SPORTS UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, November 19, 1992
'Hawks to play Marathon shorthanded
Eight scholarship players to suit up
Source: Kansas Basketball media Guide
By David Dorsey
Kansan sportswriter
The Kansas men's basketball team's former 12-man deep roster is down to only eight scholarship players for its first exhibition game against Marathon Basketball at 7 tonight in Allen Field House.
Calvin Rayford and Sean Pearson, sophomore guards, will be ineligible to play tonight after violating an NCAA rule. Last spring the two guards, who attended Kansas but were academically ineligible, played in a fraternity-sponsored basketball tournament. Playing in the tournament violated the rule but they will miss only tonight's game.
Ben Davis, a 6-foot-8 forward, publicly announced Tuesday that he was quitting the team and would be transferring to a school closer to his Fort Pierce, Fla. home next semester. He will not play with the Jayhawks this season.
Kansas coach Roy Williams said yesterday at a news conference that the Davis issue was a closed one, and that the team would move on.
"You don't replace a guy that may have been our best rebounder," Williams said. "But at the same time, it doesn't help things to on crying about it. I informed Patrick Richey that he just moved up the depth chart. He will be our fourth post player."
Richey, a 6-8 junior, played at the guard and forward spots last season. He still is recovering from surgery on his right ankle to repair bone spurs and will not play tonight's game
"It's a day to day thing." Richey said. "I just got off crutches on Tuesday. My goal is to warm up with the team before Thursday's game if they let me. It should be two weeks at the most before I'm out there playing again."
Williams said that senior guards Rex Walters and Adonis Jordan probably would start, but that the frontcourt still was undecided. Juniors Steve Woodberry or Darrin Hockcould
start at the small forward spot. Senior Eric Pauley led the team in minutes played at center last season, and junior Richard Scott was the starting power forward at the end of last season.
The Jayhawks currently are in their third week of practice and are concentrating more on their style of play rather than their opponents.
"We'll just come out and take care of our business, run our own plays and make use of our offense," Jordan said. "We try not to care about what the other teams are doing as long as we out and play Kansas basketball."
Marathon Basketball is on a tour of Big Eight Conference schools and lost to Oklahoma State Tuesday night 81-76, a game Marathon coach Gary Vick thought his team should have
won.
"We haven't beaten anybody yet, and now we have to play Kansas," he said. "We're looking forward to it, and we just want to make sure we provide a competitive game."
Although Vick said his team did not have a dominate rebounder, he said his team did have a leader in 6-3 guard Andre Laurel. LaFuer is the all-time assists and steals leader at Northeastern University, where he played during the 1983-87 seasons. Current Boston Celtic swingman Reggie Lewis played alongside LaFuer during three of those seasons.
Vick said he expected LaFluer to match up against Walters.
Four former Big Eight Conference players are on Marathon's roster, and starting guard Arlandis Rush, the team's youngest player at age 24. used
to play at UTEP.
Courtside Notes
"If all of a sudden Godzilla shows up and wants to play at Kansas, we'll take him."
■ Kansas has received four letters of intent from high school players. Seven-foot center Scot Pollard, 6-10 forward/center Nick Proud, 6-0 point guard Jacque Vaughn and 6-8 forward B.J. Williams all will attend Kansas and play next season.
Kansas now has one remaining scholarship to give next season with Davis' departure.
All four of the recruits already have qualified academically.
Ticket holders for tonight's game are encouraged to bring a can of food for donation.
Paul Kotz / KANSAN
Darrin Hancock, junior forward, dunks during a Kansas men's Basketball practice. Kansas will play against Marathon at 7 onight in Allen Field House.
Bonds takes NL MVP award
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Barry Bond's value as a free agent went up a little yesterday after he was named the National League Most Valuable Player for the second time in three years.
Bonds beat out Atlanta's Terry Pendleton, receiving 18 of a possible 24 first-place votes in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Bonds finished with 304 points, followed by Pendleton with 232 points, including four first-place votes, and San Diego's Gary Sheffield with two first-place votes and 204 points.
"I think this is probably the most important one because this one I'm giving to my mom," Bonds said of his second MVP award. "She deserves it."
Bonds, the son of former major leaguer Bobby Bonds, led the Pittsburgh Pirates to their third consecutive NL East title by hitting .311 with 34 homers and 103 RBIs. He also scored 109 runs and walked 127 times.
