hawkeyecub

The Big Ten spots are really tough to call. Obviously Wisconsin, OSU and Indiana are in. Barring a collapse I think MSU is in also. I think there's one more spot to grab. Saturday will be big. I think both Illinois and Purdue could be upset. Penn State and Northwestern have been giving teams scares and coming close to getting that big upset. They both have a shot at home on Saturday. If Purdue loses I think they're done. I really don't see Illinois winning at Iowa on Senior's Day. Iowa is just a much better team at home and no one in that middle pack of the Big Ten is beating each other on the road. Iowa needs to win their last two (at PSU and vs. Ill) to get to 18-12, 10-6. At that point they'll still need to win the 4/5 game and likely get an upset on that Saturday against OSU or Wisconsin. I think if we accomplish all of that we'll get in but it will obviously be extremely difficult.

I'm glad Lou isn't falling into that trap of skipping the 5th man. It's rarely ever a good idea for the long-term and makes no sense with this team. I hope we don't stick with 12 pitchers all year though.

Illinois fans, what's the latest on the Smith/Carlwell car accident? Not trying to flame at all, it just sounds like things have gotten a little mysterious. The report is that Smith drove home (I don't know how he drove that car the 2 miles or whatever his place was from the accident) after the accident and went into the apartment, leaving Carlwell in the car. Then a neighbor saw the car and called the police.

well, i guarantee that guenther isn't going to let the school slip into perrenial mediocrity again. if bruce can't get the players, bruce won't be the coach. Ok tell me that again in two months when Liggins and Lewis Jackosn are committed to Iowa. if weber loses lewjack, he's done, period. He is going to. If he wasn't he would have already been ours. I think Illinois is still the team to beat for Jackson. You're right though, it is encouraging (for us) that Lewis didn't commit when Illinois offered as many thought he would. I'm a little more confident about Liggins as long as his academics are in order.

Iowa up 35-31 at halftime at Wisconsin. Unfortunately Tyler Smith injured his hand late in the half and didn't return.

The Iowa player we got wanted to come to ND all along, just never had an offer - Kirk Ferentz pretty much admitted as much. Once he was offered (because ND lost out on other players it wanted more at the time, and because Corwin Brown's new scheme as DC made Brian Smith a much better fit), he committed pretty much immediately. When did Ferentz admit as much? Please, show me. As far as him wanting to go there all along, he didn't lead the coaches to believe that. "I can't see anywhere else being a better place to go than Iowa" "Iowa is number one on my list and they're the only one on my list" "It's Iowa from here on out and that's it, Iowa is the right place for me". The Iowa staff had no problems when he was thinking about visiting Kansas State after his commitment because he was honest and upfront about it. Once Notre Dame offered it was suddenly his dad (ND alum) handling everything and it came after he promised them he was set on Iowa with no doubts. Thus when he scheduled the visit to ND they pulled his offer (although he was likely going to ND anyways). ndistops- Comparing Irsay moving a professional franchise out of town in the middle of the night to a high school kid switching commitments is a very poor and strange analogy. Seriously.

