.
At least that's what Lorenzo Charles always said — from the second after he flushed one of the most dramatic baskets in the history of the college game all the way to the end of his life. Sadly, that came Monday, when the charter bus that Charles was driving crashed along Interstate 40 in Raleigh, N.C. He was 47.
I heard him say it near the end of a phone conversation one April afternoon three years ago. Charles was one of several North Carolina State players contributing memories for a story to mark the 25th anniversary of the Wolfpack's improbable 1983 NCAA Championship. Like his teammates, he was asked to recreate the last few seconds of the final game against a Houston team fronted by two future Hall of Famers — Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler — that almost no one believed could lose.
Charles recalled where everyone else was on the floor, and what they were doing, heartbeat by heartbeat. When he got around to Olajuwon, his opposite that night, the description was so vivid you could have guessed what the Houston center ate during the pregame meal. Charles didn't enter his own highlight reel until the very end, and even then, reluctantly.
In the video clip, though, he looks like the only player with a clue of what's about to unfold. He leaps out from underneath the basket just in time to grab guard Dereck Whittenburg's desperate heave from 30 feet out and dunk it in one fluid motion: N.C. State 54, Houston 52.
"I was out of position," Charles chuckled, "because when you're going for a rebound and putback, you're supposed to be a step or two away to build up some steam. But it turned out to be the perfect place."
That's all?
"I could see the ball was going to fall short, and my only concern was Hakeem. I was waiting for that big arm to swoop by and block my shot. "And," he paused, still marveling all those years later, "it never happened."
No matter how the question was asked, Charles kept describing his contribution as a lucky break. It was too humble. There had to be more.
"No, that's pretty much it. "Turned out to be right place, right time," he said softly. "Just maybe not the guy people expected."
Another long pause ensued.
"I have a hard time," he said softly, "believing it myself."
It was neither the first nor the last time he said that. His teammates confirmed that was vintage Charles. Opportunistic and tough as nails the second he stepped on the court, just the way you'd expect a kid from Brooklyn to be; saying only so much and laughing a lot as soon as he stepped away. Always deflecting the attention somewhere else.
So it came as little surprise that Charles hardly cared the moment after his dunk has become even more memorable still. That was when the buzzer sounded and NC State coach Jim Valvano stormed the floor like a one-man tidal wave, looking for someone to hug.
Maybe it's because Valvano was at his absolute peak as a showman. Or because a decade later, his body wracked by cancer, Valvano cast the same magical spell over a national TV audience — "Don't give up. Don't ever give up," he said that night — he had cast over a dozen youngsters for a few months in 1983.
Either way, Charles was happy the spotlight settled where it did. His own NBA career didn't last as long as he'd hoped. He stayed in the game by playing in smaller leagues all around the world, then tried his hand at coaching. Charles eventually wound up back in Raleigh driving a bus.
Somehow, the unending interest in Charles' singular feat always caught him by surprise. Maybe that's how he made you feel better simply for asking.
What Charles chose to remember most, though, was the effort Valvano coaxed from his team night after night during that meat-grinder of a season. Whittenburg, the Wolfpack's best shooter, broke his foot early on and N.C. State had to run the table in the ACC tournament just to make the tournament. Then came a series of squeakers. Last up was high-flying Houston, whose destruction of the field justified the moniker "Phi Slamma Jamma."
"I'm sure lots of people figured we didn't even belong on the same floor," Charles said, "But a lot of them forgot how tough it was just surviving the ACC week in and week out. North Carolina had Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins. Maryland had Lenny Bias. Virginia had Ralph Sampson."
And so convincing was Valvano in the role of underdog that according to most retellings, he was all N.C. State had. In fact, the Wolfpack had a topflight trio of guards — flanking Whittenberg was Sidney Lowe and Terry Gannon — and rugged, reliable presences underneath on both ends of the floor in Charles and Thurl Bailey.
But once Valvano got going, even his own kids forgot about that. He'd be in the middle of drawing up the pregame sets, then put the clipboard under one arm and scream, "You got to be a dreamer." A moment later, a composed Valvano would point to the blackboard and add, "And if all five of you don't get back down the floor and play defense every time, they're going to break that dream into little, bitty pieces."
Whittenburg, who recounted that story three years ago, added, "Then. he'd have to stop himself from cracking up. He never failed to make you laugh or feel good about yourself, and there aren't a lot of people you meet in life who can do that."
And even more unfortunate, another one of them is gone.
Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org.
Missouri adds three transfers under new coach
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — For new Missouri coach Frank Haith, freshmen can wait.
With four available scholarships next season and 10 returning players, Haith has recruited three Division I transfers to fill out the roster he inherited after Mike Anderson left for Arkansas.
The latest recruit is former Pepperdine guard Keion Bell, who led the West Coast Conference team in scoring each of his three seasons. The 6-foot-3 guard from Los Angeles will sit out a year and has one year of eligibility remaining.
