Section:
1B
The University Daily Kansan
Sports
Name the only Major Leaguer to pitch consecutive no-hitters. See page 2B
Trivia question
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Inside: Kansas tennis player Quentin Blakeen was named the Big 12 Men's Player of the Week.
SEE PAGE 3B
Inside: The Kansas softball team split two games against Wichita State.
SEE PAGE 3B
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2001 For comments, contact Shawn Hutchinson or Shawn Linenberger at 864-4858 or sports@kansan.com
Gooden will return to Kansas
By Chris Wristen
sports@kansan.com
Kansas sportwriter
Nine months after his coach's monumental statement that he would stay at Kansas, Drew Gooden did the same.
the sophomore forward announced he would turn down the NBA and return to Kansas for his junior season last night while receiving the Bill Bridges Rebounding Award at the team banquet in Allen Fieldhouse.
"I feel it is in my best interest and my heart to come back to KU." Gooden said. "I do want to play in the NBA someday, but now I want to be here trying to win a championship. It's been two years since we put a new banner of any kind up in the fieldhouse, and that is my dream for next year."
KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
Gooden helped lead the Jayhawks to a 28-7 record and a Sweet Sixteen appearance
this season with 18.8
points and 8.4
rebounds per game.
Gooden, a first team
All-Big 12 selection,
spent the last three
weeks considering
entering the NBA
draft.
Gooden told only coach Roy Williams his decision before making the announcement public because-
Gooden: will return for junior season
he wanted to surprise his mom.
"She and I talked during the process and there was no doubt what she wanted him to
do," Williams said. "She wanted him to stay in school."
True to his mother's wishes, Gooden did just that, but not before having Williams consult his sources in the NBA to check Gooden's draft prospectus.
That could change during the next two
"We discussed that information, and we also talked about Drew's goals," Williams said. "From the outset of this process Drew indicated he was strongly leaning towards returning to KU, but both of us thought it would be wise to have the information."
Williams said his NBA sources said they liked Gooden's versatility, athleticism and size, and he would have likely been a first-round draft pick, though not a lottery selection.
years as Gooden continues to develop.
"I'm happy because Drew made the decision that he wanted to make," Williams said. "He will be in the NBA someday, but now he wants to be here."
Senior Awards: Luke Axtell, Eric Chenowitt, Kenny Gregory
Chenowith, Kenny Gregory
Academic Award: Jeff Carey
- Free-throw percentage award: Kirk Hinrich
- Most Improved Player: Hinrich
Assists Award: Hinrich
- Defensive Player Award: Jeff Boschee
- Field Goal Percentage Award: Nick Collison
Captains Award: Chenowith and Gregory.
— Edited by Sydney Wallace
Most Valuable Player: Gregory
- Failed in Schoenberg violin
Kansas junior Roger Ross is tackled by a Southern Methodist player. Ross' smaller build has not hindered his ability to excel on the field.
Photo by Matt Daugherty/KANSA*
Receiver's iron grip outweighs stature
By Jeff Denton
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
Senior wide receiver Roger Ross is a generous 5-foot-7, but he uses every last inch to his advantage.
To make up for the burden that has plagued the 21-year-old since he could barely pick up a football, Ross taught himself how to catch the ball that dwarfed his fingers.
Size was the question. His hands were the answer.
"People look at his size too much," senior cornerback Quincy Roe said. "But you have to respect his ability to catch the ball. He drops nothing; he has Vise-Grips for hands."
After excelling at the junior college ranks in Garden City, the diminutive wide receiver drew interest from several Division One programs. They liked his toughness, character and ability to catch the ball in traffic. They still had concerns about his stature,
They still had concerns about his stature, but Kansas shunmed the question. Throughout the recruiting process, Kansas never wavered, and Ross was set on becoming a Jayhawk.
"Everybody was looking for the big 6-foot receiver," Ross said. "Kansas didn't look at my size, they looked at me as a football player. They wanted me to come in and perform."
The Kansas coaches utilized his versatility from the opening kickoff when they lined him up as the primary returner. Ross went
Ross and his 67 inches did just that.
on to finish second on the team in receiving yards with 481 and second in all-purpose yards with 843.
He averaged more than 16 yards a reception and hauled in a team-leading four touchdowns from the slot position. He tallied 117 yards and a 77-yard touchdown grab against eventual-national champion Oklahoma. The first-year Jayhawk also returned a punt 62 yards for a score in the Jayhawks' 38-17 dismantling of Missouri in Columbia.
Kansas coach Terry Allen was not surprised by Ross' on-the-field efforts, and said he was recruited to make a difference.
"Roger is such an explosive player," Allen said. "He had as good a work ethic of anyone on our team last year. The ball needed to be in his hands."
After one successful year on the Hill, Ross has gone into spring practice with the intention to get better. Freshman Mario Kinsey, who has been battling sophomore Zach Dyer for the starting quarterback job this spring, said he enjoyed Ross' reliability.
"You can always go to him." Kinsey said. "If you put the ball anywhere close to his body, nine times out of 10 he is going to catch it."
Ross can accept those kinds of odds, especially because he has spent his football-playing days having them stacked against him. He constantly lives to prove somebody else that he belongs on the field, and said each day was a new challenge.
"Every day my size dwells on me," Ross said. "But I still have to keep going."
Lacrosse team survives without full squad
— Edited by Joshua Richards
By Brandon Stinnett
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
Baseball teams never travel with less than nine players. Basketball teams always take more than five. And football teams bring small armies to their road games.
