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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, December 17, 1968
K-State could regain title if first-year men develop
(This is the tenth in a series of Kansan reports on Big Eight basketball for the 1968-69 season.)
Kansas State's rookie coach Cotton Fitzsimmons enters the 1968-69 season with cautious optimism. "I guess you can call it a new era of basketball at K-State, but I hope it's the same old era of winning," he said.
Last year K-State, under the now-departed Tex Winter, captured the Big Eight Championship with an 11-3 record and placed fourth in the NCAA Regionals. The Wildcats won 19 of 28 games during the 1967-68 season.
Six lettermen return from the championship squad including two talented backcourt men and last year's third best rebounder in the Big Eight. Steve Honeycutt, a 6-1 senior guard, averaged 14.4 points a game last year and ranks as a candidate for national recognition because of his consistent scoring and his fine defensive play.
Jeff Webb is the other half of what is possibly the strongest guard combination in the conference. The 6-3 senior provided the Cats with good ball handling and defense when he was moved into a starting position late last season.
Gene Williams, a 6-6
235-pound senior, grabbed 10 rebounds a game to place third in the conference last year.
Williams will solve one-half of the height problem for his new coach. The other half will hopefully come from 6-11 Mike Barber, a junior who saw some playing time last year, but still needs more experience.
Speed and quickness,
something that Fitzsimmons was noted for while coaching at Moberly (Mo.) Junior College, are expected to be above average. "We want to try to run more this year," he said. "But, we said that last year and ended up in a slow walk."
Kansas State loses 46 per cent of its offensive punch from last year. This is slightly below the conference average of 49 per cent. The Wildcats are the third shortest team in the conference with a composite height of 6-4. The league average is 6-4% Their tallest is the 6-11 Barber and if they fielded their five tallest the average would be 6-6% , an inch below the Big Eight mean.
The problems for Fitzsimmons are the center position and one of the forwards. These spots will be filled by inexperienced players. Another question mark will be the team's ability to shoot. "We must improve our shooting to be considered a contender." said Fitzsimmons.
First-year men and their success or failure of development may decide K-State's title hopes. Terry Snider (6-3) established an all-time scoring record for the freshmen last year and has good jumping ability and better-than-average quickness.
Eddie Smith, a 6-4 sophomore forward, is extremely quick and a good jumper. He is the key man in the battle for the open forward spot.
Two junior college transfers figure heavily in Fitzsimmons' plans. Jerry Venable (6-5) was a two-time junior college All-American at Ferrum, Va., averaging 25 points and 25 rebounds a game. David Lawrence (6-5) played under
Jayhawk swimmers swamp Cornhuskers
Kansas won 10 of 12 events and completely dominated the meet Saturday as the Jayhawk swimmers beat Nebraska 72-33 Saturday at Lincoln.
Steve Trombold, Bob Wright,
Jim Kent and Bob Daniel started
the meet by winning the 400-yard medley relay. Then
Trombold won the 200-yard
backstroke, Wright took the
200-yard breaststroke and Kent
won the 200-yard individual
medley.
Kansas had one triple winner—Bob Hines—who won the 50-yard freestyle, the 100-vard freestyle and teamed
Jo Jo repeats as All-American
NEW YORK—Seven-foot 1½-inch senior Lew Alcindor of UCLA and 6-3 senior Jo Jo White of Kansas are repeaters on SPORT Magazine's Preview All-America Basketball team, according to an article in the current issue of the magazine.
Alcindor, who was named to SPORT's Preview All-America team for the third straight year, led UCLA to back-to-back NCAA championships with 59 wins in 60 games during the last two seasons. His 1967-68 average was 26.2.
The other senior on the squad, picked for the second straight year by the experts, can do everything on a basketball court, claim the people who watched him lead the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal. White, whose 15.3 average belies his true abilities, is recognized as an exceptional ballhandler.
Also named to the squad are junius Pete Maravich (6-5) of LSU, Calvin Murphy of Niagara (5-10) and Bob Lanier (6-11) of St. Bonaventure.
with Roy O'Connor, Bob Daniel and Bo Darrah to win the 400-vard freestyle relay.
"I'm most satisfied with Trombold's backstroke time of 2:06.9," coach Dick Reamon said. "Freshman Scott Skultetta was second in that event with another good time of 2:07.3."
O'Connor won the 200-yard freestyle, with Tom Ellis finishing second. Dave Laney and Steve Ulmer finished one-two in the 200-yard butterfly.
Kansas now begins preparation for a Jan. 11th home dual meet with Southern Methodist, a team which has not lost a dual meet in seven years.
"This dual meet means more to me than any other we'll have this season," Reamon said. "SMU is one of the top five teams in the country, but I think we can beat them this year."
The Jayhawks will practice this week, then take a week off during Christmas before reporting back Dec. 27 for two-a-day drills until classes resume Jan. 6.
REWARD to anyone knowing the whereabouts of Jim Conrad! He left an ugly old bug with us vhile he took a fabulous FIAT out for a test drive. We wonder if we'll ever see him again. Why don't you make friends with a FIAT... and watch it turn into love!
Fitzsimmons at Moberly and is a strong rebounder, but needs work on his outside shooting.
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Evaluating his team, Fitzsimmons said, "I'd like to run more, but Big Eight teams have a habit of not letting you. We should have good depth at the guards and Williams gives us a good inside man.
"If our newcomers develop," he said, "we'll be able to continue Kansas State's winning ways, but regardless, we must improve our shooting."
Fitzsimmons feels it will be another hectic Big Eight race with a number of contenders. "Naturally Kansas will be favored and should have a good team," he said. "But Oklahoma State and Colorado could be big surprises. Nebraska and Iowa State will be good and K-State should be a contender. That doesn't leave many out does it?"
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