Tuesday, February 13. 1979
13
Mitchell's marks quietly satisfying
By NANCY DRESSLER
Sports Editor
Adrian Mitchell put up a shot against Iowa State University in a home game this season. The soft-spoken senior forward has scored seven points and is eyeing the 2,000-point mark before closing out her career at KU.
Layup
Adrian Mitchell has slipped into the record book of KU basketball almost unnoticed.
The soft-spoken, slender senior has scored more career points and has collected more rebounds than any man or woman to play for KU. Her totals are 1,923 points and 1,163 rebounds in 114 games.
With at least six games remaining in her final season, Mitchell's point total is 261. She was the second Jo White, Wilt Chamberlin, Bud Stallworth, Dave Birosh and Clyde Lovellette. Lovellette's three-year season total of 1,888 points leads men players.
Her rebound total is 82 better than the men's leader, Bill Bridges, who pulled down 1,081 caroms in his three-year colleague career.
Mitchell's accomplishments, however, are not something the Kansas City, Mo., forward is quick to talk about. In fact, she remains quiet about her basketball abilities, except to admit that she would like to reach the 2,000-point mark.
"I HAVE TO do that," she says with a hint of excitement.
On the way to that goal, she performs with consistency, averaging 17 points and 13.5 rebounds a game.
But recognition is nil in the shadow of teammate All-American Lynette Woodard. Mitchell says she doesn't mind playing second fiddle.
"I enjoy playing with Lynette," she says. "She's a good ballplayer. I don't mind the publicity she gets.
"I think I'm most hard on myself. I'm never satisfied with my performance."
Unlike many of her teammates who played basketball in high school, Mitchell became acquainted with the sport after the an AU team in Kansas City, Mo.
MITCHELL PLAYED in the amateur league for five years before being spotted
by KU coach Marian Washington, who also played AAU ball.
Washington offered Mitchell one of the first KU basketball scholarships and she became KU's center and a team leader. She was also stepped onto the court four years ago.
She is quietly ambitious on the floor, making plays and grabbing rebounds without too many spectacular moves. Her style of play has sometimes not been enough to convince observers that even at 5-4, she can play center.
But Mitchell emits self-confidence.
"My freshman year, I tired out for the Olympics. I made the first cut from 50 to 16 players. That's the only cut I made. I know it, because it's 'me' that says, 'she's.'
"BUT THERE's not too many people who can out jump me when I'm really into the race."
This season, Mitchell has moved to forward. But KU's double-post offense also means doubling as a center.
In either role, she is a bonafide All-American candidate. Following KU's 22-11 record last season, Mitchell was named to the National Women's Invitational Tournament All-American team, an honor she values highly.
BUT MITCHELL they eye yet another plateau this season—the Eastman Kodak All-American team, composed of 10 players nationwide.
"I'd really love to make Kodak. That's the best you can get. It's not easy to get," she says.
But whatever awards she garnishes, Mitchell says she has the support of teammates and her 5-year-old daughter. In fact, she's been troubled accepting her mother's pasture.
"Yea, sometimes she says, 'Mom, when you gonna stop playing basketball?' "Mitchell says.
"I think it affects her sometimes because I come home from a game or practice upon and she'll ask, 'Mom, are you mad because you didn't play well?'
"She tells everybody, 'My mom's a superstar.'"
Cagers seek to improve series
Kansas has not played Northwest Missouri State University since the first round of the Region VI Association of Invitational Tournaments last season. Women basketball tournament last season.
In that game, KU beat the Bearkitts 66-63 in Manhattan's Ahearn Field House.
However, NWMSU leads the 11-game series between the two schools 2-9. KU will try to improve its end of the series when it试水 NWMSU at 7:30 tonight in Maryville, Mo.
NWMSU, 20-8 last season, is led by returning starters Julie Schmitz and Patty Painter. Both are averaging about 12 points a game.
They are joined by center Julie Chadwick with a 10.9 point average; Suzi Livengood, with a 10.7 point average; and Teresa Gumm, with a 6.8 point average.
Chadwick led the Bearkitts in the two teams' sole meeting last season. She scored 14 goals and 12 assists.
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kU kU 'Lisnerie Workbook' led kU kooker in
WOODARD IS averaging about 30 points a game this season and has led KU to a 22-5 record. He has scored 40 or more points in five games, including a career-high 49 points against Southwest Missouri State University Saturday. In each of the games, KU surpassed the century mark in team scoring.
Vaulter seeks consistency
By GENE MYERS
Sports Writer
When Jeff Buckingham entered high school there was little doubt that he would be a great player.
Then again, the freshman product of Gardner had an insurmountable advantage. The only vaulting pit in town was in his family's backyard.
Not only did Buckingham become Gardner's top vaulter, but he also became the best vaulter in the history of Kansas high school. He was the No. 2 performer in the nation last year.