The Jayhawks brought just 10 players to play four games in Iowa and Illinois last weekend, a big problem considering 12 players make up a full team.
But the Kansas women's lacrosse team couldn't even field a complete team during its most recent road trip.
The Jayhawks lost two games, but also managed to escape with two victories.
"I haven't seen anything more gutty in a long time." coach David Willey said.
Most of Kansas' opponents agreed to play with 10 players, but the other teams had scores of reserves to funnel in and keep players fresh.
One player had a mild asthma attack. Another got whacked on the head by a lacrosse stick. There were other minor injuries, too. But each time, the injured kept on fighting.
And by the end of the four-game stretch, Wiley said other teams had noticed the Jayhawks resolve.
The Jayhawks started the weekend with an emotional victory against Truman State 6-5 on Saturday in overtime in Galesburg, Ill. With the victory, Kansas avenged a 13-0 loss to the Bulldogs last fall.
The strain of playing without substitutions did take its toll. On both days Kansas won its first game, but lost its second.
"I think the other teams gained a lot of respect for us." he said.
Kansas suffered a setback in the day's second game, losing 9-4 to Knox College. Knox was the only team that wouldn't agree to play with 10 players, opting instead for 11. It was Kansas' first loss to Knox in four years.
Maggie Hicks was the hero for Kansas in the game, scoring four goals, including the game-winner in overtime.
But the Jayhawks rebounded on Sunday with a 7-6 victory against Western Michigan in Iowa City, Iowa. Jill Tisdale scored the first goal of her career and tied the score at 6 late in the game.
"I think I did pretty well," Tisdale said. "I scored one goal, and it was the tying goal of the game."
The Kansas women's lacrosse team had to play with just 10 players last weekend at matches in Illinois and Iowa, but still managed a 2-2 record. The team will end its season April 28 against Washington (Mo.) University. Contributed photo
Hicks added two more goals in the week end's final game against Iowa, but it wasn't enough. Kansas fell to the Hawkeyes 9-4, pushing the Jayhawks' record to 3-3 and moving them into fourth place out of six
teams in their division.
Kansas ends its season April 28 against Washington (Mo). A win would give Kansas sole possession of fourth place, but a loss
Sports Columnist
would mean sharing fourth with two other teams.
Edited by Megan Phelps
Shawn Linenberger
sports@kansan.com
Big 12 enjoyed dream season despite lack of Final Four
The Big 12 Conference is having a dream season.
It has claimed four national championships throughout the school year — Oklahoma in football, Nebraska in women's volleyball, Colorado in women's cross country and Texas in men's swimming and diving.
Other Big 12 teams knocked on their respective championship doors as well. Colorado men's cross country took second in the NCAAs and the Texas women's swimming and diving team complemented its men's version — the Longhorns finished in third. Oklahoma State placed third in the NCAA wrestling championships as well.
The Oklahoma men's gymnastics team took second behind Ohio State and Nebraska, and Oklahoma's women's teams advanced to the NCAA Championships on April 19-21.
Those accomplishments equal four national championships and four programs with national finishes of third or higher. Now if some team from the conference would just win the men's Final Four for the first time since 1988...
Where is he now? Former Nebraska coach Danny Nee is the new men's basketball coach at Duquesne. Nee was in Lincoln for 13 years before going to Robert Morris last year. After finishing 7-22 at Robert Morris, Nee inherits a Duquense program with seven straight losing seasons, including three consecutive 20-loss seasons. Despite being 0-5 in the NCAA Tournament, Nebraska had just one other tournament appearance in school history — 1986, the year before he arrived in Lincoln.
Former Minnesota basketball coach Clem Haskins will still be banned from coaching college basketball until 2007. The NCAA denied an appeal and upheld its ruling that Haskins knew about an academic fraud scandal.
The decision also means Minnesota basketball records from 1993 to 1998 no longer exist.
"Their record books, their media guides can't even make reference to those records," NCAA representative Jane Jankowski said. "It's as though they no longer exist."
In his appeal, Haskins wrote that findings were based on what he should have known and not what he actually knew.
If Haskins had knowledge of the fraud, his ban is appropriate. The removal of basketball records seemed pretty salty, but team tutor Jan Gangelhoff admitted writing more than 400 papers for at least 18 hours. Somebody had some time on her hands.
■ Major League Baseball teams continue to build new ballparks. The Pittsburgh Pirates moved out of Three Rivers Stadium and into PNC Park, and the Milwaukee Brewers moved from County Stadium to Miller Park. The new wave of retro ballparks rivals the wave of many "new" parks built in the '60s and '70s. Many of those stadiums were either domes or multi-purpose stadiums that had less character because they weren't just for baseball.
The stadium formerly known as Riverfront in Cincinnati fits that category. Now Cinergy Field, the structure was a circular-style stadium until construction crews eliminated approximately 14,000 seats in left and center field after last season. The construction gives fans a view of the Ohio River. Astroturf was replaced with grass after last season. Seems like senseless spending, considering The Great American Ballpark is expected to open in Cincinnati by 2003.
Overall, the new "old" ballparks try to be something they're not — there's only one Wrigley Field, one Fenway Park and one Yankee Stadium.
Oh well, it's nice to see organizations at least trying to recreate nostalgia.
The only thing missing is parks named after rich old men instead of corporations.
Linnenberger is a Washington, Kan., senior in journalism.
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