Meet the people behind ASU's athletics headlines
by Bill Konigsberg

Baseball

Travis Buck didn’t grow up in Arizona, where the words January and baseball are often found in the same sentence. Like kids growing up in most other areas of the United States, his glove got dusty in the winter, and his first few throwing motions each February were as much about getting rid of kinks as they were about making baseballs fly.

So when ASU scouts saw him play in high school in Richland, Wash., they only saw a hint of the player he would become. Assistant coach Jay Sferra had to piece together an image of what Buck could evolve into — which has turned out to be one of the major league’s top prospects. Baseball America projects that he’ll be drafted in the first round of this year’s major league draft, which would make him the first Sun Devil to go in the first round since Ryan Mills in 1998. According to Sferra, Buck looked a bit “raw” in high school. What drew Sferra’s eyes to Buck back then was something else.

“He played the game with a certain charisma and style. He had star qualities, you could see that in him as a young player,” Sferra said. “Sometimes players in the Northwest are raw, not polished. They don’t play as much ball as kids in California, Texas and Florida. You could see his best baseball was ahead of him.”

After two standout years with the Sun Devils and a summer leading Team USA to a gold medal performance at the FISU World University Baseball Championship, Buck is a major part of the 2005 Sun Devils, a veteran leader on a team that hoped to earn a sixth consecutive NCAA tournament berth and possibly get back to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., for the first time since 1998.

Buck, an outfielder, joined senior third baseman Jeff Larish and senior pitcher Jason Urquidez as the team’s three preseason all-Americans. They formed the core of a team that believed in itself heading into the season.

“The leadership is the biggest key right now,” said Buck before the season started. “There are a lot of new guys who we’re trying to help (teach) what Sun Devil baseball is all about. They’re moving in the right direction.”

It’s a young team, to be sure. Fifteen of the 32 players are freshmen, and coach Pat Murphy acknowledged in January there could be growing pains this season. And he was right: as of mid-March, the team’s record stood at 13-12.

At the same time, Murphy saw reason for great excitement. Among those players who Murphy was eager to watch was freshman shortstop Andrew Romine, whose father, Kevin, played at ASU from 1981 to 1982. Kevin went on to play seven years with the Boston Red Sox.

“Our goal is to win the national championship,” said Murphy. “It’s almost a case of wanting that national title so bad, that sometimes things just elude you.”

Men's Basketball

Everyone talks about Ike Diogu, and with good reason. The junior center is a National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Player of the Year candidate, and considered to be among the most dominant players in the NCAA. But that was true in 2003-04 as well, and the Sun Devils went 10-17. So how is it that a team with mostly the same personnel was 15-6 through the end of January 2005?

“We were a good team last year but we weren’t able to win close ballgames. That is something we’re able to do this year,” said Diogu.

While the team ended the season at 18-13 before heading into the National Invitational Tournament, one of the key differences in the team’s improved play this year was the performance of Diogu’s supporting cast. Last year, when teams double and triple covered Diogu underneath the basket, his teammates were inconsistent in stepping up their outside game; this year, much of the team’s success can be attributed to the outside shooting ability of sophomores Kevin Kruger and Bryson Krueger.

“Both guys are outstanding shooters and outstanding ballplayers,” said head coach Rob Evans. “They understand when to get it in to Ike and when to be aggressive themselves.”

For Kruger — who came off the bench to average more than 10 points per game through the team’s first 21 games, nearly doubling his output from the previous year — the difference is confidence.

“Last year I just wasn’t very aggressive,” Kruger said. “This year I have a new attitude. I know what Coach expects from me.”

His counterpart Krueger transferred from Yavapai Community College, where he played under current Sun Devils assistant coach Brooks Thompson.

“Bryson we watched a long time. He can really shoot the basketball, he understands the game,” said Evans, who added that the sophomore was rounding out his game by working on his defensive skills.

It’s been trial by fire for Krueger, a native of Phoenix who joined the starting lineup this year after playing a year at Yavapai.

“I’m learning that you can’t take any plays off at this level. Players are smart enough to read if you’re missing an assignment,” he said.

Women's Golf

In professional sports, athletes often get into trouble for making guarantees. Promising a victory is often a great way to get your opponent to play even harder. But collegiate golf is a different beast, and coaches know their players. So when head coach Melissa Luellen made a prediction for this spring about freshman phenomenon Louise Stahle, no one batted an eye.

