Thursday April 2nd Local Sports

TONIGHT:
AM-1300 KGLO — 1991 World Series, Game 4 — Minnesota Twins vs. Atlanta Braves — 7:00

 

 

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Junior Luka Garza became the first University of Iowa men’s basketball player to be named to the John Wooden Award All-America Team. The announcement was made on Wednesday by The Los Angeles Athletic Club.

Joining Garza on the elite squad is Udoka Azubuike (Kansas), Devon Dotson (Kansas), Malachi Flynn (San Diego State), Obi Toppin (Dayton), Myles Powell (Seton Hall), Markus Howard (Marquette), Filip Petrusev (Gonzaga), Payton Pritchard (Oregon), and Cassius Winston (Michigan State).

The presentation of the John Wooden Award to the men’s most outstanding college basketball player will take place on April 7, during the 4 p.m. (CT) edition of SportsCenter on ESPN.

Last month, Garza was awarded the Pete Newell Big Man of the Year Award by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and five major news outlets named Garza as its national player of the year: Sporting News, Basketball Times, Stadium, Bleacher Report, and ESPN. He is the first Iowa men’s basketball player to earn national player of the year distinction. Garza was also a unanimous consensus first-team All-America selection. He joins former Hawkeyes Murray Wier (1948) and Charles Darling (1952) as the program’s only consensus first team All-Americans.

 

 

CEDAR RAPIDS — Spring athletes at all levels of college athletics are getting eligibility relief following action by an NCAA Division I council this week. The move comes after spring seasons were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Chuck Yrigoyen is commissioner of the Division III American Rivers Conference and says with no athletic scholarships budgetary considerations are not as much of a factor.

Yrigoyen says athletes at schools which only offer undergraduate degrees are free to transfer to a school that offers post graduate degrees.

Yrigoyen says while outdoor track and field is considered a spring sport indoor track and field is not.

The conference, formerly known as the Iowa Conference, is made up of nine schools — Buena Vista, Central, Coe, Dubuque, Loras, Luther, Nebraska Wesleyan, Simpson and Wartburg.

 

 

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – UNI head coach Mark Farley rounded out his coaching staff for the 2020 season. Farley’ entering his 20th season as the head coach of UNI football, tabbed college football veteran Shawn Watson as an offensive assistant coaching quarterbacks and former Nebraska quarterback and Youngstown State assistant Joe Ganz as the wide receivers coach.

Watson joins the Panthers from the University of Georgia where he was an offensive quality control coach for the 2019 season. Before his time at Georgia, he was the offensive coordinator at Pitt. He has also been the offensive coordinator at Colorado, Nebraska and Louisville, and held positions at nine total power five schools.

At Louisville, he coached Teddy Bridgewater for his entire career. He helped the future first-round draft pick to 9,817 yards passing and 72 touchdowns. Bridgewater’s completion percentage jumped from 64.5% as a freshman to 71.0% as a junior, his final season before entering the NFL draft.

He was the head coach at his alma mater Southern Illinois from 1994-1996.

Ganz comes to UNI from Youngstown State where he was the quarterbacks coach for the Penguins for the past two seasons. He helped the Youngstown QBs pass for 2,289 yards and 21 touchdowns against just eight interceptions in 2019 despite injuries to starter Nathan Mays. In 2018, Montgomery Van Gorder was named to the MVC All-Newcomer team after throwing for 1,934 yards and 14 TDs.

Prior to coaching QBs, he guided the tight ends at YSU. The 2016 unit was key in the Penguins trip to the FCS National Title game. With tight ends catching touchdowns in the semifinals and in Frisco.

A native of the Chicagoland area, Ganz also adds strong connections to a place that is an important recruiting area for the Panthers.