Okafor

For the UMBC men's basketball team, it was a night on which senior Kennedy Okafor became the school's all-time leading rebounder and classmate Terence Ward moved into fourth place on its all-time scoring list. But those milestones meant little to the Retrievers. Coming off two straight Northeast Conference losses and with the conference tournament rapidly approaching, UMBC badly needed a win over Fairleigh Dickinson, and it was the play of Ward and Okafor that made the difference. Okafor scored 16 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and blocked a career-high six shots, and Ward contributed a team-high 19 points to lead the Retrievers to a 71-56 win over Fairleigh Dickinson last night at the RAC Arena.

Ngo Okafor has posed with supermodels like Gisele Bündchen. His face has been plastered all over New York City in an Under Armour ad campaign. But it wasn't until this fall when actor and talk-show host Mo'Nique gushed on-air about his calendar that the 35-year-old got a real taste of stardom. "After that appearance, I got a lot of double takes," he said this week from his parent's Salisbury home. "People in my building would stop me. When I went to auditions, the security guards who ignored me before said, 'Oh, I now know who you are.'" For the past decade, Okafor has gradually become a force in the modeling world.

The resolution of the Battle of Baltimore came quickly last night. Host UMBC seized the initiative from the beginning and went on to unseat two-time defending titlist Loyola, 74-56, in a rather lopsided basketball championship game at RAC Arena as senior center Kennedy Okafor reached 1,000 career points and carted away the Most Valuable Player award. This one was strictly no contest with Loyola (1-1) playing minus its first-round hero, John Reimold, still sidelined by an ankle injury incurred in the team's semifinal victory over Morgan State.

Saturday marks the first anniversary of the great Pistons-Pacers brawl. Ron Artest and some alienated Detroit fans are the starting point for pop sociologists eager to dissect where hoops went wrong. Its bookend evils are a bronze medal at the Athens Olympics and an NBA Finals in which the San Antonio Spurs' defense defied the Detroit Pistons and television viewers. Hubie Brown wants you to take a breath, pick up your remote control and appreciate the work ethic of the hip-hop generation.

After UMBC's 53-49 win in a Northeast Conference game against Wagner last night, Kennedy Okafor and Rich Giddens were in a role that has been surprisingly unfamiliar for them: heroes.The pair entered the season as the team's top returning players, Giddens coming off the most prolific scoring year of any Retrievers freshman with 434 points, Okafor with the tag of Big South Newcomer of the Year as a freshman.But after twin suspensions for team rule violations following the team's 0-4 start, the pair faded into the background as Brad Martin and Rod Harrison took over their starting positions.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The championship game of the BB&T Classic Dec. 3 was settled in the paint, where tournament MVP Lonny Baxter banged his way to 24 points and 10 rebounds. It was the senior's 110th game with Maryland. It was the fourth at Connecticut for Emeka Okafor, and Baxter should know that the freshman center is a very quick study. "Emeka had one B-plus this past semester, and that's only because he spent extra time on a paper and it was late," Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said.

Reeling from five losses in its past six games, the UMBC men's basketball team went with a different look last night - one that included three freshmen in the lineup and its second-leading scorer on the bench. Even those changes couldn't prevent the Retrievers from continuing in the wrong direction. Long Island ran off 12 straight points, a surge that began with less than six minutes remaining, to take its final lead and an 80-72 victory over UMBC in a Northeast Conference game at RAC Arena.

Armed with the first pick in last night's NBA draft, the Orlando Magic believed it would get the best player in an evening that was longer on promise than proven product. In the end, the Magic went with promise, taking Dwight Howard, a high school forward from Atlanta, over another 6-foot-10 big man, Connecticut junior center Emeka Okafor. The Magic, which had the league's worst record at 21-61 last season and won the draft lottery, had wavered between Okafor, the co-National College Player of the Year, and Howard, the consensus high school Player of the Year.

SAN ANTONIO - Oklahoma State junior point guard John Lucas had made so many clutch plays for the Cowboys throughout this magical season, and the son of the legendary Maryland Terrapins point guard was at it again last night. But after overcoming a mostly ineffective evening by making three huge second-half shots, including the three-pointer that tied the score at 65 with 26.3 seconds left, Lucas lamented his failure at the defensive end of the floor as time was running out in regulation.