Missouri has also signed 6-foot-5 guard Earnest Ross, who was Auburn's leading scorer as a sophomore. He too will sit out this coming season but has two years of eligibility.
The Tigers' third recruit can play immediately. Forward George Goode, a 6-foot-8 Kansas City native, will graduate from Louisville this summer but has one year of eligibility left and will compete as a graduate student. He averaged 2.9 points and 1.4 rebounds last year as a reserve at Louisville, where Missouri assistant coach Tim Fuller was an assistant for one season.
With all but one of last season's top nine players returning, Haith is recruiting not just for the 2011-12 season but for 2012-13. That's when the Tigers will lose six of those players, along with Goode.
Missouri initially had three scholarships to fill when Haith was hired in April after seven seasons at Miami. A fourth roster spot opened this month when freshman reserve Ricky Kreklow, a hometown prep star at Rock Bridge High whose parents coach Missouri's volleyball team, decided to transfer.
"Ricky's a wonderful young man. I would have loved to coach him," Haith said in an Associated Press interview. "But I totally understand his feelings, wanting to get away from home a little bit."
NCAA rules prohibit Haith from talking publicly about recruits, but his track record suggests that Missouri's final roster addition will also come from the transfer ranks. In his first year at Miami, Haith said, he had three available scholarships but initially didn't sign any newcomers.
"We're going to get freshmen," he said. "There's no doubt about it. But right now, I don't want our roster to be so bare next season, losing seven guys with only three returning."
With many of the top high school players already committed by the time he arrived in Columbia, Haith had no interest in signing a younger player just for appearance's sake.
"I saw those high school kids out there," he said. "There just wasn't a good fit for us."
Ross, who was recruited by Haith out of high school, averaged 13.1 points and a team-high 6.6 rebounds a game for an Auburn team that finished 11-20 in the Southeastern Conference. He was voted the team's most valuable player.
Bell was an even more prolific scorer at Pepperdine, averaging 18.9 points before he was sidelined by injuries and a season-ending suspension after 20 games. Bell told the Columbia Daily Tribune that he was originally suspended for one week by former Waves coach Tom Asbury after missing a study hall on a road trip but opted to sit out the remainder of the season due to multiple injuries.
Pepperdine finished 12-21, and Asbury retired after the season.
For Haith, recruiting battle-tested players allows him to both mold the team in his image but also build upon the foundation left by Anderson, who led Missouri to three consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and a school record 31 wins in 2009.
"I like the fact that we've got an experienced team, but we do a get a chance to put our stamp on the program very quickly," he said.
-- Alan Scher Zagier
Coach K to 'refresh' himself with young Duke team
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Mike Krzyzewski hopes to get a jump-start on catching his mentor on the career victories list later this summer.
Duke will head to China and Dubai in two months as part of a four-game exhibition tour, and that can only help the chemistry on a developing team that had three stars taken in the NBA draft and returns only one senior.
After leading Duke to four national championships in more than three decades at the school, Krzyzewski says he's eager to see how this next group of Blue Devils figures things out.
"I'm excited about the whole process, because it's like a new thing for us," Krzyzewski said Tuesday. "It's like at different times during our 32 years, it's not like you reinvent yourself, but you refresh yourself. We have a new group."
Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year Nolan Smith isn't around anymore, and neither is 2010 Final Four Most Outstanding Player Kyle Singler. Kyrie Irving also is gone, after an injury-marred freshman season kept him out for all but 11 games yet didn't seem to affect his draft status — he went No. 1 overall to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
In their place steps a highly regarded freshman class with three McDonald's All-Americans. They're led by guard Austin Rivers, the son of Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers, and forward Marshall Plumlee, the younger brother of the team's only senior — Miles Plumlee.
They'll get a chance to play together when they depart in mid-August for a 13-day tour that includes exhibition games in Shanghai, Beijing and Dubai. The tour is a collaborative effort with Duke's Fuqua School of Business, which Krzyzewski said is opening five campuses around the world.
"Now it's this group's turn to, not just for this year, but to set the wheels in motion for the next few years," Krzyzewski said. "To me, it's very exciting for me to figure out, see how that will all work and what impact I might have on it."
Coach K is 900-284 in 36 seasons at Army and Duke. That's two wins shy of Bob Knight, his college coach and mentor who holds the Division I men's record.
While calling it a "really neat thing" to pass Knight, Krzyzewski says it would be even more meaningful if he were retiring — which he says he isn't doing anytime soon.
"I think if I announced this is my last year in coaching, it would take on more significance, but the fact that I'm not — I have my health, I'm going to coach for a number of years," Krzyzewski said. "I think at the start of the season, we're going to win three games. I hope," he added. "I don't think I, or the guys on my team, will feel like they've got to get this one for the Gipper.