“Louise is one of those unbelievable people who comes into your life with talent and enthusiasm and every single quality that a coach could ask for,” said the third-year head coach. “She played great golf this fall but was frustrated that she didn’t win. I am going to guarantee that Louise is going to win in the spring.”

And win she did: Stahle not only won the Wildcat Invitational in Tucson in late February, she was named the top collegiate women’s golfer in the nation, something not acheived by a Sun Devil since Miriam Nagl in 2000.

In her first collegiate golf action this fall, the freshman from Lund, Sweden, finished second in each of the three tournaments she played. To get a sense of how special that is, her five teammates combined for only four top 10 finishes, and none higher than fourth place. And this is a team that completed their fall schedule as the second-ranked team in the nation in the GolfWorld college coaches’ poll.

Among Stahle’s goals for the year: A team invitation to the NCAA Championships, and Player of the Year status. That honor was last won by a Sun Devil in 1998, when Grace Park did it. In the long run, Stahle hopes to qualify for the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour, but until that time, she’s pleased to be in sunny Tempe.

“One thing that is so neat is I can go out every day and practice,” she said. “I couldn’t really do that in Sweden. It’s so cold.”

Women's Basketball

When Charli Turner-Thorne took over the women’s basketball program in 1996, the Sun Devils had made the postseason just once in the past 12 seasons. She promptly stated that she could turn the program into a national contender.

Hubris? Hardly. The team made its sixth consecutive postseason appearance (an ASU record) and finished in the Sweet Sixteen, where they were defeated by North Carolina.

“We certainly don’t have a decade or two of tradition like some of the premier women’s basketball teams, but I’ve seen our successes have a huge impact. Our Pac-10 championship, Pac-10 tournament title and NCAA appearances have had a huge impact both within and outside our program,” said Turner-Thorne, who became the winningest coach in Sun Devil women’s basketball history with her 135th win against UCLA on Jan. 14.

Not one to back down from challenges, Turner-Thorne has set her sights even higher.

“The next step for this program is to get to another Sweet Sixteen, an Elite Eight and Final Four. I’d like to jump over a couple of those steps, which I think is very possible. I think that we have brought in the right pieces, and we will continue to bring in the right pieces in terms of the right people. It’s just a matter of time to get these players the experience they need to accomplish that.”

Diving

What do you do if you’re the most talented diver in all of Finland? You move to Arizona, where the average high temperature in January (65 degrees Fahrenheit) is close to that of Finland in July (70 degrees).

Joona Puhakka came to Tempe three years ago, and has since rewritten the school record book. The junior diver from Helsinki is the first in program history to win NCAA titles in two different events, the 3-meter springboard and the 1-meter springboard. Puhakka spent the summer at the Olympics in Athens, where he made it to the semifinals of the 3-meter springboard and placed a respectable 14th.

“If you see him dive he will remind you of a certain guy named Louganis,” said diving coach Mark Bradshaw. “The difference is that Greg was a fiercely tough competitor. That’s where Joona’s improvement will come, and that is something that just takes time and experience.”

This winter, Bradshaw is observing that process of improvement up close. Puhakka shattered two of his own school records in January and qualified in March for the NCAA Championships in the 1-meter springboard category. Coach Bradshaw calls the Helsinki native’s future “extremely bright.”

“The next two years at the collegiate level, he has the potential to do some great things. In four years (at the Olympics) in Beijing, he will definitely be one of the frontrunners to medal.”

Football

Goodbye Andrew Walter, hello Derek Shaw. The 6-foot-3 standout quarterback from Oceanside High School in California headed the list of 15 high school players, six junior college transfers, and one transfer from Michigan State who are expected to don Sun Devil jerseys next year.

Head coach Dirk Koetter officially announced the list of players who had signed letters of intent to play at ASU on Feb. 2.

About Shaw, Koetter said: “He will remind you a lot of Andrew Walter. He is a big guy with a cannon arm. He’s probably more mobile than Andrew coming out of high school. If he can live up to the way Andrew played, I’m sure we’ll all be very happy.”

PrepStar Magazine rated Shaw as the top quarterback in the country. ESPN named Shaw to its All-American team.

Koetter’s team, which culminated a 9-3 season with a victory in the Sun Bowl over Purdue, is also making strides in the classroom. For the first time under Koetter, at least one-third of the ASU football team posted a 3.0 GPA for the fall semester. The team had 34 players with at least a 3.0 in the fall semester of 2004. Three years earlier, that number was 15.

Bill Konigsberg is a freelance writer and a graduate student in ASU’s creative writing program.

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Photos: Courtesy of ASU Media Relations

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