I'd like to say that I completely approve of all of that. I'd like to say it's totally classless... so is hiring a lowlife like thuggins to lead a basketball program. When you hire someone like him, people are going to make jokes about it. LMAO! Like he's any more of a low life than half of the coaches out there. Give me a break. So, the guy got a DUI? So did I years ago, but does that make me a lowlife? It's all preception What's really funny is how you make such excuses for him, put your head in the sand and act like he's no different than anyone else. You're too much. When he was hired you had to ask us on this board about his past becuase you didn't know. But you're right. The whole basketball world is wrong but you K-State fans defending Huggins' character are right. Brilliant! If you weren't such an over-the-top apologist and homer, I doubt people would say as much. But you refuse to admit that the man is slimier than the majority of coaches out there. You refused to admit there was anything wrong with his recruiting of certain players and refused to admit that O.J. Mayo had any character problems until it was clear he wasn't heading to KSU. How convenient. Homer- No... He's just done nothing yet to make me think he's "slimy" I love all the negativity toward him though, the majority of which I think comes from him winning games. I could provide quite a few examples of other coaches who have done the same sorts of things as huggins in their past, and when I get a chance to do so today, I'll provide examples. It doesn't bother me at all that people don't like him, I couldn't care less. The classless thing though was the KU newspaper, and that was my point. Jealousy of him winning games? Who would be jealous? Unless you were a Conference USA fan, his winning really wouldn't bother anyone because he didn't win very much in the NCAA's. Nice try though. You're just too much. illiniguy, yes most fans do that to some extent. But many fans can at least understand why people get perceptions of their players/coaches. This guy refuses to admit that Thuggins has ever done anything wrong. This just in: When you don't know enough about a guy that you have to come here and ask us about his past, you probably don't look very smart when you later say that all of the perceptions about him from the ENTIRE basketball world in the country are wrong and you're right. How do you not understand that?

I'd like to say that I completely approve of all of that. I'd like to say it's totally classless... so is hiring a lowlife like thuggins to lead a basketball program. When you hire someone like him, people are going to make jokes about it. LMAO! Like he's any more of a low life than half of the coaches out there. Give me a break. So, the guy got a DUI? So did I years ago, but does that make me a lowlife? It's all preception What's really funny is how you make such excuses for him, put your head in the sand and act like he's no different than anyone else. You're too much. When he was hired you had to ask us on this board about his past becuase you didn't know. But you're right. The whole basketball world is wrong but you K-State fans defending Huggins' character are right. Brilliant! If you weren't such an over-the-top apologist and homer, I doubt people would say as much. But you refuse to admit that the man is slimier than the majority of coaches out there. You refused to admit there was anything wrong with his recruiting of certain players and refused to admit that O.J. Mayo had any character problems until it was clear he wasn't heading to KSU. How convenient.

Big 91-78 road win for Iowa at Minnesota, simply because of how we usually play up there. Very strange game. Minnesota is a good defensive team with a terrible offense yet they allowed us to shoot 59% and they shot 63%. Everything was going in. Haluska had 34 points on 14 shots. 10-14 from the field, 6-10 from 3 and 8-8 from the line. He also had 8 assists and 6 boards. Although Tucker probably has it wrapped up, Adam is making a case for POY. Iowa now sits at 14-10, 6-4. If they can win the 3 home games (Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois) and win at PSU (other road games are at Wisconsin and MSU) they'll be 18-12, 10-6 and have a case for the NCAA's with a good showing in the BTT. Not counting on it, but it's amazing that it's even a possibility.

I read it and was responding to the first part, which is why I said "almost always". If you want to say that you can't have morals, fine. But don't go on national TV and drag the two kids who left through the mud. I really wouldn't care if it weren't for that. But don't act like committments are some principle to be honored and then try to steal away commits from other schools in the last two weeks. You can't have it both ways.

what a d-bag. That sounds awfully hollow after ND just took two recruits who had previously committed to Iowa and Louisville. Different situations. The Iowa recruit consisted pretty much of ND offering and him changing his mind due to the offer. The Louisville recruit was a coaching change, i.e. the coaching change that cost ND a bunch of recruits in 2004-05. However, ND's far from innocent of this. There's a Washington Post article today in which former QB coach Peter Vaas was pursuing Arrelious Benn pretty aggressively after he was committed to Illinois. Funny how it's almost always a different situation when ND is involved. Smith had been committed for almost 6 months and taken multiple visits. He helped recruit others to Iowa. The point is Charlie puts on a face for the cameras that he's all about committment and being honorable about them. He's upset that someone would back out of a committment to him. Yet he has no dilemna's when it comes to trying to snatch away commits from other schools, the very week before signing day. What a man of principle.

