Archdeacon: Red Panda’s example resonates with fans, Flyers on good night

In the deserted hallway outside the visitors’ dressing quarters, she crouched down, placed a stack of white ceramic bowls on her head and closed her eyes.

Afterward, she said she was imprinting the feel, the balance of the bowls on her head.

Some 15 minutes later, she would be out on the court, astride her 7 ½-foot unicycle, balancing those same bowls – three, then four and finally five – first on her foot and then, with one pendulum swing kick, she’d send them through the air so they’d nest, one atop the other, on her head.

“This is nervous time,” she told me after her imprint session. “I want to be my best. I want to be perfect.”

It was nervous time for the Flyers before Wednesday’s game, as well.

They’d just returned from a deflating trip to the Bahamas, where they not only lost three games in three days, but also lost their two starting guards – ball hander Malachi Smith and shooter Kobe Elvis.

Both sustained leg injuries in last Friday’s overtime loss to BYU and Wednesday night both were on crutches when UD took the floor against Western Michigan.

Just eight days earlier the Flyers were ranked No. 21 in the nation. Now they were 3-4, unranked and, as head coach Anthony Grant would put it later, in search of “a different identity.”

Freshman Mike Sharavjamts now would take over the point guard duties. Mustapha Amzil would be back in the starting line-up and there would be a special emphasis on the inside combination of 6-foot-8 Toumani Camara and 6-foot-10 DaRon “Deuce” Holmes II.

Koby Brea, who had missed all but one game due to injury, would be called off the bench in the hopes he could regain his long-range shooting touch. Even walk-on guard Brady Uhl would be needed for spot duty.

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

Successful transformation

In 1993, not long after she had moved to San Francisco from China – where she’d grown up the daughter of two acrobats, attended a boarding school to hone her own acrobatic skills and then travelled with the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe – the struggling Niu got a call on Thanksgiving Day from the Los Angeles Clippers.

Their halftime performer had cancelled out and they needed a replacement quickly. Someone in their organization had seen her performing in a parade in San Francisco – a friend had encouraged her to take on a stage name and they came up with Red Panda -- and thought her skills might work on an NBA court:

Would she be willing to try?

She was on the next plane to L.A., wowed the crowd and a career was born.

Red Panda’s new identity – on display night after night at NBA and college games across the nation – has made her one of the most booked, most embraced halftime shows of the past 25 years.

The Flyers can only hope for such a successful transformation.

They passed the first test when they subdued a physical Western Michigan team, 67-47, and afterward Grant revealed some more good news – that both Smith (left ankle) and Elvis (knee) will not require surgery and could return this season.

Still the Flyers are going to have to overcome their challenges every time they tip off now and, several times, against a much stiffer test than the Broncos.

The Red Panda – who’s in her early 50s now – has shown time and again she can deal with unexpected detours that could have derailed her career.

She cared for both her aging parents and when her dad died of cancer in 2014, she looked after her grieving mother. When she returned to performing, she was rusty and fell from her unicycle, severely shattering her left wrist.

Then in 2018, just weeks after I talked to her here, her custom-made unicycle was stolen from the baggage claim area of the San Francisco airport. For a while she performed on unicycle she made from pieces of other old ones.

Eventually, the Golden State Warriors bought her a new unicycle.

‘It’s about adapting’

After last week, the Flyers had to regroup as well.

“Everybody was down after the Bahamas trip, but we were able to bounce back and refocus ourselves,” Camara said. “We had to find a way to exploit the new tools we have.”

Holmes agreed: “It’s about adapting and going with what you have.”

And what the Flyers can have is an impressive one-two punch inside.

“Something our coach really emphasizes is to be good at what you’re good at,” Camara said. “Our strength is to really go inside. So we need to focus on that more. But if we see option, I believe me and Deuce are pretty good (outlet) passers, too.”

Camara has the experience – Wednesday night was his 99th game in a college career that included two years at Georgia before this second season here —and he has strength and savvy.

No play exemplified that more than late in the first half when he stole the ball from Bronco’s guard Gus Etchison near midcourt and then drove to the hoop for a rousing two-handed dunk.

Holmes is like one of those tall, stick-figure inflatable tube men you see dancing at car lots. All moving arms and legs, he has great athleticism, can read the floor well for such a young player, is a good passer and an even better rim protector.

And he has a tutor in Camara.

“He always gives me little pointers in the middle of the game,” Holmes said. “He’ll say ‘Hey, you got to rebound more. You’re not rebounding enough now! Crash the glass!’

“We’ve developed a great chemistry - offensively and defensively. It’s really good when your 4 & 5 – your front court – play well together.”

And Wednesday the pair – along with the 6-foot-9 Amzil – were superb.

Holmes had 24 points, 10 rebounds, two blocked shots and drew 11 fouls by the Broncos.

Camara made 7 of 8 field goal attempts for 17 points and added five rebounds. Amzil had 14 points and 10 rebounds.

The one place where Holmes struggled was at the free throw line where he made eight of 14 attempts. In a 5 ½ minute span midway through the second half, he was fouled five times in the act of shooting and sent to the charity stripe.

In each of the first four trips, he missed one of his two attempts. By his final two tosses, the entire crowd was pulling for him. And when he made both, he got one of the loudest cheers of the night.

He trotted back down the court, smiling and nodding, appreciative of the support he’d gotten.

Red Panda performed at the UD women’s game Tuesday night at the Arena and then did the same for the men Wednesday.

Both nights she ended her show trying to launch five bowls onto the stack already balanced on her head.

In her first two attempts Tuesday and that final one Wednesday, a bowl or two clattered to the court.

You could see the dismay on her face – “I want to be perfect,” – and she urged her UD assistant to toss her the bowls again.

A UD representative was discretely trying to get her to wrap it up before the teams appeared in the tunnels, but she wanted one last, successful attempt and the crowd wanted her to make it, too.

Many fans stood to give her support and a man in the front row yelled, “You got this Panda!”

When Tuesday night’s final flip landed all five bowls on the top of her head, the crowd erupted and, high-atop her unicycle, Red Panda’s eyes glistened as she tapped her heart and mouthed the words “thank you!…thank you!…thank you!”

As the victorious Flyers left the court Wednesday night – the nervous time now washed away by cheers – they waved to the fans.

They, too, were saying a heartfelt thank you.