Media day around the Valley

Oct. 28, 20099:54 a.m.
By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball, MVC | Comments (0)

Polling date indicates…

Oct. 27, 20099:31 a.m.

ST. LOUIS – The Northern Iowa men and the Creighton women start 2009-10 as the preseason favorites in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Voting by coaches, media and sports information directors make the Panthers the men’s favorite for the first time since 2005-06. The Creighton women are picked first for the first time since 2002-03.
Wichita State’s men were picked fifth. The Shocker women are ninth.

Men’s poll

Team (First-place votes) Total
1. Northern Iowa (38) 389
2. Creighton (1) 336
3. Illinois State 299
4. Southern Illinois 272
5. Wichita State 216
6. Bradley 208
7. Indiana State 173
8. Drake 105
9. Missouri State 92
10 Evansville 55

Preseason all-conference
Kwadzo Ahelegbe, G, Northern Iowa
Osiris Eldridge, G, Illinois State
Tony Freeman, G, Southern Illinois
Adam Koch, F, Northern Iowa
P’Allen Stinnett, G, Creighton
Josh Young, G, Drake
Honorable mention: Kevin Dillard, G, Southern Illinois; Clevin Hannah, G, Wichita State; Jake Kelly, G, Indiana State; Sam Maniscalco, G, Bradley, Toure Murry, G, Wichita State

Women’s poll

Team (first-place votes) Total
1. Creighton (34) 393
2. Illinois State (6) 340
3. Drake 296
4. Northern Iowa 253
5. Indiana State 250
6. Bradley 214
7. Missouri State 188
8. Evansville 108
9. Wichita State 97
10. Southern Illinois 61

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball, MVC | Comments (0)

We will have a Game 7

Oct. 25, 20096:47 p.m.

Wichita State’s fall baseball series successfully dodged bad weather again on Sunday. Gold won 6-0 to force Wednesday’s game 7. Since losing 15-3 and 15-3 to fall behind 3-1, Gold has won two straight and given up four runs to Black.

  • Third base might be the most interesting position to watch in the spring. Freshman Nate Goro is a good defensive player and isn’t overwhelmed at the plate. A 3-for-5 day pushed his average in six series games to .320. His three doubles are tied for the Gold lead. A few weeks ago, his defensive skills gave him a clear edge over redshirt freshman Johnny Coy. Coy, however, is impressing everyone with his rapid improvement in the field and at the plate. Goro remains a better defender, but the gap isn’t as wide as it once was. Coy is red-hot in the series, hitting .500 in six games. He went 8 for 8 in games 4 and 5 before an 0-for-4 performance on Sunday afternoon. Most impressive is this stat: One strikeout in 24 at-bats. I saw two defensive plays (one a line drive off his glove and the other a grounder that got under him) that Coy probably needs to make. If his defense continues to improve at this rate, he is on his way to being a solid third baseman.

“I feel really comfortable,” Goro said. “Defense is one of my strong suits. It’s something I definitely take pride in. When the pitcher’s out there, I want him to feel confident that if the ball’s hit my way, I’m going to be there.”

  • It’s probably no coincidence that Gold’s pitching improved as soon as catcher Chris O’Brien returned from a bone bruise in his right hand. With O’Brien catching the past two games, Gold has allowed three earned runs. Sunday, Charlie Lowell and Remington Johnson combined to hold Black to three hits. Lowell is the only one of WSU’s big four returners who is pitching in the series. He is 1-1 with a 1.80 ERA in 10 innings. Sunday, he struck out four and allowed two hits in five innings.
  • Freshman pitcher T.J. McGreevy is putting up the best numbers of the newcomers on the mound. He is 2-0, allowing five hits and no runs in nine innings. McGreevy, from Topeka, has struck out four and walked none.

“I’ve been hitting my spots, inside and outside, pretty well,” he said. “If you can do that, then you mix in your off-speed and keep the hitters off balance.”

