College basketball schedules are stupid

Iowa has 30 regular season games this year. 14 out of conference and 16 in conference.

That means Iowa plays 4 Big 10 teams only once. That is so sad that I can’t believe it. Especially with nearly half of their games being out of conference.

They need to get rid of some non conference games and/or some bye weeks during conference so that everybody plays each other twice. After all, I would much prefer to watch Iowa struggle against OSU, Michigan, Purdue and even Northwestern who keeps beating Iowa year after year than play another game against Coppin State, Georgia State, Texas Southern, or Texas Pan American.

I don’t want to hear any arguments about needing to wait until after finals to start the conference play. If finals are that disrupting than nobody should be playing anybody during that time. Enough with scheduling easy, non conference teams during that period. Either start the season earlier or end it later and get the good conference games in instead of having half the games be non conference games that nobody cares about.

Who signs Alford’s paycheck?

Iowa held Wisconsin to 57 points despite Tucker pretty much scoring every time he looked at the ball. That’s pretty decent. That will keep the Hawkeyes in the game.

But, between 12:34 and 2:38 in the first half, Iowa scored exactly 2 free throws. Two whopping points in nearly 10 minutes. Then they opened the second half by going more than 3 minutes without scoring and then had another 4 minute span later in the second half where no points were scored by the Hawkeyes.

That is 3 spans of 17 minutes where 2 points were scored. That is not going to win many ball games.

I would like to give all the credit to the Badgers. They are an outstanding team that I expect to continue with their incredible start. I would love to watch them win it all this year and will not be surprised when it happens.

Unfortunately, the Hawkeyes play the own role in their offensive futilities. I can’t remember many games that I have watched over the past several years where Iowa did not have two or three cold spells several minutes long.

I know Alford preaches good defense…and I love good defense. But, shouldn’t one of the best shooters in NCAA history spend a little time teaching the team how to put the ball in the basket.

I’m starting to think that Alford staying around in Iowa is an Indiana conspiracy. Alford must be taking Hoosier money to do just well enough to keep his job but not well enough to have a competitive team.

Alamo Bowl Postgame

The Alamo Bowl went quite a bit differently than I expected. I was expecting around a 10 point loss but also to never really feel like Iowa had a chance against Texas.

Instead, Iowa had the lead for much of the game. Take back the reverse that lost enough yards to put the team out of field goal range and there’s a chance that Iowa squeeks out a win.

One thing I was very excited to see was the improvement the wide receivers seemed to have made between the last Big 10 game and the bowl game; especially Brodell. He played amazingly.

Something that will be interesting to see next year is whether Christianson is as good as he is supposed to be or whether any of the other new QBs on the roster have a chance to steal the spot.

Before Tate, we had several years in a row where the QB played one year and then graduated. Tate gave us some consistancy at the position. He is moving on and the team will have to find a new leader.

The good side of breaking in a new quarterback is that it should force us to rely more on the running game that I would have loved to have seen used more often this year.

Now it is time to put football behind us and move on to basketball. I’ll have to try and catch a few minutes of the Iowa - Illinois game tonight.

Iowa - Michigan State recap

I only was able to watch the end of both halfs of the Iowa - Michigan State basketball game (about 5-6 minutes of game time for each half). That was a nice win. Any time that Henderson and Haluska go a combined 4-20 from the field and Iowa still wins against a decent team, you know it was a good team game.

I was stunned to see how confident Smith and Tate played in their first Big 10 game. Very impressive. Everybody else seems to be playing very confidently, too.

At one point the rebound margin was 11 to 22 in favor of MSU, but Iowa managed to close the rebound gap to 26-30. I’ll say it until the season is over but this Iowa team really needs to improve its rebounding. They played such great defense last night but ended up giving up 12 offensive rebounds. When you play that good of defense, you really need to get a hold of the ball off the board so you can rest up a little on offense. Playing strong defense is exhausting.

I also enjoyed watching Haluska and Neitzel nailing the free throws down the stretch. With so much bad free throw shooting in basketball these days, it is amazing to watch the top two free throw shooters in the nation go at it with the pressure of the game on their shoulders and just drill free throw after free throw. Nobody in the game missed more than 1 free throw all night.

Another stat that pleased me is the turnover to steal ratio for the Hawkeyes. 7 turnovers and 8 steals. That is going to put you in position to win a lot of games and is especially important against teams that can put pressure on the ball like MSU normally does.

Congratulations to Alford for the 300th win. Keep up the strong defense and keep the athletic recruits coming in and you might just win me over. This team looks significantly better physically than a lot of the Iowa teams over the last few years.

Is it just me, or does Smith look an awful lot like Worley’s little brother?

Tags: Iowa Hawkeyes, Michigan State Spartans, college basketball, Big 10

What I saw of the Fiesta Bowl

I turned on the Fiesta Bowl very late in the game. In fact, Adrian Peterson had just ran for his overtime touchdown and they were showing the replay when I turned the game on. I had heard that Boise State had started the 1st quarter getting a good jump on Oklahoma I figured the game was all but over. I didn’t find out about the miracle 4th and 18 that Boise State converted to get into overtime or I might have had a little more faith in the Broncos.

I watched exactly one series where Boise State had the ball. They are so much fun to watch. Everybody shifts at least twice before they snap the ball. And when they do snap the ball, they don’t always snap it to the quarterback. And no matter who they snap the ball to, he’s liable to throw it…unless of course he fakes the throw and hands it off behind his back.

Wacky and hugely entertaining and then the crazy kid asked his cheerleader girlfriend to marry him. For a second, I thought that I was watching a movie. Stuff like that does not happen in real life.

I will always enjoy the Sooners getting beaten, but loosing the way they did was particularly entertaining.

Congratulations Broncos.

Tags: Fiesta Bowl, Oklahoma Sooners, Boise State Broncos