Post-Tribune

Hutton: Oakland move good for Horizon, Valpo

Sun, 12 May 2013 02:05:27 -0500

I want Oakland in my league because I want Greg Kampe around. I want him to come to the Athletics-Recreation Center and have him help fill my notebook up once a year, or even twice if the Crusaders play them at home in the conference tournament. I want Oakland in the Horizon League because, Kampe is, as a friend of mine from the region used to say, “Good people.” Kampe is like that best friend you had — the one who could open the door to your house, walk into the kitchen, open the refrigerator and grab himself a beer, …

Carson Cunningham interviewing for college job; Kirk Kennedy likely new coach at North Judson

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:57:41 -0500

Six reasons Kirk Kennedy should return to Northwest Indiana and coach again. 1. It’s colder here in the fall and it’s way cooler to see a guy stomping up and down on the sidelines in shorts in below freezing weather than it is in central Indiana. 2. Kennedy is a run first coach, a Woody Hayes disciple, whose personality fits the rough hewn edges of the Region like a billowing steel mill. He is one of us, not one of them. He belongs here, not down there. 3. North Judson, the school that has offered him its head coaching job, …

Hutton: Kentucky ‘democratic’ in selecting All-Star team

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:04:24 -0500

Kentucky figured out a while ago that it certainly can’t make everyone happy when picking the 12 best players for the Kentucky All-Star team. But the Bluegrass state made it nearly impossible for coaches to accuse any one person of influencing the selections. On the Kentucky Coaches Basketball Association website, President David Henley writes in its latest newsletter that the “selection process for the Kentucky team has become as legitimate as it gets. I can honestly say I believe there are no ‘politics’ involved in selecting the team. A huge reason for that is former Christian County coach Kerry Stovall, …

HUTTON: Indiana All-Star selection process has major flaws

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:46:00 -0500

Charlie Hall, the Indiana All-Star director, is in a terrible position. I feel sorry for him. He is forced to defend the process of selecting the team, which is stuck in an Indiana time warp. Hall is a one-man show, a former girls coach, who travels across the state, scouting players while relying on a trusted network of former coaches and basketball insiders, to pick the 13 players for the Indiana-Kentucky All-Star series. In Charlie, alone, we are supposed to trust. He does it in consultation with the all-star team’s head coach. After all these years, even with the proliferation …

Hutton: Gleason course in good shape for upcoming Gary Amateur

Thu, 02 May 2013 02:05:58 -0500

GARY — The great floods of April 2013 didn’t render South Gleason Golf Course inoperable this time. It’s been a brutal month for golf, with some private clubs, like Innsbrooke Country Club, waiting until last weekend to open. Record rain falls — close to nine inches for April for the Chicago area — have made slogging around a golf course a hit or miss proposition for the fanatical players from Northwest Indiana. Gleason needed this kind of challenge to see how it would hold up. So far, so good. It can’t get much worse than April. “It’s fine,” Bob Farag, …

Hutton: Purdue should have taken care of Marcius

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:05:00 -0500

Sandi Marcius didn’t get the Purdue severance package. He got their unrequited love and respect. He’s part of the family forever but the soon-to-be Boilermakers graduate won’t get his last two classes paid for out of the $66 million athletic budget. Matt Painter loves “the Chooch”, but he’s done with him unless he comes crawling back to him on his knees. His sin? He quit the team. This is how quitters are treated, like pariahs and outcasts. You are either in or out. Boiler up or hit the road, Jack. Forget about nuance, context and history. College athletics is about …

HUTTON: Irish offense still trying to get up to speed

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 17:52:00 -0500

SOUTH BEND — The headline on Notre Dame athletics’ official website, und.com, after the 2010 spring football game, the first one that Brian Kelly coached at Notre Dame: “Offense Shines in Blue-Gold Game.” That was the year that Nate Montana threw for 223 yards and led the Gold to victory over a Dayne Crist-led Blue team. Remember Montana? He had one cameo appearance during the season against Michigan before transferring to Montana and then West Virginia Wesleyn. Crist started the season as the starting quarterback and he was wildly inconsistent before tearing up his knee against Tulane in a season-ending …

HUTTON: Michael Jenkins gives a piece of himself to his father

Sat, 18 May 2013 06:52:20 -0500

I have never met Bonita Jenkins face-to-face, but I can feel her softness and breathe in her dignified, profound strength over the phone as she tells her story. I can say this with certainty: Those Jenkins boys are lucky to have her around. All five of them, starting with her husband, Robert. Today is a good day for the Jenkins family. Tuesday and Monday were good days also. It’s been a good week. They’ll hungrily take more goodness. “His kidney is working great,” Bonita said of Robert. “He is peeing like a horse.” Look at the smile on Robert’s face …

HUTTON: After Monday’s spike in production, CP’s Spike Albrecht becomes media, Twitter sensation

Sat, 11 May 2013 06:44:42 -0500

On the day after the day of the moment for Spike Albrecht, who is now friendly with Kate Upton and familiar with Louisville guard Peyton Siva, he was unavailable for “Good Morning America.” Here are a few leftovers from Monday’s scintillating, yet deflating, 82-76 Michigan loss to Louisville. Spike scored 17 first-half points and worked his way into the NCAA history books and into the consciousness of America, most of which was pulling like crazy for our little Spike from Crown Point. They still are, and will be next year, too. Wake-Up call: “Good Morning America” wanted to do a …

