Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Campus Connection: WVU Sports Notebook
February 16, 2018 12:05 AM | Men's Basketball, Blog
So, how good is the Big 12 in men's basketball this year?
As of Thursday, Feb. 15, the Big 12 is the only conference in America where every single team has an overall record above .500. Last-place Iowa State recently dropped to 13-12 following Tuesday night's home loss to Kansas. Everyone else is at least four games above .500 with three weeks of regular season play remaining.
One of Iowa State's four conference victories this year has come against league-leading Texas Tech, 70-52, in Ames on Jan. 20.
How many last place teams have an 18-point victory over a conference leader this year - or ever for that matter?
Among the Power 5s, the Big Ten has the most teams with losing records with four (Wisconsin, Rutgers, Iowa and Illinois), followed by the ACC (Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Pitt), the SEC (Ole Miss and Vanderbilt) and the Pac-12 (Cal and Washington State).
Sorry Dan Dakich, but beyond Purdue, Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan, the Big 10 is just not that strong this year with half the league sitting below 100 in the RPI.
You could make a legitimate case right now for eight Big 12 teams making this year's NCAA Tournament field with Baylor coming on strong, or possibly even nine with Oklahoma State sitting at 15 wins with five regular season games and the Big 12 Tournament remaining.
Baylor has won four straight to improve to 16-10 and is on the cusp of switching places with Texas on the safe side if the Longhorns keep losing. Texas has a rematch with Oklahoma coming up on Saturday and also has tough games down the stretch against Kansas and West Virginia.
Right now, Joe Lunardi's latest bracket shows seven Big 12 teams in with Baylor listed among the first four out:
#2 Kansas
#3 Texas Tech
#5 West Virginia
#5 Oklahoma
#9 TCU
#10 Kansas State
#12 Texas
All 10 Big 12 teams have RPIs better than 100, with Iowa State the lowest at 91.
That conference tournament at the Sprint Center is once again going to be wild and unpredictable. West Virginia has reached the championship game the last two years before losing in what amounted to home games against Kansas and Iowa State with their large fan followings so close to Kansas City.
Stay tuned.
Regarding West Virginia, here are the Mountaineers' essential numbers leading into Saturday's game at 13th-ranked Kansas:
BPI - 32
Record: 19-7
Strength of Schedule: 59
Opponent Strength of Schedule: 61
Road Record: 4-3
Non-Conference RPI: 20
Non-Conference Strength of Schedule: 232
Vs. 1-25: 4-4
Vs. 26-50: 1-1
Vs. 51-100: 6-2
Last 12 Games: 6-6
Former Bob Huggins player Keynon Martin was complimentary of his old coach during a recent visit on the FOX television show "Undisputed" with Joy Taylor, Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless.
Martin was discussing comments LaVar Ball made about Golden State coach Steve Kerr when Bayless asked Martin who the best coach he ever played for was?
"Bob Huggins," Martin said immediately. "How he is with his guys … he cares about his guys and how he gets his guys to buy in; the things that he says to us behind the scenes to get you to accomplish greatness. What he got out of me and how he pushed me to be who I am, I think that makes a great coach."
Martin continued, "He made me be a better me. I came to Cincinnati and I had certain attributes, but he made me fine-tune those things and work on things he saw that I needed to work on. And he told me what those things were. He didn't hold back, and he pushed me."
Martin said the one aspect of play Huggins never compromises is how hard his teams play.
"Good coaches get you to buy in to what you see," Martin said.
We got a glimpse of what Martin was talking about earlier this week when Huggins sat forward Sagaba Konate for most of the first half of Monday night's TCU game.
"Sags sat over there because he didn't believe me. I said, 'We're going to play hard,' and he didn't believe me," Huggins said after the game. "He believed me in the second half. I'm just, you know, I really do believe that we need to be like the people in this state are - hard working. Don't take plays off. You face a lot of obstacles here. You have to work harder."
Konate got the message, scoring 8 points, grabbing five rebounds and blocking four shots in the second half in the Mountaineers' 82-66 victory.
After Monday night's game, Huggins was asked about his decision to start Daxter Miles Jr. in place of sophomore James Bolden at the other guard position opposite Jevon Carter.
According to Huggins, it had nothing to do with Bolden's performance in last Saturday's loss against Oklahoma State.
"Beetle was playing way too many minutes," he said. "I don't think that we got the same kind of pop off the bench. He and (Jevon Carter) are our two best perimeter shooters. He was just as productive playing the minutes that he played today as he would have been playing, 30, 31 minutes or whatever he's playing."