  • I don’t know how much freshman Erik Harbutz will play this season. He’s behind Tyler Grimes at short and Will Baez at second, and I would think both will be hard to dislodge. Regardless, Harbutz looks like a guy who will help the Shockers at some point. He never looks out of place and seems to make heady plays regularly. He is hitting .318 with a series-leading four doubles. He has struck out once in 22 at-bats and walked seven times. That’s good stuff for a freshman.
  • Pitchers Tim Kelley, Jordan Cooper and Brian Flynn didn’t throw at all in the series and little this fall. They’re resting after busy summers.
  • Pitcher Tyler Fleming will have surgery Monday morning to clean out scar tissue in his shoulder. Fleming was basically on the shelf this fall as he continues to rehab from a torn labrum that cost him the 2009 season.
  • Pitching coach Brent Kemnitz got a long look at Josh Smith and likes what he saw. Smith, who started two games in the series, went 1-1 with a 3.75 ERA for Black. Smith, in Kemnitz’s mind, is better as a starter than a reliever.
  • Senior pitcher Cobey Guy, who battled a lot of injuries last season, has 12 strikeouts (five walks) and a 2.45 ERA in 7.1 innings.
  • Baez is second on the Black with a .400 batting average. Outfielder Mitch Caster is hitting .348 with two doubles and two home runs and a team-leading .696 slugging percentage. Catcher Ryan Hege, a sophomore transfer from Cowley County, leads Gold with a .455 batting average and a .727 slugging percentage. Freshman outfielder Micah Green, who can’t play the field because of shoulder problems, went 5 for 13 in three games. Senior first baseman Clint McKeever is hitting .360.
  • In something of a switch, the Shockers have a lot of DH candidates. To a point that’s good. In some recent seasons, DH has been a non-productive position. This season, Coy, first baseman Preston Springer, outfielder Travis Bennett and either O’Brien or returning catcher Cody Lassley figure to be candidates. For some of those players, however, being in the DH spot means they need work on defense.
  • Former Oklahoma coach Enos Semore, Gene Stephenson’s old boss with the Sooners, stopped by to check out the game and Eck Stadium’s new turf.
  • What do we make of fall stats? Feel free to make as much or as little as you want. Last fall, Kyle Sisney hit .478, then left the team before the spring. Remington Johnson hit .316 and then made his biggest impact as a pitcher. Tyler Grimes hit .111 and turned into one of WSU’s best hitters in the spring. In 2007, Conor Gillaspie hit .526, which certainly turned out to be an accurate indicator. My gut feeling is the new guys or backups sometimes do better in the fall because they have something to prove. Grimes, who is learning to switch-hit, is hitting .074. I don’t think anybody is worried. The seven-game series is a big part of the fall. Coaches put an emphasis on it because it’s played with uniforms, umpires and fans. It means something. But other scrimmages are also part of the fall. It’s also worth considering that hitters don’t have to face Kelley, Cooper or Flynn.
  • The general feeling remains that WSU will be a better offensive team in 2010. Now that’s a little like saying WaterWalk development is going to take off. Neither of those statements set the bar high. I don’ t know that WSU added any offensive superstars. I do think the recruits and improved returners will give the Shockers a deeper lineup. Last season, no Shocker outside of  Clint McKeever really gave pitchers much of a scare. It appears WSU will line up better hitters even into the bottom of the order in 2010. That’s the plan, anyway.
  • Wednesday’s game starts at 3 p.m.
By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Baseball | Comments (0)

Q&A with Paul Pressey

Oct. 21, 200910:54 a.m.

That name should bring back nightmares for a generation of Shocker basketball fans. Pressey tormented some of WSU’s greatest teams when he played for Tulsa from 1980-82. He went 4-0 against WSU in his two seasons. Whenever Tulsa needed a steal or a basket in those game, Pressey seemed to deliver. As a Shocker fan, you hated him for beating your team. You also admired the way he played. Pressey, who played 11 seasons in the NBA, returned to Wichita last week as an assistant for the New Orleans Hornets. The first memory on his list was the 1981 game when Tulsa beat No. 14 WSU in double overtime after trailing by five points with under 30 seconds to play in regulation.

