Lutz

I’m working on a Valentine’s Day column and it’s about the 20-year love affair between Wichita State basketball coach Gregg Marshall and his wife, Lynn. Read all about it in Saturday’s paper or on Kansas.com.

I visited the Marshall family at their home at Crestview on Thursday night. They could not have been more hospitable or more fun. Gregg and Lynn are high-energy, energetic, totally off the wall people. Their kids, Kellen and Maggie, are fantastic, too. And so are their dogs, all three of them. OK, their cats are cool, as well.

I arrived at 6:30 and a photographer from Splurge magazine was there to shoot a picture of the family playing shuffleboard on a table that is located in the main living room. Does another family have a shuffleboard table in its living room?

Greg and Lynn gave me a great tour of their incredible house. We had great discussions about basketball and kids and dogs and life and so many other things. It was a great opportunity to spend time with the two of them in a setting outside of Koch Arena.

Lynn, who is very funny and charming, made a great home-cooked meal, southern style, that included butter beans, pinto beans, hamburger steak, green-bean casserole. Let’s just say there were lots of beans. It was a really good meal. I might also add that Coach Marshall is quite an eater. He went at his food the way he sometimes goes after one of his players.

Kellen and Maggie could not have been more polite. They are engaging, interesting kids and it’s a loving family.

Gregg and Lynn talked about their parents and shared nice stories of growing up. And both were very open about how they met and the relationship they have built over 20 years.

I had a great time in the four hours or so I spent with the Marshall family, a night that ended peacefully as we sat in the family room chatting about anything and everything while the dogs slept on their beds and Lynn sat on the floor in front of the fireplace. I nearly asked if I could spend the night, but thought better of it.

Thanks to the Marshall family for a fun and interesting evening.

You saw the best and the worst of the Kansas basketball team last night during it’s two-point loss at Missouri.

Give credit to the Tigers for their relentless, tough play. That’s not your father’s Mizzou team. I expected the Tigers to give it up after KU built its second big lead of the second half after a Missouri charge. Not this time, though. The Tigers kept pushing.

But the Jayhawks did nothing to help themselves and a real flaw on the team was exposed: Leadership.

This is Sherron Collins’ team, but Collins didn’t bring a calm to the floor last night. He never really slowed his frenetic pace, which needed to happen in a game like this. Collins is a bulldozer and last night Kansas needed a bicycle to weave in and out of all the traffic.

Freshman Tyshaun Taylor might turn into that kind of point guard, but he’s not there yet. In fact, he plays too much like Collins. So, KU was left trying to protect a second-half lead with two players you wouldn’t leave in charge of a Brink’s truck.

Kansas can be really impressive with such a style of play. When Collins has it going, he’s as dangerous as any guard in the country. But last night, speeding things up was the wrong move. Kansas needed some sensibility down the stretch. It was interesting to watch KU coach Bill Self, when the cameras panned his way. He looked like he wanted his team to hit the brakes, but didn’t quite know how to get his players to do so.

It was a tough loss. How does Kansas rebound?

The Jayhawks have a tough test Saturday at Kansas State. The guard matchups are outstanding. KU has a decided advantage inside, thanks to Cole Aldrich. But if K-State makes perimeter shots, the Wildcats will pull off an upset. Kansas hasn’t reached a stage yet where it has played 40 minutes of quality basketball. The Jayhawks are great in spurts, but not so good in others. At Missouri, that inconsistency caught up with them.

Is no longer. It’s shutting down operation in less than two weeks after 47 years. It is hard for me to fathom a city the size of Derby not having a newspaper. These are scary times (read The Eagle’s story here).

I worked at the Daily Reporter from the time I was a junior in high school until I was 19. It was an absolute blast (blast is a term I used frequently in those days). I did a lot of work at night and there was a Pizza John’s across the street (it’s still there) and a really cute girl worked the counter. Her name was Lynn Crosby, and I have no idea where she is now. But she was cute. Did I mention that already? We had some really nice chats in those days.

I enjoyed the work, too. I learned so much, from writing stories to editing copy to taking pictures to laying out pages. I did it all, really. Not to well, but it was fun to dabble in every aspect of the newspaper business. I even helped operate the press in the afternoon after the journalism work was finished.

We did a pretty good job in those days. Besides covering sports, I covered a lot of news. One of my beats was the school board; there were meetings every Monday night. I faked it. That’s about all I can say. I really respected the superintendent of schools at the time, Charlie Hubbard, and he basically told me what to write. That’s a terrible admission to make, and of course that doesn’t happen now. But then, when I was 18, school issues didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

One of the strangest experiences I had at the Daily Reporter was covering myself, which happened a few times during baseball season. I would pitch a game in the afternoon or evening, then write about the performance for the next day’s paper. When I pitched well, it was a snap. The adjectives just flew from my brain to my fingers. To read one of those stories was to read about a young Bob Gibson.

When I pitched poorly, my account of the game might have focused on other things besides my awful performance. I’m just saying.

I didn’t make much money and the boss, Larry Ricketts, scared me to death. He was a mountainous man with a full beard and a surly attitude. At least, I thought so at the time. Getting to know him in the years after I left the paper, I found him to be an entertaining gentleman, not at all like the man I thought he was when he was signing my checks.

I left the Daily Reporter in the fall of 1974 to come to The Eagle because Larry wouldn’t give me a 10-cent per hour raise. It was time to leave. For a long time, my dream was to return to the Daily Reporter someday as the newspaper’s owner. That dream died many years ago.

