Now I think I've heard everything. People who follow the circus [not just the registered clowns] have informed various news services, CNN and AP among them, that a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus elephant was wounded in a drive-by shooting at 2 a.m. in Mississippi. I'm hoping the elephant, named Carol, recovers, and I'm also hoping the idiot who shot her is found and ordered to have both of his arms amputated. It's sad enough that these elephants and other animals are taken out of the wild. To be shot while performing in a circus adds to the horrible and embarrassing things going on in this nation.

Photo courtesy of CNN

I wasn't able to watch the NCAA basketball championship game on the tube tonight, which is probably just as well. Someone told me Louisville won the title with an 82-76 victory over Michigan. I didn't need to see Pitino and his players win another game. The best thing is that I don't have to be a Michigan fan any longer. My 2-day stay in the Wolverines' camp is over.

Try to not let this get around, but I guess I'm suddenly a Michigan fan. At least for a couple more days. Hey, you didn't think I'd be rooting for an all-Big East championship game Monday night in the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament at Atlanta, did you? Michigan of the Big Ten prevented that from happening Saturday night by getting past Syracuse, 61-56. I guess I'm tired of hearing about how good Syracuse's zone defense was, and evidently so was Michigan. The Wolverines didn't it bother them on their way to their 31st victory of the season. So it'll be Michigan against Louisville in Monday ngiht's title game. The Cardinals got past Wichita State, the team I picked to win the championship, 72-68. A sad finish to the Wichita State-Louisville game, that's what it was. Sad that Wichita State couldn't quite get the job done after blowing a 12-point lead. I realize I'm the only guy in America [other than Wichita State's players and coaches] who thought the Shockers would win. And they didn't win, but they gave Louisville a heck of a battle before yielding. Indeed, they handled most of Louisville's starting players most of the night, but couldn't control the reserves. I mean, who in the name of James Naismith is Luke Hancock, the guy who came off the bench and scored 20 points for Louisville. In the end, Wichita State buckled under Louisville's pressure defense, forcing the Shockers into mistakes they didn't make early in the game while building a 12-point game. Tough way for Gregg Marshall and the Shockers of the Missouri Valley Conference to end a 30-9 season.

Former Texas A&M and Minnesota assistant coach Bill Walker has joined the Drake basketball program as an assistant coach, head coach Ray Giacoletti said Friday. The veteran coach brings more than 25 years of experience to the Drake staff, has coached more than 50 future professionals and five of his former student-athletes – DeAndre Jordan, Kris Humphries, Joel Przybilla, Khris Middleton and Donald Sloan – have been on active NBA rosters this season. “Coach Giacoletti and I have known each other for a long time and there is no one that I respect more in the business,” Walker said. “Coming to Drake is a perfect match for me and my family. I know that there are great things ahead for the program with Coach Giacoletti’s leadership and the commitment and passion Drake has for basketball.” Walker returns to the coaching ranks after most recently serving as an assistant on Mark Turgeon’s staff at Texas A&M from 2008-11 following a season (2007-08) in an administrative role. He spent the last two seasons serving as a scout for the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets. “I’ve known Bill since the early 1990s and he is someone I have the utmost trust in and respect for,” Giacoletti said. “Bill was the top assistant at Minnesota for seven years. He knows this area very well and will be invaluable in our recruiting efforts. He’s a veteran basketball coach that has drawn a tremendous wealth of experience from great coaches in his career.” During his four years at Texas A&M he oversaw the development of three future NBA players in DeAndre Jordan, Khris Middleton and Donald Sloan as the Aggies went 97-40 and made four straight NCAA appearances. As an assistant at Minnesota from 1998-07, Walker was responsible for recruiting Big Ten Freshman of the Year Kris Humphries, who was a first-round lottery pick by the Utah Jazz in 2005. He also recruited 2005 first-team all-Big Ten performer Vincent Grier and the 2001 recruiting class that included 2002 Big Ten Freshman of the Year Rick Rickert. That class was ranked among the top 10 in the nation by many publications. Walker came to the Golden Gophers after three seasons as the top assistant coach at Central Missouri State from 1996-99, where his teams posted a 51-33 record, including a 21-6 mark in 1996-97. Walker was responsible for recruiting Antonio Rivers, a Division II All-American who had a long professional career. Prior to his stint at Central Missouri State, Walker was an assistant at Missouri-St. Louis for eight years from 1989-96. The 1991-92 squad had the best record in school history with a 22-6 mark. He recruiting efforts led to five straight seasons with at least one student-athlete earning all-freshman team honors from the conference, including two who were named freshman of the year. Walker began his collegiate coaching career as an assistant under legendary coach Gene Bartow at Alabama-Birmingham in 1987-89 and helped the Blazers to a third-place finish in the 1989 NIT. A native of Warrensburg, Mo., Walker was a standout player at Warrensburg High School. In his three years with the Tigers, he helped them to a 73-6 record, earning first-team all-state honors as a senior. He played one season at State Fair Community College in Sedalia, Mo., then transferred to Missouri-Rolla, where he played for three seasons under head coach Billy Key. He earned honorable mention all-conference honors as a junior and senior. Walker earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Missouri-Rolla and a master’s degree in education from UAB. He hails from a family with a rich pedigree in college athletics as his father, Floyd, was the athletic director at Central Missouri and is a member of the National Association of Collegiate Director of Athletics Hall of Fame. His sister, Barbara, is the associate athletic director and senior woman administrator at Wake Forest. Walker and his wife, Karen, have a son, Vincent and a daughter, Claire. [This story was written for Ron Maly by Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].

