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ESPN's Jay Bilas could have played ball at 81st and Lewis (excerpt) In the fall of 1981, when Bilas was a senior at Rolling Hills High School in California, he visited the city because he was an Oral Roberts University basketball recruit. Details? “Mark Acres went to Oral Roberts,” Bilas said. “His mother was a very faith-based person, a religious person, and she really hammered my mom that I should go, that God wanted me to go to Oral Roberts to play with Mark and Jeff (Acres).” Bilas’ parents were swayed. They told him he needed to visit ORU, so he did. “Ken Hayes recruited me,” Bilas said. “I loved him. Great guy. His plan was -- and he told me this -- he was going to get me, Wayman Tisdale, Mark Price and Steve Hale and we were going to win the national championship. So when I landed at Tulsa, he picked me up at the airport and he drove me to Jenks High School to meet Steve Hale. Joe Holladay (now a North Carolina assistant) was the coach there.” FULL ARTICLE