All they’re doing at Kirkwood is winning lots of basketball games ... again

CEDAR RAPIDS — They anticipate winning, because it's just what the Kirkwood Eagles always seem to do. Win.

The men's and women's basketball seasons came to a conclusion for the holidays Wednesday night with a doubleheader sweep of John Wood (Ill.) at Johnson Hall. It was interesting that the teams each scored 84 points: the men winning, 84-64, and the women, 84-43.

The men are defending NJCAA Division II national champions. The women just ascended to the top of the latest national rankings.

Salad days on the southwest side of Cedar Rapids, you could call these.

'If you go across the board, realistically, in our athletic department,' women's coach Kim Muhl said. 'Our golf team is very good, our baseball team is right there, our softball team is good. So it's kind of an expectation that we kind of put on all of ourselves. That can good or bad. But I'd rather have it where it is.'

'We have an administration that backs us, we have coaches in place who run programs the right way,' added Kirkwood Athletics Director Doug Wagemester. 'That's what it's all about.'

The Kirkwood women are 10-0 and haven't been challenged, their closest win by 13 points in the second game of the season against historically strong State Fair (Mo.). Kirkwood has a very good center in 6-foot-2 sophomore Simone Goods, with fellow Omaha, Neb., native Deleyah Harris its other double-figures scorer.

It obliterates opponents with full-court pressure defense and a plethora of players who shuttle in and out of the lineup. It's just how Muhl always has done it at Kirkwood.

This is his 28th season, and he recently won his 800th career game.

'Chemistry,' he said. 'We always win a few, but the chemistry of this group is good because they want to win. They don't care how we do it. They buy in. As you can see, we have about 12 kids that can play. So it makes it a little tougher to make everyone happy, but they accept their role and do a great job.'

The Kirkwood men are 9-3, though two of the losses have come to Indian Hills, which is nationally ranked in Division I. Coach Bryan Petersen said it has been a learning experience for everyone, as far as coming off a championship season and a preseason in which the Eagles were ranked No. 1.

'We're trying to go off the same blueprint we had last year,' the fourth-year head coach said. 'It put a huge target on our back, winning it and being preseason No. 1. (We have handled it) just OK. I wouldn't say we've handled it great. I'm not happy with where we're at right now, being 9-3 and some of the basketball we've played this semester. But I think it's a learning process for all of us. I hope we handle it a little bit better in the second semester, just with the expectations.'

Kirkwood has been balanced offensively, with its top three scorers (Miles Wentzien, Kaliph Fagan and Da'Rion King) averaging between 12.3 and 12.8 points per game. Petersen went with a different starting lineup Wednesday, with red-shirt freshman point guard Chris King especially impressing.

He is from Des Moines Hoover.

'The big picture is we still haven't played a conference game,' Petersen said. 'I just told the team that obviously our goal every year is conference championship, regional championship and national tournament. All those haven't really started, yet. That starts when we get back (from Christmas break). Big picture is we still have a shot at all those things. But it's day by day. We're still looking for a lot of answers from our group.'

Kirkwood has won eight national championships in basketball, six on the women's side. Wagemester, whom Petersen replaced as men's coach, was asked what it would be like if the school could somehow win both titles in the same season.

'What would it mean? It's something we don't talk a lot about,' he said. 'We kind of talk about culture and process with our programs across the board. It's unprecedented, it'd be really neat. But that's not coach speak. It's day to day, next day stuff. Bryan has done a terrific job, Kim has done a terrific job over time ... Until you said that, I've never really thought about it.'

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