Kansas linebacker Ben Heeney added two more preseason recognitions to his resume as the senior landed on both the Rotary Lombardi Award and Butkus Award Preseason Watch Lists, announced by each award committee Monday morning.

The Rotary Lombardi Award and the Butkus Award are members of the National Collegiate Football Awards Association (NCFAA) and are presented to outstanding players on the field at their respective positions. Specifically, the Butkus Award recognizes the most outstanding collegiate linebacker, while the Rotary Lombardi Award pays tribute to the college lineman of the year, including linebackers who set up no further than five yards off the line of scrimmage.

A senior from Hutchinson, Kansas, Heeney missed a pair of games in the middle of the 2013 conference slate, but still finished with a team-best 88 total stops, including 11.5 tackles for loss and the first three interceptions of his career. Heeney, honored as an All-Big 12 Second Team selection by the Associated Press and the conference coaches last season, was fourth in the conference with 8.7 tackles per game and ranked fifth in tackles-for-loss per game with 1.15. He reached double figures in tackles in six of his 10 games played, including four Big 12 contests.

In 2012, Heeney burst on to the scene with 112 tackles in his first season as a starter for the Jayhawks. His 112 tackles included 66 solo stops. He led KU with 12.0 tackles-for-loss and added one sack. He also was credited with two pass breakups, one quarterback hurry and one forced fumble.

Heeney has racked up six preseason honors leading up to the 2014 season opener against Southeast Missouri State (Sept. 6) at Memorial Stadium, as he was named preseason First-Team All-Big 12 by both Athlon Sports and Phil Steele Magazine, and was selected to the Chuck Bednarik Award and the Bronko Nagurski Trophy preseason watch lists last week.

— KU Sports Information —

Kansas senior linebacker Ben Heeney landed on the 2014 Bronko Nagurski Trophy preseason watch list the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) announced Thursday morning.

The trophy is bestowed to the National Defensive Player of the Year and will be presented to the winner Dec. 8 at the Westin Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Bronko Nagurski Torphy Banquet. Five finalists for the honor will be announced Nov. 20 by the FWAA and the Charlotte Touchdown Club.

A senior from Hutchinson, Kansas, Heeney missed a pair of games in the middle of the 2013 conference slate, but still finished with a team-best 88 total stops, including 11.5 tackles for loss and the first three interceptions of his career. Heeney, honored as an All-Big 12 Second Team selection by the Associated Press and the conference coaches last season, was fourth in the conference with 8.7 tackles per game and ranked fifth in tackles-for-loss per game with 1.15. He reached double figures in tackles in six of his 10 games played, including four Big 12 contests.

In 2012, Heeney burst on to the scene with 112 tackles in his first season as a starter for the Jayhawks. His 112 tackles included 66 solo stops. He led KU with 12.0 tackles-for-loss and added one sack. He also was credited with two pass breakups, one quarterback hurry and one forced fumble.

This is the fourth preseason honor for Heeney, as he was named preseason Fist-Team All-Big 12 by both Athlon Sports and Phil Steele Magazine, and was selected to the Chuck Bednarik Award preseason watch list earlier in the week.

Heeney and the rest of the Jayhawks begin the 2014 slate Sept. 6, as they play host to Southeast Missouri State. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. inside Memorial Statdium.

— KU Sports Information —

The John Mackey Award Selection Committee announced Tuesday that Kansas senior tight end Jimmay Mundine was named to the 2014 John Mackey Award preseason watch list.

Awarded to the nation’s most outstanding collegiate tight end since 2000, the Mackey Award is named in honor of collegiate and professional all-time great John Mackey. Mackey, a product of Syracuse University, played 10 years of professional football as a tight end. Spending nine seasons with the Baltimore Colts and one year with the San Diego Chargers, Mackey found success on and off the field as he was a Super Bowl champion and a member of the NFL Hall of Fame, as well as the first president of the National Football League Players Association.

A native of Denison, Texas, Mundine was one of three tight ends hailing from the Big 12 Conference, and one of the 38 total nominees, selected for the committee’s preliminary watch list. Mundine returns as KU’s active leader in touchdown catches, while ranking second in receptions (41) and receiving yards (498).

After a breakout year in 2013, Mundine completed the season in third place among Big 12 tight ends in receptions and yards resulting in All-Big 12 Honorable Mention honors as voted by league coaches. Out of the nine total touchdowns thrown by Kansas quarterbacks a season ago, Mundine caught a team-high five passes in the end zone, including a streak of four-straight games with a touchdown reception.

