hawkeyecub

Notre Dame was just the recipient of two awful calls at the end of the first half. First, Tate caught a pass, was wrapped up near the sideline and clearly threw the ball out of bounds. They gave him credit for the fumble and stopped the clock. Then Claussen heaves a deep pass and Tate pushes the corner right in the back with two hands. No call. And they needed all of that to take the lead against Syracuse. 2-8 Syracuse. At home. Gotta get them into a nice bowl game, right?

This is my problem with most Big 10 fans- especially the ones here. Everything is "conference this" and "conference that," as though "conferences" win anything. I realize that there are tons of SEC fans who flap their gums about being the best conference in the world in football, but the raging inferiority complex that Big 10 fans display is stinking hilarious. Seriously, you've made the point- you have tiny e-dongs. That said, I don't get it. Who cares which conference is better or worse? Last time I checked the Pac 10 doesn't play the SEC. Nor does the Big 10 play the Big 12. And, despite the name of the "challenge", the Big East does not play the ACC. Individual teams play one another, and how Tennessee fares (or UCLA, or Illinois, or Kansas, or... well, you get it) is not a product of the conference. The Big 10 hasn't been humiliated in the National Championship the past two years- Ohio St. has. The SEC didn't win any championships. Florida and LSU did. As a Tennessee fan, what should it matter to me that Ohio State got spanked by those teams? So did UT. The Big 12 is not the reigning National Champion. Kansas is. Why should Texas or Oklahoma or Missouri or any other Big 12 schools fans brag about that? Their team didn't win anything. They just lost to the team that did. I just don't get it. And I know that SEC fans are guilty of it, especially in football. That doesn't make sense to me either. If Florida destroys Oklahoma or Texas in the National Championship game, am I going to walk around pounding my chest about it? Heck no, I hate Florida. It just doesn't make sense to me. NCAA Basketball is completely different. I don't "pound my chest" because Michigan and Illinois won last night. But I am pleased to see it. Why? Because the more good non-conference wins Big Ten teams get, the higher the league RPI will be, plus it means they probably won't get bashed as much on national tv. Conference RPI and conference strength plays a major part in whether or not your team gets a bid to the NCAA's. Likewise beating SEC and Pac-10 teams will hurt their cause a little bit which indirectly can help your team even more.

Georgia Tech became my 2nd favorite team the day they hired Paul Johnson.

Way to go Illini. Good win for the Big Ten. Michigan tied with UCLA with 13 minutes to go.

The Citadel is a bad team but for being a road game in a small gym it sounded pretty impressive. Tucker ended 7-11 from 3. He may have the quickest release and prettiest shot of any Iowa player I've seen. Gatens had another all-around game. 13 points, 6 assists, 4 steals, 3 rebounds. Relatively tough test up next with Oakland on Sunday.

The first foul was somewhat understandable. In the huddle I'm sure they said "foul after a make" meaning foul after a made free throw when Zona would have still trailed by 1. Instead they got the rebound and putback and he was still in foul mode. Mental mistake but you can see the reasoning. But the second one was just inexcusable. The putback tied it up. They had the bad foul but UAB missed the free throw keeping it tied. Then Arizona called another timeout before the final possession. How do you not look at the scoreboard at some point during that 5 minutes and know what the score is?

The end of that game may have been the most poorly played final minute I've seen in years. Mike Davis' squad tried to give it to Arizona. And twice in the last 30 seconds, Arizona thinks they're trailing when they're actually tied and fouls intentionally. The last one is an intentional foul and UAB almost throws the ball out of bounds without anyone touching it following the free throws. It was just incredibly bad. And Len Elmore said at least 37 times "he had to have thought they had a different play on where you give a foul." Then at the end the pbp guy says "or for some reason thought they were trailing" and Len practically laughs it off, says that would be hard to believe and again mentions that they must have given the wrong signal or called the wrong play. Ugh

This Interactive chat bar that ESPN has at the top of the screen tonight (and during some football games) is the worst idea they've had since that ESPN Hollywood show with Mario Lopez.

Iowa played well in the first half and had a 40-28 lead at halftime against UT-San Antonio. Then UTSA pressed the hell out of us, we started turning it over like mad and had to hit all of our free throws to win by 5. Lickliter said they simply hadn't really prepared for a 2-2-1 yet. At The Citadel on Thursday night and home vs. Oakland on Sunday. Could lose either of them.

