“I go by the slogan, ‘Never say never,”‘ said Zerbe, a 6-foot-5, 230-pound forward who has agreed to join KU’s men’s basketball program as a walk-on. “Coach (Roy) Williams said straight up it’ll be very, very hard to get in games.
“If I go and bust my butt, maybe he’ll put me in a game or two and I can prove I can play.”
Call it the walk-on’s dream.
“Playing at Kansas is the dream of every kid. This is my wildest dream come true,” said Zerbe, a former Andover High player who averaged 16 points and seven boards this past season for 22-10 Hutch.
He exploded for 27 points in a season-ending loss to Independence CC after scoring 28 the game before against Cowley County.
KU assistant coach Joe Holladay scouted the Indy game.
“I can’t go in there saying I’ll play a certain amount of minutes. I can go in there saying I’ll work as hard as I can every day,” Zerbe said.
Zerbe is known as a physical player. He played power forward at Hutch and figures to play small forward here.
“I’m fairly thick,” Zerbe said. “But I wouldn’t call it fat. I like to think I’m in good shape. I like to get in there, bang around and put my body on somebody.”
He doesn’t get pushed around on the court, Hutchinson coach Tim Duryea said.
“He has an extremely low center of gravity. He posts up and uses his body as well or better than anybody I’ve ever been around,” Duryea said. “Once he catches the ball under the basket, he’s almost ambidextrous in being able to use either hand to put it in the basket.”
Zerbe hit better than 50 percent of his shots — more than 40 percent of his three-pointers — last season.
He received scholarship offers from Centenary, Stephen F. Austin and Wisconsin-Green Bay. Illinois State had recently considered recruiting him. However, he would have walked-on at Wichita State had he not received the KU offer.
“I always wanted to be a Shocker,” he said, noting Andover is located 20 minutes from the WSU campus. “I never thought I had a chance at KU. When my coach told me coach Holladay liked the way I posted up and KU was interested, I said, ‘Whatever.’ When I heard it was true, I said ‘Heck yeah I’d be interested.”‘
He said Shocker head coach Mark Turgeon and assistant Tad Boyle were understanding. After all, they both played at Kansas.
“Coach Boyle said they’d both been in those shoes,” Zerbe said.
There is a great chance Zerbe’s Hutch teammate — 6-0 point guard Brett Ballard — will also be added to the team as a walk-on.
Ballard, a former Hutchinson High player will go through walk-on tryouts in October, but it is highly possible he’ll be granted a spot on the team.
“Brett is a very smart guard. He handles the ball well. He passes it well,” Zerbe said of Ballard, who averaged about eight points and seven assists per game. “He can penetrate and dish. More than anything he hates to lose.”
Ballard, in fact, wants to be a coach someday.
“He’s a tremendous worker, a flat-out warrior,” coach Duryea said.
“We’ve both grown up watching KU’s team,” Zerbe said of himself and Ballard. “It’s almost heartbreaking to see ’em lose. I thought they had Duke (in NCAA Tournament loss). KU lost that and I almost cried. I love Duke and coach K (Mike Krzyzewski), but watching KU play, pulling for them all my life, it was so hard to see them lose that game.”