Q: What do you remember about playing in this arena?

A: I was telling some of the other assistant coaches that some of my greatest college basketball games were here. Us being down, I believe it was five points with 25 seconds to go. It was an exciting moment, being on the road and winning like that against a good team. Xavier McDaniel, I think he was a freshman my senior year. Levingston and Antoine  – those guys were monsters. They were stacked. It was a good basketball game to watch because both teams played very fast and were very aggressive in the paint. That made it exciting basketball.

Q: Describe playing at Tulsa for coach Nolan Richardson.

A: He was a father figure for me, leaving home from (Richmond) Virginia and going to Western Texas (for junior college) playing two years there for him and then going to the University of Tulsa. When you get far away from home, you need a father figure and he was it. On and off the court, he set the tone – not just for me but for all his players. I always believed he did that at whatever university he coached for. He was going to teach his players to be young men. Basketball was going to take care of itself.

Q: What is it like coaching Hornets star Chris Paul?

A: He allows you not to have to coach very much. He’s just a talent. He’s an extension of the head coach. He’s our leader. He makes the game easy for a lot of players out there on the floor and therefore he allows our team to have some kind of success. It depends on how the rest of our players step up their level of play as to how far we go this year. I like our chances. We injected some young players, including Julian Wright from Kansas. We put (Wright) in the starting lineup because we wanted to put him with our best players and give him a chance that those mistakes he makes, our veteran players can help him get over those.

Q: Phil Pressey, one of the nation’s top high school point guards, is headed to Missouri to play for former Tulsa teammate Mike Anderson. How did your son end up with the Tigers?

A: Coach Anderson is not just a mentor from a coaching standpoint, he’s seen my son grow up. They already had a relationship. It’s a perfect fit. He plays his style of basketball. My whole thing was I wanted to make sure he goes somewhere where the coach teaches him about growing to be a young man. I didn’t care about basketball. He’s a very good basketball player and that’s going to take care of itself.

Q: Is Phil a defensive stopper like his father?

A: He’s a pretty good defensive player, but he’s a Chris Paul. He has that mind-set and is that kind of caliber player. He’s a game-changer. That’s why Coach Anderson was so in love with him. He’s an exciting player, he’s an ooh-and-aah player. Every team would love to have one of those.

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball | Comments (0)

Mr. Blake in Hollywood

Oct. 21, 20098:15 a.m.

The Wall Street Journal profiles former Shocker Casey Blake, now third baseman for the Dodgers.  He is mentioned in the same breath as Ron Cey, which means Blake must be doing something right in L.A.

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Baseball | Comments (0)

Shocker Madness late-night report

Oct. 17, 200910:54 p.m.

I’ve covered four previous Shocker Madness events. In each I remember the women’s scrimmage only because it felt like watching a pitcher’s duel. WSU could not score. It got downright embarrassing some years as the Shockers missed shot after shot and turned the ball over again and again.

Saturday’s women’s scrimmage looked so much better. Yellow defeated Black 29-18 – a wealth of points for a 15-minute running clock scrimmage. For that reason, it was the best Shocker Madness I’ve covered. Women’s coach Jody Adams would have liked more defense. I don’t think anybody in the crowd cared. The Shockers made threes. They drove the lane. They scored on post moves. Numerous players looked like they really knew how to score. Sure, it’s just a scrimmage. The real thing will be tougher. Based on Saturday, the Shockers are improved in a lot of areas. The player who impressed me the most is freshman forward Chynna Turner. Give her the ball in the lane and she knows what to do. No hesitation on her post moves. And she hit a three.

David Kyles dominated the night for the men. I’m pretty much jaded on dunk contests. WSU has put on some lame ones in past years. Kyles, a sophomore guard, made it worthwhile. I didn’t think he had a chance to finish off his dunk from behind the backboard. He did it after two tries. Even if you’ve seen a lot of dunks, that was impressive.