"I have a lot of reactions," Bonds said. "Last year, statistically I thought I had a shot. I was very happy for Terry Pendleton. He's a good friend of mine."
The left fielder also won the MVP award in 1990 and was runner-up to Pendleton last year. He is the 10th player to win more than one MVP, joining such Hall of Famers as Stan Musial, Willie Mays and Ernie Banks.
For winning MVP honors, Bonds gets $250,000 bonus from the Pirates. That raised his 1982 income to $8.05 million.
"I never set goals for myself," Bonds said. "I prepare the
same way every year. I would do the same things if you paid me one dollar."
The difference this winter is that Bonds is preparing to play for a new team in 1993. The All-Star outfieldler will be a looking for a contract that pays him at least $7 million a season, and it's unlikely the Pirates can afford it.
"I haven't closed the door to anything." Bonds said. "I don't really want to get involved in the negotiations. My boss wants me to stay out."
The teams most interested in Bonds are the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves. During the NL playoffs, Bonds went house hunting in the Atlanta area.
"Maybe by next week things will be a little clearer," said Dennis Gilbert, Bonds' agent. "We've talked to a lot of teams. We've narrowed it down to five teams."
Gilbert declined to discuss any figures.
Bonds is known in the major leagues because of his allaround ability.
"I want to do it again," Bonds said of the MVP award. "I'm 28. I want to be the first to do four times."
One person Bonds will miss if he leaves Pittsburgh is Jim Levland, this season's manager of the year.
"I had the best manager and coaching staff in the major leagues." Bonds said. "Jim Leyland was like my other pair of eyes."
Bonds and Leyland both suffered through their share of disappointments in the postseason, losing three consecutive years to the NL West champion. This season, Atlanta scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7 to keep Pittsburgh out of the World Series again.
Eichloff close to scoring record
Kicker not happy with punting efforts
By David Bartkosk
Kansan sportswriter
Kansas junior kicker/punter Dan Eichloff has mixed reviews of his performance so far this season.
Eichloh was a *Playboy* Presseason All-America selection and has set or tied several Kansas kicking records in 1992. His 61-yard field goal against Ball State was the longest in school history, breaking his old record of 58 yards against Kansas State in 1990.
He gives himself a thumbs up for field-goal and extra-point kicking, and a thumbs down forunting.
Eichloff, a finalist for the Lou Groza Award, which is given to the nation's top kicker, will have a chance to break another important record when he and the Jayhawks play at Missouri on Saturday.
"I'm really happy with my kicking game," he said. "I'm pleased with my 61-yard field goal. I really didn't think I'd get another chance to break my record."
The junior from Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., is tied with former All-American
Bruce Kallmeyer for first on the
Dan Eichloff
Senior quarterback Chip Hilleary and senior center Dave Marcum have been the holder and snapper for Eichloff's field goals and extra points for the last three years.
Kansas all-time scoring list with 233 points.
Hillary said he had never played with a better kicker than Eichloh.
"He's got the strongest leg I've ever seen," Hilleary said. "I'll always remember his 61- and 55-yard field goals against Ball State and the 58-yarder he kicked to set the school
Last week against Colorado, he kicked punts ranging between 15 and 49 yards, averaging 36.9 yards a punt for the game.
Eichloff said he thought the punting problems resulted from the way he had been dropping the ball just before he kicked it.
After averaging more than 42 yards a punt in 1990 and 1991, Eichloff has averaged 40.4 yards this season.
record."
Eichloff may not have as this year of memories about his painting this year.
"My punctuation has been a major disap-
pointment," he said. "The only thing I can change is the drop on my pants.
Everything else is still the same."
Regardless of any pungent difficulties Eichloff had this season, he may put most of Kansas' kicking records out of reach.
Many of the records he will be breaking are his own. Eichloch is already the Kansas all-time leader in extra points made (89), consecutive extra points (56) and single-season consecutive extra points (36).
Eichloff said he looked forward to passing Kalmeyer's career scoring
"Hopefully I'll break the record and add about 70 or 80 points to my total next year," he said.
Sooners air complaints as players, coaches meet
The Associated Press
The meeting was attended by a majority of the team and several coaches, including head coach Mike. They net for at least two hours.
NORMAN, Okla. — The Oklahoma football team did not hold a scheduled practice yesterday as players grieved injuries to the coaching staff in a meeting.
There has been speculation that some players are disenchanted with the fact that Steve Collins did not start at quarterback last weekend in a 15-15 tie with Oklahoma State.
Collins had played the previous two games in place of Cale Gundy, who was in quarrel, and the Sooners who were impressive in beating Missouri 51-17.
Most players refused to comment as they left the meeting, although those who did comment said it had nothing to do with the quarterbacks.
Gundy bolted through reporters and said, "There's no problems, no problems at all."
Receiver Corey Warren said the meeting was simply to hash out problems or questions that some players had. He said they talked about "a lot of things people had on the chest. It really not a big problem."
A reporter suggested to backlash Kenyon Rasheed that the problem must have been fairly significant in order for such a meeting to be held.
"Obviously," Rasheeel said. "I don't want to comment on what's going on. It's a team matter and I'm just going to try to keep that way."
Punter Brad Reddell said it was not a walkout but instead was a meeting held during a practice time.
"We were all inside and talked about it and had a team meeting with coach Gibbs and got it resolved," Reddell said. He said, "Nobody instigated it. All of us got together and felt that we needed to meet with the coaches and talk with
them and we did."
He said there was no principle issue that triggered the meeting.
"We just wanted to have a team meeting with the coaches and the players and that's what we did. A lot of the guys had some things that they wanted to talk about with the coaching staff and with the other players and that's what we did," he said.
"The coaching staff talked with us. We said this. They said that. We agreed. We disagreed. We got it done. We over with and now we've got to go play Nebraska," Reddell said.
"It was something that the team felt had to be done." Rasheed said.
Oklahoma's record is 5-2. 3. The team has an off week this week before playing Nebraska in the season finale next week.
Earlier this season, South Carolina and Memphis State players held teams meetings instead of practices to discuss their concerns.
Tulsa may appeal NCAA probation injustices
The Associated Press
TULSA, Okla. — Athletic director Rick Dickson vowed yesterday to correct the injustices of an NCAA probation that penalizes Tulsa athletes who were not involved in past violations.
The NCAA put Tulsa on three years' probation for violations in the track and field program that occurred three to five years ago.
While the track program was spared harsh sanctions, none of Tulsa's teams can participate in postseason play this year.
The basketball team will not be eligible to play in either the NCAA tournament or the National Invitation Tournament, nor will the women's golf team — a national champion in 1982 and 1988 — be able to qualify for the NCAA tournament.
"They're deeply hurt. They feel like innocent victims," Dickson said.
Missouri Valley Conference Commissioner Doug Elgin said the conference would support Tulsa if it decided to appeal. Tulsa is a member of the MVC in all sports but football.
"I have tremendous empathy for the current student athletes who are going to be impacted by these sanctions but who were not even enrolled when the violations took place," Blain said. "They are unquestionably the innocent victim."
The NCAA found that Tulsa track coaches lied about the
He said MVC officials would meet to decide whether Tulsa's basketball team could compete in the postseason conference tournament
number of athletes sent to track meets, encouraged athe-
tes to use fake names and knownly used ineligible athle-
tes
The coaching staff has since been fired, and the NCAA praised Tulsa for showing improvement in track and field under new coach Bob Symons.
"It's ironic that we were congratulated on the progress we have made but we now must impose these penalties on people that had nothing to do with it," Dickson said.
The track team could have faced recruiting limitations, but the NCAA opted against those sanctions to maintain the track program's progress.
He said Tulsa would make every effort to restore post-season play to seniors, but stopped short of saying Tulsa had decided to appeal. The school has 15 days to appeal, and the court will decide. He said he be heard until April, after the basketball season is over.
"The timetable is a big issue." Dickson said. "We're exploring every avenue to make sure it is done in a timely manner."
Dickson did not rule out a possible appeal in federal court, saying only that Tala's options were unlimited at
Dickson said the NCAA did not consider other penalties. He also said Tulsa would need to clarify some of the issues in the NCAA report, such as saying the three-year probation would be lifted in December 1996.
"Being a University of Tulsa graduate, my math tells me three years is not December 1996." Dickson said tersely.
He said Tulsa's 300 athletes were stunned at the ruling but bonded together when the announcement was made.