Huggins has always liked having instant offense coming off the bench, whether it was guard Jaysean Paige or Tarik Phillip two years ago, or Casey Mitchell back in 2011.
Beetle was that guy earlier this year until Miles Jr. got sick, but now that Miles is better, it makes more sense to bring Bolden off the bench.
The starting lineup Huggins used against TCU with Wesley Harris, Esa Ahmad and Sagaba Konate at forwards, and Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles Jr. at the two guard positions, is probably the best lineup West Virginia has moving forward.
The Mountaineers have people coming off the bench in Bolden, Lamont West and freshman Teddy Allen who can score, and if sophomore forward Maciej Bender continues to play as aggressively as he did against TCU on Monday night, they have another big who can deflect balls, grab rebounds and take up space in the paint.
Against Kansas on Jan. 15, none of those guys were big factors in the five-point defeat. Allen didn't play; Bolden was 0 of 2 from the floor in 12 minutes of action; Bender made his only field goal attempt and grabbed one defensive rebound and West was just 1 of 7 from 3 and finished with 7 points in 29 minutes of play.
The top free throw shooting team in the Big 12 is …? West Virginia at 76.7 percent.
Who would have thought this just a couple of years ago when the team shot a dismal 66.2 percent from the line in 2015?
The best free throw shooting team in school history made 74.5 percent of its attempts in 2006. That team was John Beilein's next-to-last WVU squad and included such dead-eyes as Kevin Pittsnogle (85.7%), Darris Nichols (81.8%), Patrick Beilein (80%) and Joe Herber (79.2%).
Since 1943, 20 Mountaineer teams have shot better than 70 percent from the free throw line, including this year's.
Incidentally, the best free throw shooter of all-time with a minimum of 100 career attempts?
That would be Jonathan Hargett, who made 89 of his 101 freebies for 88.1 percent during his one year with the Mountaineers in 2002.
Of players with more than 200 career attempts, Chris Leonard has the best percentage at 82.9. Bob Huggins is also on the top-20 list at No. 14, with 190 makes in 235 career attempts for 80.9 percent.
A little Friday trivia for you … Name the quarterback who threw touchdown passes for two different schools at old Mountaineer Field during his collegiate career?
The answer is at the bottom.
Chuck Klausing, who spent six years as an assistant coach on Bobby Bowden's football staff at West Virginia, has died. Klausing passed away Thursday evening at St. Andrew's Nursing Home in Indiana, Pennsylvania. He was 92.
You can read his obituary here: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2018/02/15/Chuck-Klausing-Braddock-Pitt-Carnegie-Mellon-Kiski-died/stories/201802150211
Klausing was known for his great storytelling and one of my favorite Chuck Klausing stories involves Bobby Bowden and West Virginia's pursuit of All-America wide receiver Danny Buggs.
The two were staying in Sumter, South Carolina, after an unsuccessful trip trying to recruit quarterback Freddie Solomon, who ended up signing with the University of Tampa.
The next morning, they planned to fly over to Atlanta and sign Buggs.
When Klausing took his suitcase down to their rental car he realized that he had locked the keys in the trunk. Klausing went up to Bowden's room to inform him of their predicament and Bowden decided to go back to sleep before his day got any worse.
Undeterred, Klausing went back down to the front desk and asked for some help.
A bellboy came out with a coat hanger to try and get into the car and within minutes he was inside and had the backseat padding removed to get into the trunk. He was able to see the keys Klausing had left in the trunk, but he couldn't get to them because there were metal bars blocking him from reaching them.
The bellboy got out of the car and went back inside the hotel and soon returned with a co-worker, a little person who Klausing swore stood no taller than 3 feet. The little guy was able to wiggle his small body between the bars and grab the keys out of the trunk and give them to Klausing.
All of this transpired within a matter of 15 minutes.
Klausing went back upstairs, woke up Bowden, and they proceeded to fly down to Atlanta to sign one of the best wide receivers in school history - with the help of a hotel bellboy, a coat hanger and his little friend!
The Steelers recently added two new members with Mountaineer football connections to their coaching staff. Blaine Stewart, the son of the late Bill Stewart, was hired as a coaching assistant and former defensive assistant Tom Bradley, most recently UCLA's defensive coordinator, gained employment as a defensive backfield coach replacing Carnell Lake.
Bradley spent most of his coaching career at Penn State working for Joe Paterno, but he did coach one season at WVU in 2014.
