All of the schools from the Jayhawk Conference — East and West — convened in Wichita this morning at the Airport Best Western for Media Day, and as always, much hilarity ensued.
There were a lot of highlights from the day … I got to see a lot of old friends and colleagues, and an old college classmate who is now the cream of the crop for women’s coaches on the junior college level. There’s a lot to be said for finding a place you like, close to home, and building something out of nothing. Emily, are you listening?
Let’s run this down. We’ve got a lot to go over.
1. Steve Eck, Steve Eck, Steve Eck.
ECK
Coach Eck and Media Day are an interesting fit. I walked into the hotel at the same time as he did and asked what he thought of these things. I got a look, and a laugh. There’s a lot of bluffing that goes on at these things, and Coach Eck, while he isn’t bad at putting on a poker face … isn’t fooling anybody. That’s just the way it is. And his team got picked to finish first, which I’m sure irked him to no end. I talked to a lot of coaches who say they’ve signifigantly scaled back their recruiting efforts in Wichita since he took over. One look at his roster (eight City League kids) lets you know why. They’re not sure how bad he’s hurt yet, but Southeast’s Adonis Gantt (a Division I signee at Georgia Southern) hurt his knee at a jamboree in Dallas over the weekend, which is bad news. On the good news front, last year’s leading scorer, Chris Rhymes, tore his ACL at the Region VI Tournament and the Tigers finished second without him. He’s doing well at Cal State-Fullerton, thank you very much. Good for Chris.