Africa, Iowa Tie for Number of Players in NCAA Tournament

Presumably, this is basketball in Iowa or Africa

Africa has a population of roughly 975,000,000.

Iowa has a population of roughly 3,000.000.

Yet, according to painstaking research the Hlog completed Monday afternoon, both will have 11 natives representing them in this week’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Time After Time, It’s Overtime

Something very strange has been happening to me lately. Nothing seems to end when it should.

This began a week ago Saturday when the Iowa men’s basketball team defeated Penn State in double-overtime. After I filed my column from that game in Iowa City, I drove to St. Louis, where Northern Iowa would play Illinois State the next day in the Missouri Valley Conference final.

On the way down while tooling around the dial on my trusty XM Satellite Radio, I saw the Ohio Valley Conference title game was winding down. Austin Peay and Morehead State.

Ed Hightower: The Big Ten Legend

Ed Hightower: The Man

What two words stir more emotion from Iowa basketball fans than “Ed Hightower?”

OK, “Steve Alford.”

But Hightower is the one Big Ten basketball official that seems to be more of a lightning rod for fans than any other. Why does Ed Hightower hate the Hawkeyes? I’ve heard that question more than once.

Fans of many other teams have asked the same thing, only they substituted “Buckeyes” or “Jayhawks” or someone else for “Hawkeyes.”

I suspect that’s primarily because of Hightower’s longevity in the sport, the fact he continues to work about as many games as anyone else, and his rather theatrical way of calling a game.

But this is a fellow who has worked 11 Final Fours, and they don’t give those assignments to just anyone who owns a black-and-white striped shirt.

I like Hightower. He brings his own energy to a game, and he is quick with a smile (more officials should understand an occasional smile can be a powerful asset).

But he calls a lot of fouls and always has. Statistics show games involving Hightower’s crews mean more personal fouls than most other games. Fans and teams, I believe, would prefer a few less fouls in their basketball diets.

The site http://statsheet.com/mcb/conferences/big-ten/referees tells us that, through Sunday, Hightower and Ted Hillary were tied for the most Big Ten conference games worked at 19.

But 724 fouls were called in Hightower’s 19 games compared to 611 in Hillary’s.

Does that mean one is doing a better or worse job than the other? I don’t think so. But it’s six more fouls per game, which means coaches and players are getting a different game when Hillary is the official as they are when it’s Hightower.

Hightower has worked 64 games this season, in 22 different states. Those of us in the Iowa media will see him working a 3 p.m. game in Iowa City and joke he has a 7 p.m. game that same day in Texas or someplace.

From last Monday to yesterday, Sunday Feb. 22, Hightower worked games at Connecticut, Purdue, Louisville, Michigan, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis.

There are airline pilots and truck drivers who would read that and shake their heads in amazement.

Do people treat you like this at your job?

But Tom O’Neill, another Big Ten ref, has officiated 82 games this season, through Sunday. Other Big Ten officials, J.D. Collins and Rick Hartzell, have done 76 and 73, respectively.

However, no regular Big Ten official one has quite the number of foul-calls in their games that Hightower has.  Since the 1996-97 season, his games have averaged 39 fouls. Maybe he has a keener eye than most and sees fouls others miss. Maybe he simply feels rules are to be enforced as strictly as possible.

Sunday, Hightower reffed the Northwestern-Minnesota game. Forty-two fouls were called.

It drives some a little crazy.

Still, only 12 technical fouls have been called in Hightower’s 64 games, while 29 were whistled in O’Neill’s 82 games. That would make me more suspicious of O’Neill’s work, not Hightower’s.

Not that there’s any cause to be suspicious of any of these gents. Many jobs are a whole lot harder than they look, and officiating high-level basketbal is certainly among them.

I figure if the NCAA thought highly enough of Hightower to have him work 11 Final Fours, he’s plenty good enough for the Big Ten.

Hlas Column: Big Ten Basketball is Defense and, uh, Defense

The Michigan men’s basketball team plays Iowa today, giving us hope.

Maybe one or both of the teams will crack 50, 55, or — dare I say it? — 60 points in the game.

The Wolverines did tally 74 in their 12-point home win over Minnesota Thursday. Perhaps the momentum of that effort will send Carver-Hawkeye Arena back in time, when teams sometimes traded scores on consecutive possessions.

Living here, we think offense appearing to be played in quicksand is a Hawkeye thing. Yes, Iowa does rank 304th of the 330 Division I teams in scoring with 60.6 points per game. That’s 31 less than North Carolina averages.

But the Hawkeyes reside in a conference that plays different ball than most other American leagues.