Semifinalists for the award will be revealed on Nov. 17 while on Nov. 24 the list will be trimmed down to three finalists. The winner of the 2014 Mackey Award will be announced on Dec. 11 as part of the Home Depot College Football Awards Red Carpet Show.

Mundine and Kansas are set to begin the 2014 season on Sept. 6, as they play host to Southeast Missouri State. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m., from Memorial Stadium.

— KU Sports Information —

The Maxwell Football Club announced Monday that Kansas senior linebacker Ben Heeney was named to the 2014 Chuck Bednarik Award preliminary watch list.

Bestowed to the College Defensive Player of the Year since 1995, the Bednarik Award is named after Chuck Bednarik, a former defensive standout at Penn and with the Philadelphia Eagles whose name graces both the College Football and the NFL Hall of Fames.

Heeney, a senior from Hutchinson, Kan., missed a pair of games in the middle of the 2013 conference slate, but still finished with a team-best 88 total stops, including 11.5 tackles for loss and the first three interceptions of his career. Heeney, selected as an All-Big 12 Second Team selection by the Associated Press and the conference coaches last season, was fourth in the conference with 8.7 tackles per game and ranked fifth in tackles-for-loss per game with 1.15. He reached double figures in tackles in six of his 10 games played, including four Big 12 contests.

In 2012, Heeney burst on to the scene with 112 tackles in his first season as a starter for the Jayhawks. His 112 tackles included 66 solo stops. He led KU with 12.0 tackles-for-loss and added one sack. He also was credited with two pass breakups, one quarterback hurry and one forced fumble.

The watch list includes 76 members hand-picked by the Maxwell Football Club’s selection committee, which analyzes both past performance and future potential. Semifinalists for the award will be announced Nov. 3, while the three finalists will be unveiled Nov. 24. The winners for the 2014 Bednarik Award will be announced as part of the Home Depot College Football Awards Show held on Dec. 11.

Heeney and the rest of the Jayhawks begin the 2014 slate Sept. 6, as they play host to Southeast Missouri State. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m., inside Memorial Statdium.

— KU Sports Information —

For the second time in Kansas men’s basketball history, a Jayhawk was taken No. 1 in the NBA Draft. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Andrew Wiggins with the first selection in the 2014 NBA Draft Thursday night at the Barclays Center.

Only two picks later, Kansas big man Joel Embiid joined him when the Philadelphia 76ers selected Embiid with the third overall selection. No two Jayhawks have ever gone as high, surpassing the 1998 duo of Raef LaFrentz (3), Paul Pierce (10).

The duo became the 75th and 76th players to be drafted in Kansas men’s basketball history and the 17th and 18th in the Bill Self era. It also marks the 24th time – and fifth-consecutive year – that multiple Jayhawks were drafted.

Wiggins became the second-ever No. 1 selection in Kansas basketball history, joining Danny Manning in 1988. Jayhawk Wilt Chamberlain was a territorial selection in 1959 by the Philadelphia Warriors after leaving KU for the Harlem Globetrotters in 1958.

“I was nervous. It (the clock) hit zero and we had to wait another two minutes. It’s crazy.” Wiggins smiled on the ESPN broadcast. “(I plan on) just going in and creating impact off the bat, play my game and have confidence in myself.  I have to believe in myself before anyone else can.”

Wiggins, from Vaughan, Ontario, Canada, was joined by head coach Bill Self at the draft and became the 30th first-round draft pick in Kansas men’s basketball history. His call-up to the professional ranks marks the fifth-straight season a Jayhawk has been selected in the first round, while the top-overall pick makes three-straight seasons that a Jayhawk has gone in the top-10 overall. Wiggins joins Ben McLemore, who was the seventh overall pick in the 2013 draft by the Sacramento Kings, and Thomas Robinson, the fifth overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, also by the Kings.

A Consensus All-America Second Team selection, Wiggins set the Kansas freshman single-season scoring record with 597 points in 2013-14, making him the second-straight Jayhawk to surpass Danny Manning’s record-setting rookie mark in 1985. McLemore broke Manning’s mark with 589 points in 2012-13 before declaring for the Draft.

The 2014 Big 12 Freshman of the Year and All-Big 12 First Team selection, Wiggins was his own highlight reel throughout the year, including a half-court shot at Baylor (2/4), the game-winning basket at Texas Tech (2/18) and a KU freshman record 41 points at West Virginia (3/8) – the first Jayhawk to break the 40-point barrier since Terry Brown scored 42 points on Jan. 5, 1991. In the Big 12 Conference Championship alone, Wiggins averaged 26.0 points per game to earn all-tournament honors.

