Steve Forbes, a Lone Tree alum who is the men’s basketball head coach at Wake Forest University, pulled a powerful punch a couple of Sundays ago.

He turned down a bid from the NIT after the Deacons were not selected to play in the NCAA Tournament.

March Madness? Oh, maybe just madness.

The Deacs may have been the top seed in the NIT.

And this is the 25^th anniversary of the school actually winning the NIT championship.

But all eyes are on the NCAA, and you have to admire this Lone Tree Lion for sticking to the big prize even if there probably was some criticism for turning down postseason hoops. In ACC land, the big prize matters.

“While we are certainly disappointed that we did not make the NCAA Tournament,” Forbes said, “we believe declining the invitation to the NIT is the right decision for this team at this time.”

A gutsy choice.

Wake won 21 games and tied a school record by winning 13 times in the Atlantic Coast Conference and grabbing a share of third place. But when the Deacs lost a quarterfinal-round game to North Carolina in the ACC Tournament, Wake was out of the NCAAs. And somehow North Carolina was in.

The day after the door slammed shut on Wake, two words described what Forbes was focused on now: Next year.

“Now, our focus shifts to the future as we aggressively attack the roster-building process for the 2025-26 season,” Forbes said. “We are excited about what’s ahead and look forward to continuing to elevate Wake Forest basketball.”

Student attendance was the highest in Wake history and the Deacs sold out home games against Duke and North Carolina. The passion runs deep.

“I deeply respect how difficult it is for the members of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee to choose from 332 teams for just 37 at-large spots,” said John Currie, Wake Director of Athletics. “The embedded principles which enabled six teams who finished at below .500 in their conference to take 16% of those at-large spots don’t make sense to me.”

Volleyball Family

It might not be surprising to see Iowa City West pop up on Mid-Prairie’s volleyball schedule next fall.

Jaedynn Evans, the daughter of Mid-Prairie coaches Sherry and Zeb Evans, and the older sister of current Golden Hawks Jovi and Jeorgia Evans, is the new head coach at City West.

Jaedynn finished up her collegiate playing career last fall with Wisconsin-Whitewater, nearly helping the Warhawks win an NCAA DIII national championship. Evans was selected as an Academic All-District honoree by College Sports Communicators, following up two All-America selections when she played previously at DII Central Oklahoma.

The Golden Hawks did play at City West last season and defeated Cedar Rapids Prairie to win a divisional title in a multi-team tournament hosted by West. City West had lost to Prairie in the semifinals.

Mid-Prairie is coming off a 3A state tournament season in which it won a school-record 33 matches.

Fab Freshman

After one meet, the IATC Indoor Championships two weeks ago at Iowa State, Mid-Prairie’s Jeorgia Evans emerged as the top freshman in the state in the 200-meter run and long jump.

She broke a 49-year school record in the long jump with a winning leap of 17-10 and finished third in the 200 behind 2024 outdoor state champions Meredith Van Wyk and Rachel Kacmarynski of Pella Christian.

Evans still has a ways to go in the long jump. The top distance (in indoor meets) was 19 feet, 6 inches, put up by Linn-Mar’s Abby Mecklenburg in a meet at the UNI-Dome.

Evans has already qualified for the Drake Relays in the long jump.

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul