The NJCAA preseason Top 25 just came out — and to noone’s surprise two-time defending national champion is No. 1. The Jayhawk Conference put four teams in the top 25 — Butler, Hutchinson (13), Fort Scott (15) and Garden City (22). The Grizzlies travel to No. 5 Blinn on Aug. 29 to open the season — a game that drew 15,000 to Cessna Stadium last year. Snow (Utah) College, the team Butler has defeated in the last two national title games, opens at No. 4.
The MIAA has hired former KC Star sports reporter David Boyce to write for its website — www.themiaa.com — which should be a nice marriage. Boyce wrote for The Star for 20 years before being laid off this past spring — something we in the newspaper industry have become all-too-familiar with in the last year. Good for Boyce, I’m glad he landed on his feet. It’ll be interesting to see which direction he takes this — is he the SID? Will he write features? Will he be breaking news on the Website? Or will he be feeding all the big stuff directly to me? Just kidding.
Back in the office after hitting Jayhawk Conference media day at the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and all I can say is … WHOA … now I know why Butler coach Troy Morrell is so tight-lipped about recruiting. Dude brought in a haul. I wouldn’t want anybody to know I had some of these guys on the burner, either.
That being said, Butler wasn’t the only story of the day. Hutchinson did almost as well recruiting, there’s two new JuCo bowl games in Kansas (Hutchinson and Pittsburg), Crawford County came this close to getting the NCAA Division II football championship game in Pittsburg, I got Jenn Bates to laugh at my Tim Tebow joke (although I got the standard “why does everybody hate on Tebow?” speech afterwards, which is obligatory if you’re a UF grad and anybody makes fun of Tebow) and I made Mike Kessinger buy me coffee at Mead’s Corner. Not bad work if you can get it.
Here’s a breakdown of the day’s happenings, going in descending order of the predicted finish:
At current count — and I’ve only got two or three question marks — there are no less than 52 players that are either MIAA, Jayhawk or KCAC-bound playing in Saturday night’s Shrine Bowl at Cessna Stadium. That’s a lot.
It breaks down like this: MIAA (16) Jayhawk (33! although two are playing baseball and one is playing hoops) and KCAC (3).
Here’s my Top 5 — small-college edition — who’ll be on display at Cessna:
Just taking a look over the MIAA FB schedule … and I don’t know how anybody’s going to stop Northwest Missouri. Are you excited for football season yet? I know I am, although Mark Buehrle’s perfect game today helped a little bit. Just a little. But I’m psyched for Saturday — I’ll be at the Jayhawk media day here in the ICT. And probably a lot of sandbaggin’, but that’s cool.
Here’s a few early season predictions for the MIAA:
-NW Missouri rolls again. Why, you might ask? 1. Myles Burnsides. 1A. Laron Council. ‘Nuff said. Think national title here, people.
-Pitt State’s going to be just fine, thank you. Will the Gorillas miss Mark Smith and Caleb Farabi? Yes. Will they find people to replace them, quickly, so it doesn’t cost them games? Double yes.
-Watch out for Nebraska-Omaha.
-Watch out for Washburn. Seriously. I know aside from Pitt State the MIAA teams in Kansas haven’t been too strong the last couple of years, but I think the Ichabods aren’t going to be too bad this year. If you make it to a game, take a nice long look at How To Be A Linebacker courtesy of Zach Watkins. He’s #43.
Kansas Wesleyan has hired former Friends University coach Mark Carvalho as its new baseball coach. The Coyotes have won the last two KCAC regular season and tournament titles and advanced to the NAIA World Series this season … so it’s not a bad gig if you don’t mind a little pressure and winning all the time. Former KWU coach Dave Dawson was hired away by NCAA Division II Arkansas Tech after the season. Click above for the full release from KWU.
Southwestern cross-country coach Jim Helmer was kind enough to take some time out of his day to talk with yours truly about a bunch of different topics for our Q&A, including the appeal of Southwestern, loyalty to your school, vacations in Colorado, gardening and … going for his 30th straight KCAC men’s cross-country title. Go ahead, read it again. It’s not a misprint.
That’s 30, people. Like disco is dying. Like Terry Bradshaw is winning. Like The Empire Strikes Back came out. Like me learning how to walk and talk.
Here’s how it went down with Helmer, 59, who I’m thinking generated a massive amount of Sunflower Slate karma with this interview:
Newman’s men’s basketball team just got a huge boost in signing Barton County guard Chip Steven — a 6-foot-2 Derby product who averaged 11.3 points last season to go with 40 percent shooting from beyond the arc and 88 percent from the line. Don’t kid yourself — you can’t be a punk and average double digits in the Jayhawk. Not a chance. And he did it twice. He was also a second-team all-Jayhawk West pick last season. GREAT pickup for the Jets and coach Mark Potter, who is after a Heartland Conference title.
Steven leads an eight-person class, and you can read about the rest of the new Jets here.
There was some bumbling and stumbling to the finish line, but in the end the message was pretty clear: the MIAA’s product is one of the best out there and … they want to protect their brand. Which includes making sure that Southwest Baptist is going to come back in the fold (although they got a longer than expected leash on that one) and they’ll have 12 football playing schools.
So, MIAA expansion is off the table, for now. I doubt they’ll be able to expand unless they bring in four teams at once. But don’t kid yourself on this one — not having football sank Rockhurst.
The ESU baseball coach added Barton County pitcher Matt Robertson — younger brother of Detroit Tigers pitcher Nate Robertson — to his recruiting class and … what a class. Robertson, who has been drafted twice by the Tigers (42nd round 2007, 49th round 2008), is the sixth Barton player to sign with the Hornets and one of 10 Jayhawk Conference players headed to ESU. Along with three Division I transfers. There is only one high school player in the class — Jordan Welch out of Central Heights.
It’s almost like … Fornelli’s trying to win a national championship or something.
Take a look at the entire class (below), compliments of ESU’s Donald Weast:
