More on Ochereobia, Nate Wells, ex-BU recruit Leon Powell, and more..

Michael Ochereobia impresses early in his juco career!!
In Michael Ochereobia's 2nd game, his team, Highland CC, beat the Nationally #19 ranked Southwest Tennessee CC 83-73.
They have several good upperclassmen (juco sophomores) so Ochereobia doesn't see fully as much floor time as he'd like...but he teams with big man Monterrale Clark, at Highland, who BU recruited out of high school, to form a tough inside duo...
Clark is going to get lots of D-I looks, at 6-11, but he does have a pending charge against him from last year in Texas...
http://www.journalstandard.com/sports/college/x742800810/Cougs-hope-balance-equals-success

But in his 3rd game Michael Ochereobia logged some great numbers.....
14 pts, 9 rebs..in Highland's 103-62 win over Truman
http://www.journalstandard.com/sports/x1775213882/Cougars-win-again



Here's some coverage on new BU verbal Nate Wells from just a couple months ago...
he's been hearing from a few D-I's and getting other offers...and he has always like'd Wisconsin...so I hope we stole one that Bo Ryan ends up liking..

"With a 7-foot frame, Davenport West center Nate Wells has a bright future on the basketball court. This senior feels continues to put in the time to get better overall as a player and it paid off during last winter.
"Overall it was a big improving year for me. I started playing basketball in seventh grade so I was behind the curve coming into high school. I think this past year was great improvement for myself and for my team."
Wells used the off-season to work in a variety of different ways.
"I've been doing AAU stuff. Our team has been getting together lifting and doing team unity things to get to know each other better. It will help us community in the court when we hang out more."
Things with the Iowa Mavs were strong according to Wells.
"It went really well. I liked Coach Greg Stephens. He did a good job organizing everything. We went to a lot of different places."
Wells mentioned the areas he is focusing on improving in before the winter.
"I need to add strength. That is a big thing. I am tall but I need to add strength because I'm lengthy. I need to work on that and rebounding. I've also been doing a lot of ball handling and trying to get my hands ready."

There are a number of scholarship programs keeping in touch with Wells on the recruiting front.
"Upper Iowa, Bradley University, and Bemidji State has been all sending me stuff. My coach has been saying that Valparaiso is calling him."
Wells does not have anything that sticks out as a favorite just yet.

"I am having an open mind about it. I want to major in Religious Studies so I am looking at different colleges. That is a big factor because I want to be a pastor when I get older."
There has been one school that Wells grew up following.
"I have really liked Wisconsin. A lot of people from my family went there."

http://iowapreps.rivals.com/content.asp?highlight=Wells&CID=1108789



One player many will recall....Leon Powell...
Bradley recruited Leon vigorously and from the links below you can see we were the first to offer him. Leon was also possibly the "mystery recruit" from 2007 that BU was trying to see him get qualified with some summer work -- but in the end he was never able to qualify - and landed at Indian Hills CC on a tremendously loaded team with Dwight Buycks, etc...
About that time BU landed verbals from guys like Egolf, Prosser, and then Wilkins, so we backed off Powell, as did almost everyone else..
Then Leon Powell went to SEMO and hurt his knee right off the bat -- redshirting last year.

Well -- Leon Powell is finally healthy and playing and you are going to hear more about him...
SEMO played their first public exhibition game and beat Ouachita Baptist 80-71.
Leon Powell played 28 minutes and scored 36 pts on 15-17 from the floor and also had 10 rebs. He had 28 points in their Red-White intrasquad game last week.
http://gosoutheast.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2010-2011/semex1.html

More on Leon Powell and some pics..
http://www.semissourian.com/story/1678928.html

In that same game ex-Evansville Center Zach House had 6 pts, 12 rebs.

Anyone who wants to see all the old posts that tie Powell to BU -- here are some links...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=4915&postcount=1
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=25598&postcount=3
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=25599&postcount=1
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=118659&postcount=1
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=118663&postcount=3



A few more odd exhibition results from yesterday -- DePaul was AT FULL STRENGTH, unlike Bradley, yet they lost to D-II Lewis University!

Then I had a few real belly laughs at a thread over on one of the Illinois boards that talks a little about BU's loss Friday night.
Most posts in the nearly 5-page thread are reasonable and note it's just a preseason exhibition and that BU was without two of their best players.
But a few bozos come up with incredible stupidity like how Jim Les supposedly got the BU head coaching job because he has an immensely wealthy brother that bought the position for him, and one guy says Caterpillar wanted Les that they held up their giving until he had the job, and another that Joe B McDade was all for Wayne McClain at the time because McDade was a college buddy and basketball teammate of McClain at Bradley! (There's more than a 20 year difference in the years they played!)
And other silly statements follow about Phil Theobald and about Steve Merfeld that have no basis in reality.
And I though some BU posters were stupid!!



Preps Plus writer for the PJS Nick Vlahos has some coverage on Bobo Drummond...
http://blogs.pjstar.com/prepsplus/2010/11/07/former-central-player-drummond-commits-to-siu-report-says/



And the PJS sports section also has an interview with Lou Dobridnya - but it's not online..
It is an interesting "Where are they now" segment on the fine Limestone softball coach whose career ended shortly after she became one of the botulism patients in Peoria back in the 1980's when there was a large botulism outbreak. She does make several misstatements about the whole scenario...
first she says
"The botulism spore stays in the body for life"
...but this is very false. In fact, the spore isn't even responsible for the disease....
the spore must frist germinate in some poorly prepared food, then the actively growing bacterium produces a poisonous toxin that when ingested causes the paralysis. The muscle damage may last months and even years, and the weakness may last a lifetime, but the spores and even the toxin are long gone by then.

The Journal Star also cites that there were 28 botulism victims...but despite that's the count the CDC finally settled on, it is still disputed to this day.
We may never know fully how many victims there were overall, because some very minimally affected patients declined to even be tested or treated, and others might not have even been found..while a few who ate at the restaurant and who had identical symptoms and were treated as botulism patients, unfortunately tested negative (as is sometimes the case) and thus they were excluded from the count.
Some local experts believed as many as 39 or 40 patients actually had botulism in this Peoria outbreak.

Here is another story about her..
http://www.pjstar.com/features/health/x1258314690/Memories-of-botulism-outbreak-linger-after-25-years

And here's the link to the original CDC story about the Peoria botulism outbreak in October of 1983 -- and if you scroll to the 4th page of this CDC report you'll see that some very prominent, expert, and well known local physicians were extensively involved in the patient care and research on this event.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/253/9/1275.pdf