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Buckeye b'ballers you may have forgotten

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Robin Freeman
 
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Ron Sepic

Dick Riesbeck

Former Ohio State basketball captain Ron Sepic dies

Ron Sepic, a former Ohio State men’s basketball team captain and 1,000-point scorer, died Saturday at age 75 in his native Pennsylvania after a battle with cancer.

A three-year starter from 1965-67 and the product of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Sepic came to the Buckeyes when freshmen weren’t permitted to play. In three seasons, he scored 1,107 points, averaging 15.4 per game. He led Ohio State in free-throw shooting percentage as a junior and senior, is a member of the 20-rebound club and finished with 19 career double-doubles.

Upon graduation, Sepic was drafted to play football for the Washington Redskins and basketball for the NBA’s Cincinnati Royals. He had starred in football at Uniontown, where he was a first-team all-state player, and had been recruited to play both sports before picking Ohio State from a final three that also included West Virginia and Duke.

Instead of pursuing a pro career, Sepic chose to enroll in dental school and graduated from Ohio State’s College of Dental Medicine in 1971 before earning a post-graduate degree in orthodontics from the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine. Sepic opened his practice in his hometown of Uniontown and Pittsburgh in 1974 until his retirement in 2018.

As a senior at Uniontown, Sepic was named a high school all-American and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show alongside a sophomore named Lew Alcindor, who would later change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame last October.

Entire article: https://www.buckeyextra.com/sports/20200402/former-ohio-state-basketball-captain-ron-sepic-dies
 
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Jermain Tate

Keith Wesson - easily forgotten if not for being John Anderson's back up in '87 when we beat Kentucky in the NCAAs and narrowly lost to Georgetown after letting a 16 point lead slip away. I was a student during his time, and I first learned of him in high school when he came to our gym and just scored at will on sheer size. He had half a foot and 40-50 pounds on our biggest player.

Pretty much a stiff, really. Never developed a college game and lacked the quickness to be a garbage man. Just ate minutes when Anderson needed to come out.

10 years later on both of these guys sons have completed their eligibility with OSU. How time flies....
 
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Allen Hornyak Joe Roberts

High school basketball: Every player to average 40 points per game or more

41.95 – Allan Hornyak, St. John's Central (Bellaire, Ohio)
Year: 1968-69
Games-points: 22-923
Best games: 86 vs. Warren Consolidated; 73 vs. Union Local; 66 vs. Bellaire
Note: Hornyak played at Ohio State and led the team in scoring his final three seasons.

Entire article: https://www.maxpreps.com/news/2jUFu...yer-to-average-40-points-per-game-or-more.htm

Hornyak’s 86-Point Game Lives On
Sunday Marks the 52nd Anniversary of the Performance

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Pictured is a photo of the 1968-69 St. John Central Fighting Irish boys basketball team that finished 20-2 for the season. Allan Hornyak (20) was the unquestioned leader of the team. He put forth countless sterling performances during his career. Included in this season was a game on Jan. 10 when he scored an Ohio Valley all-time best 86 points against Warren Consolidated. Hornyak went on to play at Ohio State and was drafted in the second round of the NBA Draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Editor’s Note: Because of how well received the first 10 installments of the Ohio Valley’s Top 10 games of the last 50 years was received, we’ve decided to give you one more. Though it was played more than 50 years ago, Sunday is the 52nd anniversary of Allan Hornyak’s 86-point performance against Warren Consolidated.

Allan Hornyak is on the Ohio Valley Mount Rushmore of basketball players.

It’s tough to argue when you consider that during his career at St. John Central in Bellaire, he scored 2,385 points in an era when there was no 3-point shot and fewer games were played. He went on to an outstanding, All-Big 10 career at Ohio State University and was drafted by a team in both the NBA and ABA.

Those accolades and accomplishments are more than just noteworthy.

But, when you talk to most Ohio Valley basketball fans who are in at least their late 50s, they certainly acknowledge all of the above, but most will quickly point out that Hornyak put forth the greatest single-game, scoring performances ever recorded in Ohio Valley prep basketball on Jan. 10, 1969.

It was that night when Hornyak lit up Warren Consolidated, which is now part of the Buckeye Local School District, for an Ohio Valley record 86 points in the Irish’s 123-83 victory.

“I had a lot of wide open shots,” Hornyak recalled during a recent phone interview from his home in suburban Cincinnati. “My teammates did a great job of getting me the ball and really sacrificed some shots they could have taken just to keep feeding me.”

Entire article: https://www.theintelligencer.net/sports/top-sports/2021/01/hornyaks-86-point-game-lives-on/

aka....The "Bellaire Bomber".
 