Oakland is supposed to be pretty decent and win the Summit League (old Mid-Con) this year. Iowa plays them Sunday night. Then again Oregon only beat Northern Colorado by 2. Howard beat Oregon State, Portland beat Washington. That conference is going to be goofy.

Shonn Greene is really, really good. Maybe he can break his leg in the 4th quarter of our bowl game so he has to miss the combine and decides to come back. Ugly but it was nice to finally win a game where we didn't play very well. Defense was great. Shonn was great. Stanzi had a bad day and the coaches played ultra-conservative. Painter picked us apart in the second half.

Was that before UNC offered? They were the last remaining power to offer (somewhat recently) and according to my guy they jumped near the top pretty quickly. The rest of what you said is correct though.

Yeah he's probably heading out of the state. As far as being best for his career I disagree with many on that. He should go to UNC, Duke or Kansas if he wants a good shot to win a national championship. I don't think going to Iowa State or Iowa would hurt his NBA chances. K-State had Walker but not much else and it didn't hurt Beasley. He'll be a featured guy wherever he goes, but he'd without a doubt be THE guy at ISU or Iowa. If you have a game like Harrison the NBA doesn't care if your team only wins 21 games and when you're a top 5 recruit nationally they're going to see you play just as much at one of the in-states as they would at a national power.

Would like to think so but I don't see it. Depends who you listen to though. The ESPN basketball recruiting guy says it's UNC out in front with ISU second and Iowa a close third. He does still make trips to Iowa City and loves the coaches. But the guy has his pick of anyone in the country. What I hear from a pretty decent source is it's UNC, Duke, Kansas, ISU or Iowa right now. Smart money is on one of the 3 out of state schools. He's a smart, level-headed kid who doesn't have stars in his eyes and keeps things pretty private. Land him and a top 3 finish can become realistic. Like I said I don't see it though.

He's a white, less athletic version of Tyler Smith. Matt is a solid athlete but not on Smith's level although Gatens may be a little better outside shooter. But what makes Tyler special is his feel for the game, unselfishness and ability to make the "right" play so often. He's going to start every game for 4 years barring injury and will be an all Big Ten player as a veteran. I agree with the Illinois fans in this discussion though. I think Lick is a hell of a coach and is bringing in players who can move the ball, shoot, play smart and defend. With that said, the Big Ten has a great collection of coaches who are bringing in some studs. You can't just consistently beat that with system guys. I think that collection can get you top 5 finishes and trips to the NCAA's but to break into the top of the league you need to add a few top 100 guys every couple years. That's what Bo has done at Wisky. Solid core of 3-star guys who fit in well with some studs sprinkled in. Gatens is one and Creekmur in 2010 has a decent chance of being another. We need more. This team is improved and will finish above .500. I say 9-4 non-conference, 8-10 in the Big Ten this year.

erm...no. Iowa will improve a bit from a team that won 6 Big Ten games last season. Iowa lost its best player in Freeman. They lost 3 seniors of consequence in Johnson(played 89% of all minutes), Gorney, and Looby. The incoming class is mediocre at best and the 2 sophomores who had serious time last year were horrendous shooters from inside the arc.(Peterson sucked from outside too) They're basically Indiana with Cyrus Tate.(which admittedly is a huge difference, but it still ain't pretty) As manbear said Freeman was not our best player. Highest usage rate, but played out of the system, was not efficient and was by many sources (even before he left) a negative presence. Johnson did nothing after the Indiana game. He was a spot-up shooter who didn't shoot well but his numbers looked good because of what he did in the non-conference and against IU. Looby was almost out of the rotation and when he was getting minutes he contributed NOTHING on offense. Gorney had about 3 decent games. Kelly and Tate were the best players and before injury Cole would have been third. I will make any internet bet with you guys that Iowa has a better record this year both overall and in the Big Ten. Maybe we'll even be as good as Lewis College and can take you to the wire in Champaign. But then again in about the 3rd week you guys both said Iowa football was "awful" "lousy" would be fighting for the bottom of the league. Your disdain for the school clouds your judgment. haha. "all of our former players sucked, all of our current players are awesome, etc etc etc" The first part is pretty much correct. I never mentioned anything about the current players being awesome. We had 9 bodies last year. They couldn't even scrimmage or use lack of playing time as a motivator. About half of the 9 were a terrible fit for what Lickliter wanted to do. This year we at least have a full roster and mostly comprised of guys that fit. As long as they stay healthy the interior will be much improved. The backcourt at least has some options and has more shooters. SSR I'll take you up on that. They'll win 15 overall and 7 or more in the Big Ten.