"I'm just going to keep coaching. I feel good. I may not look good, but I feel great, and for me, I'm 64," he later added. "I really think I have more enthusiasm and endurance than I know I had when I was 54. ... So I'm in a place that is perfect for me. I love my school. I've got all the guys on my staff. They're my guys. I've got great kids. I've got a fanbase that supports us in such great fashion. Really, for me, I don't have a negative about my position, and really, it's why I'm here, I'm still here coaching. For me, there could never be a better situation."
-- Joedy McCreary
Purdue to replace damaged court
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Mother Nature has added a new wrinkle to the Mackey Arena renovation project.
Storms last month allowed water into an area where construction was already under way, damaging Keady Court. The court must now be replaced.
"We lucked out that it happened when it did, and we lucked out that the insurance covers it," Purdue spokesman Tom Schott said Tuesday.
The arena is undergoing a $99.5 million overhaul, so the floor replacement will not change anything in terms of scheduling. Schott said the arena and the new court will be ready in time for the start of basketball practice in October.
Purdue considered repairing the floor but determined that it needed to be replaced after the May 25 and 26 storms, Schott said. He said the floor hasn't been replaced since the late 1990s.
Purdue will take advantage of the opportunity and update the floor with the new Big Ten logo a year earlier than planned.
The rededication of Mackey Arena is scheduled for Nov. 11, when the men's basketball team plays Northern Illinois. The women will play IUPUI at Mackey on Nov. 12.
The school calls the work at Mackey the most comprehensive and significant facility undertaking in the university's athletics history. Athletic director Morgan Burke said Monday that the project is going well.
"We're right on track," he said. "This will be a busy six months."
-- Cliff Brunt
School terminates hoops coach for insubordination
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Bethune-Cookman has fired basketball coach Clifford Reed. The termination was announced Monday on the school's website.
College officials told Reed he was terminated for insubordination and failing to cooperate with an investigation into the men's program. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported a Bethune-Cookman student told police in January that she was assaulted by members of the basketball team, but the investigation was later dropped and no arrests were made.
Reed said he received a termination letter from the university's president after a meeting Monday that was also attended by BCC's athletic director.
BCU won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference regular-season title with a 13-3 record, earning an at-large berth in March to the National Invitational Tournament before losing to Virginia Tech. The Wildcats finished 21-13, their best record in three decades.
Bland joins Fisher's SDSU staff as assistant
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Tony Bland, who helped San Diego State to two postseason berths as a player, has joined Steve Fisher's coaching staff as an assistant.
Bland becomes the first San Diego State graduate to serve as a full-time assistant at his alma mater since Ken Baker in 1977-78. He is the third former player coached by Fisher to serve as a full-time member of the coaching staff at San Diego State, following Gary Grant and Mark Hughes, who both played at Michigan.
Bland transferred to San Diego State after playing two seasons at Syracuse. He had 1,368 points, 331 rebounds and 319 assists during his career.
Bland led the Aztecs to the NIT in 2002, when they had the first postseason victory in school history, and to the NCAA tournament the following season.
New men's basketball coach at Meridian CC
MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) — Nathan Courtney has been named new men's basketball coach at Meridian Community College. Courtney replaces Dale Brown, who had accepted the job but was offered a position at Clark University in Atlanta.
Brown was hired this month to succeed Jeff Walker, who spent one year at MCC following George Brooks' departure to Mississippi State.
Courtney comes to MCC with 11 years of college and university coaching experience, most recently as an assistant coach at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa.
Courtney also has coached at Missouri State, Marshalltown Community College, Barton College, and the University of Dubuque.
Slessinger hired as UNO basketball coach
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The University of New Orleans has hired Mark Slessinger as its men's basketball coach.
Slessinger has spent the past 11 seasons as an assistant coach at Northwestern State. He replaces Joe Pasterneck, who quit last month to become an assistant coach at Arizona. New Orleans will compete in Division II next season after years of being a member of Division I.
Lickliter hired by Miami of Ohio as assistant
MIAMI, Ohio (AP) — Miami of Ohio says former Iowa coach Todd Lickliter has been hired as an assistant on Charlie Coles' staff.
Lickliter was fired by the Hawkeyes in the spring of 2010 after three straight losing seasons. He previously spent six seasons at Butler, leading the Bulldogs to a pair of trips to the NCAA tournament's round of 16. Coles says Lickliter is a longtime friend whose coaching abilities he has admired for years.
Rocky men's hoops signs shooting guard
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Rocky Mountain College men's basketball coach Bill Dreikosen has announced the signing of shooting guard Nile Finney of Satellite, Fla. The Billings Gazette reports Finney is transferring to Rocky from Reedley College in Reedley, Calif. He played his freshman season at Hawaii Pacific and has two years of eligibility remaining.
Finney averaged 13.5 points and 4.5 rebounds per game last season at Reedley, which won 20 games. Dreikosen says Finney is a versatile player and a bigger, more physical guard.
