THE LAW FIRM OF HITEM, STICKEM & BEATEM AKA THE FORT SCOTT COACHING STAFF

My plate is full this evening, with Fort Scott pulling out the 13-12 Region VI win over Butler and the KCAC getting two bids to the NAIA playoffs with undefeated, No. 5 Ottawa hosting Hastings (Neb.) andNo. 12 McPherson traveling to MidAmerica Nazarene for the first playoff appearance in school history. That’s 87 years, if you’re counting. Here’s the full NAIA playoff schedule, if you’re interested.

I covered the Ottawa-Friends game yesterday and I’ll tell you what … Ottawa looked really, really good. Like they got up 42-0 in the first 16 minutes good. And as far as finally getting to see Ethan Haller play? Dude could start for most of the teams in the MIAA, no doubt. He’s that good. Their defense? Not so much. And as far as Friends — if they would have finished that comeback, as one of our page designers told me — that’s the kind of thing you could go 40 years as a sportswriter and never see. Just nuts.

So … Fort Scott. Brooks Seeley covered that game today and yes, it was cold, and yes, he whined the whole time (LOL) but he got to see a great one. And because No. 3 Blinn beat No. 1 Navarro on Sunday in the SW Region title game, that means, no matter what, the Greyhounds are gonna be No. 1 in the next poll and get to play for the national title at the Citizens Bank Bowl in Pittsburg on Dec. 6 — let’s just hope they can get the No. 2 team to come play them, whoever that may be (Likely Blinn). Couldn’t have set itself up any better for Fort Scott.

I’m out. TA.

PS. I’VE BEEN SAYING ALL YEAR … HE’S NICE!!!

But as far as VinZant and Leeker … they got robbed. I had one of them pegged as a first team picked and the other as an honorable mention. I’m not saying which. Here’s a link to their stats. Feel free to peruse and let me know what you think.

OUT. TA.

ASHLEY KRAFT

The NAIA Division II All-American teams are in and the KCAC got its due … kind of.

The women head the field this year, with two second-team picks in Southwestern’s Kaylaen Dittmer and Sterling’s Ashley Kraft, who is a repeat second-team selections. Haskell’s Kortney Smith was also a second-team pick. All three are seniors, BTW.

KAYLAEN DITTMER

In no way did I think both Dittmer and Kraft were going to be first-team selections, but in no way did I think the NAIA honks would leave both of them off the first team, especially with a feel-good 10 first-team spots. I’ve gone off on this before, but while there are 10 players on a basketball court, there are only five players on a side. That means five first-team All-Americans, not 10. It’s a joke to put 10 on the first team.

Dittmer was your KCAC player of the year, which I think was a real toss-up between her and Kraft. One of them should have been a first-team pick and the NAIA should be ashamed of itself.

Anyways. KWU put two more players on the honorable mention team in senior Emily Luckeroth and super soph LaCole Wilkinson, Sterling senior Jacci Tinkel was an HM pick, as were Southwestern senior Kara Beal and Haskell junior Maria Parker.

DAVID BIRCH

Now for the men.

Saint Mary’s Carvelle Taylor, the KCAC POY was a second-team pick, Ottawa’s David Birch was a third team pick and Southwestern’s David King, Ottawa’s Phil McClintock and Sterling’s Jonathan Woods were all HM selections. And the men’s first team had 10 picks, too. Like I said.

Congrats to all the selections.

NAMASTE

ANDREA LEIKER

Here’s a heartbreaker out of Canyon, Texas: the Emporia State women fell to West Texas A&M 86-83 at the NCAA Division II South Central Regional, and that was after coming from 10 points down with 1:47 left and without MIAA player of the year Ida Edwards for the last 14:21 after Edwards went down with a knee injury. Hope she’s ok. Andrea Leiker led the Hornets with 22 points in her final game for ESU. Also in the South Central Region, Washburn fell 72-63 to Central Oklahoma after the Bronchos rallied from a halftime deficit and sustained a game-opening 11-2 run by the Lady Blues. Tough exit for the MIAA, who I’m sure wanted to get one of their two teams out of the region. Here’s a link to the tourney bracket.

And as I’m sure you know by now, the NAIA Division II Tournament is going on, too, and we saw the Sterling men lose in the first round while the Ottawa men upset No. 4 Walsh (Ohio) before losing in the Sweet 16, and the Sterling women and Kansas Wesleyan women both bowed out in the Sweet 16, too.