On the defensive end, Wiggins led Kansas in steals with 41 and came in second to Joel Embiid, KU’s freshman season shot-blocking leader, with 34 blocked shots. Gifted and athletic, the combo guard pulled down 5.9 rebounds a game.Besides his 597 points, other Kansas freshman season records Wiggins set included: scoring average (17.1), field goals attempted (422), free throws made (176) and free throws attempted (227).

The 2014 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, Embiid broke the KU freshman record for blocked shots with 72 and his 2.6 blocked shots per game finished second in the league. Named to the 2014 All-Big 12 Second Team, Embiid led KU with 8.1 rebounds per game – also a KU freshman record – and good for sixth in the Big 12. The 7-0 Yaoundé, Cameroon, native averaged 11.2 points per game and his 62.6 field goal percentage broke yet another KU rookie record. Additionally, Embiid was named to the 2014 Freshman All-America Team, along with Wiggins, by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA).

Embiid was a two-time Big 12 Newcomer of the Week – Dec. 2, 2013 and Jan. 20, 2014 – and was named the Wayman Tisdale National Freshman of the Week and CBSSports.com National Player of the Week on Jan. 21, 2014 after averaging a double-double with 14.5 points and 10.0 rebounds to go along with 13 blocked shots in KU victories against then-top-10 opponents Iowa State (1/13) and Oklahoma State (1/18). Included was a KU freshman-record eight blocked shots against OSU.

Embiid missed the final two regular-season games and the Big 12 Championship due to a stress fracture in his lower back. He was sidelined from KU’s two NCAA Tournament contests, as well. While Embiid fully recovered from the injury and resumed basketball activities, surgery on a stress fracture in his right foot last Friday prevented him from attending the draft.

“It is different (not being in New York) with the support. I wish I could be there but I’m excited,” Embiid said in an ESPN interview from his watch party in California. “The Sixers just took me and I still can’t believe it. I started playing basketball so late and just being here means that anything is possible.”

— KU Sports Information —

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Gritty, tough and relentless; interchangeable words that describes a Kansas baseball team that refused to go down without a fight Sunday afternoon in NCAA postseason play.

Although the unthinkable didn’t happen, the Jayhawks (35-26) gave Kentucky a run for its money clawing their way back from an 8-0 deficit to pull within two runs of the Wildcats (37-24) at Jim Patterson Stadium.

“When we got down early in the game, it was too early in the game to give up,” senior catcher Ka’iana Eldredge said. “We were down seven runs in the fourth, with so much game left to be played. As you saw, we made a run at the end and put ourselves in a position to win the game late. Fortunately for Kentucky, they were able to put up two more runs than us and that won the ball game.”

Eldredge made sure to do his part to help the Jayhawks attempt an 8-0 comeback, mashing one over the wall in left field on his final collegiate at bat for the second home run of his career.

“So many things go through your head when you walk up to the plate late in a ball game and you’re down,” Eldredge said. “I remember thinking the same thing in high school; this could possibly be my last at bat. You just have to go up there and have fun with it. I didn’t think too much and I got a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it. It was great that it went out of the ballpark so I can tell my kids my last collegiate at bat was a home run.”

The round tripper came two innings after Kansas rallied to put up a five-spot in the sixth with a little help from five-consecutive base hits. Kansas opened the frame with four-straight singles , before sophomore first baseman Jacob Boylan roped a two-run double down the line in left field, all with no outs. A sacrifice fly and an RBI ground out later, KU had cut that 8-0 deficit down to just three runs, 8-5.

Had the Jayhawks pitchers been a bit more effective, five runs may have been the difference in the ballgame. However, the staff combined to give up eight runs off 11 hits including five runs and five hits for right-handed starter Robert Kahana (4-7).

“I made the comment yesterday that (Robert) Kahana didn’t get to pitch in the Big 12 Tournament,” Kansas head coach Ritch Price said. “It has been almost two weeks since he has been on the mound. We scrimmaged ourselves before we left and he was actually pretty good. I was concerned – if he got off to a good start I think you would have seen a completely different guy. Unfortunately for us, his command wasn’t very good and he was behind in the count. Kentucky can really hit the fastball.”

Price gives credit to Kentucky starter freshman Zack Brown (1-1), for holding the Jayhawks scoreless through five frames.

