CHIP STEVEN

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.

I’m Out.

-TA

What happened to Rockhurst is they didn’t get into the MIAA.

How it went down … maybe not as simple.

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.

Newman, your move.

VIC TRILLI

So my story about Newman came out today (in short, they want to be in the MIAA) and when it got delayed a week I was worried I was going to have to change a big chunk of it because the MIAA’s vote on letting Rockhurst in was supposed to be this past Friday — June 12 — but they put it off until July 1. They did have a vote on Friday about expansion, but it was secret, and it was the athletic directors that voted on it. But if you read my story you can see that the athletic directors in the MIAA are definitely against expansion, so I guess it’s not a very well-kept secret. I tried to talk to all 12 of them, got nine to go on record and out of those, eight were against expansion in any form. What’s that mean? Just that I spent a lot of time talking to ADs, who are an interesting bunch.

My thoughts on this whole deal are this: If the MIAA wants to expand, then they need to bring in a cluster of teams at once. One at a time, because of scheduling, is just not going to work. And they need 12 football schools.

This way, football splits into a north/south east/west format, and so does basketball. So in that case, you’re gonna need either Nebraska-Kearney or William Jewell to come in, because both of them have football.

I understand the MIAA wants to protect its brand, and they rightfully should. But we live in the era of the mega-conference, and if you’re not ahead of the curve, you’re behind it. It’s the way of the future.

I’ll definitely be back to weigh in on this when Rockhurst is voted either in or out.

I’m out … TA

NEW NIKE HYPERMAX MARTY MCFLYS

I’m out. Ta.
I guess I’m like the SATs at Memphis … I’m going to make this real easy for you. Here’s what I mean:
BLOCKBUSTER

MOVIE THAT MOVED, AKA MY STORY

KAYLA VOSBERG

There’s bad streaks and then there’s the way the Newman University softball team started out the season, losing 27 straight games.

But there might still be a little fight in these Jets. Newman has gone 2-2 over its last four games this week — all on the road — including Monday’s 8-7 win over Oklahoma Panhandle State, sparked by a two-run triple from freshman Kayla Vosberg. Hopefully they can keep up their winning ways.

I’m out.

-TA

So let’s get it started.

BASEBALL

TAYLOR HOUSE

Pittsburg State’s Taylor House might not be big (5-foot-9, 175 pounds), but dude packs a punch. Your MIAA hitter of the week went 9 for 14 in four games against Southwest Baptist last week, racking up a home run, two triples, seven RBIs and seven runs. Yeah … that might help his stats a little bit.

STEVEN TREVINO

Newman’s Steven Trevino was the Heartland Conference pitcher of the week after tossing a complete game win against Texas A&M International last Friday and improving to 2-1 on the season. Trevin — from League City, Texas — struck out eight, walked three and allowed just one run. The Jets look like they might be ok this year.

SOFTBALL

AMANDA DeCASTRO

What’s in the water at PSU? They’re smacking the ball around over there … freshman Amanda DeCastro doesn’t mind college ball whatsoever, hitting .526 (10-for-19) in five games last week, which meant a homer, eight RBIs and two runs at the Missouri Southern tourney, on her way to MIAA hitter of the week honors.

A LETTER FROM MOROCCO

In five-plus years working in the newspaper business, I’ve ran across a lot of people. But this guy is one of my favorites. I worked with Doug Hanna at the Garden City Telegram when I was the sports editor and he was a sports writer. He went on to write for the Hutch News, he’s a Hutch native, HCC grad and WSU grad — I wrote on the HCC national title team of 1994 for Sunday’s Run N Gun — and from somewhere in Morocco (where he’s probably sitting in a cafe watching soccer and throwing tortillas at the screen) he sent me this e-mail, which I asked him if I could put up here and he kindly obliged:

Tony,

Nice column.

I remember that 1994 team. We’d just moved to Hutchinson, I think I went to one game that year, and I remember listening to the radio the night they won the championship. We didn’t try to get tickets even though my dad had graduated from the school. I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time. They’d won in 1988, and I figured it was something that happened fairly often.

Of course, I was 11.

I didn’t really appreciate it until I spent my year at the school later.

No student body of any value, an 80-percent empty Sports Arena, and a mediocre team with one legitimate player and no NBA future.

It was nice to be on hand for Seward County’s run last year. Nice to have Kansas residents have someone to cheer for. And nice to have a memory of what it used to be like.

