By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Andrew Orr grew up in a football family, with his father, Michael Orr, playing at Kansas State and his brother, Nicholas, playing at Colorado State-Pueblo
And Andrew played the sport himself for his first two years of high school at Blue Valley North before deciding that basketball would be his primary sport in college.
Washburn 6-8 sophomore Andrew Orr leads the Ichabods with a 13.6 scoring average, including a career-high 24 points in his last game. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Andrew Orr, a state champion in two sports at Blue Valley North, has scored 8 or more points in every game this season, cracking double figures in six of seven games. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
It's a decision that's paid dividends for both Orr and the Washburn men's basketball team.
"I played football my freshman and sopomore year -- I was a tight end and D-end,'' Orr said. "Going into my junior year I was thinking about how I really wanted to play basketball in college and I really wanted to pursue that so I figured that whole fall season spending my time doing football necesarily wasn't a waste of time but it was just I could be advancing my skills in basketball.
"I was decent (at football), but my thing is I wasn't the type of kid that wanted to go out and really hit somebody. I wasn't a very aggressive kid when it came to it, so that was my problem, trying to go out and just hit somebody in the mouth. That wasn't really my mentality a lot of the time.''
Of course Andrew still had to sell dad, who played offensive line or Bill Snyder at Kansas State, on the idea of giving up the sport.
"I had to convince my dad to let me stop playing football,'' Orr said. "Most kids have to convince their parents to let them play football. I had to convince my dad to let me stop playing.
"Once I did that, then it was just talking to my coach and it was the summer before the season started so I wasn't too locked in.''
The bottom line was that basketball is his favorite sport.
"Growing up I enjoyed playing basketball more than I did football,'' Orr said. "I enjoyed football, I just enjoyed the style of basketball and it was better for me.''
The last four years have proved that Orr made the right career choice.
Orr helped lead the Mustangs to the Class 6A state basketball title his senior year while also adding the 6A high jump title later that spring.
And in just a year-plus at Washburn the 6-foot-8 Orr has already made his mark for Brett Ballard's Ichabods.
Orr was pressed into action early as a freshman when Washburn was hit by the injury bug and he went on to play in 22 games with seven starts, averaging 3.8 points and 2.2 rebounds while shooting 56 percent from the field.
"Last year being a freshman coming in I had to take a step back because everything was moving so fast for me,'' Orr said. "I kind of did get thrown in there and had to take it for what it was, but being in that position last year helped me understand that this year I kind of need to be a little bit of a leader because we do have a young team.
"I've been here for a year and I've gone through this once so I kind of know what's going on and I can help people.''
Orr has responded with an outstanging start to the 2022-2023 season for the 3-4 Ichabods, averaging a team-high 13.6 points to go with 6.1 rebounds while cracking double figures in six of seven games.
Orr is coming off the best game of his college career, scoring 24 points (all in the second half) in 28 minutes to keep foul-plagued WU in the hunt until the end in an 81-78 overtime loss Monday night at Northeastern State.
"The second half of that game was a great step in the right direction for him,'' Ballard said. "He's a talented kid and I really believe he's going to be one of the better big guys in the MIAA.
"I said that before the season and I still believe that.''
Despite the tough loss, Orr thinks Monday's game showed that better days are just around the corner for the Ichabods, who will host rival Emporia State in a 3 p.m. MIAA contest on Saturday.
"I feel like our fight the other night showed that we really do want to win,'' Orr said. "We're coming out and we're really doing our best to win.
"I feel like we're all walking in the same direction, we just need to walk in the same line. We all just need to walk together and I feel like we're really close to being elite, very close.''
