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UConn Huskies
- By ScriptOhio
- Buckeye Basketball
- 6 Replies
Great "feel good story" about Braylon Mullins, someone could make an actual modern day true to life "Hoosiers movie" here:
www.si.com
There is a black Dodge police cruiser parked in front of Greenfield-Central High School, and it’s not difficult to deduce who drives it. The Connecticut Huskies license plate on the front is the giveaway.
Inside the building, school resource officer Josh Mullins is trying to get back to work, but the interruptions keep coming. A stunning college basketball scramble play in Washington, D.C., Sunday tilted life here in Greenfield, a town of about 25,000 located in the flat farmland terrain that stretches out east of Indianapolis. Mullins’s oldest son became a March legend in that instant, and the smile remains plastered on his face.
“Enjoy the moment, man,” officer Mullins says. “These things don’t happen to everybody.”
This thing happened to a basketball family with deep roots in this community—a family that rejected the nomadic lifestyle of modern prospects and stayed home. This thing was the fulfillment of a recruiting pitch by UConn coach Dan Hurley, and a mother’s wishful Instagram prophecy nearly two years earlier. This thing was the realization of a gym rat’s dream, a live-action monument to a lifetime of practice shots, a distillation of all that work into one fundamentally flawless wrist flick.
“If you’re from Indiana,” Josh Mullins says, “you better be able to shoot.”
Freshman Braylon Mullins’s 35-foot swish beat the buzzer and Duke in the NCAA men’s tournament East Regional final. It propelled UConn to yet another Final Four, and it poetically brings the freshman who launched it back home, where his thunderclap of a shot echoes loudly. The electronic sign in front of the school on North Broadway celebrates the event: “Congrats UConn. GC is proud of you Braylon.”
The shot came at the confluence of opportunity and preparedness. And the preparation stretches back through time in Greenfield: to Christmas mornings in the high school gym; to a floodlit backyard court on Fifth Street; to a childhood friendship turned teenage courtship turned lifetime partnership. This all-time March moment was generations in the making.
Josh and Katie Mullins met in second grade at Harris Elementary, classmates well before soulmates. After matriculating half a mile down the street to Greenfield-Central, which houses both the middle school and high school, they eventually became best friends. On Valentine’s Day 1998, when Josh was a standout basketball player for the Cougars and Katie was a cheerleader, they went on their first date.
Katie’s family had been in Greenfield forever, establishing a farm outside the city limits that is nearly 150 years old. Josh’s grandparents moved there from Kentucky and never left. This place, about 25 miles outside Indianapolis but not to be confused with affluent suburbs like Carmel or Fishers, is all they knew. Katie’s uncle, Guy Titus, is the mayor. Josh’s cousin, Gary Achor, is running for sheriff.
“We’re just little townies that have always been here,” Katie says.
They actually lived elsewhere during college. Josh went to Lincoln Trail Junior College in Robinson, Ill., to play basketball, and Katie followed. But she was driving 2 ½ hours home nearly every weekend to work at a tanning salon, and after graduating from Lincoln Trail opted to attend nearby IUPUI (now known as IU Indianapolis) to get her four-year degree. This time, it was Josh’s turn to follow Katie—he signed with the Jaguars, becoming a starter and double-digit scorer on their only NCAA tournament qualifier in 2003.
They got married after college and, naturally, settled in Greenfield, a town bisected by U.S. 40 and dotted with American flags and driveway basketball goals. (Knightstown, site of the gym used in the movie Hoosiers as the home of the Hickory Huskers, is 12 miles away.) Josh became a police officer and the couple had three boys—Braylon and twins Cole and Clay, who will play at Division III Franklin University next year. Basketball was an inevitable family bonding element.
Katie remembers Braylon pushing around basketballs before he could walk. By the time the boys were old enough to play, the family lived in a modest house where Katie grew up on West Fifth Street, with a backyard court that became the launching pad for all that followed. Other kids flocked there to play with her boys.
“It was the go-to place in the neighborhood,” Katie says.
But the standing game was Josh and one of the twins against Braylon and the other twin. The rules to keep it relatively fair: Josh had to wear flip-flops and could shoot only three-pointers.
“We would go out all the time,” Josh says. “We played under the lights. It was one of those things where you want your kids to do the same thing as you until they tell you they hate it. [Braylon] never told me that. We put a ball in his hands and it just never left.
“It’s the difference being great and good. You just got to do extra things. And I gave him the ball at five and it just took off from there.”