The dunk over the Chopper also got the crowd going. If you got it on video, Kyles would love to see it posted on YouTube.

“I hope somebody does, because I didn’t get it,” he said. “Maybe I’ll do that next year, run down there and dunk with a camera in my hand.”

Kyles led all scorers with 14 points.His Black team won both 15-minute scrimmages, 19-13 and 19-14. Kyles started to show this kind of potential in the final month of last season, after he realized the amount of work and focus college basketball and academics demanded. WSU coach Gregg Marshall likes the way Kyles is working on and off the court. His talent can make the Shockers a much more dangerous team.

“I’m excited for him,” Marshall said. “Now, the way he is handling his business…he’s got the potential to be able to display that on the court.”

  • Clevin Hannah added 10 points for the Black. He looks much more in command of the offense. He also looks stronger and more focused on defense this season. Hannah, in my mind, was WSU’s MVP last season. I think he will be even better as a senior.
  • Freshman Tyler Richardson played much better than I’ve seen in pickup games and practices. He is a good shooter and strong athlete. Marshall has yet to make redshirt decisions and he won’t until close to the start of the season (First-year players can play in the scrimmage against Kansas State on Nov. 1 and the exhibition against Newman on Nov. 7 without burning elgibility). In my mind, Richards and forward Jerome Hamilton are redshirt possibilities. In some seasons, they might be needed. This season, it’s hard for me to see Richardson playing ahead of Toure Murry, Graham Hatch, Kenny Manigault and Kyles at shooting guard/small forward. Same with Hamilton, who would need to move past veterans Garrett Stutz, J.T. Durley, Aaron Ellis and Gabe Blair to play much. Richardson and Hamilton will have several weeks to make their case for immediate playing time. It won’t be easy. I bet they see a big payoff five years from now if they redshirt.
  • Manigault impressed me with his speed. He blew by some defenders on the break to get to the basket.
  • Garrett Stutz had some nice moments, although he missed one or two shots he would like to have back. His offensive moves remain tantalizing, and he is gradually getting the body to make them work. You know he’s a shooter when WSU runs a play right off the bat to get him a three. Not many teams do that for their 7-footer.
  • What didn’t we see? The free-throw shooting was not good. That was a problem last season. Neither Toure Murry nor Graham Hatch shot well. Both need to for WSU’s offense to improve. Murry, in practices I’ve seen, looks fantastic shooting the ball. My amateur opinion is that we saw “game slippage” on Murry’s shot. In practices, his release point is higher and he gets more arch on the ball. It didn’t look quite as good Saturday.
  • Demetric Williams sat out due to illness. I was looking forward to getting another look at him. The coaches really like the way he competes in practice. He is kind of a combo guard who is doing a lot of things right.
  • Derek Brown is back as a walk-on. He played with the 2006-07 team. He didn’t play basketball the past two seasons while at WSU. Marshall felt he needed another player and Brown volunteered.
  • Two junior recruits checked out the festivities. Heights guard Evan Wessel has a scholarship offer. Guard Malcolm Brogdon is from Fayetteville, Ga.
  • I liked the scaled-down Shocker Madness. In past years, adding in all the dancing, awards and introductions made it a bloated event that went on and on. This seemed more fan friendly.
By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball | Comments (3)

Bring on the hoops

Oct. 16, 20096:28 a.m.

Wichita State starts basketball practice today – six words most Shocker fans can’t wait to hear each fall. They get their first look at the team at Shocker Madness on Saturday. The exhibition game against Newman is Nov. 7.

I haven’t talked to a fan who isn’t excited about the season. It’s not to the level of the post-Sweet 16 euphoria in 2007. There is definitely a feeling among the Koch Arena crowd that coach Gregg Marshall is bringing in athletes who are fun to watch. Last season’s closing rush (WSU went 11-6 after starting MVC play 0-6) convinced them it’s only a matter of time until the Shockers are a consistent NIT/NCAA team as they were from 2002-03 to 2005-06 (albeit in days when the NIT was less selective).