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Anybody remember George Bellows?



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George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City. He became, according to the , "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".
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At age 10, George took to athletics, and trained to be a baseball and basketball player. He became good enough at both sports to play semipro ball for years afterward. During his senior year, a baseball scout from the Indianapolis team made him an offer. He declined, opting to enroll at The Ohio State University (1901–1904). There he played for the baseball and basketball teams, and provided illustrations for the Makio, the school's student yearbook. He was encouraged to become a professional baseball player, and he worked as a commercial illustrator while a student and continued to accept magazine assignments throughout his life. Despite these opportunities in athletics and commercial art, Bellows desired success as a painter. He left Ohio State in 1904, just before he was to graduate, and moved to New York City to study art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bellows
 
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Mitch Haas

I remember that Mitch Haas was recruited from California where he was the Northern California POY. Everyone had real high expectations since it was noted that Bill Walton was the Northern California POY years earlier; it was never mentioned that no other Northern California POY ever came close to being as good as Walton....:lol: Unfortunately the high expectations for him (of being a prolific scorer) never panned out on the basketball court: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/mitch-haas-1.html

Anyway, here's a good story on him (see pages 18 & 19): https://www.buckeyesports.com/issues/20200414/2020-4-18BSBOnline.pdf
 
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Anybody remember George Bellows?



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George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City. He became, according to the , "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".
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At age 10, George took to athletics, and trained to be a baseball and basketball player. He became good enough at both sports to play semipro ball for years afterward. During his senior year, a baseball scout from the Indianapolis team made him an offer. He declined, opting to enroll at The Ohio State University (1901–1904). There he played for the baseball and basketball teams, and provided illustrations for the Makio, the school's student yearbook. He was encouraged to become a professional baseball player, and he worked as a commercial illustrator while a student and continued to accept magazine assignments throughout his life. Despite these opportunities in athletics and commercial art, Bellows desired success as a painter. He left Ohio State in 1904, just before he was to graduate, and moved to New York City to study art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bellows

Bellows was good guy, but he would never pick up the tab.
 
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Marquis Miller
: played high school basketball at St. Charles (in Columbus) and played for Ohio State 1977 - 1981; he wasn't a starter and only averaged 10 points a game his Junior and Senior years. What I remember about him is a visually horrific injury he sustained at Michigan State in his Senior year. He came down from a rebound on a Spartan player's foot and totally dislocated his ankle. His foot was like bent over 90 degrees from his leg. That ended his basketball career at Ohio State. Great story on him below:

Marquis Miller, Chicago's first chief diversity officer, continues a legacy of mentorship and support

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Marquis Miller ‘81 grew up in a household with high expectations. He came from three generations of college students: His great-grandmother went to what is now West Virginia State University (WVSU), his grandfather went to Livingstone College and his parents went to WVSU.

“I had such a legacy and the lineage to live up to that even with some of the challenges that confronted me — some of my own doing — I didn't have a choice. I had to succeed,” Miller said. “That's all of the incentive I needed to continue to drive and drive.”

Now, as the first chief diversity officer for the city of Chicago, Miller wants to open doors for minorities and other underrepresented communities, too.

His entrance into diversity and inclusion wasn’t “by design,” he said. Instead, after he graduated from Ohio State with a degree in social and behavioral sciences, he went to work for a savings and loan company and then for a furniture company.

It's a great feeling to help people start to see themselves as the true and authentic people that they really are and help them to realize that they have something of value to contribute to the world.”

In his jobs, he was often one of a handful of people, if not the only person, from a non-white background, and he found himself advocating for increasing access and opportunities for African Americans and other minorities. Then, he came to work for Ohio State in a development capacity.

“I was one of a handful of African American leaders fundraising for the university,” Miller said. “This led me to being more active with opportunities to recruit African-Americans to get involved in the university.”

The position launched a career for him in fundraising and business development. He eventually became vice president of the Midwest region for the United Negro College Fund, which took him to Chicago and set him on the path to his current job with the city.

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Marquis Miller, pictured in his Buckeyes jersey to the right, graduated from St. Charles Preparatory School as one of the most celebrated basketball players in the school’s history.

Entire article: https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/news/chief-diversity-officer-continues-legacy-mentorship-and-support

Also see: https://marquismiller.me/
 
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It's a shame what's happened to Ahrens. He shot over 40% from three each of the last two seasons, and started off hot this season (43% in November/December).

Since returning from the Covid break in January, he's only 16 of 55 from downtown (29%). Just hoping he can finish his career on one last hot streak now.
 
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