erm...no. Iowa will improve a bit from a team that won 6 Big Ten games last season. Iowa lost its best player in Freeman. They lost 3 seniors of consequence in Johnson(played 89% of all minutes), Gorney, and Looby. The incoming class is mediocre at best and the 2 sophomores who had serious time last year were horrendous shooters from inside the arc.(Peterson sucked from outside too) They're basically Indiana with Cyrus Tate.(which admittedly is a huge difference, but it still ain't pretty) As manbear said Freeman was not our best player. Highest usage rate, but played out of the system, was not efficient and was by many sources (even before he left) a negative presence. Johnson did nothing after the Indiana game. He was a spot-up shooter who didn't shoot well but his numbers looked good because of what he did in the non-conference and against IU. Looby was almost out of the rotation and when he was getting minutes he contributed NOTHING on offense. Gorney had about 3 decent games. Kelly and Tate were the best players and before injury Cole would have been third. I will make any internet bet with you guys that Iowa has a better record this year both overall and in the Big Ten. Maybe we'll even be as good as Lewis College and can take you to the wire in Champaign. But then again in about the 3rd week you guys both said Iowa football was "awful" "lousy" would be fighting for the bottom of the league. Your disdain for the school clouds your judgment.

Why?

It was 4th and 8 after they got Royster for the big loss. Running into the kicker makes it 4th and 3 and they punt again. I don't know that you can just say the others were more important. That was a possession changing call in the 4th quarter that allowed PSU to take 3.5 more minutes off the clock and get into position to score and put the game away.

it's still the wrong call. I disagree but I'm obviously biased. I do see your point but when you impede a receivers progress that early it's almost automatic. I really don't understand how they called roughing the kicker on the 4th quarter punt either though. I mean the punters leg came down on his head, that's running into at the worst.

Wow that was awesome. Guys that pass interference will always be called in that situation. You can argue about his right to the ball but anytime a defender makes that kind of contact that early before the ball arrives, you get a flag. Now the non-grounding you have a case. I thought the roughing the kicker call could have at least been running into the kicker. This was such a huge win for the state of the program. It will still be a "what could have been" season with the 4 losses by 12 points and all the chances they had, but it might be bigger than had we won two of them and lost today. Oh yeah and Greene over 100 for the 10th straight game.

Picked up the College Basketball Prospectus today (it's great but I hate how they make their conference predictions) and Iowa's first exhibition game is Sunday. I'm ready. As far as starting lineup, really no one knows at this point. Here's my best guess as of now: PG- Jeff Peterson SG- Jake Kelly SF- Matt Gatens PF- Jarryd Cole C- Cyrus Tate

It was a bad call and not the first one this year. Hell just in Iowa's games they've benefited from 2 others and had 2 bad ones called against them.

As I said, same script as the other three losses. Red zone inefficiency and a huge turnover. First 4 trips to the red zone yielded 9 points which is just terrible. 1st and goal that many times you should come away with at least 16-17 points and that likely would have been enough for the win. Stanzi played poorly for most of the day and the o-line was worse than they've been all year. Defense played well again just too bad they couldn't get a stop after we come back and tie it. 4 losses by a total of 12 points and numerous chances in each one to get the win if you don't kill yourself every trip inside the red zone. So close yet so far away. i was arguing with some hawkeye fan on another site all week about this. he was bragging that the hawkeyes, while not as dangerous an offense as the illini, were more efficient in the red zone. he actually produced several graphs to back himself up. i thought his argument was dumb, even if he was right, though. his argument was based on the hawkeyes ranking in points scored being fairly consistent with their ranking in total offense. Northwestern game- 6 trips, 24 points MSU game- 6 trips, 13 points Illinois game- 5 trips, 16 points

As I said, same script as the other three losses. Red zone inefficiency and a huge turnover. First 4 trips to the red zone yielded 9 points which is just terrible. 1st and goal that many times you should come away with at least 16-17 points and that likely would have been enough for the win. Stanzi played poorly for most of the day and the o-line was worse than they've been all year. Defense played well again just too bad they couldn't get a stop after we come back and tie it. 4 losses by a total of 12 points and numerous chances in each one to get the win if you don't kill yourself every trip inside the red zone. So close yet so far away.