Don’t know if you caught my Jayhawk Conference previews, but in case you didn’t … here’s my men’s story on Garden City Community College coach Kris Baumann, and here’s my women’s story on Hutch shooting guard Heather Robben.
Impressions? Both came off well. Of course, if you’re ending up as our season preview story it usually means you’ve had some type of success. And with both subjects, they’re coming off Region VI titles … you get the point. And as for Baumann’s knickname, Bucket? He’s still not saying how he got it. Just the generic “my teammates and coaches gave it to me” line. Aside from that, I was happy with the story.
Friends redshirt freshman center Zak Vanlooy — a 7-footer from Michigan — is the subject of Tuesday’s KCAC men’s preview and UMKC transfer Jessica Halsig, who should be the man for Friends this year — is the women’s subject. Newman on Thursday.
Guess who went to Jayhawk media day Monday morning? That’s right, Steve Eck!
Just kidding, although Coach Eck was really there, and had some Sunflower Slate-related questions, as always, and our lowly little blog even got a shout out from Ron Burgundy, er, Craig Fletchall … who thinks he’s kind of a big deal now that he’s also the Barton AD.
Enough with the pleasantries. I know you want scoop.
Southwestern All-American David King, a 6-foot-11 center, looks like he’ll be out for the season after hurting his knee last week. I talked to first-year Southwestern coach Matt O’Brien this morning and he confirmed what I’d been hearing since the weekend.
“We haven’t had an MRI yet, but both of our training staff that looked at the knee thought he had either a torn ACL or a partially torn ACL,” O’Brien said. “It looks likely he’s done for the season.”
It’s the second year in a row the Moundbuilders have lost their leading scorer before they even got into KCAC play. Last season, another first-team all-KCAC pick, Alwyn Jordan, tore his knee up.
“We’re going to have to make due in the post by committee,” O’Brien said. Stating the obvious: Losing King, a Maize product, could be disastrous for Southwestern. Don’t forget they also lost their top returning guard, Avery Richardson, who transferred to Friends.
So Friends men’s basketball coach Dale Faber walks up to the podium to speak at the KCAC’s media day on Wednesday at Friends and … well, you probably can guess how it went. Here’s the first words out of his mouth.
FABER: I’d like to go ahead and accept the 2009-2010 KCAC coach of the year award. It worked for Obama, so I figured it’d work for me.
The whole thing seemed like it it went by very quickly, mainly because the coaches were on top of things — TRANSLATION — nobody, comment-wise, went off the reservation, which can make these things seem like they last an eternity. Sunflower Slate even got a shout-out from new Southwestern men’s coach Matt O’Brien, who it turns out is a big Entourage fan like myself.
Here’s how it went down, giving you the team, last year’s record and finish and where they’re predicted to finish this year, by the coaches, media and yours truly:
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.
Southwestern men’s basketball coach Doug Hall — who looks a lot like Peyton Manning in that pic — is leaving the Moundbuilders after 8 seasons. He’s making a big jump to the Division I level, where he’ll be the director of men’s basketball operations at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
So, what did Hall mean to The Jinx? Everything. His eight years were the winningest stretch in 103 years of hoops. He went 145-92 in that time, including a No. 5 national ranking in 2006 and an appearance in the NAIA national tournament. Hall became the head coach when he was just 29, so he’s got a lot of coaching ahead of him. I’m sure the Moundbuilders will miss him, and I’m sure the next coach will want to send him a thank-you note at some point, because he left a nice squad behind, including all-KCAC player David King, a 6-foot-11 center. That’s a nice luxury.