-Doug

Ditto to everything he said. He’s a good friend, I miss him a lot. And I’m sure if he was here we’d crack on the fact that …

JOAQUIN PHOENIX IS STILL NUTS

I’ve talked about dude on my blog plenty, but the wackiness never stops with JP. He went berserker at a nightclub in Miami this week. Here’s a look at the madness, go to the 1:35 for the fight to begin:

BEN DAVIS

Region VI is rolling at Koch Arena with today’s women’s games going — here’s a quick and easy link to the KJCCC Web site, where you can follow all the games via live stats and scoring, so that’s nice. They’re only a couple of games in, but we’ve got Patrick Sheltra out there covering all the goodness that is Koch Arena and JuCo basketball … I remember going to see the 93-94 NJCAA champion Hutch team beat Coffeyville in the Region VI title game at Henry Levitt Arena (RIP). That Blue Dragon team featured future Purdue star Roy Hairston, Arizona (and former KU and Florida) star Ben Davis, who went on to play for the Suns and the Knicks …. and Wichita Northwest product and current Wichita North girls coach Dietric Sanders! Deke’s the man. I played h.s. ball at NW and our coach, Charles Williams, used to take us to watch a lot of Deke’s games that year (he was the sixth man), so we got to be around those guys quite a bit and they were always super-cool. And they smashed one of the backboards at the aforementioned HLA after they won (celebratory hanging on the rim) … and Steve McClain was cool with it.

DEANDRE EGGINS

As far as the MIAA tourney — there were a couple of big upsets in the men’s quarterfinals, mainly No. 1 seed Southwest Baptist — minus MIAA MVP Matt Rogers — losing to Missouri Western. Fort Hays State is in the semifinals, too, thanks to a big game from Scott City product Tim Peintner (20 points). Washburn pulled off the minor upset of Emporia State with big games from DI transfers DeAndre Eggins and Lekheythan (NOT Key-Key) Malone. I’ve thought the Ichabods underperformed all year … believe that they can win this tournament, if their hearts are in it. Which is a big IF.

JARAY MATHEWS

JAKE DARBY

Mathews & Darby

Kind of cool when you put the two names together — I feel like I should go buy a suit from them or something.

Newman men’s basketball players Jaray Mathews, a junior, and freshman Jake Darby picked up some hardware from the Heartland Conference as Mathews was named the league’s newcomer of the year and Darby was the co-freshman of the year. Here’s the release from Newman SID Brian Petrotta.

On a separate note …

It’s been awhile since I’ve been as hyped to see a movie as I was for Watchmen — grew up loving the graphic novel, the characters, the whole mythology. So when Zack Snyder (300) said he was going to direct it, it was like this fanboy’s dream come true. The trailers looked sick. The marketing was perfect. But the movie sucked. I saw it this afternoon. It was tedious, bloated, overwrought. And they changed the ending. It was bad. Like, in some parts, Batman and Robin bad.

BROKE MY HEART

I’m out.

-TA

DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE

Back from my mid-week vaca … went and saw Friday the 13th at the Old Town Warren. It was terrible, and also my choice. So my bad, AT, I guess I owe you one. As long as Jennifer Aniston’s not in it. I guess I was trying to recapture some of the great memories I had from waiting in line for 2-3 hours at some Halloween Hayride when I was a kid — they showed the movies in a loop on big screen TVs while you waited to get scared.

Anyways…

The KCAC is already in the heart of its conference tournament … while the Jayhawk and the MIAA aren’t far behind, with league titles and playoff spots still on the line. Got to say I’m looking forward to the Region VI tourney this year … there are always fireworks and hey, it’s always neat to see the big-name coaches come out. It was pretty cool to see Gregg Marshall sit through four straight games at Koch Arena … even if the only thing he got out of it was Reggie Chamberlain. Hopefully RC wasn’t the only reason he was there, and he’s kept in contact with some of last year’s best freshman. Ryan Martin, anybody?

RYAN MARTIN (COFFEYILLE CC TO WSU)

THE KCAC

The women’s quarterfinals are tonight, with both the men’s and women’s semifinals Saturday. Don’t be surprised if No. 5 seed Ottawa pulls off the upset of No. 1 Sterling on Saturday at Stelring. Ottawa hit a real lull (I have no idea why) late in the season after being the team to beat in the preseason. But Sterling looks tough, and watch out for Chad Friess. If you want to see a battle, there’s no place better than Sterling at 2 p.m. Saturday. On the women’s side, I think Sterling is going to cruise into the finals, leaving KWU and Southwestern to battle for the other spot, making their presumptive semifinal matchup, basically, a play-in game for the NAIA DII Tourney. So there’s that.

THE JAYHAWK

Saturday’s the last day of the regular season — which means the only team that has officially clinched a title is the Barton men, who have won the West.

In the men’s race for the East, it’s down to Coffeyville and Cowley, who have identical 14-3 records in league play. Cowley’s got the tougher matchup of the two teams, going to Allen County, while the Red Ravens head to KCK.

For the women in the East, Labette is actually done already, so unless Coffeyville drops a gimme at next-to-last place Allen on Saturday, the title’s theirs. In the West, the Barton women are in first by one game over Hutch and travel to Pratt … and the Blue Dragons travel to fellow second-place team Cloud. So my money’s on Barton pulling this title out.

