Larry Fleming: Ex-Bruin in NCAA limelight

DALTON — Steve Prohm is enjoying the college basketball spotlight that’s shining on Murray State’s Racers, who upset Vanderbilt on Thursday in the NCAA tournament and will face Butler this afternoon at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., in a second-round matchup.

Prohm, 35, a native of Vienna, Va., spent six years in Dalton and attended Northwest Whitfield High School, where he played basketball three years under coach Allen Carden. He was at Northwest from 1988-92 and was a self-proclaimed “average” player on good teams that came within a win of qualifying for the state tournament his junior and senior seasons. Losses to Cedartown and Carrollton kept the Bruins from advancing to the big stage in Georgia.

Ron and Kathy Prohm brought their son to North Georgia from Fairfax County in Virginia because of Ron’s work in the carpet industry. After his time at Northwest, Steve Prohm moved on to the University of Alabama, where he was a student assistant coach and student manager for the Crimson Tide for five years. A couple of years after his graduation from Northwest, his parents moved to North Carolina.

All three were together in San Jose on Friday as the Racers, who have the second-most wins (31) in the NCAA tournament behind top-ranked Kansas and No. 2 Kentucky, each with 33, readied for today’s 3:20 p.m. (eastern) game.

“That’s real good company,” said Prohm, who helped Murray State capture the Ohio Valley Conference regular season and conference titles and a berth in the NCAA tournament. The Racers went 17-1 in league play, losing only to Morehead State in their final regular-season conference game. They sailed past Tennessee State, Eastern Illinois and Morehead State to the OVC tournament championship.

The NCAA selection committee bracketed Murray State, a 13th seed, with No. 4 Vanderbilt, but the Racers sent the Southeastern Conference’s Commodores packing with a spine-tingling, 66-65, loss on Danero Thomas’ game-winning shot at the buzzer from the right baseline.

Seconds later, the Murray State players and coaches were in a celebratory pile of humanity on one end of the court.

The celebration didn’t last long, though. Prohm, who has been on Billy Kennedy’s coaching staff at Murray State, Southeastern Louisiana and Centenary College for all but one year of his college career (he was at Tulane for one season when Hurricane Katrina hit), said the most rewarding part of Thursday’s game was watching the players soak in the big upset. It was Prohm’s scouting report that helped Murray State upend Vanderbilt and the Racers now have won nine of their last 10 games.

In Prohm’s words, there were a lot of interviews, a lot of hugs and a lot of celebrating in the locker room. Within a few hours, the coaches were watching tape of Butler, which advanced to the West Regional second round with a 77-59 win over the University of Texas-El Paso.

After their initial tape session, the team went out for “a nice dinner” and a bit of relaxation and then it was back studying film. There was a break for dinner before another 15-minute film session before giving the players their first report on Butler. That broke up around 11:30 on the West Coast. Most of the players and coaches then went their separate ways, except Kennedy and the assistant who scouted Butler. They watched more film.

Prohm said he was up early Friday — he’s finding it difficult to sleep on west coast time — to answer phone calls and texts from friends back in the Midwest and some in Georgia. He visited with his parents and went for an early-morning jog of about 2 miles.

Prohm phoned The Daily Citizen for an interview right after Friday’s team practice. Thomas and Kennedy were preparing for an interview with CBS and after that it would be time for the staff to watch more tape. A brief period of relaxation was scheduled before the team dinner and a later film session would pretty much finalize the scouting report on Butler, which has won 21 straight games — the nation’s longest streak — and the Bulldogs haven’t lost since dropping a 67-57 decision to Alabama-Birmingham on Dec. 22.

“This is a good run,” said Prohm, who hopes to be a head coach in a few years. “These guys won 31 games, the most in school history. Before the season we knew we had a chance to be good. We had a lot of good players coming back, plus B.J. Jenkins who came in from Liberty College. We felt this could be a special group.”

How special is just now being realized.

Larry Fleming is sports editor of The Daily Citizen. You can write to him at larryfleming@daltoncitizen.com

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