Bill Stewart gave Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin his start in coaching at VMI in 1995.
By the way, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Gerry Dulac, former WVU corners coach Blue Adams also interviewed for the vacant Steelers DB position before Bradley got the job.
Adams coached one season at West Virginia in 2016 before departing to fill a spot on Charlie Strong's staff at South Florida.
You wonder if Adams might have had a better shot at the Steelers job had he remained on Dana Holgorsen's Mountaineer staff, considering how frequently the Steelers send scouts to Morgantown for West Virginia home football games.
One of the true mysteries of West Virginia University sports is the lowest round ever recorded by a Mountaineer golfer.
Freshman Matthew Sharpstene from Charlotte, North Carolina, owns the record today by shooting an 8-under-par 64 at Martin Downs Golf Club in Palm City, Florida, on Tuesday afternoon.
But has any WVU golfer ever gone lower than 64? We don't know.
The problem of determining that is a matter of record keeping.
There were plenty of good golfers capable of scoring that low, such as the late Mike Krak, once a PGA tour member, or PGA club professionals Adolph Popp and Tony Morosco, but their lowest rounds were never recorded in pamphlets published by the University in the 1960s and 1970s before the sport was dropped in 1982.
Also, back in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, most of the golf events were match play, which meant players' wins and losses were frequently recorded but not always their low scores.
Therefore, Sharpstene's 64 goes into the record books as the lowest until someone can prove they shot a lower score, and it can be verified.
The 123rd season of West Virginia University baseball begins later this evening when West Virginia takes on Jacksonville in a three-game weekend series at John Sessions Stadium.
Game times are 6 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday and a noon first pitch Sunday on getaway day.
Skipper Randy Mazey begins his sixth season at WVU with a 160-127 career record to rank fifth on the school's all-time wins list. He needs 45 more victories to pass Ira Errett Rodgers, who won 204 games during his 23 years manning the Mountaineer dugout from 1921 to 1946, for fourth most in school history.
WVU did not play baseball during the 1943, 1944 and 1945 seasons because the old athletic field where the Mountainlair currently sits was being used as a military training ground during World War II.
Dale Ramsburg won the most games, 534, during his 27-year career spanning 1968 through 1994.
Baseball is second only to football as the oldest university sport.
There is no webcast for this weekend's action, but Jacksonville is providing live audio on its official website JUDolphins.com.
During my morning drive to work on Thursday I noticed a man walking shirtless along Patteson Drive - something you don't normally see on Feb. 15.
Williamstown junior Madelin Gardner is currently ranked eighth in the country in the pole vault with a school-record mark of 14 feet, 4 inches achieved at the Akron Invitational two weeks ago.
She is ranked No. 1 in the Mid-Atlantic Region and is second in the Big 12 behind Kansas' Laura Taylor, who surpassed 14 feet, 4 ½ inches at the Rod McCravy Memorial Feb. 3.
Gardner should qualify for this year's indoor nationals taking place in College Station, Texas, March 9-10.
The Big 12 Indoor Championships are in Ames, Iowa, Feb. 23-24.
Finally, the Athletic Communications Office was informed by the ex-wife of former West Virginia University men's basketball player Carl Head that he passed away recently. No details were provided, but Head's death was confirmed by Mountaineer teammate Jim Lewis.
Carl was Bucky Waters' first recruit at WVU and was part of the five-man group who integrated the Southern Conference in 1966, joining '65 freshman team members Lewis, Ron Williams, Ed Harvard and Norman Holmes.
Head was a standout performer during his two seasons at West Virginia in 1966-67, averaging 17.1 points and 7.9 rebounds in 55 career games, which included a Southern Conference championship and NCAA Tournament bid in 1967.
He was a two-time All-Southern Conference choice and was selected the Southern Conference tournament MVP in 1967 after helping West Virginia to an 81-65 victory over Davidson in the finals played at the Charlotte Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Head scored a team-high 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, while guard Ron Williams set a school record with 15 assists that still exists today.
Carl stood just 6-4, but he was a great leaper who played well above the rim.
Answer: Steve Joachim, who threw a late touchdown pass in Penn State's 35-7 win over West Virginia in 1971 and three years later after transferring to Temple, he threw two TD passes in the Owl's 35-21 victory over the Mountaineers in 1974.
Joachim won the Maxwell Award that year after completing 128-of-221 passes for 1,950 yards and 20 touchdowns. He also rushed for nine scores.
Have a great weekend!