Anyone hear about Charlie Weiss' comments on ESPN today after two major guys decommitted? He said he asked if the word "committment" meant anything? Of course in the next breath he talked about landing Brian Smith, a 4 star linebacker from Kansas who has been committed to Iowa for months. Eric Johnson (Iowa ass't) was on the radio saying that in the last two weeks they've swooped in on 4 of Iowa's recruits. Broderick Binns a DE commit from Minnesota told the staff that a Notre Dame assistant told Binns, "the word committment means nothing". I don't think anyone is shedding any tears that Charlie lost a couple today. There was another story about him handing a ring to a coach and having him walk it across the room for a junior to see during the no-contact period.

Alford is doing a hell of a job with your team this year. Probably the best job he's ever done. Too bad nobody around here is noticing. Yeah a lot of my friends still live in Iowa City and they claim that attendance and interest is really bad. It is a shame really, he should be in consideration for coach of the big 10. Seriously with what he has coming back they should have been terrible, but they are actually very good now. It just took a while to get the pieces to fit together. They have a reasonable shot at 10-6 in the Big Ten right now, which seemed absurd 6 weeks ago. They would have to beat Northwestern, Purdue and Illinois at home and win at Minnesota and Penn State. The games at Wisconsin and MSU will be losses. Maybe not real probable, but at least it's realistic. We'll see if they can keep it going. We never play well at Minnesota and they always seem to play spoiler when we have something on the line. People didn't think Haluska could handle being the #1 guy this well and Tyler Smith has been even better than anyone imagined. Hopefully he doesn't listen to any bad advice and decide to leave after this year. He still needs to improve his outside shot, ball handling and defense to be a sure 1st round pick. Really the difference has been the improvement of the big guys though. We were getting destroyed on the glass all year and now they've outrebounded Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana in one week. They did enough things right with turnovers, rebounds and defense to beat Wisconsin last week. We just couldn't get Tucker to miss and Smith/Haluska (6-35) couldn't throw it in the ocean.

Huge comeback win for Iowa last night, winning at Michigan 69-62. We were down by 14 at one point and down by 11 with about 13 minutes to go before putting a 20-1 run on them. The key was Tony Freeman giving us some rare true PG play (14 points on 6 FGA, 7 assists, 2 turnovers). Haluska had 17 points, 10 boards, Smith had 22 points, 8 boards and 5 assists. At 4-4 and with the hardest part of our schedule behind us, we keep our slim hopes of an NCAA bid alive. We would have to win out at home (IU, Illinois, Purdue, Northwestern) and get wins at Minnesota and Northwestern to finish at 10-6, 18-12 overall. Then you at least enter the BTT with a chance of an at-large bid. Regardless we need to get a win over a hot IU team on Saturday. Hopefully they're due for a letdown after a huge win.

He was hurt for most of that. In '05 he hit .290/.382/.533 against righties. In '04 it was .269/.373/.512. When healthy, he's a better bet to hit righties than Murton. But in order to keep him healthy, I think they know they can't play him too much. So Murton will still get his playing time. This can be a productive outfield if we play our cards right.

we can always call hin A-Sor Please don't. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when that nickname fad ends.

Bo Ryan never plays Northwestern well. I can't explain it for the life of me. There are a lot of teams that struggle at Northwestern, non more than Iowa. It's a different style of play, different kinds of players and strange environment compared to the rest of the Big Ten. I've been in Evanston for two Iowa losses in the past five years in Evanston. It really is odd. The building wasn't full and not loud, which I think throws off the opposing team. Then you see 5 guys who you would expect to see at the local YMCA. Then they use this style of play you haven't seen all season to take you out of your game and dictate tempo. On top of that they never seem to miss a shot down the stretch. No disrespect at all to Northwestern or it's fans that are here. It works for them and that's all that matters. It's just a completely different experience than you encounter in any other Big Ten road game. I hate it. By the way, ugly 60-49 win by Iowa at home over Minnesota today.

