(Radio Iowa) — The Big Ten Conference extended its ban on organized workouts and activities from May fourth to June first. The extension means organized workouts with strength and conditioning staffs and on-campus meetings with players cannot happen until at least then. Under normal NCAA off-season rules, you are allowed eight hours per week with your team in the weight room and film room. Right now, the only thing you are allowed to do is to conduct digital meetings remotely with your players. Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle says training facilities may look a lot different when football players return to campus. Doyle is used to having 30 players per shift in the weight room but that may change due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Doyle says the coaching staff is looking at a variety of plans that would help lower the risk.

Doyle says they are looking at all aspects of the training facilities.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Hawkeye senior Katie Birch (field hockey) and junior Luka Garza (men’s basketball) have been named the University of Iowa’s 2019-20 Male and Female Athletes of the Year. The duo will be Iowa’s nominees for the 2020 Big Ten Conference Athletes of the Year awards. Winners will be announced at a later date.

Birch, a native of York, England, was a NFHCA First-Team All-American and became the seventh Hawkeye in program history to be named a three-time All-American. One of Iowa’s four team captains, Birch started all 22 games in 2019. She tallied seven goals for 24 points, which ranked eighth-most in the Big Ten and third-most on the team. She tied her career-high 10 assists, which ranked fifth-most among the Big Ten, and registered two multiple-assist games against Indiana (Oct. 18) and Central Michigan (Sept. 6), including five assists in a 11-0 win against Central Michigan. The NFHCA West Region Player of the Year, first team NFHCA All-West Regional honoree, unanimous first team All-Big Ten selection, four-time All-Big Ten honoree, three-time team MVP, Birch helped the Hawkeyes capture the 2019 Big Ten Tournament and regular season titles. She was named Big Ten Tournament MVP for her efforts.

A Washington D.C. native, Garza had a historic season leading the nationally-ranked men’s basketball team to 20 victories and a likely NCAA Tournament berth. A unanimous consensus first-team All-America selection, Garza became the first Iowa men’s basketball student-athlete to earn National Player of the Year distinction by six major news outlets. The junior center was also named the Pete Newell Big Man of the Year, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year, USBWA District VI Player of the Year, and the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Player of the Year. Garza finished the 20-game conference schedule averaging 26.2 points per game, becoming the first player to average at least 26 points in Big Ten play since Purdue’s Glenn Robinson in 1994. Garza scored a school-record 740 points this season, breaking the program’s 50-year old record previously set by John Johnson in 1970. Garza became one of three Big Ten players ever to total 740+ points and 300+ rebounds in a single-season. He scored 20 points or more in a school-record 16 straight Big Ten games, the longest streak by any player in the Big Ten since Ohio State’s Dennis Hopson (16) in 1987. Garza ranked second nationally in 20-point games (25); third in total field goals made (287), fifth in scoring (23.9), 19th in double-doubles (15), and 34th in rebounding (9.8). Garza produced against top competition all season, averaging 26.7 points, 11.1 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks in 12 contests against AP ranked opponents, including recording 11 straight 20-point performances.

The Big Ten Conference announced today that it will extend the previously announced suspension of all organized team activities through June 1, 2020, and will re-evaluate again at that time.

This is an additional measure to the previously announced cancellation of all conference and non-conference competitions through the end of the academic year, including spring sports that compete beyond the academic year. The Conference also has previously announced a moratorium on all on- and off-campus recruiting activities for the foreseeable future.

The Big Ten Conference will continue to use this time to work with the appropriate medical experts and institutional leadership to determine next steps relative to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The main priority of the Big Ten Conference is to ensure the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes, coaches, administrators, faculty, fans and media as we continue to monitor all developing and relevant information on the COVID-19 virus.

AHSTW will be searching for a new head girl’s basketball coach. Steve Sauvain has reportedly accepted a new position with Green Hills Area Education Agency as a Regional Administrator and has submitted his resignation has head basketball coach for the Lady Vikes.

It will certainly be an attractive coaching opening with a lot of talent back from a team that reached the Substate Final this past season. The Lady Vikes went 20-4 and return 4 of their top 5 scorers, including leading scorer Kailey Jones.

Current assistant Jill Vanderhoof is a candidate to take over the head post. Sauvain reportedly said their is an outside chance he could come back to coach the team depending on the schools he is assigned to with the AEA.

The 7:20-a.m. Sportscast with Jim Field.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

(Radio Iowa) — Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery says it took some time to get over the loss of the post season. Despite several key injuries the Hawkeyes posted a 20-11 record before the season was cancelled prior to their first game in the Big Ten Tournament.

McCaffery felt the Hawkeyes had the makings of a team that could make a deep tournament run.

With the possibility of having most of the roster back prospects are bright for next season.

(Radio Iowa) — Olympic hopeful Karissa Schweizer still feels like part of the Mizzou family. The native of Des Moines won six NCAA cross country and track titles while competing for the Tigers and was named Missouri’s Female Athlete of the Decade.

Schweizer finished ninth in the 5000 meters at last year’s World Championships and says it was after her NCAA cross country title in 2016 that she thought an international career was possible after college.

Schweizer seemed poised to make an Olympic run after smashing the American indoor record in the 3000 meters in late February. Just weeks later the Tokyo Games were moved to next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schweizer says she has accepted the fact that she must wait a year to fulfill her Olympic dream.

Schweizer is training in Portland, Oregon.

UNDATED (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs have picked up additional quarterback depth by working out a contract with undrafted free agent Shea Patterson.

The former Michigan signal-caller started all 26 games for the Wolverines over the past two seasons after transferring from Mississippi. Patterson threw for 3,061 yards with 23 touchdowns and eight interceptions last year and finished with 45 scoring passes with the Wolverines.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas and Missouri are resuming their bitter Border War in football after the former Big 12 rivals agreed to a four-game series in which each school will play two home games beginning in September 2025. The fourth-longest rivalry in college football dates to 1891, but it has been on hiatus since Missouri departed for the Southeastern Conference. The schools recently announced a six-game series in men’s basketball beginning with the upcoming season that includes two games on each campus and two in Kansas City, Missouri.

The second football game between the Jayhawks and Tigers will take place in 2026 in Lawrence. The third will happen in Columbia in 2031 before the series concludes the following season in Lawrence. Missouri leads the series 56-55-9 after winning the most recent matchup at Arrowhead Stadium on Nov. 25, 2011.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs have agreed to a contract with defensive end Taco Charlton, adding a former first-round pick who flamed out in Dallas and Miami but whose athleticism is a perfect match for coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s defense. The 25-year-old Charlton was the 28th overall selection in the 2017 draft. He made seven starts for the Cowboys before sustaining a shoulder injury, and he was waived just two weeks into last season. The Dolphins signed Charlton and he made five starts and appeared in 10 games, but he was a healthy scratch the last four games of the regular season.

The Dolphins waived him Thursday and the Chiefs were able to sign him when he cleared waivers Friday.