What Keegan Says

By Tom Keegan     Mar 5, 2010

The Lakers have Jack Nicholson. Kentucky basketball has Ashley Judd. The Red Sox have Stephen King. And now, finally, after all these years of basketball dominance, Kansas University has a celebrity fan.

For a change, Samantha Ryan was the one doing the star-gazing Wednesday night in Allen Fieldhouse. The porn star reportedly has racked up 141 films (compared to a mere 49 for Meryl Streep) and has directed one titled, well, maybe we’ll check our swings on the title. Anyway, she’s been busy as a bee and still found time to watch her alma mater crush Kansas State. She even posed for a photo with Big Jay and posted a link to it on her Twitter page: “SammyRyRy.”

Ryan lists playing poker among her passions. Here’s hoping she makes it back into Lawrence for the poker event of the season, “Dealing With Alzheimer’s,” a Texas Hold’em benefit tournament slated for Saturday, April 17, at Lawrence Country Club. The 6 p.m. event open to the public includes a $75 donation per player. Mark your calendars and cross your fingers.

What Keegan says

By Tom Keegan     Dec 19, 2009

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, and blessed with the right personality and presence to recruit well in his native state, new Kansas University football coach Turner Gill could take the school’s Texas recruiting finds to new heights.

But Gill can’t do it alone, and KU can’t fill a roster with players from Texas and Kansas alone. Gill will need plenty of help, and he’ll need to assemble a staff that includes at least one assistant coach rich with Texas contacts and one loaded with Midwest ties.

Enter Reggie Mitchell, University of Illinois assistant head coach/recruiting coordinator/running backs coach. An industry source’s whisper that Gill could hire Mitchell as his recruiting coordinator and put him in charge of running backs makes a lot of sense.

Since leaving KU, where he worked for Glen Mason from 1988-1996, Mitchell has worked at Minnesota (1997-98), Michigan State (1999-2004) and Illinois (2005-present).

Former Michigan State receiver Charles Rogers, the No. 2 overall selection in the 2005 NFL Draft, is among the many standouts recruited by Mitchell over the years. A native of Flint, Mich., Mitchell has mined most of his talent from the Midwest.

Mitchell isn’t the only assistant coach in contention for a return trip to Lawrence. Darrell Wyatt, associate head coach/offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach for Southern Mississippi, has had success recruiting Texas while coaching at Baylor, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Arizona.

What Keegan says

By Tom Keegan     Mar 17, 2009

Trades don’t take place in college basketball, but that doesn’t mean they can’t behind the scenes. If I’m the boss at the University of Kentucky, I contact T. Boone Pickens and offer him a deal as soon as Oklahoma State gets bounced from the tournament: I’ll trade you my basketball coach for your basketball coach.

Billy Clyde Gillispie, former assistant to Bill Self, did such a good job at Texas A&M, Kentucky stole him from the Big 12 after the 2006-2007 season. Kentucky basketball fans, the least patient on the planet, already are sick of Gillispie. He has as many losses (26) in two years at Kentucky as he did in three seasons in College Station.

Meanwhile, former Kentucky star guard Travis Ford has the Cowboys in the NCAA Tournament in his first season in Stillwater.

When T. Boone says no to the initial offer, toss in a thoroughbred horse with Triple Crown bloodlines and a pledge to advocate the use of natural gas as an alternative energy source and call it a deal. Ford returns home. Gillispie returns to the conference he best fits, and Oklahoma State, which couldn’t get Self, gets his friend and former assistant.

What Keegan says: Big 12 basketball

By Tom Keegan     Feb 11, 2009

While watching Missouri and Kansas, a pair of gangs that couldn’t shoot straight Monday night in Mizzou Arena, a thought occurred: For all the momentum Big 12 North basketball teams seemed to be gaining on the South, the root of it lies not as much in strides made by North programs as in this being a bad year for the South.

The Big 12 Conference is a young one this season, and in college basketball young usually means vulnerable.

Sure, Missouri and Nebraska have made strides, but the shift of power away from the South has more to do with Baylor, Texas and Texas A&M underachieving than anything else.

Plus, whatever gains the North might be making, that momentum could take a huge hit after the season.

Alabama is expected to make a serious run at Missouri coach Mike Anderson. A native of Birmingham, Ala., Anderson coached at the University of Alabama-Birmingham before taking the job at Missouri and won 89 games in four seasons.

It’s going to be difficult for Anderson to say no to the most high-profile program in his home state, just as it would be difficult for Missouri to attract a coach as accomplished as Anderson.

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