I’m really sorry to see the Daily Reporter go. I imagine it’s a big topic of discussion in Derby, where so many people have a history with the paper. I can’t wait to hear what my friends are saying.

Sherron Collins didn’t have his best night, at least not offensively. Cole Aldrich, I think, is bothered by wearing that mask to protect a broken nose. Still, Kansas won on the road at Baylor on Monday to remain unbeaten in Big 12 play and the two biggest reasons were the Morris twins, Marcus and Markieff.

If those guys pull it together and start to play with some level of consistency, how good can the Jayhawks be come March? I’ve got the answer: Pretty darn good.

Marcus had 13 points and six rebounds in KU’s 10-point win over the Bears. Markieff chipped in with nine points and nine rebounds. All of that production (22 points, 15 rebounds) occurred in just 35 combined minutes of playing time.

I thought last night’s game looked like a trap game for KU, but the Jayhawks answered the challenge. It will be interesting to see whether they can do the same on Big Monday next week at Missouri, with a game at home against Oklahoma State on Saturday in between. The schedule is getting progressively tougher for KU, but so are the Jayhawks.

This is a tough team. Everybody talks about how Kansas coach Bill Self loves to teach toughness. This team is a prime example of what they’re talking about.

The goal for Kansas is to earn a top four seed into the NCAA Tournament. That would likely assure the Jayhawks of playing first- and second-round games just up the road at the Sprint Center in Kansas City. It also would assure me of not having to get on an airplane, but that’s beside the point for everyone who isn’t me.

Kansas has several games that could trip it up _ road games still to play at Mizzou, Kansas State and Oklahoma. Texas visits Lawrence on the final day of the regular season. But if KU can win two of those games, and finish 14-2 in the Big 12, I think a top-four seed is within the realm. Particularly if one of those victories is against Oklahoma on Feb. 23 in Norman. How good is that game shaping up to be?

What do you think about Kansas? How far can this team go in the NCAA Tournament? Are you surprised that this team is so good, considering everything it lost from last season’s national-championship team?

A little late getting to this, so I’m going to throw in a bonus at the end. My 10 most underrated WSU players. Wow, aren’t you excited? Oh, and Saturday’s are going to be my personal day on the blog, when I write about matters other than sports. Because life is more than just sports. Trust me.

OK, on to the Shockers:

6) Cheese Johnson. I loved the smile, which initiated the greatest nickname in WSU basketball history, just slightly ahead of “The Rave.” At 6-foot-5, Cheese averaged 9.3 rebounds for his career, to go with 17.3 points. He led a team to the NCAA Tournament. He averaged 22.2 points and 10.6 rebounds as a senior. Great player.

7) Ernie Moore. If Moore had been around for all of his senior season in 1963-64 (his eligibility ran out after the first semester) I think the Shockers would have played in the 1964 Final Four. He could do it all in the backcourt: score, pass, defend. He had a special connection with Dave Stallworth. Assist totals weren’t kept in those days, but Moore had a ton of them.

Jamie Thompson. The best pure shooter in WSU history. If you left Thompson open, he didn’t miss. I’ll never forget the 36 points he scored against UCLA in a national semifinal game in 1965, albeit in a losing cause. He averaged 17.6 points during his career and could rebound, too.

9) Cliff Levingston. The fastest big man I’ve ever seen. At 6-8, he ran the floor like a point guard. Cliff and Antoine Carr formed WSU’s “Bookend Forwards” and led the Shockers to within a game of the Final Four in 1981, a postseason run that included that memorable win over Kansas in New Orleans.

10) Aubrey Sherrod. He scored 1,765 points during his WSU career and made 739 field goals. I’m going to guess at least 400 of those were from three-point range, although there was no three-point line when Sherrod played (from 1981-85). That extra 400 points would have put him at 2,165 points, which would be one more than was scored by the Shockers’ all-time leading scorer, Cleo Littleton.

Now for the 10 unsung Shockers, in no particular order:

Jason Perez. Poor guy played on some sub-par teams under Randy Smithson. It wasn’t because of Perez, who averaged 15.7 points and was a tenacious player on both ends.

Ron Harris. The Pittsburgh native was a great scorer, averaging 16.9 points for some entertaining teams from 1969-72.

Jamar Howard. Probably the player who most signified a turnaround in the program under Coach Mark Turgeon.

Robert Elmore. His absence from the Shocker Sports Hall of Fame is glaring. The 6-10 Elmore averaged 14.1 points and 12.4 rebounds during his career. As a senior in 1976-77, he averaged 15.8 rebounds.

Terry Benton. Another amazing rebounder, the East High product averaged 16.3 points and 16.8 rebounds during his junior season (1970-71).

Jamie Arnold. Oh for a different place and time. Arnold had big-time game, but the misfortune of being a part of some bad teams and being dogged by a little bit of a bad attitude.

Ron Washington. He was thin as a rail, yet averaged 20.6 points and 10.3 rebounds as a senior in 1968-69. Really good shooter and rebounder.

Maurice Evans. It’s a shame his Shocker career lasted only two seasons, during which he scored 1,007 points and averaged 17.1 ppg. Had he played longer, would definitely be among WSU’s all-time Top 10, probably even top five.

Lanny Van Eman. Another exceptional guard from the late 1950s-early 1960s who doesn’t get his due. Was never afraid to take the big shot, and almost always made it. Great passer and scorer.

Paul Miller. Missouri Valley Conference player of the year during a season in which the Shockers reached the Sweet 16 in 2004-05. Good stuff.