Tournament Time – Class 1A Basketball
The last of my preparation is complete; my bags are packed; the laptop is safely secured in its travel bag.
It’s time to head to Hays and the 2010 Class 1A boys and girls state basketball tournament. The top 8 boys teams and top 8 girls teams are all on board for their arrival in Hays today and Wednesday for quarterfinal games at Gross Memorial Coliseum.
If you read today’s Telegram, my column presents an historical look at the Class 1A tournament since this will be the final year for just one tournament in the classification. Next year, there will be a Division I and II, just like the class does in Eight-Man football.
The tournament has been played in Hays since 1974 and Division I will remain there next year. Division II will move to White Auditorium in Emporia.
I will be tweeting on the @GCTSports Twitter account throughout the tournament, writing more blogs, columns in The Telegram daily, game summaries and a notebook. Once there, I want to watch all the teams to get a feel for who may capture championships come Friday night.
Last year’s boys champion (Hanover) and runner-up (Quinter) return as does 2007-08 champion South Gray. Consider that the No. 8 seeded team is 20-4 and you get an idea how tough this tournament will be to win.
On the girls side, St. John-Hudson, the 2009 champion and South Gray, the 2008 champion and 2009 runner-up, are also back for a crack at this year’s title. Greeley County’s boys, 23-1, and girls, 19-5, are in the field.
Don’t overlook the Jackrabbits or Lady Jackrabbits. The boys’only loss was to powerhouse private academy Wichita Sunrise back in December at the Scott City Invitational in the title game. They’ve dispatched of 2A Leoti twice, Syracuse once, 4A Scott City and any other foes on the schedule this year.
The girls team is the unheralded group. But don’t count out this fast-breaking, fast-pressing group of talented athletes who have seemingly peaked at the right time. Coach Tom Farmer brings a career of experiences in big games (having played on the Tribune 1968 boys state title team) and has now put together an 8-player rotation in which all players contribute.
It will be a great four days and I can’t wait to get on the road to Hays. You will find more here later.
Subscribe to the comments for this postBig Ticket Game
At the beginning of the men’s college basketball season, the most anticipated game would have been Kansas at Texas. Then Texas lost. And lost. And lost.
But no worries, another game is upon us that has grown greater intrigue than that lackluster Big Monday game on ESPN. Wednesday brings us Kansas State and Kansas.
However, this latest game will not be nationally televised — go figure that ESPN would miss out on the best Big 12 Conference game of the season to air UConn at Notre Dame and Duke at Maryland. Only one of those four teams is currently ranked in the top five.
Meanwhile, both Kansas State and Kansas are ranked in the top five.
But if watching it on TV isn’t your cup of tea, and you would prefer watching it live you may want to think again.
A pair of tickets for Wednesday’s game, with a parking pass, on eBay went for nearly $1,000.
Or if that’s too pricey for you, stubhub.com has tickets for a little lower prices. But the cheapest you can find on there: $374.99 for a ticket that’s just about near the rafters.
No matter where you are watching the game — unless you are like me and will be working — it guarantees to be one that both fan bases will be talking about for at least a week… Until the Big 12 Conference tournament begins in Kansas City.
By the way, a strip of tickets for all sessions to the Big 12 tournament are currently running between $395 and $2,324 on stubhub.com.
Soccer kicks
What a group!
If you haven’t a chance to read Saturday’s story yet on the six Garden City Community College men’s soccer players who signed a NCAA Division I letter of intent Friday, here’s the link……http://www.gctelegram.com/Sports/GCCC-soccer-signees-2-13-10.
This group has truly been special to GCCC, not just because of the fact they were a part of the best two-year stint in the men’s soccer program history, but they’re all great individuals. Four members who signed Friday were a part of the 2008 team that won the Region 6 championship and finished fourth in the NJCAA national tournament. It was the first time the Broncbuster program had been to the national tournament and they made the school proud.
Here’s an inside look at some of the individual accomplishments of these six at GCCC and where they will be playing next year.
Federico Agreda, Forward ( Syracuse)
— Jayhawk Conference Play of the Year in 2009 and first team All-Conference selection
— All Region 2008-09, All Adidas South 09, Conference/ Region Player of the Year 09, NSCAA First Team All American 09.
— Scored 26 goals and 24 assists
Alexis Dominguez, Midfielder (Western Illinois)
— NJCAA National Tournament team 2008.
— Second team All Jayhawk Conference 2008.
— 10 goals, 26 assists in two years.
