Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

I know I’ve been asking a lot of questions lately, but I’m trying to get through all the football preview stuff, and I just don’t have the time to do all the interviews I did earlier in the summer.

Nor do I have the time to surf the Internet. Which brings me to my question _ how much time do you spend on the Internet? I guess this is primarily a sports-related question. If you tell us that you play four hours of poker every night, yeah, I’d be interested.

But what I really want to know is how much sports stuff are you looking for?

(more…)

This has to be said first-and-foremost, Adonis Gant is the truth.

And he’s the only reason that Wichita Select  the South boys are even in this game. The South trails the North 62-50 at the half.

Gant the point guard for the South has gotten a couple of ohhhs and ahhhs from the crowd with some pinpoint transition passing and one sweet move along the baseline that turned his defender into a magician - because he straight disappeared.

Jackie Carmichael of Manhattan leads the North with 12.

Oh by the way, in the girls game the South defeated the North 86-75. It was a well played contest, but when it comes to All-Star games I’m not big on well-played games. I want action and excitement.

Random Thoughts..

Certain people on the court must not know this is an all-star game. Its already been a couple of players trying to take a charge and a trying to set-up half-court sets. There is no place for this. I want run-and-gun.

Garrius Holloman and Eli Applegate/Cole Fiegel are the lucky guys getting to share the court with Southeast trio Gantt, Jordan Cyphers, and Cortez Barnes. Holloman is getting some touches and trying to create some things, but poor Applegate and Fiegel are just playing defense.

I can’t believe my eyes, someone in the crowd is wearing a DeJuan Wagner jersey (Cleveland Cavs #2). WOW.

By J. Long

Heres a chart that compares the Top 15 Prospect ratings from Rivals and ESPNU.

There are several kids listed on both, but I thought it was interesting that Aaron Murray from Tampa was third on ESPNU’s list and was No. 50 on Rivals list.

So who you riding with? Who’s list is more accurate in your mind?

by joanna

ESPNU has ranked the top 150 football players for 2009 and East’s Bryce Brown is ranked 14th.

Here’s the link for ESPNU’s 150 watch list for 2009 but it doesn’t show the ranking. But the e-mail I was sent by Jeffrey Martin, our K-State beat writer who has a blog K-Stated has the players ranked. Maybe it’s on the ESPN Web site, but I’ve got too much to do to sit and sift through.

According to the e-mail, the top-ranked player is “quarterback Matt Barkley from Mater Dei High School in Westlake Village, Calif. Barkley was joined in the top five by No.2 Russell Shepard (ATH/Cypress Ridge High School, Houston, Tex.), No.3 Aaron Murray (QB/Plant Senior High School, Tampa, Fla.), No.4 Devon Kennard (DE/Desert Vista High School, Phoenix, Ariz.) and No.5 Dre Kirkpatrick (BD/Gadsden High School, Gadsden, Ala.). Barkley has committed to play at the University of Southern California, Shepard to Louisiana State and Murray to Georgia.

It seems a little low for Brown, considering he’s No. 9 in the Rivals 100 and the top-rated running back by Scout.com.

By J. Long

This is my first trip to Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. For those that pay absolutely no attention to local baseball, or our sports section, I’m here covering the National Baseball Congress World Series.

I’ll font more on the games a little later. I’m going to use this post to talk about my first impressions of LD.

Park at your own risk… If you read my blogs from the high school baseball season, you remember that my car getting hit by a foul ball is like one of my worst fears. I usually try not to think about it  when I’m pulling up to the field, even though it seems like I park so far away I need one of Mid-Continent’s Park and Ride shuttles to get me to the gate. But I still try not to think about it. Well you can’t avoid that thought at LD as there is a sign letting you know when you pull into the parking lot that if your car gets hit by a foul ball. Take the crying and whining to the local windshield replacement shop. They ain’t trying to hear it.

