Former Kansas University basketball standout Jeff Boschee has landed his first head coaching job.
Boschee, a four-year starter for Roy Williams’ Jayhawks from 1998 to 2002 who worked as an assistant boys coach at Blue Valley Northwest the past two years, on Thursday was named head boys coach at The Barstow School, an independent Class 2A high school in Kansas City, Mo.
“I’m extremely excited. It’s a good opportunity for me, the first time I’ve got my own program,” Boschee said.
“I talked to coach Williams about it quite a bit. I was skeptical at first about coaching high school. Coach said he was in high school five years and it helped him tremendously. He said it’s a good path to go down career-wise.”
Barstow is a Class 2A school on the Missouri side of the state line.
“This is a good starting position for me,” said the 27-year-old Boschee. “I will not say I’ll be there forever. I think it’ll be good to get some game experience. It’ll make me a better coach. My ultimate goal is to get in college coaching.”
After graduating from KU with a degree in sports management, Boschee played professionally in the USBL, ABA and Europe. Currently, Boschee is the founder, trainer and coach of the Jeff Boschee Basketball Academy. His academy’s mission focuses on training athletes on the fundamentals of basketball, while fostering discipline, motivation and teamwork.
“I feel very fortunate that I will be involved with highly successful kids, parents and staff at Barstow,” Boschee said.
Former KU coach Williams, who is now at North Carolina, said he’s convinced Boschee, who was a high school standout in Valley City, N.D., will succeed in coaching.
“I think they’ve got a guy who is going to be a tremendous coach, has been a tremendous worker at the game and I think this will be the start of a fantastic career for a great young man,” Williams said. “He won so many games for us just because he was fundamentally sound and he was also so competitive that he didn’t mind taking the big shot and I think that his competitiveness will help him in his coaching career.”
¢ Recruiting: Self made a recruiting trip Thursday to Chicago to visit DeAndre Liggins, a 6-foot-5, 190-pound junior guard/forward from Washington High. Liggins, the No. 90-rated player in the Class of 2008, told Rivals.com he has a top five of KU, Memphis, Purdue, Illinois and Kentucky.
¢ TV deal reached: The Big 12 Conference and ESPN have reached a new eight-year agreement calling for coverage of football, men’s and women’s basketball and several other sports beginning in 2008-09 and continuing through 2015-16.
As part of the agreement, ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 will offer extensive Big 12 action, while ESPNU will have significantly more Big 12 coverage with up to 50 exclusive games each year plus weekly studio programming.
In men’s basketball there will be the addition of a weekly ESPN2 game on Wednesdays during conference play. The Big 12 will continue to have its Big Monday slot on ESPN and a Saturday game on ESPN or ESPN2.
“I think it’s great exposure for the league and will be even better if we can get the Big 12 championship game moved to Saturday (instead of Sunday),” Self said. Moving the title game to Saturday could happen as soon as the 2008-09 season, the first year of the new contract.