Kennedy Okafor, a senior forward on UMBC's men's basketball team, isn't the monster his 6-foot-7, 260-pound frame might suggest. "No one worries about the wrath of Kennedy," coach Tom Sullivan said, not expecting his best player to knock any teammates in line anytime soon. "Kennedy just listens to what we want him to do and he does just that, and he expects that that's what everyone else is going to do." Okafor, who will graduate in May with a degree in information systems, is also unlikely to go off on a spree of 30-point, 15-rebound games anytime soon, though his teammates and coaches believe he's capable.

A former nursing home employee was charged with two counts of neglect yesterday in connection with the death of an 89-year-old woman who was fed to death. In an indictment handed up by a Baltimore grand jury, Augustine Okafor, 48, of the 3400 block of Maryvale Road was accused of intentionally not providing necessary assistance and resources for Bertha Small, who died in November 2002. She was asphyxiated by liquid nutrients after employees at Villa St. Michael Nursing and Retirement Center left a feeding tube running overnight, until the liquid exploded from her mouth and nose, according to a civil suit filed last year by Small's family.

Armed with the first pick in last night's NBA draft, the Orlando Magic believed it would get the best player in an evening that was longer on promise than proven product. In the end, the Magic went with promise, taking Dwight Howard, a high school forward from Atlanta, over another 6-foot-10 big man, Connecticut junior center Emeka Okafor. The Magic, which had the league's worst record at 21-61 last season and won the draft lottery, had wavered between Okafor, the co-National College Player of the Year, and Howard, the consensus high school Player of the Year.

With his brains, beauty, brand-new NCAA basketball championship and likely place atop the NBA's June draft if that's his choice, University of Connecticut star Emeka Okafor is surely the man of the moment, with a path to success seemingly set in stone. But suppose the 21-year-old Okafor, who struggled with nagging injuries this season with the Huskies, decides there are better things - smarter things - to do with his life than bang bodies with NBA behemoths like Shaquille O'Neal. Here is what a few experts in other fields he might try offered by way of career counseling.

SAN ANTONIO - University of Connecticut men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun's game includes a quick wit, a sharp tongue, a grouchy streak. And Calhoun showed those stripes in the wake of another stamp of validation by the program he has built into one of the nation's best over the past two decades. But after his Huskies had humbled upstart Georgia Tech at the Alamodome, 82-73, to win their second NCAA championship, after Connecticut thoroughly controlled the Yellow Jackets behind strong defense and the all-around efforts of juniors Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon, the old coach from Braintree, Mass.

SAN ANTONIO - Connecticut did more than erase the memory of an early-season 16-point defeat to Georgia Tech last night in the NCAA tournament final at the Alamodome. The Huskies obliterated it, and the Yellow Jackets in the process. With junior All-America center Emeka Okafor dominating inside, guards Ben Gordon and Rashad Anderson controlling the perimeter, and Georgia Tech self-destructing everywhere, Connecticut cruised to an 82-73 victory that wasn't nearly as close as the final score indicated.

SAN ANTONIO - Connecticut did more than erase the memory of an early-season 16-point defeat to Georgia Tech in last night's NCAA championship game last night at the Alamodome. The Huskies obliterated it, and the Yellow Jackets, in the process. With junior All-American center Emeka Okafor dominating inside, junior guard Ben Gordon scoring easily outside, and Georgia Tech self-destructing everywhere, Connecticut cruised to an 82-73 victory that wasn't as close as the final score indicated.

SAN ANTONIO - Connecticut did more than erase the memory of an early-season 16-point defeat to Georgia Tech in last night's NCAA championship game last night at the Alamodome. The Huskies obliterated it, and the Yellow Jackets, in the process. With junior All-America center Emeka Okafor dominating inside, junior guard Ben Gordon scoring easily outside, and Georgia Tech self-destructing everywhere, Connecticut cruised to an 82-73 victory that wasn't as close as the final score indicated.

SAN ANTONIO - It was a given before tip-off last night that the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets had a major task on their hands in trying to contain a large, mobile Connecticut frontline led by junior first-team All-America center Emeka Okafor. While rolling to their second NCAA championship with an 82-73 victory over Georgia Tech at the Alamodome, the Huskies did their predictable damage down low. But Connecticut also struck at the heart of the Yellow Jackets with deadly effectiveness. With junior shooting guard Ben Gordon and senior point guard Taliek Brown making the statement, the Huskies destroyed Georgia Tech's backcourt.