Next week is the NJCAA national tournament, with the Hutch C.C. women headed to Salina and the Garden City men headed to Hutchinson. Should be fun and I’ll make sure to give you updates and as much behind-the-scenes stuff as possible, which leads me to …

DANIEL HOWARD

A DANIEL HOWARD SIGHTING

The Texas Tech defensive end/linebacker and Butler Community College product (he’s also a City Leaguer, hailing from Bishop Carroll) was out in Old Town last night. He’s on spring break from Lubbock, and I asked him why in the world he wasn’t in Acapulco, Lake Havasu, Cozumel or any number of off-the-chain spring break destinations he could wreck shop at and he laughed then gave me some lame excuse like spring ball or making sure he stayed in shape or something. We had a nice conversation over Christmas break, too, where he gave me some inside scoop on what it was like after they beat UT in Lubbock and he was nice enough to hit me with his number again (after I broke my phone and lost it the first time) for a possible feature this fall when football season starts. He was taking it pretty easy last night, but from what I can tell, here are a few benefits of being a Division I football player, even in the Air Capitol … or is that especially in the Air Capitol?

1. A lot of pretty, pretty blonde girls will come up and talk to you at random times (which means pretty much constantly) even if sometimes it’s just to ask you about Graham Harrell. And they like to talk really, really close to your face.

2. You travel with an entourage (including one guy, drunkenly, who thought he was Ari Gold and was trying to get DH to not talk to the press … come on, idiot, I’m not trying to do an interview in a bar) and they pretty much just follow you lockstep. Besides drunk handler guy the other guys seemed like they were pretty cool. Think Turtle, E and Johnny Drama style.

3. If you walk into a bar you don’t really pay too much … and there aren’t a whole lot of rules about where you can and can’t go. Dude walked behind the bar and grabbed his buddy a beer at one point. Nice. And everybody laughed. You try it and see what happens.

4. In Kansas, especially after you turn down offers from KU and KSU, expect to catch a little hell when you come home. But not too much, because you’re 6-foot-3 and about 230 pounds.

5. Did I mention the blondes?

I was impressed with DH — hopefully I can use my magic story-pitching powers to convince Kirk Seminoff to let me write an article about him this fall. Dude’s numbers have gotten better every year and he’s due for a breakout season. And he’s from Wichita.

Besides that … I’m out.

-TA

NO RICE FOR YOU!!!!

No Joaquin Phoenix-like meltdowns from Sunflower State … just all the news that’s fit for print cyberspace! Come on, though, why isn’t he acting anymore? He can really do it all, which you know if you saw Walk the Line. Anyways, back to the grind.

So I stumbled across the rankings for NCAA Division II football attendance. Impressive stuff — Pittsburg State (11), Central Mo. (13) and NW Mo. (15) were all up there as far as MIAA schools. I’m putting the rankings below, the first number after the school’s name is the number of home games, followed by total attendance and then average attendance per game. I put all the rest of the MIAA in there, just for fun. And some of those numbers are kind of sad. Check it out:

NCAA Division II Top Attendance

Rank School G Attendance Average

1. Tuskegee 5 60,400 12,080; 2. West Tex. A&M 7 83,271 11,896; 3. Grand Valley St. 7 73,639 10,520; 4. Virginia St. 5 49,426 9,885; 5. North Ala. 6 57,832 9,639; 6. Abilene Christian 7 61,575 8,796l; 7. Clark Atlanta 5 42,625 8,525; 8. Morehouse 3 23,968 7,989; 9. Tex. A&M-Kingsville4 31,796 7,949; 10. Colorado St.-Pueblo 5 39,263 7,853; 11. Pittsburg St. 6 46,290 7,715; 13. Central Mo. 7 51,584 7,369; 14. Northwest Mo. St. 8 55,588 6,949; 15. Neb.-Omaha 5 31,467 6,293; 32. Emporia St. 6 26,969 4,495; 33. Washburn 5 22,312 4,462; 38. Mo. Western St. 5 20,479 4,096; 44. Mo. Southern St. 7 26,924 3,846; 65. Fort Hays St. 6 19,191 3,199; 80. Truman 7 18,333 2,619

NAIA RANKINGS

So here’s the thing about the Sterling men’s and women’s basketball teams this year: they’re both really good. I bet that campus is a pretty fun place to be right now. The women stayed put at No. 7 in the latest NAIA Division II poll — fellow KCACer Kansas Wesleyan also didn’t budge from its spot at No. 14, and the two teams are tied for first in the KCAC right now. I’ll have to look at where that tourney bid goes if they end up tied, which is a definite possibility right now. On the men’s side, Sterling is in first in the KCAC and jumped up two spots to No. 18.

I’M OUT.

JACOB BRUSTER (56)

The long-awaited NAIA FB All-American team is out and in this blogger’s humble opinion, the KCAC really cleaned up, led by Friends offensive lineman Jacob Bruster’s first-team selection. That’s a nice bookend to his AFCA first-team All-American pick. I’m not saying there weren’t any snubs — mainly Friends defensive end Jordan Highley being left off both the first and second teams — but dude still made honorable mention, and that ain’t bad.