“You look at the numbers of hits per innings pitched and you look at his opponent batting average at .360 – we liked our chances,” Price said. “I think the thing was we got buried early and I think it took us a while mentally to recover from that after they hit us in the mouth in the first and second inning. He commanded his fastball well and showed a good breaking ball.”

Brown kept KU off the board until the sixth inning when Kansas put up the five-spot. KU didn’t score again until the eighth when the dinger by Eldredge cut the lead to two runs, 8-6, and allowed for the Jayhawks to take one final stab at completing the comeback in the ninth inning.

Kansas managed to get the tying run to the plate after a one-out walk by sophomore second baseman Colby Wright, but two quick outs followed to end the game and season for the Jayhawks.

Although the comeback didn’t quite happen like the movies portray, Eldredge hopes the team can use the momentum left by the senior class and continue the growth of the KU program.

“For the seniors, this was our first time in the NCAA Tournament,” Eldredge said. “It has been cool to be here and an awesome experience. We told the younger guys it’s all a learning experience. They know what to do and how hard to play going forward, and coach Price is going to have a lot more NCAA tournament appearances if the young kids continue to work hard and have the passion for the game.”

— KU Sports Information —

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It’s hard to put up a crooked number in the error column and win a ballgame, and that is what the Kansas baseball team faced Saturday night, as the Jayhawks recorded three errors en route to picking up their first loss in NCAA postseason play against regional host Louisville, 6-3, inside Jim Patterson Stadium.

Four defensive miscues, which included the three errors, dug KU (35-25) into a hole early and couple that with the Jayhawks’ poor offensive approach early in the game, made it nearly impossible to amount a comeback.

“I didn’t think it (our offensive approach) was very good,” Kansas head coach Ritch Price said. “That was the one thing I addressed with our guys afterwards. (Then) we made four bad plays defensively and got ourselves in a hole we couldn’t dig ourselves out of.”

The hole came in the first four innings when senior right-handed hurler Frank Duncan (6-4) gave up five runs off seven hits, with a little help of his team’s miscues on defense. To his credit, Duncan managed to regain his composure and toss the fifth complete game of the season to save the Kansas bullpen.

“I’ll be honest guys, I didn’t think he was going to get out of the sixth inning. To his credit, he went back out there and put zeroes up after that. The whole thing with him is you look at his line score he only walked one, he hit one and he struck out two. So you wonder how he gave up 11 hits and only threw 105 pitches, it’s because he doesn’t strike out many guys, he pitches to contact. Normally we catch the ball a lot better than we did today.”

“I didn’t keep them off the bases as good as I could have with the 11 hits,” Duncan added. “You’re able to make the big pitches when you need to and minimize the damage as best you can. That’s what I tried to do and I thought I did a pretty good job of that.”

Duncan bulldogged his way through 105 pitches to preserve the Kansas bullpen and give the Jayhawks a shot at completing the comeback, closing the game with three scoreless innings. However, the righty didn’t get much help from his offense.

The potent bats that showed up against the Wildcats in game one, seemed almost dormant against the Cardinals with three missed opportunities with bases loaded after getting the leadoff man on to start each frame. Price credits Louisville (47-15) starter Anthony Kidston (8-0) with being able to pitch when it matters the most.

“He (Kidston) made some good pitches,” Price said. “When he had to he made some good pitches. We thought we hit two balls hard that were caught. The ball yesterday was a home run that (Tucker) Tharp hit today. The ball didn’t play like that today.”

The Jayhawks tallied six hits on the day, but gained most of their baserunners by being patient at the plate and drawing the walk. Junior shortstop Justin Protacio, sophomore second baseman Colby Wright and sophomore first baseman Jacob Boylan each had two walks, while Protacio and Wright each had a hit on the day.

Despite getting runners on, Kansas couldn’t find a way to score and stranded 11 runners on base throughout the course of the game, including bases loaded to end the contest.

Louisville right fielder Corey Ray led all hitters with a 3-for-4 performance at the plate, legging out two routine singles into doubles and showing off that Cardinal speed.

“We saw him play in high school and he is a phenomenal talent,” Price said. “He swung at a breaking ball out of the zone a couple times early in the game and then he was on time with the fastball. He put two really good swings on the ball. He is a really good athlete.”

Kansas looks to bounce back in NCAA Regional action Sunday, as the Jayhawks take on Kentucky in an elimination bout at 11 a.m.

— KU Sports Information —