He has already cleared 17 feet three times this season and is undefeated in five collegiate meets. He did finish third, however, in an amateur meet Dec. 31 in Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, trailing former Boston Bruins and Canadian Olympian Bruce Simpson.
Now the 5-4, 150-pound Buckingham has emerged as the valiant favorite for the Big Ten. The Knicks are a strong contender in Oklahoma City and as one of the top competitors in the NCAA indoor Mar. 9-10 in
BUCKINGHAM'S 17-9% career best is by far topts in the Big Eight this season, more than any other prospect registered by Kansas State's Doug Knuns. His haunt also is the second highest recorded by a collegiate athlete Yet, he is taking a reserved outlook for the Big Eight and his chances are good.
"Of course I'd to win," he said, "but I really just want to jump well. Really."
anyone who has cleared 17 feet has a good shot to win, but I think 17 feet will be enough.
Six vaulters in the Big Eight have cleared 16 feet this season.
Buckingham has that same reserved outlook for the remainder of the season, not the regular season.
"I just want to be a consistent jumper," he said. "I'd also like to win a lot of meets."
Consistency is his forte in high school, capturing three outdoor and two indoor SA
Jeff Buckingham
state championships, the 1977 National Junior Olympics and the 1978 Golden West Invitational. He accomplished all this as the benefit of any formal vault coaching.
"I WITN'T REALLY a hindrance not having a vault coach," he said. "My father (a former high school vaulter) got me started and helped me along. I don't know how anyone else could have helped me until now."
After capturing his second 34 outdoor
season, he realized he had the
making of a columnist.
But Buckingham passed most of the good college vaulters his senior year at Gardner. He is now a professor of performance at the Kansas State Indoor in Lawrence and ended with a 17-4% vault in Donyetk, in the Soviet Union, while on a European tour with the United States Junior Team.
"The summer after my junior year," he said. "I was jumping as high as most people in my grade, and I was vaulting in a good vaulter, and 16 feet measures the same in high school as it does."
His efforts made him the No. 8 choice of Track and Field News for male prep athlete of the year. The first-place honor was bestowed on KU teammate Sanva Owolab.
Buckingham also finds a way to fire up by using Track and Field News.
"I can get psyched reading in Track and FIELD News that somebody has jumped 18 feet off a fence."
Swimmers' victory revenges loss
Bv DAVID PRESTON
Snorts Writer
For his swimmers, the win was sweet revenue.
Gary Kemp said yesterday that his KU women swimmers' victory at the Colorado State Intitational this weekend was a big win, and he will be on the championship for the fifth consecutive year.
Kansas used an overall team effort to defeat nine other teams in the meet, including Colorado State and Brigham Young. Kansas took on two other national meet last year. But the Jayhawks were swimming to average their only dual meet loss of the year, at the hands of Big Ten opponent.
DIANE ELLES, who qualified for the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women national meet in March, agreed with Lindstrom.
The fact that Kansas outscored the third-place Cornhuskers 3S-412 made the overall win just a little sweeter, Janet Lindstrom, the meet's high scorer, said.
"It was really fun beating Nebraska," said Lindstrom, who finished first in three events and second in three others. "We were all with them with a full squad and that's what we did."
The win boosted our confidence and really helps keep the team together."
"It was really good for us to beat Nebruska," she said.
"This meet helped our mental preparation in that we swam a lot of events and swam very well. I think we'll really be ready for the Bie Eight meet."
Kempl said that last week's meet should have given his squad a good start in preparing for the Big Eight meet in two weeks.
Ellis, who qualified for the national meet in the 400-yard individual medley, said the attitude in Colorado had made it difficult for him to compete in those times, but that the competition had helped.
"I was swimming next to a girl who had finished seventh in the Olympics in the 200 yard butterfly, and I had to really push to get it." Ellis said. "It really helped my time."
DIVER LYNN BLADES also said that the competition at the meet aided her performance. She finished a strong fourth in the preliminary round and placed at the end of the preliminary divi-
"After I was in ninth," she said, "I didn't really expect to do that well. I just dove as well as I could and it was definitely my strongest performance."
Kempf said that there were a lot of strong performances from his squad, but the altitude was a factor in the low number of national qualifiers. He said, however, that he expected more qualifying times at the Big Eight meet.
The team will take this weekend off the NSA said, and not participate in the NSA said, and not participate in the NSA said.
"At this time of the season," he said, "all we want to think about is the Big Eight."
The Top 20 College Basketball Teams By United Press International
UCLA No.1 team
UCLA (15) 18-31
Indiana State (25) 22-6
North Carolina (2) 18-4
North Carolina (15) 18-4
Duke 18-4
Vynevac 18-4
Michigan State 16-1
Louisville 16-1
Marquette 17-4
Arkansas 17-4
Tennessee 17-4
Purdue 19-2
Temple 19-2
Iowa 19-2
Georgetown 19-2
Vanderbilt 19-2
Ohio State 14-7
Texas A&M 20-6
Jersey City 14-7
WHAT COULD BE BETTER?