By the time the boys were in middle school, Josh was on the Greenfield-Central coaching staff. That led to a family tradition—Christmas morning shootarounds in the school gym, Cougar Fieldhouse. Built in 1969, it had an original capacity of 4,620—huge by most standards, but not compared to some of the cathedrals in the state. (New Castle, about 25 miles away, seats 10,000 and is the largest high school gym in the nation.) The current Cougar Fieldhouse capacity is 3,100.
That is where Braylon really honed his shooting stroke and all-around game.
“I met him here every single morning at 7:15, an hour before school, for four years,” says Luke Meredith, the coach of the Cougars during Braylon’s tenure. “He shot by himself. We listened to music, just talked. There would be other guys that he would drag along with him, including his twin brothers. But he was the one constant.”
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continued
Braylon Mullins’s Shot Was a Lifetime in the Making
“You better be able to shoot”: How small-town Greenfield, Ind., shaped the UConn freshman to step up on the biggest stage in March Madness.
www.si.com
Braylon Mullins’s Shot Was a Lifetime in the Making
“You better be able to shoot”: How small-town Greenfield, Ind., shaped the UConn freshman to step up on the biggest stage in March Madness.
There is a black Dodge police cruiser parked in front of Greenfield-Central High School, and it’s not difficult to deduce who drives it. The Connecticut Huskies license plate on the front is the giveaway.
Inside the building, school resource officer Josh Mullins is trying to get back to work, but the interruptions keep coming. A stunning college basketball scramble play in Washington, D.C., Sunday tilted life here in Greenfield, a town of about 25,000 located in the flat farmland terrain that stretches out east of Indianapolis. Mullins’s oldest son became a March legend in that instant, and the smile remains plastered on his face.
“Enjoy the moment, man,” officer Mullins says. “These things don’t happen to everybody.”
This thing happened to a basketball family with deep roots in this community—a family that rejected the nomadic lifestyle of modern prospects and stayed home. This thing was the fulfillment of a recruiting pitch by UConn coach Dan Hurley, and a mother’s wishful Instagram prophecy nearly two years earlier. This thing was the realization of a gym rat’s dream, a live-action monument to a lifetime of practice shots, a distillation of all that work into one fundamentally flawless wrist flick.
“If you’re from Indiana,” Josh Mullins says, “you better be able to shoot.”
Freshman Braylon Mullins’s 35-foot swish beat the buzzer and Duke in the NCAA men’s tournament East Regional final. It propelled UConn to yet another Final Four, and it poetically brings the freshman who launched it back home, where his thunderclap of a shot echoes loudly. The electronic sign in front of the school on North Broadway celebrates the event: “Congrats UConn. GC is proud of you Braylon.”
The shot came at the confluence of opportunity and preparedness. And the preparation stretches back through time in Greenfield: to Christmas mornings in the high school gym; to a floodlit backyard court on Fifth Street; to a childhood friendship turned teenage courtship turned lifetime partnership. This all-time March moment was generations in the making.
Josh and Katie Mullins met in second grade at Harris Elementary, classmates well before soulmates. After matriculating half a mile down the street to Greenfield-Central, which houses both the middle school and high school, they eventually became best friends. On Valentine’s Day 1998, when Josh was a standout basketball player for the Cougars and Katie was a cheerleader, they went on their first date.
Katie’s family had been in Greenfield forever, establishing a farm outside the city limits that is nearly 150 years old. Josh’s grandparents moved there from Kentucky and never left. This place, about 25 miles outside Indianapolis but not to be confused with affluent suburbs like Carmel or Fishers, is all they knew. Katie’s uncle, Guy Titus, is the mayor. Josh’s cousin, Gary Achor, is running for sheriff.
“We’re just little townies that have always been here,” Katie says.
They actually lived elsewhere during college. Josh went to Lincoln Trail Junior College in Robinson, Ill., to play basketball, and Katie followed. But she was driving 2 ½ hours home nearly every weekend to work at a tanning salon, and after graduating from Lincoln Trail opted to attend nearby IUPUI (now known as IU Indianapolis) to get her four-year degree. This time, it was Josh’s turn to follow Katie—he signed with the Jaguars, becoming a starter and double-digit scorer on their only NCAA tournament qualifier in 2003.
They got married after college and, naturally, settled in Greenfield, a town bisected by U.S. 40 and dotted with American flags and driveway basketball goals. (Knightstown, site of the gym used in the movie Hoosiers as the home of the Hickory Huskers, is 12 miles away.) Josh became a police officer and the couple had three boys—Braylon and twins Cole and Clay, who will play at Division III Franklin University next year. Basketball was an inevitable family bonding element.