As of Thursday, Feb. 15, the Big 12 is the only conference in America where every single team has an overall record above .500. Last-place Iowa State recently dropped to 13-12 following Tuesday night's home loss to Kansas. Everyone else is at least four games above .500 with three weeks of regular season play remaining.
One of Iowa State's four conference victories this year has come against league-leading Texas Tech, 70-52, in Ames on Jan. 20.
How many last place teams have an 18-point victory over a conference leader this year - or ever for that matter?
Among the Power 5s, the Big Ten has the most teams with losing records with four (Wisconsin, Rutgers, Iowa and Illinois), followed by the ACC (Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Pitt), the SEC (Ole Miss and Vanderbilt) and the Pac-12 (Cal and Washington State).
Sorry Dan Dakich, but beyond Purdue, Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan, the Big 10 is just not that strong this year with half the league sitting below 100 in the RPI.
You could make a legitimate case right now for eight Big 12 teams making this year's NCAA Tournament field with Baylor coming on strong, or possibly even nine with Oklahoma State sitting at 15 wins with five regular season games and the Big 12 Tournament remaining.
Baylor has won four straight to improve to 16-10 and is on the cusp of switching places with Texas on the safe side if the Longhorns keep losing. Texas has a rematch with Oklahoma coming up on Saturday and also has tough games down the stretch against Kansas and West Virginia.
Right now, Joe Lunardi's latest bracket shows seven Big 12 teams in with Baylor listed among the first four out:
#2 Kansas
#3 Texas Tech
#5 West Virginia
#5 Oklahoma
#9 TCU
#10 Kansas State
#12 Texas
All 10 Big 12 teams have RPIs better than 100, with Iowa State the lowest at 91.
That conference tournament at the Sprint Center is once again going to be wild and unpredictable. West Virginia has reached the championship game the last two years before losing in what amounted to home games against Kansas and Iowa State with their large fan followings so close to Kansas City.
Stay tuned.
***
Regarding West Virginia, here are the Mountaineers' essential numbers leading into Saturday's game at 13th-ranked Kansas:
BPI - 32
Record: 19-7
Strength of Schedule: 59
Opponent Strength of Schedule: 61
Road Record: 4-3
Non-Conference RPI: 20
Non-Conference Strength of Schedule: 232
Vs. 1-25: 4-4
Vs. 26-50: 1-1
Vs. 51-100: 6-2
Last 12 Games: 6-6
***
Former Bob Huggins player Keynon Martin was complimentary of his old coach during a recent visit on the FOX television show "Undisputed" with Joy Taylor, Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless.Martin was discussing comments LaVar Ball made about Golden State coach Steve Kerr when Bayless asked Martin who the best coach he ever played for was?
"Bob Huggins," Martin said immediately. "How he is with his guys … he cares about his guys and how he gets his guys to buy in; the things that he says to us behind the scenes to get you to accomplish greatness. What he got out of me and how he pushed me to be who I am, I think that makes a great coach."
Martin continued, "He made me be a better me. I came to Cincinnati and I had certain attributes, but he made me fine-tune those things and work on things he saw that I needed to work on. And he told me what those things were. He didn't hold back, and he pushed me."
Martin said the one aspect of play Huggins never compromises is how hard his teams play.
"Good coaches get you to buy in to what you see," Martin said.
We got a glimpse of what Martin was talking about earlier this week when Huggins sat forward Sagaba Konate for most of the first half of Monday night's TCU game.
"Sags sat over there because he didn't believe me. I said, 'We're going to play hard,' and he didn't believe me," Huggins said after the game. "He believed me in the second half. I'm just, you know, I really do believe that we need to be like the people in this state are - hard working. Don't take plays off. You face a lot of obstacles here. You have to work harder."
Konate got the message, scoring 8 points, grabbing five rebounds and blocking four shots in the second half in the Mountaineers' 82-66 victory.
***
After Monday night's game, Huggins was asked about his decision to start Daxter Miles Jr. in place of sophomore James Bolden at the other guard position opposite Jevon Carter.
According to Huggins, it had nothing to do with Bolden's performance in last Saturday's loss against Oklahoma State.
"Beetle was playing way too many minutes," he said. "I don't think that we got the same kind of pop off the bench. He and (Jevon Carter) are our two best perimeter shooters. He was just as productive playing the minutes that he played today as he would have been playing, 30, 31 minutes or whatever he's playing."
Huggins has always liked having instant offense coming off the bench, whether it was guard Jaysean Paige or Tarik Phillip two years ago, or Casey Mitchell back in 2011.
