St. Xavier scoring ace Brad Karp hopes to reel in NAIA hoops title
BY JOHN GROCHOWSKI For Sun-Times Media February 13, 2013 10:36PM
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Updated: March 15, 2013 1:41PM
Even though he leads St. Xavier’s men’s basketball team in scoring, Brad Karp says he doesn’t need the ball to do his job.
“My strengths for our team are probably just trying to rebound and get easy buckets for the team,” he said. “I don’t need to use the ball a lot. I just get offensive rebounds and just make plays around everyone else. We don’t run a lot of things through me.”
Still, Karp has been an offensive force for the NAIA Division II No. 7 Cougars (25-4, 21-2 CCAC), who crushed visiting Purdue-North Central 95-47 on Wednesday night. He ranks seventh in the nation at 22.2 ppg, the leading scorer on a team that ranks 11th at 86.3 ppg.
“That’s all the credit to my teammates,” Karp said. “Roosevelt Green, he’s our point guard and he’s one of the top point guards in the country [ranking second at 7.2 assists]. He just sets up everybody on our team.”
Nonetheless, Karp is moving up career lists at St. Xavier. After scoring 20 on Wednesday, he is 81 points shy of becoming the fourth scorer in school history to reach 2,000. The nation’s No. 15 rebounder at 9.1 per game, he needs 68 to reach 795 and claim a spot in the Cougars’ all-time top five. And he has a year to go.
Karp is a biology major with a marketing minor, an unusual combination that he hopes will take him into sales of medical devices or a related field.
“St. Xavier is a great school both academically and athletically. I knew that the basketball program had been good in the past and I wanted to keep playing. I wanted to try to win a national championship and make some strides.”
With the conference tournament coming up next week at Olivet Nazarene, Karp has the NAIA playoffs on his mind.
“The national championship, that’s your goal for every season,” he said. “We’re ranked No. 7 in the country, so we have to take it one game at a time and take nobody lightly.”
In the rankings
Coming off a victory last weekend in the 20-team Chicagoland Indoor Championships, North Central’s men’s indoor track team holds the No. 4 spot in the latest NCAA Division III rankings by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association. The Cardinals trail three University of Wisconsin campuses, with La Crosse followed by Oshkosh and Whitewater.
Pole vaulters Peter Geraghty (17-3/4) and Josh Winder (16-63/4) rank 1-2 in the nation, while John Crain is second in the 5,000 meters (14:24.22) and fifth in the mile (4:12.82). Dionte Hackler ranks 10th in the 400 (49.51).
◆ Elmhurst’s wrestling team, 11-0 in dual meets including 4-0 in the CCIW, continues as No. 2 in the National Wrestling Coaches Association rankings. Ryan Early, a 141-pounder, is 21-0.
