The Greatest Hits that never were

[Lobot]

Friday fun time. One of the funny pasttimes I've developed on here as an mod/admin is watching what the search engine crawlers that hit the site do while crawling. For example, a googlebot crawler will go through the site and drag up old threads to capture the info for use in the Google search engine. The threads that get dragged up are kinda comical at times. Sometimes it's like a greatest hits of Bearcat News.

Some of you have been here as long or longer than I have and date back to the Mailing list days. If anyone wants to add names to this list let me know and I'll chase it down.

The MSN (Bing) engine really, really, likes Chris Obekpa threads.
John Riek is a popular one for Google
Latwan Anderson on the football side comes up a lot in general.

You get the picture. This forum is Where are they now? I got bored and did the google rabbit hole thing. Ever wonder what happened to these guys after the recruiting interest went dry?

Chris Obekpa - Moved back to Nigeria after chasing the bag in college, Landed at St. John's temporarily and is currently playing for a Nigerian ABL team.

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


John Riek - This one's a puzzler because it's apparently a more common name in Sudan than you'd think. It would appear that after his college career he went into the NBA draft, was undrafted and ended playing in the now defunct ABA (the 2nd or 3rd version) for the Lake Michigan Admirals. From there he MAY Have been involved is rescuing several hundred people from his native South Sudan during the war there. There are no pictures of him that I can find post college so I can't confirm it's him. If it is him that carried out that rescue, he's living with his family in Alaska.

:: Multiple links here which go almost nowhere ::

Latwan Anderson - After committing early and never enrolling at UC (grades), he bounced around for a while and finally ended up on the roster of Miami FL. It does not appear that he ever played for them and enrolled at Eastern Arizona College. Somewhere thereafter he went back to Cleveland where he caught several gun and felony charges. He is currently inmate A690128 in the Richfield Correctional Institution and is eligible for parole in 2029. Yikes....

https://appgateway.drc.ohio.gov/Offe...sPrint/A690128


This has been your Friday Evening entertainment...

[longtimefan]

Vince Banks. Ineligible as a Freshman (grades) left and never played here.

[Lobot]

Vince Banks. Ineligible as a Freshman (grades) left and never played here.

I don't remember all the details with him and the reason for leaving but if you can get around this paywall and read the whole article, let me know. Last anyone saw him, he was headed to Australia from the look of it.

https://www.kansas.com/news/local/ne...le1007903.html

[longtimefan]

https://vb.bearcatnews.com/core/blob...3-579d999b8fec

[GoBearcats31]

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a Top 100 ranking for the Class of 2000 (thanks to a Tom Crean tweet) per Bob Gibbons.

There was someone named Jerome Harper, a 6'6 G/F from South Carolina, who was ranked #13 and apparently committed to Cincinnati. I was entirely unfamiliar with that name and him being committed to UC. But just went down quite the rabbit hole...

- Was ranked the No. 8 prospect, according to this old ESPN.com article https://www.espn.com/recruiting/s/990821hoops.html - If he can qualify by the spring, the Bearcats will have one of the nation's elite backcourts in point guard Kenny Satterfield, wing Harper and swingman DerMarr Johnson. Harper is an explosive scorer who can handle the ball, and could be a combo guard at the next level with his great first step and crossover.
- Made it to junior college ball and was committed to Iowa State at some point but never played https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...he-last-decade
- A 2008 article about Harper (cousin of NBA star Jermaine O'Neal) being one of three men accused of killing a hotel owner in 1999 -- nine years later. It seemed nothing could stop Harper but Harper himself. His senior year, Harper was named to the prestigious McDonald's All-American Team. The same day, he was arrested on assault charges that were later dropped. Then, Harper lost his scholarship to the University of Cincinnati. https://www.wistv.com/story/8013998/...sketball-star/

Saw a couple social media posts showing him in attendance at his high school alma mater's state title game in 2020.

[MDW79]

I seem to remember a lot of conversations surrounding Bud Mackey. I knew he went to jail but hadn't heard his name or thought of him in ages. After seeing this thread I decided to google him; apparently he got busted with 10 pounds of meth a couple of years ago:

https://www.wtvq.com/former-scott-co...-in-meth-bust/

Also, not sure this really fits the thread as it is more recent but I've never quite understood what exactly happened with Luther Richesson. He left school in August, sat out the entire 2022 season and didn't commit anywhere until July of 2023, and it was to a JUCO.

The whole thing just seemed odd. A lot of people here were high on him, and he had other decent offers. He had to know he wasn't going to play much as true freshman so why leave that late in the offseason? And why wait an entire year before committing somewhere else? And why to a JUCO of all places? Now he's at Middle Tennessee St which is far cry from here and his initial offers. UAB with Trent Dilfer who was his HS coach seemed to make sense but obviously never happened. Maybe he just was nowhere close to as good as billed, or maybe he just got some terrible advice. Either way, it just seems strange the way it played out.

[DesertFog]

A little OT, but the oblique reference to the old mailing lists made wistful for the days when people used their real names and their personalities and credibility became apparent. Are these old lists archived anywhere?

[swilsonsp4]

I seem to remember a lot of conversations surrounding Bud Mackey. I knew he went to jail but hadn't heard his name or thought of him in ages. After seeing this thread I decided to google him; apparently he got busted with 10 pounds of meth a couple of years ago:

https://www.wtvq.com/former-scott-co...-in-meth-bust/

Also, not sure this really fits the thread as it is more recent but I've never quite understood what exactly happened with Luther Richesson. He left school in August, sat out the entire 2022 season and didn't commit anywhere until July of 2023, and it was to a JUCO.

The whole thing just seemed odd. A lot of people here were high on him, and he had other decent offers. He had to know he wasn't going to play much as true freshman so why leave that late in the offseason? And why wait an entire year before committing somewhere else? And why to a JUCO of all places? Now he's at Middle Tennessee St which is far cry from here and his initial offers. UAB with Trent Dilfer who was his HS coach seemed to make sense but obviously never happened. Maybe he just was nowhere close to as good as billed, or maybe he just got some terrible advice. Either way, it just seems strange the way it played out.

The word is that Richesson's ego is bigger than his arm, which is substantial. He thought he should've started and found himself #4 on the depth chart. His lack of other offers after he transferred out shows where he really stood.

[Lobot]

A little OT, but the oblique reference to the old mailing lists made wistful for the days when people used their real names and their personalities and credibility became apparent. Are these old lists archived anywhere?

If they are, I'm not sure how to retrieve them from the site. I'd have to ask the owner if any of that got backed up (probably not). Also, this site has kind of been handed off multiple times over the years. I'm not even sure the current owner is an original server admin here.

[Lobot]

The word is that Richesson's ego is bigger than his arm, which is substantial. He thought he should've started and found himself #4 on the depth chart. His lack of other offers after he transferred out shows where he really stood.

He didn't even end up at UAB where his HS coach Trent Dilfer went. Spent a year at Golden West JC in California and is now on the roster at MTSU. MTSU's Coach is Derek Mason who probably knew him from his time coaching for Vandy.

[Carthage World]

Just saw a clip on Twitter of a Bill Walker podcast interview where he said he, OJ Mayo, Mike Beasley, and someone else named Jacob (?) were all locks to come to UC had Huggins not been fired.

It's water under the bridge now but still hurts a bit to think about what we missed out on.