Iowa Hawkeye Coaches I remember

I have been watching the Hawkeyes since I was a little kid. The first coach I remember is Lute Olson. Since then, we have seen George Raveling, Tom Davis, and Steve Alford.

I was flipping through the media guide and decided to compare those coaches.

Tom Davis is the winningest Iowa coach ever with more than 100 wins more than the next closest, Lute Olson. He had a career .658 overall and .543 Big Ten record. He has always been my favorite since I was playing basketball during his time. I love teams that full court press and are not afraid to rotate players frequently.

Lute Olson didn’t do too bad either with a .651 overall and an even better .568 Big Ten record. It was very frustrating to watch him win the championship with Arizona but I still always vote for him unless he is playing Iowa.

George Raveling may not have had the winning percentage (.587 overall/.481 Big Ten) but his teams were a lot of fun to watch. The physicalness and athleticism were awesome.

So, how does Steve Alford compare. He is a little better overall the Raveling (.595). But, his Big Ten record was even worse at only .464.

One thing I will give Alford credit for is being able to get the team ready for the Big Ten tournament. If he could do anything nearly as competitive in the NCAA tournament, I could forgive the poor conference record.

Here’s a fun fact. The winningest coach percentage wise for Iowa was Ed Rule who coached 1902, 1904, 1906, and 1908. A different coach handled each of 1903, 1905, and 1907. Three different coaches. That’s seems pretty weird.

Big Ten Basketball Preseason

I am a pretty huge Hawkeye basketball fan. I dreamt of playing basketball for the Hawkeyes all through high school. I even attended the Hawkeye basketball camp and got to shake Tom Davis’ hand when I accepted 1 of the 4 camp MVP awards.

But, I have never been able to get into college basketball until the Big 10 starts. All the games against the weird teams, most of which are not very good, just does very little to inspire me. I have barely paid enough attention to know that the Hawks are 5-5 and not playing very well without Mike Henderson. Hopefully, he will get up to full speed before January 4th.

College basketball is a unique beast. I cannot think of another sport where the first quarter of your schedule is as unimportant as in college basketball. I know that those preconference games are important when you are on the bubble during Selection Sunday. At this point in the season they are a bit uninspiring, though. Everybody knows that if you win half or more of your Big 10 games and don’t suck too badly before the Big 10 starts, that you are going to play in the NCAA Tournament.

Normally, Big 10 teams come into conference play with a good record at the expense of a bunch of cupcakes. With Iowa’s 5 losses already, they really need to make sure they win these next 4 games. Especially since they lost to every good team they have played this year.

Despite the near urgency of these next 4 games, I still will have trouble caring about any of them besides the Drake game. And, that is only because I am a HUGE Tom Davis fan.

Wake me up when the Big 10 starts.

Tags: Iowa Hawkeyes, college basketball, Big 10

Playing Texas in the Alamo Bowl

I’ll go on record as saying that Iowa does not deserve to play in a bowl game this year. Any team that loses 5 of their last 6 games is on shaky ground at best.

The biggest win for the Hawkeyes this season was probably the Northern Illinois game. The only two road wins were at Syracuse and Illinois. That is one sad season.

Then, the scheduling gods determine that the Hawkeyes would be a good match for Texas in the Alamo Bowl. Ouch. I am not expecting an miracles.

The good news about getting into a bowl game is that Iowa gets to practice for several weeks longer than they would have if they did not get a bowl game. And, Iowa could use some practice.

Speaking of stupid rules. Is there one much dumber than saying that only the teams that get into a bowl game get the extra weeks of practice? Isn’t it really the teams that did not make it into a bowl that should need that extra practice the most? The season should end after the BCS Championship game and everybody should be able to practice until then. Some teams end up getting something like 6 or 7 weeks less practice than others. That’s just wrong.

[edited to fix several really horrendous typo/grammar type of things. Must not write while sleeping anymore. Thanks, Jeff for actually bothering to read that as it was originally written]