Coach Chipman leaves on high note, Skeens rewrites record books

Bryan Grabauskas
April 19, 2017

This season will be remembered as Bob Chipman’s last and to send Coach Chipman off into the sunset, the Ichabods basketball team played hard and delivered a strong final season for their coach.

They started red-hot, not losing a single game for two months. The team managed to get to an impressive eight wins before suffering their first loss. That first defeat came at the hands of Fort Hays State Dec. 7.

That was followed by another loss against the University of Nebraska at Kearney. The team responded to these losses by winning six of their next nine games.

Once again, matches against Fort Hays and Nebraska came up on the schedule. Unfortunately, the Ichabods once again lost to these two teams, as well as to the University of Central Missouri.

Defeat didn’t damper the team’s determination, however. They finished the season with five wins out of their final six games. They ran right into the MIAA tournament and steamrolled over Southwest Baptist by a score of 89-70.

Their productive season came to an end the next week, when Nebraska reared its head once again. Washburn performed better against them than they had in the previous two games, but came out six points short.

Bob Chipman got his amazing win total to 800, a great way to leave the game.

Junior Forward Brady Skeens had a fantastic year. He earned MIAA Defensive Player of the Year Honors and was named to the All-MIAA First Team.

Skeens also finished his season with multiple single season and career records. His career numbers include highs in field goal percentage at .667, rebounding average at 9.2, 6.5 defensive rebound average, 2.4 blocks per game and his 170 blocked shots.

Also, his 650 rebounds are sixth and 463 defensive rebounds are fourth. Skeens also broke several single season records. These include his .673 field goal percentage, his 235 defensive rebounds, his 7.8 defensive rebounds per game, his 102 offensive rebounds and his 97 blocks with a rate of 3.2 per game.

“This past season was a very special one for my teammates and I because we had the opportunity to play in the last season that Coach Chipman was on the sidelines at Washburn,” Skeens said. “It was such an honor and privilege for all of us to play for and learn from such a renowned coach, who accomplished so much during his legendary career. As a team we grew together in a positive direction yet certainly we fell short of many of our goals. However, we are excited about the future and we will continue to build, with the help of Coach Ballard, upon the legacy and foundation that Coach Chipman has entrusted us all with to be excellent ambassadors for the Washburn athletic program.”

Sophomore Guard Javion Blake was named as an All-MIAA honorable mention.

Junior Guard Randall Smith finished the season with 6.9 assists per game, sixth best in the books.

Junior Guard Cameron Wiggins finished the season with a career mark of 72 three pointers made, which is seventh in school history.