Katie remembers Braylon pushing around basketballs before he could walk. By the time the boys were old enough to play, the family lived in a modest house where Katie grew up on West Fifth Street, with a backyard court that became the launching pad for all that followed. Other kids flocked there to play with her boys.
“It was the go-to place in the neighborhood,” Katie says.
But the standing game was Josh and one of the twins against Braylon and the other twin. The rules to keep it relatively fair: Josh had to wear flip-flops and could shoot only three-pointers.
“We would go out all the time,” Josh says. “We played under the lights. It was one of those things where you want your kids to do the same thing as you until they tell you they hate it. [Braylon] never told me that. We put a ball in his hands and it just never left.
“It’s the difference being great and good. You just got to do extra things. And I gave him the ball at five and it just took off from there.”
By the time the boys were in middle school, Josh was on the Greenfield-Central coaching staff. That led to a family tradition—Christmas morning shootarounds in the school gym, Cougar Fieldhouse. Built in 1969, it had an original capacity of 4,620—huge by most standards, but not compared to some of the cathedrals in the state. (New Castle, about 25 miles away, seats 10,000 and is the largest high school gym in the nation.) The current Cougar Fieldhouse capacity is 3,100.
That is where Braylon really honed his shooting stroke and all-around game.
“I met him here every single morning at 7:15, an hour before school, for four years,” says Luke Meredith, the coach of the Cougars during Braylon’s tenure. “He shot by himself. We listened to music, just talked. There would be other guys that he would drag along with him, including his twin brothers. But he was the one constant.”
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.
.
continued
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X ... Twitter
- By Steve19
- Open Discussion (Work-safe)
- 2041 Replies
I sold that Nova to pay student fees at Ohio StateWhere's the Nova with ludicrously tall rear tires and the front end pointed diagonally toward the ground? More importantly, where's the customized van with flames or some imitation John Frazetta art on the sides?
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Indiana Hoosiers (2025 National Champions)
- By ScriptOhio
- College Football
- 466 Replies
Expected No. 1 Fernando Mendoza puts on show at Indiana pro day
Expected No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza threw roughly 56 passes in front of scouts from all 32 NFL teams and more than 100 members of the media Wednesday.
Expected No. 1 Fernando Mendoza puts on show at Indiana pro day
Fernando Mendoza warmed up with his college roommate Wednesday while nearly two dozen college teammates took turns running the 40-yard dash.Then the Heisman Trophy-winning Indiana quarterback did what he always seems to do: deliver another impressive performance.
All 32 NFL teams sent scouts to Indiana's campus, more than 100 media members were credentialed and dozens of family members and friends of ex-Hoosiers showed up for a pro day unlike any other in school history. Most came to see the guy expected to be the first pick in this month's NFL draft, and Mendoza didn't disappoint, using his platform to potentially help his ex-teammates improve their draft standing.
"I feel like it went great," Mendoza said after throwing the last of his roughly 56 passes inside the John Mellencamp Pavilion. "You know quarterbacks have passed, have done shorter pro days than that. However, I just wanted to make sure everybody could showcase their abilities in front of all 32 NFL teams and really run routes that are applicable to the timing we're going to be running in the NFL."
Mendoza threw short, deep and medium-range passes, targeting receivers to the left, right and over the middle. He also threw on the run.
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But Mendoza also said he's far from a finished product.
"I'm putting all of my efforts toward just trying to be the best quarterback possible for the season," he said. "But I know at the next level, there's going to be a lot more snaps under center, and that's a big adjustment. I need to get used to that and just the nature of the game. Not only that, the hash [marks] are more condensed and the speed of the game is faster. So, all those things I look forward to learning."
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Seattle Mariners (official thread)
- By brodybuck21
- Professional Baseball
- 11 Replies
Local boy done good.
Mariners' Colt Emerson: Inks $95 million contract extension
Mariners' Colt Emerson: Inks $95 million contract extensionwww.cbssports.com
John Glenn!