“The Big Ten puts a huge emphasis on defense,” said Big Ten Network studio analyst Tim Doyle. “The ACC and the Big East, they’re more willing to give up a hoop thinking they’ll get a hoop on the next possession.”

OK, Doyle’s a Big Ten Network guy and a former Big Ten player. He played very well for three seasons at Northwestern after transferring from St. John’s, near his hometown on Long Island.

But he doesn’t sound like a Big Ten puppet on the air, or off it.

“I don’t know if it’s in the water,” he said, “but it does seem like guys on the East Coast and maybe the SEC are more athletic. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s what the farmers are feeding us here.”

Through Thursday’s games, these were the points per team in conference games of the six BCS leagues: 1. ACC 73.1, 2. SEC 72.0, 3. (tie) Big 12 and Big East 71.0, 5. Pac-10 67.1, 6. Big Ten 63.4.

“But look at the defensive production,” Doyle said. “Look at points-per-game allowed, field goal percentage defense. Look at the assist-to-turnover ratio. They aren’t gaudy or sexy categories, but the Big Ten dominates them.”

If you like that kind of ball, it’s great. But take the names off the uniforms and which do you think would get more of a following, the Big 12 or Big East with seven teams apiece averaging over 76 points per game, or the Big Ten, with only Michigan State (79th at 73.8 ppg) among the nation’s top 145 teams in scoring?

Seven Big Ten teams are among the country’s top 45 in scoring defense. Iowa is 12th at 58.9 points allowed per game. Even as short-handed as they’ve been lately, the Hawkeyes play good defense.

But the only time defense-dominated ball captures the public’s fancy is when it leads to lots of wins.

Nothing makes Penn State’s 38-33 win at Illinois last Wednesday satisfying. Had that score been posted in a Big East or ACC gym, America would have howled in disgust. But since it occurred in Big Ten play, it’s more amusing than shocking.

Ultimately, though, can Big Ten teams cut through the NCAA tournament? Doyle says yes, and he has history on his side.

Since Michigan State was the last Big Ten team to win it all, in 2000, five more conference teams have been to the Final Four. Illinois and MSU went in the same year, 2005.

In those same eight seasons only the ACC (seven) and Big 12 (six) had as many Final Four representatives.

“I know this is hard to believe,” Doyle said, “but I think the Big Ten is poised to have a nice NCAA tourney.

“Look at the non-conference season. Purdue lost to Oklahoma in overtime, Oklahoma is No. 2 in the country, and Purdue gave that game away. I think Oklahoma shot 50 free throws (46, actually) and Purdue had five.

“Illinois beat the crap out of Missouri (75-59), for lack of a better word, in St. Louis.

“Nationally, the league doesn’t have the sexy rankings or five teams in the Top 25. But it has the strengths-of-schedules, the RPIs that the tournament committee looks at.”

None of which changes the facts the ACC and Big 12 and Big East tournaments will be more enjoyable to watch than the Big Ten tourney.

Nor does it change the fact Michigan-Iowa isn’t likely to be as entertaining as today’s Syracuse-Villanova or Wake Forest-Duke games.

But Doyle says better days are coming for the Hawkeyes. He calls himself a big fan of Iowa Coach Todd Lickliter, and likes Lickliter’s nucleus of young players.

“Jeff Peterson’s improved his game,” said Doyle. “If he and (Cyrus) Tate are healthy, and if (Anthony) Tucker was there, they’d have seven or eight wins in the conference.

“Jake Kelly and (Matt) Gatens, I really like them. Gatens is going to be one of those guys who are rock-solid, and Peterson will be a rock-solid point guard.”

But we live in the present, and Doyle doesn’t pretend the Hawkeyes will wow their Big Ten Network audience with offensive artistry today.

“They would put a glass eye to sleep,” he said.

Baby, It’s Cold Inside – What in the Name of Jerry Tarkanian Has Happened to College Basketball?

Lots of places are cold lately

I miss the old UNLV Runnin’ Rebels of Jerry Tarkanian. You knew those guys would score 90 points every time out. The question was if they’d hit 100 or 110.

I miss college basketball, period. I’ve covered two games in the last five days. There weren’t 100 points total in either one.

Last Saturday it was Purdue 49, Iowa 45. Nothing can be that wretched for a long time, I said to myself.

Sure, if four days is a long time.

Wednesday night, I was among the eyewitnesses who saw Drake edge Northern Iowa, 47-46. 

http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090218/SPORTS/702189896/1008/SPORTS

At one point in the game, there were 26 points and 24 turnovers.

Brrrrrrrrrrr.

What happened to a once-entertaining game? Where’s Tark? Whatever happened to Showtime? Or at the very least, a team that could score 50 points in a game.

