That’s right, the longtime Indiana Pacer, five-time NBA All-Star and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer.
UD doesn’t exactly have him IN a jersey, but it does have his name ON one.
It’s all thanks to Matt Kavanaugh.
The 6-foot-10 senior center has been a huge Pacers fan since he was a kid growing up in Centerville. His room at home is decorated with Pacers jerseys, caps, a coat and several posters on the walls.
He goes to a handful of games each year, often with his dad and brother, and just a few weeks ago he went with teammates Devin Oliver, Jalen Robinson, Kendall Pollard and Jordan Sibert.
“My brother and I used to pester our dad about going to an NBA game and the closest drive was Indianapolis,” Kavanaugh explained Wednesday afternoon as he sat in the dressing room of the FedEx Forum following the Flyers’ shoot-around.
“My Uncle Ray — his was a professor at Purdue — he lived a couple of blocks from the arena, so it worked out we could see him, too. And the first game we ever went to, my dad bought me a Reggie Miller jersey. He’s been my favorite player ever since. He’s probably my favorite athlete of all time.”
Kavanaugh said a few days ago Oliver spotted on Twitter that Miller — now a TV commentator — was calling the Flyers-Stanford game tonight for CBS.
“I packed my Reggie Miller jersey and knew if I had an opportunity to meet him and get his autograph on it, I was gonna be all over that,” Kavanaugh said. “And just before our practice started, I saw him and went up and told him that I’ve been a huge fan my whole life and would it be cool if I got his autograph on a jersey I’d brought.
“He said, ‘Absolutely, I appreciate the love.’ ”
As the UD workout — which was punctuated by cheers and singsong chants from UD pep band members who had come to watch — wound down, Kavanagh sent someone to the dressing room to get the jersey.
Afterward he brought it to Miller, who signed it:
To Big Kav….Boom Baby!…..# 31 Reggie Miller.
Kavanaugh ran back to the dressing room with it, put it on and came back out so trainer Mike Mulcahey could take some photos of him and Miller.
“It was pretty awesome,” Kavanaugh said. “I felt like a little kid again. It was really cool.”
Kavanaugh said he’s going to send it home with his mom and dad — “I don’t trust it in the little bag I packed” — and then maybe wear it a couple of times before he frames it.
He’ll want to keep it in Memphis tonight, though, just in case there is some magic to it.
“When I went out for our shoot-around, just after talking to him a minute, it felt like my jump shot was a little bit more on point than it usually is,” he said with a grin. “I guess it’s because I got the Reggie Miller effect.”
And the 11th-seeded Flyers can use that against 10th-seeded Stanford, a team with a lot of size that Kavanaugh will have to deal with.
The Flyers big man, though, believes he and his teammates are up to the task, especially after listening to Coach Archie Miller’s “why not us?” drumbeat in recent weeks.
“That’s been our mantra in the NCAA tournament,” Kavanaugh said. “Every year you see a team no one expected to be there. George Mason made the Final Four a few years ago. So did VCU and Butler. LaSalle did well (Sweet 16 last year) and so did Davidson (Elite Eight in 2008).
“We figure, why can’t it be us this year?”
And no one on the Flyers is relishing the current success more than Kavanaugh.
He sat out last season due to a year-long university suspension, but was allowed to return to the team this year and he said he has a new appreciation of the opportunity at hand.
“That old saying is true — ‘you don’t know what you have until you lost it,’ ” he said quietly.
During his exile, he said he watched every Flyers game that came on TV. He also spent a couple of months with his brother over at Otterbein University near Columbus and worked out at the school’s facilities.
“Initially, I thought about all my options, but as time went on and the pieces started to fall together that I would be able to return to school — and the coaches would let me return to the team — it made sense for me to stay at UD. It wouldn’t have felt right any place else.”
Kavanaugh grew up an adoring fan of the Flyers. His parents had season tickets. His great uncle Bob is in the UD Hall of Fame as a basketball player. His uncle Tom played Flyers football. His dad attended the school, too.
“That’s why all this now is almost indescribable,” he said. “When I was a kid, I never in my wildest dreams thought this would come to fruition like this. Now here we are in the Sweet 16. And we’re not done.
“I definitely realize the impact it’s having on the Dayton community. I know how it’s making me feel. It just shows you never know when something good is gonna happen to you.”
With that in mind, he was asked whether — before they parted — Miller had asked him for an autograph.
“Noooo,” Kavanaugh said with a shake of the head and then a smile. “Hopefully. we’ll give him a reason to after the game.”
Boom Baby!
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