You may recall that, following hundreds of hours of research, I have picked Wichita State of the Missouri Valley Conference to win the NCAA basketball tournament that starts tomorrow in Atlanta. Despite all the time it took to choose the Shockers, who are coached by Gregg Marshall, as my favorite, it actually was a fairly easy decision. I go back a long way with Wichita State. All the way back to the early-1960s when chain-smoking, Scotch-drinking Ralph Miller was their coach. Miller had a 220-133 record for the Shockers from 1952-1964 [to be later followed by a 95-51 record from 1965-70 at Iowa], and some of his most memorable games in that era were against Maury John of Drake. One game Miller would no doubt like to forget if he were still living was the one on Feb. 10, 1964 against the Bulldogs at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in downtown Des Moines. I was still on the sports copy desk at the paper in those days, but I went to as many Drake games as I could. On that February night, Billy Foster sank a last-second shot to beat Miller's Wichita State team, 64-63. The next day, I contacted Paul Morrison, who then was Drake's sports publicity director, to tell him I'd like to interview him in the offices at Drake. Morrison arranged it, and I wrote the story for the next morning's paper. A year or so later, I was covering collegiate basketball and football for the paper, and I saw a lot more Drake-Wichita State games. The Shockers' games were played in an arena known as The Roundhouse, and an updated version of the place that seats 10,506 and is now called Charles Koch Arena [Henry Levitt Arena before that] is still Wichita State's home building. It's a great place to play and watch a basketball game. I covered just as many Drake-Wichita State games at Wichita as in Des Moines. On one road trip, radio announcer Ron Gonder, who then worked for KRNT in Des Moines, was with me when I visited the arena during Drake's morning shoot-around. We noticed that there was a 12-foot basket there. Why Wichita State needed a 12-foot basket I'll never know. But Gonder and I began shooting baskets at the 12-foot goal, just for the heck of it. Gonder had an advantage over me because he was about 8 feet tall. He later shrunk to 6-3, but that's a column for another day. By the way, don't bring up the Roundhouse to Lute Olson, who was Iowa's coach from1975-83. Olson and his Hawkeyes lost an NCAA Regional game to Wichita State when Lute forgot how to count. He told his players to call a timeout in the final seconds, but the Hawkeyes had already used all of their allotted timeouts, drew an automatic technical foul, and it was the Shockers, not the Hawkeyes, who advanced in the tournament. After the game, Olson took less than full responsibility for calling the illegal timeout. He called it a "staff decision." That's the Lute Olson I knew so well at Iowa.