The View from the Press Box… Got here shortly after 11 a.m. and surprise I’m in a press area all by myself. Not that it will be a lot of press here, but the fact that it’s early (yeah sports reporters don’t usually like to have to go to anything that starts before noon) doesn’t help. The field and backdrop look like something off of a video game. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a field with an AstroTurf infield and natural grass outfield. Not eye candy by any means, but it does standout. I’m assuming uniqueness won out over practicality and looks. The backdrop is beautiful. I can’t shake the fact that I think this backdrop was on Tecmo Baseball or some other baseball game I played on Nintendo. I can’t really pinpoint why the backdrop is so attractive to me, maybe I’m as much of a sucker for seeing a city’s skyline as I am females with beautiful smiles.

Who knows?

Tuesday is the day.

NCAA 09 is set to release tomorrow and I can’t wait. Though most of my video game brethren list Madden as their football video game of choice, I ride with NCAA.

An interesting twist- that has nothing to do with gameplay -is that depending on what system you have you’ll get a different player on the cover.

Xbox 360 - Darren McFadden

PS 3 - Matt Ryan

PS 2 - DeSean Jackson

PSP - Owen Schmitt

Wii - Sparty (Mascot of Michigan State who was picked in a contest by fans to be on the cover)

What’s funny is that obviously McFadden is on the 360 cover because he’s the premiere name and more people who play this title will do so on 360. But looking at the other systems the higher the prestige the better the athlete. I mean no disrespect to Schmitt who was a good player at West Virginia but nobody outside of “real” college football fans know who he is. I play with WV on the 08 game and I’ll gladly take him out to run a two back offense (three backs if you want to count Pat White). I say that to say that on the game I don’t think he makes that big of an impact. On the game that is

But anyway.

I shall pose this question. Who is the SECOND most unstoppable video game athlete of all-time. Yes I said SECOND.

Bo Jackson on Super Tecmo Bowl is easily the greatest. There shouldn’t even be a debate there.

But coming up with a number two is pretty hard. Some that stick out to me are:

Mike Tyson (Punch Out)

Randy Moss (Madden 2004)

Mike Singletary (Tecmo Bowl)

Lawrence Taylor (Tecmo Bowl)

Glenn Rice (NBA Live 95)

Your Created Player (Live 95)

I wasn’t big on baseball games or hockey games so that’s just my list. So give me yours.

by joanna

I got this e-mail from Jen about Twisted Sisters.

Twisted Sisters win the Wellington Red, White & Blue Blast!!!!  This 18u fast pitch team consisting of players from Wichita, Derby, Wellington, Goddard and Haysville competed this weekend with an amazing 5 games played and won, to claim first place!

(In the championship game versus Emporia Energy) — “The score remained zero/zero for the first two innings, then in the 3rd innings, TS score 3 runs. By the 6th inning, TS easily held the energy and took the win at 3-0, beating the team that placed 2nd in their state tournament, putting Twisted Sister record now at 21 wins and 3 losses!!”

The team plays next weekend in the state tournament in Topeka.

If you have a softball, baseball, basketball team or whatever you want to tell us about, feel free to e-mail me at joanna@varsitykansas.com.

by joanna

I’m really not trying to out any of the faithful posters on this blog, but we are building relationships here, right? And I love finding out information about people — it’s an inherent nosiness.

So I want to know — when were you interviewed? For a newspaper? On TV? On the radio?

Here’s what got me thinking about this:

(more…)

By J. Long

Tonganoxie senior Roxi Grizzle was named the 2007-08 Gatorade Kansas Girls Track & Field Athlete of the year.

No disrespect to Grizzle who won the Class 4A javelin event setting a meet record at 165 feet, 5 inches which was the fourth best throw in the nation at that time. However, when I think track athlete of the year I think of someone who dominated in more than one event. Maybe someone who competed in several events to help her team compete for a team title.

But that’s just me. So who do you think should have got it?