Something worse happened Wednesday than the brick-laying turnover fest at UNI. At Champaign, Penn State beat Illinois, 38-33. No Fighting Illini player scored more than seven points.

Penn State shot 28.3 percent from the field and won!

The teams’ combined 71 points was the lowest total in Division I men’s basketball since Monmouth beat Princeton 41-21 in 2005.

“Naismith probably rolled over several times,” Penn State Coach Ed DeChellis said after the game.

Illinois’ point total was its lowest since a 33-31 loss to Minnesota in 1947.

Get this: Illinois is ranked 18th in the country!

Other scores from Wednesday: Western Michigan 46, Eastern Michigan 38. Nebraska 46, Colorado 41.

Some Wednesday scores from outside the Midwest:

Oklahoma State 92, Texas Tech 82

Florida 83, Alabama 74

Louisville 94, Providence 76

Hofstra 99, James Madison 94

Those are basketball scores. Those are basketball games. How I miss them.

Hlas Column on Hawkeyes’ Much-Needed Win Over Northwestern

Devan Bawinkel: Big down the stretch

 

IOWA CITY — It was a most peculiar game in many aspects, yet it felt so right for Iowa.

“A win is a win,” said a pleased fan leaving Carver-Hawkeye Arena Saturday evening. But some wins are better than others, and this was one of the better ones.

It wasn’t a great achievement in terms of importance, and it certainly wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing victory in Hawkeyes men’s basketball annals. Beating Northwestern at home has almost always met expectatons, not produced joy.

But Iowa’s 56-51 triumph over the Wildcats felt so good to the victors and their 12,555 fans here. It was needed, and it was earned.

“I can’t imagine if you’re a Hawkeye fan walking out of here disappointed with this group,” said Iowa Coach Todd Lickliter.

In fact, the vibe was surprisingly good from before tip-off until Jarryd Cole’s last-second shot block to punctuate the win with a crowd-delighting exclamation point.

Maybe it was the pleasing weekend weather that established the good feelings. Maybe it was the accommodating 5 p.m. starting time. Maybe it was reduced ticket prices.

Whatever the case, this wasn’t a Carver with wide swathes of empty seats, or of fans looking for any excuse to climb up the steps early for a head-start on beating traffic. The mood was good, and the Hawkeyes added to it with 40 minutes of effort.

“This crowd showed up to support a group of guys that have been playing hard and haven’t been rewarded,” Lickliter said. “I think that was instrumental in us playing with the kind of spirit we needed to complete this game.

Todd Lickliter: Victory

This wasn’t a woeful Wildcats roster. This was a team that had done the unthinkable two weeks earlier and won at Michigan State. This was a team that had won four of its previous five Big Ten games, and had the NCAA tournament in at least some corner of its mind.

“They’re very capable,” Lickliter said. “Very capable.”

But the Hawkeyes played defense.

Northwestern’s 37.5 percent shooting from the field was better than Iowa’s, but it certainly wasn’t good enough to offset the Hawkeyes’ aggressiveness. Each time it seemed the Wildcats were wresting momentum away, it got wrested right back.

Usually, a 3-pointer did the trick. The “peculiar” aspects of this game mentioned earlier? Those would be topped by Iowa making 12 threes, and just two 2-point baskets. Thirty of the Hawkeyes’ 40 shot-attempts were 3-pointers.

Playing a 1-3-1 defense that clogs the arteries to the hoop, Northwestern virtually begs you to keep chucking threes. Iowa kept chucking them.

It wasn’t as if the Wildcats’ offense looked much more well-rounded. They shot more threes than twos, too. Craig Moore put up 18 shots for NU. All were from beyond the arc. Only six went in.

Guard Devan Bawinkel got his first start for Iowa. He shoots threes. In fact, all but four of his 90 shots this season have been threes.

He made a 3-pointer 33 seconds into this game. He made a trey with 1:05 left in the game for a 48-46 lead that Iowa didn’t surrender.

Bawinkel had missed his previous seven shots before that big basket — and one was even a 2-pointer! But when he was open and the game was up for grabs, he didn’t hesitate to try another. The swish helped make those 12,555 fans and his teammates feel good. It made Bawinkel feel good, too. How do we know this?

“It just feels good to win,” Bawinkel said. “It feels really good to win. To beat a Big Ten team just feels really good nowadays.”

This is still a team that’s 3-8 in the Big Ten and may have to do well just to match its 5-13 league mark of last year. This is still a green club with deficiencies and voids. Rome isn’t being built in a day, or two years.

But when rolling over and playing dead might have been the easiest performance to give, at least these guys have chosen something far more dignified. Guard Jeff Peterson certainly has.