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Tiger Woods (Official Thread)
- By ScriptOhio
- Other OSU and Professional Sports
- 1783 Replies
Tiger Woods will seek treatment outside U.S. after DUI arrest, stepping away from golf and 2026 Masters
Woods does not appear set to tee it up anytime soon after being arrested over the weekend near his home in Jupiter Island, Florida
www.cbssports.com
Tiger Woods will seek treatment outside U.S. after DUI arrest, stepping away from golf and 2026 Masters
A Florida judge on Wednesday granted Woods' request to travel outside the United States for treatment at an inpatient facility, according to court documents. The motion was filed by Woods' attorney, Douglas Duncan, who noted that Woods requires an individualized program, "continuous monitoring," a "highly controlled environment" and privacy during this process."Based upon the Defendant's treating physician, the out of country treatment facility recommendation is based upon the Defendant's complex clinical presentation and the urgent need for a level of care that cannot safely or effectively be done within the United States, as his privacy has been repeatedly compromised," Duncan explained. "Ongoing medical scrutiny and public exposure create significant barriers to his care and would result in setbacks and an inability to fully engage in treatment."
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HC Ryan Day (B1G Coach of Year, B1G Champion, National Champion)
- By ScriptOhio
- Buckeye Football
- 7305 Replies
Ohio State coach Ryan Day reveals freakish recruit dunked on him
Ryan Day told a hilarious story about one of his players.
scarletandgame.com
Ohio State coach Ryan Day reveals freakish recruit dunked on him
Ryan Day told a hilarious story about one of his players.Since taking over as the head coach of the Ohio State football program, Ryan Day has figured out the best way to recruit players. He understands that Ohio State is a unique place. He knows that it's not for everyone, and he has to go the extra mile to land the best recruits.
His efforts have resulted in him winning a national championship in 2024. He amasses some of the best talent in the country every single year, showing that he is consistently one of the best recruiters. The Buckeyes usually land multiple five-star recruits in every cycle.
One of those five-star recruits that Day was able to land was Sonny Styles. Styles was a five-star safety recruit and played his first two years with the Ohio State Buckeyes at safety. Day told a hilarious story about Styles permanently retiring him from basketball.
Ryan Day had to retired from basketball after Sonny Styles dunked on him
While appearing on This Is Football with Kevin Clark, Day told a story of the last day he ever played basketball."Well, it started when he was in seventh or eighth grade because we were recruiting Lorenzo, his older brother. I remember it was really the last time I ever played basketball 1-on-1. We were having an event before camp started so we went to the basketball area and were messing around. And he (Sonny Styles) took two dribbles and dunked on me. And that was the last time I played basketball."
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Deaths Of Notable Sports Figures (R.I.P.)
- By ScriptOhio
- Other OSU and Professional Sports
- 670 Replies
Former Wisconsin TE Jack Pugh dies at 24; cause of death not given
Jack Pugh, a former tight end on Wisconsin's football team who stepped away from football three years ago citing mental health concerns, has died at 24.
Former Wisconsin TE Jack Pugh dies at 24; cause of death not given
Jack Pugh, a former tight end on Wisconsin's football team who stepped away from football three years ago citing mental health concerns, has died, the university announced. He was 24.Wisconsin issued a post Tuesday night on its football program's X account saying Pugh had died. Details, including the cause of death, were not given.
"The Wisconsin Athletics family is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Jack Pugh," the post said. "Jack was a positive light and brought a genuine spirit to our football program. More than that, he cared about people and was loved by his teammates and staff. Jack proudly earned his degree from UW-Madison in 2025 and will forever be remembered and loved."
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Pugh, who was from Columbus*, Ohio, redshirted in 2021 before appearing in one game and earning academic All-Big Ten honors in 2022. He announced in an Instagram post in December 2023 that he had decided before that season to medically retire.
"My physical health was not near perfect, but my mental health was the reason I decided to hang it up," Pugh said in that Instagram post. "Over years of prolonged depression and substance abuse, I decided I deserved a better life and to finally find happiness. In no way was football the root of these problems, but everything in my life had distracted me for so long to the point I never had prioritized my mental health all along, digging a deeper darker hole.
"I want to thank the amazing Coaches, Teammates, Friends and Family @badgerfootball has provided me with over the years for helping me find a life I'm happy and proud of, and to finally create a relationship with God. I'll never forget the memories. Love y'all."
* 24/7 Sports had him as a 4-star TE from Hilliard Bradley High School
R.I.P.
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MLB General Discussion (Official Thread)
- Professional Baseball
- 4497 Replies
Why even have replay? Just have the thing call the balls and strikes. This is so dumb.
Bucknor in spotlight again after missed call in Rays-Brewers
Umpire C.B. Bucknor, who had the poorest results among umpires in MLB's new ABS system last weekend, had another call overturned at first base during Tuesday's Rays-Brewers game.www.espn.com
And some wonder why they have replay and now the ABS system. Where was this official even looking?
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