Two points down and 10 seconds left in the game, Chicago native Anthony Newell was exactly where he wanted to be. On the baseline and with the ball. Game on the line.
"I want the ball," he says. "I definitely want the ball."
Simeon High School basketball fans will remember Newell's magical touch with the ball. In the 2003-04 season, his senior year, Newell averaged 18 points a game for a Simeon team that won 26 games.
Now he is the leading scorer and rebounder for a Ball State University team that has
struggled to win six times.
Last Sunday at Kalamazoo, Mich., Newell, now a forward at Ball State University, found himself moving toward the basket against two Western Michigan defenders as the final seconds ticked down on the final regular-season game for both teams.
Newell moved quickly inside, put up a shot and the ball bounced off the rim and away. Game over. More than 4,000 Bronco fans screamed in delight.
Afterward, Newell grimaces and remembers the words of Michael Jordan, the retired Bulls star: "You can't miss the shot if you don't have the ball."
"We want to get the ball into him, let him make a play," Ball State coach Billy Taylor says.
And so went one more bounce for Newell in a rocky season that may end, or not, today at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament. If the Cardinals (6-23) lose to Eastern Michigan, their season will be over; win four consecutive games this week, and then Newell and company will be in the NCAA Tournament.
And do you think Newell is excited about that possibility?
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!" he says. "We're outmanned, we're outsized, we don't care."
Newell's story is one of perseverance. After battling back from three injuries and missing nine games, Newell is just happy to be playing at all. His medical problems began last year, when he played through the season with a torn miniscus. After the season, he went through arthroscopic surgery, did four weeks of rehabilitation and was back on the court. And then…
"I'm happy to be back, trying to extra things and I break my foot," he says.
And as if that weren't enough, he came back from his broken left foot, played two games (scoring a career-high 29 points in the second game) and broke the foot again in practice.
"It was the toughest part of my life, trying to come back," says Newell, who credits his family, friends and coaches for helping him.
Since returning to the team Dec. 31, Newell has been hot. He has scored in double figures in every game except two. His 16.9 points per game and 8.1 rebounds per game would rank him No. 2 in the MAC, except he doesn't have enough games played to qualify for the conference's statistical ranking.
At the top of the MAC scoring list is one of Newell's rivals from Chicago, Tyrone Kent of Toledo. Kent, a 2005 graduate of Crane Technical, averaged 17.1 points per game. Newell and Kent played against each other in high school, in the Chicago summer basketball leagues and now in the MAC.
There is little question what Newell has meant to Ball State. During his nine-game absence, the Cardinals lost every game; upon his return, Ball State defeated IPFW.
"Talk about his leadership, his toughness, his competitiveness. We missed him significantly when he was out," Taylor says.
Against Western Michigan, the MAC West champion and the league's top defensive team in field-goal percentage, Taylor hit off-balance jumpers from the outside and also drove inside for baskets. He scored a game-high 19 points and grabbed 6 rebounds.
"What can you say about the kind of game he had? What a player he is," says Western Michigan coach Steve Hawkins.
It is those moments that Taylor can only see getting better, if not for the Cardinals next season but maybe even this week in the MAC Tournament.
"Anthony's best days are still yet ahead of him," Taylor says. "We've seen glimpses of that. He's got a burning desire to win."
