By Tom Reck
Tribune-Star Correspondent
TERRE HAUTE
March 10, 2008 11:32 pm
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Drake is assured of a place in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for the first time since 1971 and could be joined by one other team from the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Bulldogs were the regular-season champs in the Valley and defeated Illinois State by 30 points to win the tournament. One of the last teams to sweep honors was Illinois State when Kevin Stallings, now at Vanderbilt, accomplished the feat. Otherwise, few regular-season champs have also won the tournament.
Illinois State has the numbers to merit an at-large berth in the Big Dance.
The Redbirds have won 24 games and got to the championship game of the Valley tourney. Only the 30-point defeat could hurt their chances but it should not be that big a factor.
Other teams probabably helped their chances for at-large bids if they don’t win league tournaments. Two of them are Ohio State, which beat Purdue and Michigan State, and Kentucky, a winner over fellow “bubble team” Florida to cap a strong rebound from a poor start to the season.
The Big Ten now could get five teams instead of four in the NCAA but no more unless there’s an upset winner in the tournament this week.
It will be interesting to see which teams prevail in the tournaments this week including the Big 12, Big 10, Pac-10, ACC, and SEC.
Indiana State’s women’s team opens Valley tournament play against Drake and helped its chances for a long-shot championship by beating Evansville and Southern Illinois to avoid the play-in contest.
There’s no true dominant team in the Valley this year and having the tournament on a neutral court enhances the chances for a surprise winner.
Go Sycamores.
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Honors, all-stars — Two players from the area have earned additional honors in Illinois high school basketball.
Heidi Dahnke of Martinsville made the special-mention list for guards on the all-state single-class girls team selected by The Chicago Tribune. She earlier earned other honors and was the only player from the area and one of the few from the southern part of the state to be cited by the Trib.
Jordan Kindred of Chrisman was a second-team pick on the Class 1A team announced by The Associated Press and was the only player named from the area.
Keane Thomann of Olney also rated second-team honors on the Class 2A honor squad and was the only player from the area on that team.
Olney represented the Casey Sectional area well by placing third in the state after losing 53-47 to Peoria Manual — playing at home in the finals.
In Indiana, Washington took a major step toward another Class 3A title by beating ranked foes Edgewood and Evansville Memorial, tabbed No. 1, to win the regional at Washington.
Tyler Zeller had awesome totals — 70 points and 36 rebounds — in the two games and teammate Seth Coy was not bad with 34 points and 29 boards.
Paoli went after a delayed regional title Monday. Joe Hicks is the coach of the Rams. You might remember him as coach of the Super Hicks at Floyd Central.
• All-Star action is slated Friday at Cumberland High School in Illinois with seniors from the Little Illini Conference meeting seniors from the National Trail Conference.
Some of the players for the LIC should be Travis Johnson and Alex Bullock of Marshall, Logan Boyd of Casey, Ryan Roberts of Hutsonville-Palestine and Kye Butler of Cumberland. Johnson, Roberts and Butler all are ISU football recruits.
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Tom-Cattin’ It — Keno Davis of Drake and Matt Painter of Purdue are finalists for the college coach of the year.
• West Vigo grad Ryan Nevill is a starter in the infield for the baseball team at Dayton. He was batting .333 with two doubles and seven runs scored in the first six games with the Flyers compiling a 4-2 record.
• Former basketball coach Jim Crews will be inducted into the University of Evansville Athletics Hall of Fame. Another inductee will be Jessica Huff in softball.
• Royce Waltman added another winning season to his coaching resume, guiding Indianapolis to a 14-13 record as the interim coach. School officials have begun a search for a new coach.
• Cornell is one of the men’s teams in the NCAA with two Hoosiers on the roster: Ryan Wittman and Adam Gore. Wittman is the son of former Indiana player Randy Wittman, now coaching in the NBA, while Gore will be remembered by fans who watched him play in the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic.
Tom Reck may be contacted by telephone at (812) 232-3231, by e-mail at treck@ma.rr.com or by mail at 4276 S. Fifth St., Terre Haute, IN 47802.
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