Blackbirds Bid Farewell to Seniors and Season

The Blackbirds finished up the 1999-00 regular season on Feb. 26th with a 73-58 home loss to Robert Morris College. With the defeat, the Blackbirds' overall mark is 8-19 to go along with a 5-13 ledger in Northeast Conference action.

It also marked the final game for seniors Cheikh Fall, Jonathan Frank, Virgil Smiley and Richie Parker.

Fall, a 6'10" center from Dakar, Senegal, played the best basketball of his career this season, averaging 6.5 points, 7.0 rebounds (7th in NEC) and 2.4 blocked shots per game (1st in NEC).

Frank, a Brooklyn native who missed most of training camp, also enjoyed a stellar season. He averaged 9.1 points, 3.8 rebnounds and 2.0 steals as the starting shooting guard.

Smiley a 6'7" athlete out of New York City finished second on the squad in scoring (10.6 ppg) while shooting 46 percent from the field. He totaled 517 points in just two season at LIU.

Parker closed out his tremendous career as well. The 6'5" swingman ends his eligibility as the school's fourth all-time leading scorer with 1,594 points and is also ninth on the all-time rebounds list with 683. He was twice named all-conference and all-metropolitan and led the Blackbirds to a NCAA Tournament appearance in 1996-97 and to a NIT berth in 1997-98.

Newcomer Antawn Dobie established himself as a force in the Northeast Conference this season. The sophomore from Corona, NY, led the team in scoring (13.4 ppg), assists (4.3 apg) and steals (2.2 spg) and was named NEC Rookie-of-the-Week on three occasions.

Dobie, with the help of fellow newcomers Keith Leslie, JaJa Bey, Maurice Yearwood and Lee Jones have head coach Ray Martin feeling optimistic about the Blackbirds' chances for next season.

In the early signing period, Martin inked St. Patrick's (NJ) HS shooting guard Wtitleer Price and JFK power forward Raymond Edward to National Letters of Intent to play for the Blackbirds next fall.