Frank Tayou, Forward (West Virginia)
— Honorable Mention Jayhawk Conference 2009.
— Nine goals, three assists in one year.
Mariano Leo, Midfielder (Western Illinois)
— NJCAA All-American (2009)
— First Team All-Jayhawk Conference 2008.
— Second Team All-Jayhawk Conference 2009.
— Three goals, nine assists in two years.
Adrian Loyacono, Defender (Western Illinois)
— Two assists.
Uzi Tayou, Defender (West Virginia)
— All Jayhawk Conference 2009
— One goal in one year.
More to come
Two-time All-Jayhawk Conference performer, midfielder Ulise Caba is expected to sign with Central Arkansas soon.
Sports Fans Dream — Or Nightmare…
Sunday posed a problem for many sports fans. First off, if you are in a relationship it posed an even bigger problem — thank you Valentine’s Day! For those who had to battle the girlfriend/wife for time with the TV, we had a hard time choosing what to watch.
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) France's Jason Lamy Chappuis, gold, Italy's Alessandro Pittin, bronze, United States' Johnny Spillane, silver, and United States' Todd Lodwick from left, ski on the finish straight during the Cross Country portion of the Nordic Combined Individual normal hill event at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada on Sunday.
NBC and USA Network carried Winter Olympics coverage. Fortunately, my girlfriend gets hooked to the “Go USA!” spirit of the Olympics, so we watched a bit of it. We flipped back-and-forth between the USA women’s hockey team obliterating the China team and the Nordic Combined — witnessing in real time the first medal ever won by an American in the event.
It wasn’t until about 5:30 p.m. that I realized that the Daytona 500 was being run today. Though the TV guide projected the coverage to be over at 4 p.m., the FOX program directors sure didn’t foresee two hours worth of delays due to potholes on the course. But thanks to those, I got to watch the exciting conclusion to the race.
(AP Photo/LM Otero) East All-Star Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat goes up for a dunk during the fourth quarter of the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
As if that wasn’t already a sports-filled day of television, then came the NBA All-Star Game on TNT. Much like the Olympics and Daytona, I didn’t get to watch all of it — again, it was Valentine’s Day after all! But I did get to watch a bit of the NBA’s best players play in the NFL’s best arena — the newly minted Dallas Cowboy Stadium. It was an amazing sight to see and a great finish to a busy day of sports on a day reserved for romance.
What about the rest of you? Anybody get to watch the same stuff — or even more sporting events — than I did or did the romance come before the fanaticism?
Losing Grip
With the underwhelming performance of the North Carolina men’s basketball team — the defending national champions — riding its second three-game losing streak of the season after a 92-71 blowout by Maryland (making them one loss shy of being tied with N.C. State and Miami for the worst conference record in the ACC), I pose a trivia question: Who was the last college team to win the NCAA Division I men’s basketball national championship and fail to reach the tournament the following year?
(AP Photo/Nick Wass) Maryland's Jordan Williams (20) and Greivis Vasquez, back, try to get the ball from North Carolina's Deon Thompson (21) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Sunday in College Park, Md.
You don’t have to go as far back as you might think. In 2008, the year the University of Kansas won the national championship, the previous year’s champ Florida – coming off of back-to-back titles — failed to reach the NCAA tournament. The 2008 Florida Gators made the postseason NIT and lost in the semifinals to NIT runner-up Massachusetts.
Though history escapes me, I’m pretty sure that 2007-2008 Florida team had pretty much no expectations with five players from the championship team being drafted in the 2007 NBA draft — including three lottery picks: Al Horford (drafted No. 3 by Atlanta), Corey Brewer (No. 7 by Minnesota) and Joakim Noah (No. 9 by Chicago). Pretty sure they were at least not ranked in the preseason top-10 — as North Carolina was ranked No. 6 in the Associated Press preseason poll and No. 4, with one No. 1 vote, in the USA Today/ESPN preseason poll this year.
But for KU fans who wavered through the Roy Williams years, this is something they have seen before — though not quite as drastic of a fall as first to worst. Williams, through all his great years at KU, was still hit and miss with his recruiting classes (for every Drew Gooden, Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich class, there was a Moulaye Niang or for every Paul Pierce there was an Eric Chenowith).
It’s looking like the only way UNC may make a return trip to the Big Dance will be by winning the ACC tournament. Which, with a Duke team I’m not sold on being the front-runner, is still possible if the Tar Heels can figure things out in the last month.