End of the line looms for two valued players
Davis, La Tulip will be honored at pregame ceremony today.
A lot of times a senior FAIRBORN — day ceremony will be an emotional culmination of a five-, sometimes six-year relationship that began with high school recruiting and traversed an intense, daily course through the most formative years of a player’s life.
But today’s ceremony at the Nutter Center ahead of Wright State’s regular-season finale against Illinois-Chicago will be a little different, given that coach Scott Nagy and senior guard and Illinois transfer Mike La Tulip arrived on campus less than a year ago, well after senior forward Steven Davis committed to play for the Raiders.
But while their time together
has been short, the feelings are strong, for each other, their teammates, the fans, the school, the journey.
“It’s going to be really emotional,” Davis said. “I’ve come a long way, had a lot of bumps in the road, fought through a lot of adversity. It’s already been on my mind a lot, so it’s going to be really emotional when it gets here.”
What likely will be the final home game for Davis will be the 66th of a career that began in 2012 when he came out of Manual High School in Indianapolis. He said he will have a large contingent of family members on hand, the first time both his daughter, Sa’Mia, 3, and son, Steven Jr., 11 months, will have been in attendance.
After redshirting in 201314, Davis has appeared in 66 games for the Raiders, scoring 606 points (9.1) while grabbing 210 rebounds (3.2).
Davis and La Tulip will be honored in a pregame ceremony 10 minutes before the 2 p.m. tip.
“It’ll be emotional because it more than likely will be the end of my basketball career, and it’s something I’ve done for as long as I can remember,” said La Tulip, an Arlington Heights, Ill. native who committed to play for Bruce Weber at Illinois, only to see him get fired and be replaced with John Groce before La Tulip’s freshman season.
La Tulip appeared in 44 games with the Illini, averaging 2.9 minutes. At Wright State, La Tulip has played in all 30 with 24 starts, averaging 26.6 minutes, 7.6 points and 3.1 rebounds.
“That’s why I’m even more appreciative of the year I’ve had and the opportunities these guys have given me to play,” he said. “My four years at Illinois, I got in a little bit here and there but didn’t play much. And there’s really nothing that replaces being out there on the court.
“Looking back on my basketball career and my decision to come here, I couldn’t have made a better one,” he added. “This staff and the teammates I have, I don’t think even if it was scripted it could have gone better. It’s a credit to those guys for being great guys, guys I’ll consider to be lifelong friends.”
There is a chance, albeit a slim one, that Davis could be back next year if he’s granted a medical redshirt by the NCAA. He suffered a foot injury in December of 2014 that cost him the rest of that season — except for 10 minutes in the first-round tournament loss at UIC — and he didn’t play at all in 2015-16 due to complications with the injury.
But medical redshirts are rare, and both Nagy and Davis said they don’t expect their application to be granted.
“I haven’t paid attention to it that much,” Davis said. “I don’t want to feel like there’s something to fall back on. I’m playing like this is it and giving everything I have. At the end of the day, whenever my career is said and done, I want my teammates to know I gave them all I’ve got.”