On a separate note, and before I get into the details of who made what, let me just say that when I ran into Bruster and his fiance two weeks ago at the downtown YMCA, I told him this was on the way. I’m just saying. Bruster is trying to pursue a pro career as a tight end, and I think he’s down from his playing weight of 295 to I’d guess about the 260 range. At 6-foot-5, that’s about the right size for the next level although he told me he needs to work on his speed.

JEFF PAULSON

Any surprises besides Highley? I’d have to say it was a pleasant surprise to see Friends DB Cole Perry on the honorable mention team as a redshirt freshman. That’s big for him, something you can build a career from. McPherson got two deserving kids on there, too, in all-purpose guy Gary Cox and LB Jeff Paulson. Bethany’s running back Sean Dahley made honorable mention … not sure he deserved that one. Running for over 1,000 yards is nothing to sniff at, but when your team is 2-8? I mean, come on, he didn’t even return kicks and punts and had like 13 yards receiving. Ok I’ll pass the Hatorade now.

Here’s the full release from the KCAC and College Fanz Sports Network, which used to be VSN:

LINDSBORG, KANSAS — Twelve football players in the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference have received post-season honors — named to the College Fanz Sports Network NAIA Coaches’ All-American Teams.

They are on first and second teams and honorable-mention, announced in Grand Island, Nebraska, by the College Fanz Sports Network. The selections were made by ten NAIA football coaches along with NAIA expert Jason Dannelly, founder of Victory Sports Network — which is now part of College Fanz.

Dannelly said: “The honor teams for this past season are another representation of how great football is at the NAIA level.”

College Fanz Sports Network NAIA Coaches’ All-American

Formerly the VSN NAIA Coaches’ All-American Teams

Players from the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference on the 2008 College Fanz Sports Network NAIA Coaches’ All-American First-Team, Second-Team, and Honorable-Mention are:

And in the last week of dealing with this, I’ve actually learned a few things.

Mainly, that there are message boards for NAIA footballon the Victory Sports Network site. Which is cool. And that the people get on them can be as mean as any other level. Which is also cool, in a way. And they definitely duked it out over this issue. One topic thread was just “NWOSU=CHEATERS” which was a little harsh, but funny. It made me think of my old friend Mike Seedborg, who played football with me at Southern Oregon University a few years back (we were good then … now we suck). Dude would get on the message boards for small-college sports on The Oregonian’s web site and give out his phone number to people who he got into it with. You have to know him to love him.

Here we go, final thoughts, numbered-style:

1. The NAIA has a severe credibility issue

This wasn’t the first time an eligibility row has shook up the NAIA playoffs, with Friends on the short end of the stick twice in the last three years, the first time being against Bethel (Tenn.) in 2006. Here’s a simple, simple solution to this problem: RE-CHECK ELIGIBILITY BEFORE THE PLAYOFFS. Any team that even thinks it is going to be in the playoffs needs to have their roster cleared immediately after the end of the regular season. Some teams, like Friends, do this already. Everybody should have to. Memo to the NAIA: STEP YOUR GAME UP.

2. Not playing Carroll was the NAIA’s decision, not Friends

I think Friends wanted to play, but it was not up to them ultimately. The NAIA stepped in and made the practical, correct decision to give Carroll a bye and move onto the semifinals. Had this been uncovered 24 hours earlier … Friends would have played. But they lost three days of preparation to play the No. 1 team in the country and they would have had to track down players that had gone home, to other states, after the team’s final meeting at 4 p.m. on Monday. Not playing shouldn’t reflect on Friends, their players or coaches. But I wouldn’t have minded going to Helena. I hear it’s beautiful this time of year.

3. Taking three players away from NWOSU wouldn’t have made a difference

Beside the point. And a stupid argument. We don’t know what three players that were ineligible, so you can’t say that for certain. But let me pick three players off any football team in the country and we’ll see how that team plays after that. But that doesn’t matter. They shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. What gives in Alva? Which leads me to my final thought/question …

4. Will NWOSU face any further penalty from the NAIA?

I have no idea. But I think they should, right? They not only left Friends out to dry, but embarrassed the NAIA something fierce. For 85 percent of the sports-consuming public, this will be the only thing they hear about the NAIA this season. And that’s too bad.