Beetle was that guy earlier this year until Miles Jr. got sick, but now that Miles is better, it makes more sense to bring Bolden off the bench.
***
The starting lineup Huggins used against TCU with Wesley Harris, Esa Ahmad and Sagaba Konate at forwards, and Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles Jr. at the two guard positions, is probably the best lineup West Virginia has moving forward.
The Mountaineers have people coming off the bench in Bolden, Lamont West and freshman Teddy Allen who can score, and if sophomore forward Maciej Bender continues to play as aggressively as he did against TCU on Monday night, they have another big who can deflect balls, grab rebounds and take up space in the paint.
Against Kansas on Jan. 15, none of those guys were big factors in the five-point defeat. Allen didn't play; Bolden was 0 of 2 from the floor in 12 minutes of action; Bender made his only field goal attempt and grabbed one defensive rebound and West was just 1 of 7 from 3 and finished with 7 points in 29 minutes of play.
***
The top free throw shooting team in the Big 12 is …? West Virginia at 76.7 percent.
Who would have thought this just a couple of years ago when the team shot a dismal 66.2 percent from the line in 2015?
The best free throw shooting team in school history made 74.5 percent of its attempts in 2006. That team was John Beilein's next-to-last WVU squad and included such dead-eyes as Kevin Pittsnogle (85.7%), Darris Nichols (81.8%), Patrick Beilein (80%) and Joe Herber (79.2%).
Since 1943, 20 Mountaineer teams have shot better than 70 percent from the free throw line, including this year's.
Incidentally, the best free throw shooter of all-time with a minimum of 100 career attempts?
That would be Jonathan Hargett, who made 89 of his 101 freebies for 88.1 percent during his one year with the Mountaineers in 2002.
Of players with more than 200 career attempts, Chris Leonard has the best percentage at 82.9. Bob Huggins is also on the top-20 list at No. 14, with 190 makes in 235 career attempts for 80.9 percent.
***
A little Friday trivia for you … Name the quarterback who threw touchdown passes for two different schools at old Mountaineer Field during his collegiate career?
The answer is at the bottom.
***
Chuck Klausing, who spent six years as an assistant coach on Bobby Bowden's football staff at West Virginia, has died. Klausing passed away Thursday evening at St. Andrew's Nursing Home in Indiana, Pennsylvania. He was 92.
You can read his obituary here: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2018/02/15/Chuck-Klausing-Braddock-Pitt-Carnegie-Mellon-Kiski-died/stories/201802150211
***
Klausing was known for his great storytelling and one of my favorite Chuck Klausing stories involves Bobby Bowden and West Virginia's pursuit of All-America wide receiver Danny Buggs.The two were staying in Sumter, South Carolina, after an unsuccessful trip trying to recruit quarterback Freddie Solomon, who ended up signing with the University of Tampa.
The next morning, they planned to fly over to Atlanta and sign Buggs.
When Klausing took his suitcase down to their rental car he realized that he had locked the keys in the trunk. Klausing went up to Bowden's room to inform him of their predicament and Bowden decided to go back to sleep before his day got any worse.
Undeterred, Klausing went back down to the front desk and asked for some help.
A bellboy came out with a coat hanger to try and get into the car and within minutes he was inside and had the backseat padding removed to get into the trunk. He was able to see the keys Klausing had left in the trunk, but he couldn't get to them because there were metal bars blocking him from reaching them.
The bellboy got out of the car and went back inside the hotel and soon returned with a co-worker, a little person who Klausing swore stood no taller than 3 feet. The little guy was able to wiggle his small body between the bars and grab the keys out of the trunk and give them to Klausing.
All of this transpired within a matter of 15 minutes.
Klausing went back upstairs, woke up Bowden, and they proceeded to fly down to Atlanta to sign one of the best wide receivers in school history - with the help of a hotel bellboy, a coat hanger and his little friend!
***
The Steelers recently added two new members with Mountaineer football connections to their coaching staff. Blaine Stewart, the son of the late Bill Stewart, was hired as a coaching assistant and former defensive assistant Tom Bradley, most recently UCLA's defensive coordinator, gained employment as a defensive backfield coach replacing Carnell Lake.
Bradley spent most of his coaching career at Penn State working for Joe Paterno, but he did coach one season at WVU in 2014.
Bill Stewart gave Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin his start in coaching at VMI in 1995.
By the way, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Gerry Dulac, former WVU corners coach Blue Adams also interviewed for the vacant Steelers DB position before Bradley got the job.