Yeah it would have been nice if we had any kind of interior post defense to stop Randle's drives. The amount of uncontested dunks Illinois had during that 7 minute stretch in the second half was sickening. Carter had two 3's, a 17 footer and probably one or two of those dunks during that spurt. Tough loss. Iowa really played well to close out that first half and for the first 6 minutes of the second half. After getting up 45-39 we had 3 straight turnovers and all hell broke loose. We only had 5 turnovers in the first half and then had 10 in the first 12 minutes of the second half. That was compounded by the fact that it seemed as if the Illini got either a dunk or 3 off of every one of them. Illinois almost handed it to us down the stretch and if our PG's had made a decent decision on the last two possessions we might have been able to pull it off.

What do the Illini fans think of the Iowa game tomorrow night? Is it true that Jamar Smith is likely out? Iowa will need Cyrus Tate to have a game like he had against Michigan State (14 points, 9 boards, 6-7 FG) to have a chance at winning in Champaign. Not to mention needing Haluska to have a good shooting night and get some decent PG play.

Desmond Howard at his finest. Picking the Cal/Texas Holiday Bowl as his most intruiging game, not realizing that Cal plays A&M. How does he still have a job?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOn77rGFqCs

All that being said. I'd prefer it if they didn't have to call him up this April. Same here, I've been in favor of a short-term stopgap or just hanging onto Jacque in CF, at least to begin the year. But if he does get the everyday job and gets consistent time at the bottom of the order, he won't have been rushed all that much and won't be doomed to follow Corey's path.

They shouldn't rush Pie. Because, you know, rushing Patterson had such fantastic results. I think the situations have a chance to be quite different. Patterson had less than 1000 pro PA before his first callup. Patterson skipped high A ball. Patterson had only a partial season of AAA under his belt (and it was really bad) - and his numbers regressed as he got promoted. Patterson got the yoyo treatment, both in terms of callup, and usage. He sat the bench a lot as well. And I believe the biggest problem was that when he was drafted, they said "despite the fact that he's a fast CF, he's not a leadoff hitter, he's more of a middle of the order guy", and then they let silly old school managers try to turn him into a slappy leadoff hitter. Felix has well over 2000 pro PA. He's been in rookie ball, low A, high A, AA and AAA (with an extremely brief stop in short season ball). Felix's numbers improved at each level from low A to AA, and his AAA numbers improved as the season went along. Pie has had professional developmental people for 5 years, compared to Corey's 2.5. If the Cubs callup Pie, and hit him 7th everyday this season, with a couple rest days against really tough lefties and/or when he's in a funk, I don't think he will necessarily have teh same fate as Patterson. I simply do not understand why people continue to ignore all of this. Playing him everyday in CF this year is not rushing him that much. He's had a chance to play at each level and because of his production, he's earned promotions. That combined with how early he started leads you to why he's been so young at AA and AAA. It's not like they were just trying to get him through the system quickly and elevating him without results. As you said he hasn't been jerked up and down and had his role change as he went between levels. They really aren't that comparable at all.

I'll be shocked if Soriano isn't at least .340 next year. Shocked? Are you kidding me? Shocked? You'd be shocked if he had an OBP that wasn't higher than his OBP in every season but 2006? I'm shocked any reasonable person would think this way. There's no way a .335 OBP can be a surprise to anybody next season. I wouldn't agree with being shocked, but I'm expecting him to put up a .340+ OBP. In 706 AB's from the leadoff spot over the last three years he's had a .354 OBP. In '03 it was .342 in 627 AB's. I don't know if there's any rhyme or reason to it, but he does get on base much more often from the leadoff spot. Hopefully the new hitting coach can help out a little bit as well.

He's an upgrade over Mabry if nothing else. He's not real patient, but has some pop. Over the last 3 years he's hit .277/.340/.492 in 654 AB's against RH'ers.

I know I did.