I made a bigtime mistake earlier this week when I wrote that, other than Louisville and Wichita State [which play Saturday in the NCAA Final Four at Atlanta], Iowa was playing the best collegiate basketball in the nation in early-April. No way, Jose. Put Baylor on that short list, too. The Bears of the Big 12 Conference administered an old-fashioned butt-whippin' on Iowa, 74-54, in the championship game of the National Invitation Tournament Thursday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City. What I'm wondering now is how the hell the NCAA selection committee avoided putting Baylor in the Big Dance. What a miscarriage of justice that was. And, by the way,hats off to Iowa State. The Cyclones somehow beat Baylor during the regular season--not once, but twice. Iowa State won at Ames, 79-71, and in beautiful downtown Waco, Texas, 87-82. And Iowa beat Iowa State. Go figure. The Bears were sensational against Iowa, thoroughly dominating the Hawkeyes every which way. Face it, Hawkeye fans. Baylor was the better team. Far better. Iowa couldn't shoot all night, but it wasn't that Devyn Marble and everyone else suddenly had their arms amputated. Baylor's size had a lot to do with Iowa's inefficiency. Clearly, the Hawkeyes were intimidated by the Bears. Baylor shot 54. percent, Iowa 26 percent. Marble, who had been playing so well late in the season--especially in the earlier rounds of the NIT--was a non-factor for Iowa. He connected on only three of 12 shots, was 0-for-4 from 3-point range and scored just six points. Freshman guard Mike Gesell, a non-starter, led the Hawkeyes with 13 points. Baylor was a high-flying, slam-dunking, in-your-face sensation of a team. The Bears led at halftime, 27-22, and any hope Iowa had of getting into the game vanished quickly in the last half. No way could the Hawkeyes keep pace with Baylor. Cory Jackson's 23 points led the Bears. Frankly, Baylor made it look so easy in the game that the most entertaining part of the telecast on ESPN was listening to former Indiana and Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight rattling on with his commentary. The best thing about Knight's jabbering was that he kept the microphone away from Bill Raftery, who talks too much whenever he's doing commentary work. Baylor's NIT chamiions. Photo courtesy of Baylor Bears on Twitter.

I made a bigtime mistake earlier this week when I wrote that, other than Louisville and Wichita State [which play Saturday in the NCAA Final Four at Atlanta], Iowa was playing the best collegiate basketball in the nation in early-April. No way, Jose. Put Baylor on that short list, too. The Bears of the Big 12 Conference administered an old-fashioned butt-whippin' on Iowa, 74-54, in the championship game of the National Invitation Tournament Thursday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City. What I'm wondering now is how the hell the NCAA selection committee avoided putting Baylor in the Big Dance. What a miscarriage of justice that was. And, by the way,hats off to Iowa State. The Cyclones somehow beat Baylor during the regular season--not once, but twice. Iowa State won at Ames, 79-71, and in beautiful downtown Waco, Texas, 87-82. And Iowa beat Iowa State. Go figure. The Bears were sensational against Iowa, thoroughly dominating the Hawkeyes every which way. Face it, Hawkeye fans. Baylor was the better team. Far better. Iowa couldn't shoot all night, but it wasn't that Devyn Marble and everyone else suddenly had their arms amputated. Baylor's size had a lot to do with Iowa's inefficiency. Clearly, the Hawkeyes were intimidated by the Bears. Baylor shot 54. percent, Iowa 26 percent. Marble, who had been playing so well late in the season--especially in the earlier rounds of the NIT--was a non-factor for Iowa. He connected on only three of 12 shots, was 0-for-4 from 3-point range and scored just six points. Freshman guard Mike Gesell, a non-starter, led the Hawkeyes with 13 points. Baylor was a high-flying, slam-dunking, in-your-face sensation of a team. The Bears led at halftime, 27-22, and any hope Iowa had of getting into the game vanished quickly in the last half. No way could the Hawkeyes keep pace with Baylor. Cory Jackson's 23 points led the Bears. Frankly, Baylor made it look so easy in the game that the most entertaining part of the telecast on ESPN was listening to former Indiana and Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight rattling on with his commentary. The best thing about Knight's jabbering was that he kept the microphone away from Bill Raftery, who talks too much whenever he's doing commentary work.