Peterson played 40 minutes. He lost the ball six times, but had four steals, five assists, and a team-high 16 points. He followed Bawinkel’s biggest 3-pointer of the year by stripping Northwestern’s Michael Thompson of the ball and sinking two free-throws after Thompson’s frustration foul.

Then, with 5.6 seconds remaining, Peterson secured the win with another pair of foul shots.

Peterson needed this win. Everyone in his locker room did, as well. There was a reason Lickliter was high-fiving fans on his way off the arena floor.

“Losing and learning is not as bad as losing and not learning,” said Lickliter, “but it sure isn’t much fun.”

A 4-game losing streak that began with a giveaway at Penn State and ended with something yucky at Indiana had ended.

It was a sunny Saturday here, outside and within the gymnasium. A lot of yucky stuff had melted away, if only for a day.

A win is a win.

Hawkeye Basketball Team Green, But Growing

Gazette photo by Brian Ray

My column from Tuesday night’s UNI-Iowa game:

IOWA CITY — Last season, that wasn’t basketball at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

That was a skimpy serving of leftovers courtesy of the previous coaching regime, short-handed mush.

This season, Todd Lickliter has something strongly resembling a ballclub. This wasn’t at all a rout, but Iowa’s 65-46 victory over Northern Iowa here last night was decisive all the same. It was predicated on defense and smarts. But it sure helps to have more talent than a winter ago.

“They’re different in the sense they’ve got more guys who can handle it and more guys who understand and can pass it,” said UNI Coach Ben Jacobson. “And they’ve got other guys who make 3-point shots.

“I think their unselfishness is really key to all that. It’s one thing to have a group of guys who can handle it and know how to play, but when all of them are unselfish, then you’ve got something you can really build on.

“It appears to me they’ve got it.”

The Hawkeyes’ three starting guards — Matt Gatens, Jake Kelly and Jeff Peterson — teamed for 51 points, 11 assists, and just two of their team’s measly five turnovers.

That’s good stuff from a freshman and two sophomores, and it’s not like the opposition was a slouch.

A telling moment came when freshman Gatens, who made 4 of 5 threes to up his season total to 20 of 33, was open behind the arc with his team holding a double-digit lead. Some in the announced crowd of 9,435 (yeah, right) groaned when Gatens spurned the shot. But more applauded when they realized he used his brain.

“He makes 4 of 5 threes,” Lickliter said, “he makes a big one (with 7:11 left), he’s got another wide open. It’s late in the game, early in the shot clock, and he passes it up.”

It was a good play, one of many the 8-2 Hawkeyes made after halftime when they outscored the Panthers 42-24.

Iowa played without its leading scorer, freshman Anthony Tucker, suspended for a drinking misadventure. If you hadn’t known a cog was missing, you would never have sensed it.

“I don’t think they concern themselves with areas that they can’t control,” Lickliter said. “They play the game with purpose, and it leads to this kind of thing.”

None of this is mysterious. The Hawkeyes are green, but not the deep shade they were a year ago in Year One of the Lickliter era. There are more bodies in uniforms, more talent in those bodies.

“I do think we’ve got a little more skill this year as far as shooters and ball handling,” Kelly said. “Last year we had some players, too, but this year it’s clicking more, I think we’ve got a better understanding of Lickliter’s system.”

Basketball never changes. You need a point guard who knows how to direct a club, or you go nowhere.

A season ago, Peterson was a freshman who looked lost playing for a coach who inherited him late in the 2007 recruiting process. He had more turnovers than assists playing in a system alien to him. The rumor mill had him fleeing town. But this Hawkeye guard didn’t run away.

“I don’t want to make excuses,” Peterson said. “If I could do it again, I wish we wouldn’t have had the season like last year. But at the same time, I’m thankful because it was a huge learning lesson for me and my whole team.”

Peterson spent his off-season working with weights and working on his game.

“What you do in that time is you invest,” Lickliter said. “Jeff invested.

“It takes a little while. And you’re asking someone to run a team. The other positions are difficult. But to run a team, you really need to know what the system is, what the coach wants, and become very familiar.”

“I’m real comfortable,” Peterson said. “I love playing with the guys around me.”

“Great guy, great point guard,” Kelly said. “He’s going to get things done for us.”

Though the number of witnesses remains small, things have gotten better here. There are miles to go, but the 13-19 team of last season seems to be long gone.

Iowa Men’s Basketball Team Isn’t As Bad As It Looked Against West Virginia Friday

How could it be?

This is Who Iowa’s Basketball Team is Playing? Episode 1: Charleston Southern

 

 

There are a lot of Division I men’s basketball programs. How many? Charleston, S.C., has three all by itself.

