Assistant coach James Dickey wasn't sitting next to Oklahoma State coach Sean Sutton on Saturday. Dickey was with his family after the passing of his father. BY MATT STRASEN, THE OKLAHOMAN
J.B. Dickey hadn't been able to stay up and watch a whole basketball game for the last couple of weeks. But even as cancer consumed him, the longtime basketball coach would talk to his son, Oklahoma State assistant James Dickey, about how the Cowboys played.
"He loved basketball,” James Dickey said. "When we had just gotten him home and back and forth (from the hospital), he would try to watch some and follow.”
J.B. died Thursday in Valley Springs, Ark., at age 82.
"But I'm sure he was watching that one yesterday afternoon,” James Dickey said Sunday.
James and his family watched Oklahoma State upset No. 5-ranked Kansas from the family's home in Arkansas. OSU coach Sean Sutton said after the game that it felt strange to coach without Dickey next to him on the bench. It was even stranger for Dickey, who spent most of last week in Arkansas with his father, to watch from a distance.
"Our whole family was here, and we all gathered around the TV in the afternoon,” he said by phone Sunday. "It was hard for me to sit still. I was up and down and in and out. It was much harder than being on the bench.”
The end of the Arkansas-Kentucky game spilled into the beginning of the OSU-Kansas game on CBS, so like everybody else watching on TV, one of the first things he saw was a replay of a scuffle that resulted in double-technical fouls.
"I was glad our guys bowed up and were ready to compete,” Dickey said. "Coach Sean's done a great job talking to our guys about not getting technical fouls or doing anything to get you ejected, but we want our guys to battle.”
Throughout the first half, Dickey was pleased with the defensive effort. He had spoken to the coaches and several players throughout the week on the phone and had a good feeling about the game. As he saw Kansas turn the ball over six times early, he thought: "Our guys are playing like we thought they would.”
He found himself talking to the television, "Like I would talk to the players in the game.”
When OSU had the lead and turned the ball over twice in a row, "I had to get up and leave the room,” he said.
When Marcus Dove hit the huge 3-pointer to put OSU up 60-58 with a minute to go, the room exploded.
"Everybody was thrilled and hollering about the shot,” Dickey said. "I was hollering to get back and play defense.”
After the game, Dickey called the locker room and spoke to Sutton, telling him how happy and proud he was, and asking that Sutton pass that message along to the play
ers.
"It was so great for all of us,” Dickey said.
The memorial service for Dickey's father is this afternoon, and the OSU assistant coach said he hopes to join the team in Columbia for Tuesday's game against Missouri.