Adams coached one season at West Virginia in 2016 before departing to fill a spot on Charlie Strong's staff at South Florida.
You wonder if Adams might have had a better shot at the Steelers job had he remained on Dana Holgorsen's Mountaineer staff, considering how frequently the Steelers send scouts to Morgantown for West Virginia home football games.
***
One of the true mysteries of West Virginia University sports is the lowest round ever recorded by a Mountaineer golfer.
Freshman Matthew Sharpstene from Charlotte, North Carolina, owns the record today by shooting an 8-under-par 64 at Martin Downs Golf Club in Palm City, Florida, on Tuesday afternoon.
But has any WVU golfer ever gone lower than 64? We don't know.
The problem of determining that is a matter of record keeping.
There were plenty of good golfers capable of scoring that low, such as the late Mike Krak, once a PGA tour member, or PGA club professionals Adolph Popp and Tony Morosco, but their lowest rounds were never recorded in pamphlets published by the University in the 1960s and 1970s before the sport was dropped in 1982.
Also, back in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, most of the golf events were match play, which meant players' wins and losses were frequently recorded but not always their low scores.
Therefore, Sharpstene's 64 goes into the record books as the lowest until someone can prove they shot a lower score, and it can be verified.
***
The 123rd season of West Virginia University baseball begins later this evening when West Virginia takes on Jacksonville in a three-game weekend series at John Sessions Stadium.Game times are 6 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday and a noon first pitch Sunday on getaway day.
Skipper Randy Mazey begins his sixth season at WVU with a 160-127 career record to rank fifth on the school's all-time wins list. He needs 45 more victories to pass Ira Errett Rodgers, who won 204 games during his 23 years manning the Mountaineer dugout from 1921 to 1946, for fourth most in school history.
WVU did not play baseball during the 1943, 1944 and 1945 seasons because the old athletic field where the Mountainlair currently sits was being used as a military training ground during World War II.
Dale Ramsburg won the most games, 534, during his 27-year career spanning 1968 through 1994.
Baseball is second only to football as the oldest university sport.
There is no webcast for this weekend's action, but Jacksonville is providing live audio on its official website JUDolphins.com.
***
During my morning drive to work on Thursday I noticed a man walking shirtless along Patteson Drive - something you don't normally see on Feb. 15.
***
Williamstown junior Madelin Gardner is currently ranked eighth in the country in the pole vault with a school-record mark of 14 feet, 4 inches achieved at the Akron Invitational two weeks ago.She is ranked No. 1 in the Mid-Atlantic Region and is second in the Big 12 behind Kansas' Laura Taylor, who surpassed 14 feet, 4 ½ inches at the Rod McCravy Memorial Feb. 3.
Gardner should qualify for this year's indoor nationals taking place in College Station, Texas, March 9-10.
The Big 12 Indoor Championships are in Ames, Iowa, Feb. 23-24.
***
Finally, the Athletic Communications Office was informed by the ex-wife of former West Virginia University men's basketball player Carl Head that he passed away recently. No details were provided, but Head's death was confirmed by Mountaineer teammate Jim Lewis.
Carl was Bucky Waters' first recruit at WVU and was part of the five-man group who integrated the Southern Conference in 1966, joining '65 freshman team members Lewis, Ron Williams, Ed Harvard and Norman Holmes.
Head was a standout performer during his two seasons at West Virginia in 1966-67, averaging 17.1 points and 7.9 rebounds in 55 career games, which included a Southern Conference championship and NCAA Tournament bid in 1967.
He was a two-time All-Southern Conference choice and was selected the Southern Conference tournament MVP in 1967 after helping West Virginia to an 81-65 victory over Davidson in the finals played at the Charlotte Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Head scored a team-high 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, while guard Ron Williams set a school record with 15 assists that still exists today.
Carl stood just 6-4, but he was a great leaper who played well above the rim.
***
Answer: Steve Joachim, who threw a late touchdown pass in Penn State's 35-7 win over West Virginia in 1971 and three years later after transferring to Temple, he threw two TD passes in the Owl's 35-21 victory over the Mountaineers in 1974.
Joachim won the Maxwell Award that year after completing 128-of-221 passes for 1,950 yards and 20 touchdowns. He also rushed for nine scores.
Have a great weekend!
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/ Men's BasketballAlumni Series | Violet Hewett
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SWIM: What it Means to Represent West Virginia
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SWIM: What it Means to Become a Mountaineer
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