Strange things afoot at Louisville's Evangel School...

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

January 2020
6'11" Cyr Malonga (C/O 2023) and 6'8" Johnny Djema (C/O 2024) arrive in Kentucky from their native Republic of Congo, enroll at the Evangel School (12-19 in 2018-19, and 3-20 in 2019-20), and begin training & playing AAU basketball with the Louisville Defenders, coached by one-time Louisville Cardinal Brandon Bender.

Bender, son of longtime "Dirt Bowl" organizer Vic Bender, has a bit of a reputation of his own. Between his sophomore and junior years at Ballard High School, Bender infamously told several news reporters and college recruiters that he was looking into jumping to the NBA draft after his junior year. That obviously didn't happen. He was signed to the Cardinals by Rick Pitino, and after being suspended from the team before the official start of the 2001-02 season, Brandon would eventually part ways with the Cardinals in January 2002 following a second suspension by Pitino. Bender finished out his college career at Robert Morris College in Chicago and then played briefly in the CBA and overseas in Turkey. After his own playing career ended - largely on behalf of his stateside legal woes following an arrest for making purchases on stolen credit cards - Bender got into the development and recruiting game, having an early hand in dealings with Enes Kanter and notoriously finding himself involved in the NCAA violations committed by University of Central Florida in 2011.

June 2020
Cyr Molonga receives his first Division 1 college basketball offer, coming from Western Illinois University. He now holds offers from Arizona, Florida State, Georgetown University, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi State, Western Illinois, and Western Kentucky.

July 2020
Johnny Djema receives his first Division 1 college basketball offer, coming from Western Illinois University.

August 2020
Evangel Christian School announces the hiring of Brandon Bender as the school's new athletic director. The same day, Bender announces that he intends to hire Myles Harvey as head basketball coach. Harvey is a recent alum of the IU Southeast basketball program, which competes in NAIA D-II.

Less than a week later, Evangel Christian's athletics department releases an announcement via Twitter that they will be re-starting their football program, reportedly in a new stadium. A new gymnasium is also announced, to be opened November 1, and new practice facility on the way as well.

September 2020
Evangel Christian School begins classes at a new location, the 41,400 square foot space formerly occupied by the Melbourne Heights Baptist Church on Taylorsville Road, which Evangel recently purchased for $2.25 million. Evangel classes were previously held on Minor Lane in Louisville's Okolona neighborhood.

Later that month, a Cyr Molonga is written up in a Sports Illustrated article. It is referenced that Molonga, who was initially enrolled as a member of the class of 2023, "will likely reclassify to 2022 next summer."

October 2020
A video surfaces on Twitter reportedly showing a fight started in a Louisville athletic club by Brandon Bender after a rival AAU coach threatens to expose the birth certificate and true age of Cyr Malonga. No official response has been offered by Evangel Christian School. Bender's only apparent response is a tweet made roughly a week later with a cryptic statement referencing "gossip," "nonsense," and "rumors."

November 2020
Prior to Western High School's first round exit from the playoffs, word goes public that Warriors head coach DaMarcus Smith has signed on as the head coach for the Evangel Christian football program, which is resurrecting after dropping from the KHSAA following the 2008 season and playing two more seasons of independent football before being put in mothballs.

January 2021
The Twitter account for Evangel Christian's athletic department advertises on January 7th that they are now accepting applications for the school's head football coach.

April 2021
Coach DaMarcus Smith is once again named as head football coach at Evangel.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Cyr Malonga

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Johnny Djema

[TheDeuce]

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

 

 

 

 

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

LANGUAGE WARNING

 

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

[TheDeuce]

It's only a matter of time before that dude is locked up. 

[Jack of all Trades]

So where is the money coming from to pay for these facilities?

[theguru]

The Cardinal Connect has this summary on Bender:

Brandon Bender: Louisville native Brandon Bender was also a member of Rick Pitino’s first recruiting class. Unfortunately for Bender, he decided to transfer after his freshman season. He was suspended multiple times during his first year with the program. To my knowledge, Bender is the first high school player to try and drop of out high school after his junior season and enter the NBA Draft. At the time, a rule was in place that wouldn’t allow that to happen, but Bender made it clear that is what he wanted to do. The former Ballard Bruin was ranked as the 44^th best player in the 2011 class. Bender played his second season of college basketball at Cincinnati State junior college. He then joined Carolos Hurt at Robert Morris. He played just one season at the NAIA school before entering the NBA Draft. Bender went undrafted and spent a couple of seasons in the NBDL. He played overseas in multiple different countries, most recently in 2009 in Holland. Unfortunately for Bender, he’s gotten into some trouble since stepping away from pro basketball. In 2007 he was arrested on felony fraud charges for making multiple purchases with stolen credit cards. In recent years he’s been connected with multiple NCAA investigations. Bender reportedly played a major role in Central Florida’s NCAA sanctions in 2011.

http://www.thecardinalconnect.com/the-five-most-disappointing-louisville-players-in-the-pitino-era/#.X75zjmhKhaQ

===============

He has definitely been around the block a few times.  

This can't end good, right?

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

12 minutes ago, Jack of all Trades said:

So where is the money coming from to pay for these facilities?

Evangel World Prayer Center is a sort of megachurch, as I understand it. They have one main campus where pastor Bob Rodgers preaches, and seven other satellite campuses. If it's anything like the megachurches in Greater Cincinnati or like Southeast Christian down here in Louisville, the satellite churches watch telecasts of the sermon from the main campus during church services, and then conduct their own music ministry at each.

They all operate one school, which is the K-12 Evangel Christian School.

Not a whole lot of info about the church on it's website or on Dr. Rodgers' website, but plenty of links to donate 😂

[HoopJunkie]

There is literally zero chance this ends well. 

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

44 minutes ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Could this be "someone" from the school using an official school account to make comments about the social media buzz going around about the incident in the video that showed up on Twitter?


 

[HoopJunkie]

5 minutes ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Could this be "someone" from the school using an official school account to make comments about the social media buzz going around about the incident in the video that showed up on Twitter?


 

Brandon definitely runs their Twitter account. Nate Bryan had a lot of interesting Twitter interactions with him the last couple of days.

[gchs_uk9]

Brandon Bender famously said he might declare for the NBA draft following his junior season at Ballard when they won the 1999 state championship.