Here’s the AP story, followed by the full statement from the NAIA:

ALVA, Okla. (AP) — North-western Oklahoma State will not play its scheduled NAIA quarterfinal game at defend-ing national champion Carroll College on Saturday after dis-covering that three players were academically ineligible.
Northwestern will forfeit its regular-season games against Bacone and Texas College as well as a postsea-son game against Friends (Kan.) University because the players competed in those games while ineligible.
The school said the uni-dentified players dropped classes during the fall semes-ter that reduced their course load below 12 hours, which is not allowed by the NAIA.
“Our university commu-nity is saddened and embar-rassed by the actions we were forced to take today, but we will never compromise the in-tegrity of this university,” uni-versity president Janet Cun-ningham said in a statement.
“Everyone at Northwestern is accountable for ensuring that we follow NAIA rules and institutional policy to the let-ter.”
Cunningham apologized to the opposing schools in-volved in the forfeited games, especially Friends, and said a task force would be formed to look into eligibility issues in the athletic department and prevent further compliance problems.
“I also feel for our players and coaches who will not be allowed to continue their sea-son. They have worked very hard to get to this point but I am confident they understand that we are doing the right thing,” Cunningham said.
The NAIA planned to re-lease details later Tuesday on how the playoffs would be af-fected. Carroll, which has won five of the last six NAIA titles, has a 27-game winning streak and is the top-ranked team in the playoffs.
Northwestern Oklahoma State won its only national ti-tle in 1999 and also lost to Carroll in the 2003 title game.
The NAIA planned to have its National Eligibility Com-mittee review a report from Northwestern Oklahoma State and determine whether any additional sanctions are nec-essary.
“It is our understanding that earlier today Northwest-ern Oklahoma’s internal moni-toring system detected a vio-lation of NAIA rules and once learning of the violation the administration immediately contacted NAIA officials,” NAIA president Jim Carr said in a statement.
“I know this is a difficult time for the administration, coaches and players but would like to recognize the in-tegrity of the university’s ad-ministration for taking re-sponsibility to do what was right.”

“It is our understanding that earlier today Northwestern Oklahoma’s internal monitor-ing system detected a viola-tion of NAIA rules and once learning of the violation the administration immediately contacted NAIA officials,” said Jim Carr, NAIA President and CEO. “I know this is a difficult time for the administration, coaches and players but would like to recognize the in-tegrity of the university’s ad-ministration for taking re-sponsibility to do what was right. The NAIA and the Na-tional Eligibility Committee will work with Northwestern Oklahoma officials to ensure all proper safeguards are in place for future competition.”

FRIENDS DB LEVI READY ON SATURDAY

What happened to Friends was that the Falcons ran into a better team. That wasn’t altogether surprising. This is the NAIA playoffs and every team is good, every team should be worthy of being there. What was surprising to me was the way that Northwestern Oklahoma manhandled Friends physically. On paper, yes, the two teams were comparable, and if anything it would have appeared that Friends had a slim advantage on size. But from the first snap the Rangers were moving at an entirely different speed. Even at that … i don’t know that that was the main reason they lost. The Falcons played tight for the first time all year. Maybe, and this is just theory, they got overwhelmed by their surroundings and the pressure. And then they cracked.

I think there’s a solution there, though. And I think Monty Lewis will win a lot of NAIA playoff games before it’s all said and done. But there need to be some changes — mainly with scheduling. Budgets at NAIA schools are ridiculously tight, but playing in a 10-team conference where six of the teams are under two hours away and the rest are no more than three means that stretching a dollar shouldn’t be that hard. Playing SW Assemblies of God as your one game outside of your conference schedule just isn’t going to cut it. Why not play Northwestern? Why not play a team from the Heart of America?

Saturday’s loss hurts the KCAC, no question. I think the conference got the benefit of the doubt from national voters this year, which allowed Friends to climb so high in the polls … I don’t think that is going to be the case in the future. This loss is going to resonate with some voters and it will be hard for the Falcons to climb that high again without a better resume.

Before the season, even, the talk was that Friends would be judged on its postseason success or failures. Saturday’s loss showed just how far off that success may be.

-TA

It’s winless Southwestern at undefeated, No. 6-ranked Friends. I’m psyched, although I don’t think it’s going to be close. The Moundbuilders have really struggled the last five years. It seems like you can trace their downturn and Friends’ rise directly to Monty Lewis’s career path.

MONTY LEWIS (FRIENDS PHOTO)

Since I haven’t got to see a KCAC game this season, I want to see if Friends has what it takes to win an NAIA playoff game. Don’t kid yourself, this is a conference that needs to get into that national spotlight and that is ultimately what the Falcons season is going to be judged on. Regular seasons are great and all … but if you want to be like the Carrolls and the St. Francises and the Georgetowns of the world … you got to do it when it counts. Which the KCAC hasn’t been able to do.

If you’re at Friends tomorrow hit me up in the press box and I’ll share some of my popcorn with you. Seriously. I’m not a selfish person. You can have some. Game time is 1:30 p.m.

Out,

TA

PS,

Ben, if you’re reading this, you’re more than welcome to come to the game.