Coaches and players from the 1984 and 2014 teams were recognized at halftime of the Feb. 17 UCM vs Fort Hays State game. The members of the two teams walked onto the court at halftime carrying a National Championship trophy during a short ceremony. The game was the second of a Jennies and Mules double header with Fort Hays State.
Alumnus Preston Drunz was one of the players on the 2014 winning team. A redshirt junior at the time, Drunz was a MIAA honor roll member recipient. Drunz said that ten years later, the National Championship remains very important to him.
“[The National Championship] is very important,” Drunz said. “What sits the longest and hardest with you is realizing how much it all meant in that moment. It wasn’t a matter of making sure we went out there and won, but it was about making sure the individuals on the team were out there with you playing and you were doing your best for them.”
Former head coach of the 2014 Mules national championship basketball team, Kim Anderson’s career was one of merit. He played in the NBA and was UCM’s coach to four MIAA regular season championships in 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2014 and two MIAA tournament championships in 2009 and 2014. In post season play, Anderson had three final four appearances in 2007, 2010 and 2014 and one national championship in 2014. However, for him, his success on the court was never the biggest thing. Instead his greatest joy came in watching his students graduate.
“Some of my greatest memories of having guys come to school and then watching them walk across the stage four years later with their diploma,” Anderson said. “I think that was one of the more exciting things for me. I did this for 37 years as a coach, 40 years really involved in basketball. So that gave me a great opportunity to hopefully affect young people’s lives.”
Rich Jankovich was a student assistant coach on the 1984 national championship winning team. Coaching under Coach Lynn Nance, he helped the Mules to a 29-3 record. The 1984 Mules Basketball team, alongside the 1984 Jennies Basketball team would both go on to make NCAA history as the only basketball teams from the same program to ever win their respective national championships on the same court, on the same day.
“To have us both with very similar records, marching all the way through to go win the national championship is literally epic. It’s epic for the school, epic for the conference, [and] epic for Division two,” Jankovich said.
