Iowa playing Syracuse under the lights

I was very disappointed that the Iowa - Syracuse football game was moved to a night game this fall.

My wife is pregnant and due in the middle of October. I had to sell most of my season tickets and the only home game I am going to be able to go to is the Syracuse game.

The kids are 4 1/2 so I was thinking of taking them to the game so they could get the experience and my wife could get a weekend home alone late in her pregnancy.

We have to drive 4 hours to get to the game and my kids are pretty much incapable of staying up after 8pm. There’s no way that they could make it through the Syracuse game.

If I was going to be able to go to a normal number of games, I would actually consider taking them just to watch the first quarter and then leave. They could sleep on the way home. Plus at this age they won’t want to be at the stadium for much more than a quarter anyway.

But, it is my only game at Kinnick this year. The only other game that I’ll be going to is the season opener against Northern Illinois at Soldier Field.

It looks like the kids will have to wait until 2008. Since I’ll be home more Saturdays this fall, I’ll work on getting them hooked on watching the games on TV.

Hawkeyes as a 3 point shooting team

It sounds like Lickliter is going to turn the Hawkeyes into a 3 point shooting type of team. Butler had a history of making quite a few 3 pointers a game and it seems like he is focusing on getting some sharp shooters on the team as quickly as possible.

One of the things I hated about the Hawkeyes when Alford was coaching is how often they shot 3 pointers. But, I’m still pretty excited about Lickliter.

The thing I have hated about Iowa shooting 3 pointers over the recent years is they never really had enough shooters to do it well. Every year it seems like we have one guy who hits quite a few but is pretty inconsistent despite ending up with a relatively good overall percentage. Then everybody else seems to have really poor percentages from beyond the arc. That isn’t a very good formula. Plus, the big guys at Iowa just haven’t been that impressive recently

I remember way too many periods of guards just dribbling or passing the ball around the arc until the shot clock got low and chucking up a 3. When the offense moved and picked and executed under Alford it was great. But there were almost always 8-10 minute stretches were the ball wouldn’t go through the hoop.

Hopefully Lickliter will get enough real shooters that can consistently run the offense to get nice, clean, open 3 point shots. It seemed to work at Butler. Hopefully he’ll be able to get the same kind of players to come to Iowa.

Bulls to the second round

Growing up around Chicago during the Jordan era, I was pretty much sucked into the Bulls mania. I didn’t hurt that B.J. Armstrong and Bobby Hansen both played for the Bulls during that stretch. I was able to watch games at both stadiums and much prefer the dirtier, older one that actually felt like a place for basketball rather than a really nice mall.

Since that time, pro basketball has all but disappeared for Chicago. Young talent would come and go but nothing would work for more than a couple games. Plus each season would start with the horrible west coast stretch while the circus was in town.

Skiles is putting together a pretty good team, though and people are starting to notice. I’m sure Miami is pretty aware of the improvements with the Bulls.

For the first time since Jordan last played for the Bulls, the Bulls have advanced to the second round of the playoffs. Congrats.

Even better for fans Bulls fans during the 90s, they get to play Detroit next. And they get Ben Wallace to help out against his old team. I’m sure this will be a pretty intense series no matter how it shakes out. Good luck Bulls.