That jump could happen this season. I don’t think it would surprise too many if the Shockers took another step forward and had 20-plus victories on selection day. The Shockers took an important step last season by reestablishing a sense of dominance (and buzzer-beating karma) at Koch Arena. WSU plays 17 home games, which should give it a good start on its way to beating last season’s 17-17 record.

It might take another season. While nine players (three starters) are back from last season, this remains a team that is a bit inexperienced. There is one senior (guard Clevin Hannah). Several sophomores must play big roles for the Shockers to improve. We think they will continue to grow, but sophomore slump is a cliche for a reason. The biggest concerns are scoring and winning on the road. The Shockers were a poor shooting team in 2008-09. Is that a terminal condition, or is it something that experience fixes? On the road, even during their stretches of good home play, the Shockers often stumbled around away from home.

Most Valley teams should be improved. I count seven of the 10 teams who will start the season believing they are capable of finishing in the top three.

What’s the key for WSU? I will put it on two sophomores – Garrett Stutz and David Kyles. Both can help where WSU needs it most – scoring. Both showed great potential, mixed with slumps and struggles, as freshmen. If they step forward and be consistent contributors, the Shockers are a much improved team.

Around the MVC

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NCAA volleyball RPI out

Oct. 12, 20095:57 p.m.

Wichita State is No. 32 in the NCAA’s first release of its RPI ranking. Northern Iowa is No. 41 and Missouri State No. 43. Creighton is No. 108. Three MVC teams rank in the top 50 and four (SIU is No. 87) are in the top 100. Eight of the 10 MVC schools are in the top 150.

A win over No. 59 North Carolina ranks as WSU’s best. Louisville, Oklahoma, Rice and South Carolina are all top 100 teams.

What does that mean as far as an NCAA Tournament resume? I can’t find RPI entering past tournaments, but I can locate final RPI for the past three seasons, which should give us a good idea of where teams were on selection day. WSU appears to be very much in the picture, should it need an at-large spot. The Shockers have a few chances for more good wins, and they can’t afford many more losses.

  • In 2008, WSU finished with a No. 19 RPI and Northern Iowa with a No. 48 (after the season). Both received at-large bids. Three MVC teams ranked in the top 50.
  • In 2007, WSU finished No. 38. Missouri State (No. 41) and Illinois State (No. 52) also received at-large bids. Five MVC teams finished the season ranked No. 56 or better.
  • In 2006, MSU ended the season No. 41 after the tournament. WSU, which did not receive an at-large bid, finished the season ranked No. 52.
By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under volleyball | Comments (0)

Shocker Madness coming soon

Oct. 9, 20095:47 p.m.

Here are your details for Wichita State’s basketball preview event on Oct. 17. Fortunately, the Drake volleyball team isn’t on the schedule so it should wrap up before midnight.

Women’s player Jazimen Gordon is contemplating competing in the dunk contest. You can read more about that in Saturday’s newspaper and at Kansas.com. The men’s participants (subject to change) are Kenny Manigault, Jerome Hamilton and David Kyles.

Both teams will practice Friday, the first official day.

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball | Comments (0)

Once a Shocker…

Oct. 7, 20095:31 p.m.

This blog item comes courtesy of former Eagle reporter Jeffrey Martin, now with the Houston Chronicle. Former WSU coach Mark Turgeon recently spoke at a Texas A&M gathering in Houston. Here’s the highlight:

“Since I’ve been at Wi…,” Turgeon began, before blurting out, “Texas A&M.”

Turgeon admitted his mistake afterwards.

“I stopped myself,” he said, laughing. “I’ve been traveling so much.”

It seems he still has Wichita on his mind – Turgeon said he was attractive to A&M because of how well he recruited Houston as the Shockers coach – but he doesn’t sound too keen on meeting his former team.

“No, no, I don’t want to play WSU,” he said. “It’d be too hard to do something like that. No, we haven’t talked about that. Hopefully we’ll meet in the NCAA Tournament some day. That means we’re having success and they’re having success.”

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball | Comments (0)