Hutton: All-area teams always include tough choices

Wed, 08 May 2013 07:09:13 -0500

A behind the scenes look at selecting the Post-Tribune All-Area team, and a season ending high school basketball wrap-up. What was the hardest omission? Probably leaving Tom Bardeson off the team. He was like the 16th guy. Bardeson had a phenomenal final game against Michigan City, when he scored 29 points in the Bulldogs’ 69-54 loss to the Wolves in sectionals. I really believe the 6-5 senior is a Division I player, but his shooting (38.6) and 3-point percentage were low (32.6). Here is where it gets doubly difficult. It was low because the Bulldogs just weren’t that good this …

Hutton: Lighthouse loses out on IHSAA numbers game

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:08:40 -0500

It’s hard for Thomas Smith and Quincy Taylor not to be skeptical and understandably frustrated about the intentions of the IHSAA and its latest reclassification job. The basketball coach and the athletic director, respectively, at Lighthouse Academy feel like they got the royal Indianapolis shaft when the new numbers were announced last month, leaving them locked into 3A for at least two more years when in reality, they are a 2A school — or rather will be when they combine with East Chicago Lighthouse and West Gary Lighthouse next year. “They’re giving us extra students we don’t have,” Smith said, …

HUTTON: Connaughton conjures up Samardzija memories

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 06:59:00 -0500

GARY — Have you heard this story before? Strapping 6-5 right-handed, two-sport star for Notre Dame comes to the Steel Yard and is perfect. Ok, I don’t recall Jeff Samardzija ever making it to the Steel Yard for a game but the similarities between him and Pat Connaughton are hard to resist. Connaughton, in fact, could be the equal to Samardzija, whose light burned way brighter than Connaughton’s after Charlie Weis arrived and turned him into a go-to wide receiver for the Irish. Connaughton, just five days removed from Notre Dame’s loss to Iowa State in the opening round of …

Hutton: Moving up a class won’t be a problem for special Bowman program

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:28:37 -0500

INDIANAPOLIS — When Bowman coach Marvin Rea said that Austin Daniels, who had a piece of the state championship net sticking out of his ear during the postgame news conference, had been sent down early in the season, my first thought was: to the Developmental League. Alas, it wasn’t true that these are young professionals. They just play like they are. Daniels, a point guard, played a little junior varsity for the Eagles this year after some struggles. Say this about the Eagles. They play a game most teams aren’t familiar with. Poor Linton-Stockton just played basketball. Bowman gets to …

Hutton: Valpo happy to show up, play hard and lose ... again

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:36:40 -0500

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — It’s all a matter of perspective. There was a time, before Butler was going to the Final Four, that I hoped for a Butler-like level of performance for the Valparaiso program. Those aspirations exist in a different lifetime now. It was just good for Valparaiso to finally get back to the tournament, after a nine-year vacation. Now, the Crusaders have to work on getting better if they want to put 1998 behind them. I loved what the Crusaders did in 1998, beating Ole Miss and going to the Sweet 16, but I’m tired of having this …

Hutton: IHSAA tourney formula inverse of excellence

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 06:33:03 -0500

INDIANAPOLIS — Have I told you how absurd the Tournament Success Factor Formula that the Indiana High School Athletic Association uses is? No. Good — let’s talk. I think that a good attorney could have a field day with it. I like to call it the “Bowman rule.” (There are schools in football, like Fort Wayne Luers, that this rule was aimed at, too). If you’re too good and we (the IHSAA) decide you’re too good, we’re going to specifically carve out an exception for you to make it more difficult for your team. See Bowman’s three appearances in the …

Hutton: Playing ‘hot’ wins third semistate title for Bowman

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 07:18:01 -0500

HUNTINGTON — It’s like a pick-up game for Bowman. Always is. Organized, frantic chaos with the Eagles head coach, the unofficial ringleader of the bunch, dressed up in a preppy, gray, school-boy Cardigan. Except these Eagles don’t play like school boys. They play like they’re outside on a hot summer day, banging hard on the concrete, flying hard after the ball from every angle possible, from every point on the floor. They operate at all times under the love of the game clause. It’s refreshing to watch. Let me interrupt the plot here to say this about Bowman, though: The …

Hutton: T.J. Lux continuing Pirates’ winning tradition

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:18:12 -0500

Who is the best young coach in Northwest Indiana? That’s easy. Using measurable criteria, it’s Merriillville’s T.J. Lux. Lux erased any stigma that might have existed about being hired because he was the son of the superintendent when he won a sectional last year with a team that lost a pair of Division I guards — Brandon Clark and Jeremiah Jones — to graduation, and its best inside player, Edward Seay, to a season-ending knee injury before the first of the year. Lux skipped rebuilding mode and went straight into hardware mode. He raised the metabolism this year — and …

Hutton: Andrean beats back the Plymouth curse

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:14:21 -0500

PLYMOUTH — This is where region teams come to die. Plymouth, Indiana — that outpost 50 miles east of Westfield Southlake Mall, the middle of basketball purgatory for Northwest Indiana. Not a happening town for Northwest Indiana in the middle of the state tournament. The Rock — Plymouth’s gym — is a sea of unfriendly red with a history that makes the Pilgrims the perennial favorites every time they lace it up on their floor for the regional championship. Plymouth won four straight here from 2005 to 2008. They won a state title during that run. They don’t have to …