Sports, Saturday, April 11th

By: Nathan Bloechl — sports@kilj.com 

New Baseball, Softball Dates Announced:

The Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union and Iowa High School Athletic Association have announced new first practice dates for the summer softball and baseball seasons.

First practices will now May 18th.

First competition then, will be June 1st.

Postseason play and state tournament dates are unchanged.

Regional dates for softball are July 6th through the 14th with the state tournament July 20th through the 24th.

For baseball, district and sub-state tournament games are from July 9th through the 22nd with the state tournament July 24th through August 1st.

Also of note, the new start date for softball and baseball pitching and catching is May 1st with a period of 10 days of batting practice allotted between May 1st and the date of first practices on May 18th.

Iowa’s Garza Declares for NBA Draft:

Iowa junior center Luka Garza has entered his name into the 2020 NBA Draft.

Garza announced his intentions via Twitter, Friday morning.

Coming off a season in which he averaged 23.9 points and nearly 10 boards per game, Garza will enter the draft without an agent, meaning he could still come back to Iowa City to use his final year of eligibility.

The big man racked up multiple postseason awards including being named Sporting News National Player of the Year, Consensus first-team All-American and Big Ten Player of the Year.

With Garza in the fold next year, many college basketball analysts predicted Iowa to not only cruise through the Big Ten, but be in the hunt for the National Championship.

Cyclones Land S&C Coach Land:

David Land, the only men’s basketball strength coach in NCAA history to lead two different programs to undefeated conference seasons, has been named director of strength and conditioning for the Iowa State men’s basketball program, head coach Steve Prohm announced late Friday.

Land, who spent two years as strength coach for Prohm at Murray State, joins Iowa State after spending the last two seasons under Mike Young at Virginia Tech (2019-20) and Wofford (2018-19).

Prior to joining Young in a rebuilding season in Blacksburg, Land played a major role in Wofford’s best season in program history. The Terriers had their first AP Top-25 ranking, a 20-game win streak, undefeated conference record (18-0) and the first NCAA Tournament win in school history.

Land trained Wofford sharpshooter Fletcher Magee, who set the NCAA Division I record with 509 career 3-pointers and earned All-America honors as a senior.

Iowa State is looking for a bounce back 2020-21 campaign following a brutal 12-20 season this year.