And then there’s this, from the KJCCC Web site:

Reminder: By Bylaw, stats are due by each Monday by 5:00 PM for the previous weeks games or the head coach can be suspended for one game.

What? Really? Who says? They can get suspended for not sending their stats into a Web site? That seems pretty lame. It would seem like, yes, the practical thing to do if you’re a coach (especially with juco kids who need to get their names and stats out there for further recruitment) would be to turn the stats in. But if you don’t, I don’t understand it, but I don’t think you should get suspended. But I do know they had problems this year with the site … just don’t think the Big Brother treatment is going to inspire anyone to send in their stats. May have the opposite effect, actually.

NEWMAN

The Newman men are trying for the final playoff spot in the Heartland Conference tourney, which would be, I think, a pretty incredible accomplishment in the first year as a full-fledged member of the league. They need to win tonight against at St. Mary’s and Saturday at St. Edward’s to guarantee a spot. Not gonna be easy.

THE MIAA

Here’s what you need to know, for now: ESU has clinched a share of the women’s title and Southwest Baptist has the men’s locked up. There’s an eight-team tournament in KC coming up and when the seeds come out we’ll get into all that. Until then …

-TA

TRACY ANDERSON

I just put a story to bed about Newman women’s basketball coach Tracy Anderson and her team’s trip to San Antonio last Thursday to play Incarnate Word.

Here’s the gist: Anderson tried to take a different route back to the team’s hotel and ended up playing the role of Dr. Jack Shephard to a guy who crashed in front of her. Without the beard and all the angst, of course.

And while their coach was out trying to save somebody’s life, the Newman players disobeyed Anderson’s orders and got out of the van to direct traffic away from the accident — which occured on an off-ramp off Interstate 10 — and a couple of them went and got a concrete slab to help bust out the window of a car that had just wrecked and had an unconscious, bleeding-from-the mouth passenger trapped inside.

I’d tell you more … but what fun would that be? It’s in Monday’s Eagle, so read up.

JOANNA PRYOR

Here’s the skinny on Joanna Pryor, the new Newman volleyball coach who got her grand introduction yesterday. I got to talk to her for a few minutes, and here are some of the highlights:

-She’s from Attica

-There was only one job in Kansas (small college, obviously) she’d consider leaving Cowley for, and she got it.

“When I saw that Newman was going Division II, I told people that was the only job I’d leave Cowley for in the state,” Pryor said. “For so long there was kind of a void in Wichita as far as Division II volleyball, because you had teams at Washburn, Hays, Emporia and so on but not here.”

-She thinks that Wichita State’s volleyball success could help Newman’s program.

“The success they’ve had and the support they’ve had can only have a trickle-down effect, and I think we can really benefit from it,” Pryor said.

I get what she’s saying here — interest is up in the sport, and Newman has something to offer to recruits (local recruits, specifically) that the local jucos and NAIA schools don’t — that shiny NCAA tag.

-Expect her to hit the jucos hard. And why wouldn’t she? With all the success she’s had there, you can count on some of Newman’s top players coming out of the Jayhawk.

“I’m definitely looking to bring in a few girls,” Pryor said. “Some that I’ve coached at Cowley, possibly.”

-And, finally, her husband was eager to get to Wichita.

“We found out I got the job Monday and that night he had like 15 boxes packed,” Pryor said. “I think he’s ready for the move.”

Here’s part of the release from the Newman athletic department:

Pryor served in the same capacity at Cowley College since 2000, posting an overall record of 218-93 and taking her last four teams to the NJCAA National Championship Tournament.

“We are ecstatic to have Joanna Pryor as our head volleyball coach and the newest member of our Newman athletic community”, Trilli said. “I think she will do a tremendous job in all areas: recruiting, on-floor coaching, player-coach relationships, fundraising, faculty-staff relations, etc.”

The move comes after Maureen “Mo” Rohleder resigned in early December after four years as Newman’s head coach. She remains in the Newman University athletics department as Senior Woman Administrator.

Pryor began her coaching career as a student assistant at Wichita State University in the fall of 2000. She soon took over the head position at Cowley and built the program into a national power.

The Tigers advanced to the NJCAA National Tournament in each of the last four years, finishing as the National Runner-Up in 2005. Pryor guided two of her teams to undefeated conference championships (2005 and 2008), with the 2008 team also going undefeated through the regional championship.

During Pryor’s tenure at Cowley College, 28 student-athletes were named All-Conference, 18 garnered All-Region recognition and eight earned All-American status. She also coached eight Academic All-Americans.

Pryor served as the Secretary of the KJCCC Volleyball Coaches Association from 2006-2008 and is also a member of the KJCCC Division II Volleyball Committee.