 

Iowa, for some odd reason, has chosen to play two of them from Charleston, S.C. this year. They are The Citadel, and Friday’s opponent, Charleston Southern. The College of Charleston apparently couldn’t squeeze the Hawkeyes on their schedule.

 

Charleston Southern is in the Big South Conference. The Big South isn’t the South’s basketball equivalent of the Big East.

 

The Big East has Providence. The Big South has Presbyterian.

 

The Big East has Georgetown. The Big South has Gardner-Webb.

 

The Big East has Louisville. The Big South has Liberty.

 

The Big East plays its conference tourney at Madison Square Garden. The Big South plays it at whatever county fairgrounds in the Carolinas are available in early March.

 

 

Charleston Southern’s team name is the Buccaneers. It interests me how many pro, college and high school teams are called the Buccaneers or Pirates, given that it’s been quite a while since pirates pillaged, ransacked and caused general mayhem on the high seas.

 

As for their men’s basketball team, the Bucs were 10-20 last year and are 31-58 in Bradley Radebaugh’s three full years as coach. The Bucs may not win at Iowa Friday, but they’ll be hard to beat at home when they play Toccoa Falls Nov. 22 and Covenant College Dec. 13.

 

Friday night. Iowa vs. Charleston Southern in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Where else would you rather be? Other than the high seats, that is.

 

Big Ten Basketball: It Ain’t What It Used to Be

(AP photo of Purdue’s Robbie Hummel)

Last week, I was interviewed by the Big Ten Network for a program it is doing on the Big Ten’s 1989 men’s basketball season.

I did so with reservations because a) the Big Ten Network is one of my favorite targets and b) talking about something that happened 20 years ago isn’t good for my swashbuckling, youthful image.

But I did it anyway, because any kind of promotion we in the newspaper/online racket can do is welcomed. Plus, despite the risk of looking like a cranky old swashbuckling, youthful type, I believe college basketball was so much better two decades ago than it is now and wanted to say so. The Iowa team of 1989, for instance, was imperfect. But man, could those guys play.

My feelings were confirmed this week when the Big Ten announced its preseason all-conference team. It consists of Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore of Purdue, Raymar Morgan of Michigan State, Manny Harris of Michigan, and Marcus Landry of Wisconsin.

Good players, one and all. Players who averaged double-digit scoring last year, one and all. People I couldn’t recognize if I saw them on the street, one and all.

Hummel is the league’s preseason Player of the Year. He averaged 11.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game last year. Not exactly the numbers of a league legend-in-the-making. Now, that’s no insult to Hummel. He plays with passion, smarts and great skill. He is a fantastic 3-point shooter. He was integral to the Boilermakers going 15-3 in the conference last year to finish a game behind Wisconsin. He deserves his honor.

But in days of yore, Hummel wouldn’t have been considered for preseason Player of the Year. Ten years ago, the league had Mo Peterson and Mateen Cleaves at Michigan State and Michael Redd at Ohio State. The latter was on this year’s U.S. Olympic team. Peterson is still a productive NBA player.

That 1989 season the Big Ten Network will focus on had the national-championship Michigan team led scoring machine Glen Rice. Illinois reached the Final Four with Nick Anderson, Kenny Battle and Kendall Gill. Indiana won the regular-season conference title. And Iowa finished fourth with five future NBA players in B.J. Armstrong, Matt Bullard, Ed Horton, Les Jepsen and Roy Marble.

Guys like Rice and Anderson, who had long NBA careers, didn’t leave for the pros after one college season or two. Thus, college basketball was better.  I’m not pushing for the NBA to close its doors to college freshmen the way it has to those who are fresh out of high school. It’s un-American, for one thing, and I put country first. Or no lower than third, anyhow.

But when you see Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. about to enter their second year as pros after playing all of one year at Ohio State, you know the college game has changed for the worst.

Who knew that Michigan’s “Fab Five” would one day look like a stable unit that was together a long time until Chris Webber left following his sophomore season?

The good news in this for Iowa fans is that it increases the chances the Hawkeyes will eventually vie for Big Ten titles. Todd Lickliter seems to be focused on recruits who are willing to be part of something bigger themselves. You know, the four-year guys. The kind Drake was stocked with last season when it beat every team in the state and lived in the national rankings for the better part of two months.

Wisconsin has thrived with such guys. Bo Ryan’s Badgers have won 30-plus games in each of the last two seasons. That couldn’t have happened in decades past. But as a basketball fan, I’d rather watch the Fab Five or “Big Dog” Robinson than Ryan’s teams, as well as they play the game.