Baylor's NIT chamiions. Photo courtesy of Baylor Bears on Twitter.

Jeff Rutter, a veteran coach with vast experience in Iowa and the Missouri Valley conference, has joined the Drake basketball program as an assistant coach, head coach Ray Giacoletti announced Thursday. “I’ve known Coach Giacoletti for the past 20 years and I’m excited to join his staff and the men’s basketball program at Drake,” Rutter said. “Drake University and the Bulldog athletic department are a very special place with great people, strong leadership, a true commitment and vision for men’s basketball and a dedication to providing a quality experience for student-athletes.” Rutter comes to Drake after seven seasons at Iowa State where he helped coach 13 all-Big 12 student-athletes and aided in 46 victories, the third-best two-year win total in Cyclone history, resulting in a pair of NCAA tournament berths. Rutter spent the first four seasons of his ISU tenure as an assistant coach before assuming the role of director of operations in the spring of 2010 under Fred Hoiberg. “Jeff brings an extensive background and experience to Drake, especially since we want to make the Midwest and especially Iowa a priority,” Giacoletti said. “I’ve known Jeff since his time at North Dakota State and we’re really fortunate and lucky to bring somebody of his character and Iowa roots with his experience and Iowa State and Northern Iowa into our program at Drake. He’s a veteran basketball coach that has been in a number of systems and seen different ways to be successful.” Rutter gained three seasons of experience coaching in the Missouri Valley Conference as an assistant at UNI from 2003-06, where the Panthers compiled a 65-31 mark and made three consecutive NCAA tournament appearances under head coach Greg McDermott. In his first season in 2003-04, UNI won the MVC Tournament title and qualified for its first NCAA appearance since 1990. The following year (2004-05), UNI earned its first ever at-large NCAA berth with a No. 11 seed while posting a 21-11 record. The Panthers tied a school record in wins in Rutter’s final year at UNI with a 23-10 record. Three Panthers earned first-team all-Missouri Valley Conference honors four times in his three seasons in Cedar Falls. In 2006, Rutter was honored by his peers by winning the NABC Literacy Award, given annually to a coach who is committed to promoting education to children in local schools and communities. Past winners of the prestigious award include Mike Krzyzewski, Gene Keady, Tubby Smith and Fran Fraschilla. Rutter’s career also includes a lengthy tenure as the head coach at Wisconsin-Parkside from 1996-2003 before joining McDermott’s staff. UW-P finished 15-13 overall his final season, its first winning record since 1988. In his first year as head coach in 1996-97, Rutter’s team stunned the No. 1 team in the nation, the University of Indianapolis, 63-45. In his second season, the team posted its first back-to-back double-digit win seasons in a decade. In 2001-02, UW-P was nationally ranked (No. 16) for the first time since the school joined the Division II ranks. At UW-P, Rutter developed the Adopt-a-Ranger program and the Junior Rangers built a strong connection with schools in the Racine-Kenosha area. His teams also posted some of the highest grade-point averages in the school’s 35-year basketball history. He assisted in developing corporate sponsorship programs and was instrumental in the development of the Ranger Athletic Club and the men’s basketball Dunk Club. Rutter has also taught at various levels, including serving as a clinical associate professor from 1996-2003 at UW-P, a lecturer at North Dakota State from 1990-95 and teaching at the elementary, junior and senior high school levels. He began his collegiate coaching career at North Dakota State from 1990-95 where the Bison posted a 43-17 mark and made two NCAA tournament appearances in his final two seasons there. The Bison advanced to the “Sweet 16” with a 21-9 mark in 1993-94 before earning their first North Central Conference championship in 14 years with a 22-8 record in 1994-95. He served one year as an assistant at Stetson University in 1995-96 before accepting the head coaching position at UW-P. Rutter lettered in basketball and football at Nathan Hale High School in West Allis, Wis. He played college basketball at both Wisconsin-Waukesha and Winona State, the latter from which he earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1988. He received his master’s in physical education from North Dakota State in 1992. . [This story was written for Ron Maly by Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].