The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Right, pvmaddogs. I wonder if Blevins holds any Kent records for free throw shooting percentage? He was superb at the line. As for "duels", I recall another great one, between Dave Ziegler and Akron's Joe Jacubick. The "three" was experimental then, and the game was at Akron's old Memorial Hall (I think it was called). Dave and Joe, for the longest time, took turns trading threes. A real sight to behold. Kent won a close one. It was either in 82/83 or 83/84. Anyone recall Jeff (I think) Anderson? He may have lead the nation in 3-point % as a junior, but as a senior, unfortunately went cold. He played a little before the Gary Waters era.

The Flash

JC & ric blevins were roomates at URI

source: my dad (URI Alum, gym rat & snooper of all things ksu hoops!)

yes, i remember blevins.. he was awesome! as was jay peters.

how about this for a team:

ric blevins
jay peters
antonio gates
trevor huffman
demetric shaw

dave ziegler 1st one off the bench..


- mike
'86

Not a bad first team, mmucha. Jay Peters left quite a lasting impression for someone who actually played only one sememster at Kent, the second semester of the 86/87 school year. He had a big game his first time out. He was an excellent offensive rebounder. As I mentioned earlier, that 86/87 team would most probably have been Kent's first MAC champion, if guard Bill Toole wouldn't have been stricken with meningitis late in the season. That excellent team also included Reggie Adams, freshman Eric Glenn, Terry Wearsch, David Barnwell, and Jim Mangapora. Good players all. They finished a close second in the regular season to Charlie Coles' CMU team, featuring Kent-killer Dan Majerle. They hammered a good Toledo team three times that year. They lost to CMU in the MAC title game by one point, in a game that went to the buzzer. Toole played in that game, by wasn't close to 100%.

Biggest Heart = Shaw. So clear its not even debatable

Best Player - I'd go with Gates over Huffman. I agree with everyone about the Elite 8 team being the perfect "TEAM" but Gates is the cog that took us to that next level.

My top five:

Matt Smriga
Bobby Meeks
Jim Zoet
Roy Ware
Marcus Crenshaw

Just kidding.

This is hard and a very academic exercise but it is fun, so I will add my 30 years of being a KSU fan thru bad and good. A team has to have balance and needs 6 0r 7 players so here it is. It also needs position and role players.

C-John Warton
PG-Trevor Huffman
SG-Ruben Vance
PF-Antonio Gates
SG-Demetric Shaw
SG-PG-Mike Foote

GFlash68, if you want to go by a whole career, no doubt John Wharton was the best center in that time frame, but if you want to go by a one year performance, I'd have to go with the late-blooming John Edwards based upon his last season. Marvin Robinson, who played in the early 80's was a nice, quick center, although undersized at a listed 6'6". Another good Golden Flash in the pivot was Brook Bright, at 6'10", I think. He played in the mid-90's but played on very bad teams. He was pretty solid, though. Let's hope Nate Gerwig has the best one-year play of any of them!!

Funny Jim Mangapora story. As I recall he was around 6-6 or 6-7. I was a freshman at one of those preseason games against some Eastern European team. I am sitting in the chairbacks because it is free. I look a the roster and check out his size. I look at him on the court and make the statement rather too loudly that this guy is too short to play center.

His mom, seated right in front of me, turns around and promptly let's me have it, including stats, etc., etc. I said something stupid like 'Ohh, okay" and never said a word about a player's size for the next umpteen years. Don't make mama angry by talking about her boy!