106th Edition - 3/1/07

• Special Guest: Brian Schneckloth Hunt

This fits all too well. Brian is the biggest Hawkeye fan I know. He lives in Portland and makes sure to watch as many football and basketball games as possible. Even if it means driving 45 minutes to the one bar that is dead enough where they will let him watch anything. So, before last night the Hawks had two games left. On the road against Penn State (lost 13 in a row) and home against Illinois... That is when Brian wrote this, before the two point loss to the Nittany Lions.

How 'Bout them Hawkeyes

As a Hawkeye basketball fan since birth, I've become accustomed to the one, singular consistency with my beloved team: Preseason expectations never match up with actual performance. Essentially,whatever SHOULD happen...won't. At the beginning of the 05-06 season, Iowa was tauted as being a likely final four caliber team. They had the league's best rebounder in Greg Brunner, the best shot blocker in Erik Hanson, and Jeff Horner--the undisputed all around team leader for the last four years.

They were skilled, they were deep, and they were destined to be a disappointment. While the Hawks ended up getting 25 wins and a Big Ten Tournament title, they exited the NCAA tournament in the first round at the hands of "Who the heck is" Northwestern St, a game regarded as the biggest upset in the tournament. The 2006-2007 season began with much more promise, however. Before the first practice, Pierre Pierce was sentenced to prison; one of Iowa's more promising players and a former Mr. Basketball, Carlton Reed, quit the team; returning senior Mike Henderson and freshman Tyler Smith got busted for shoplifting, and Henderson later broke his finger.

The Hawkeyes only had 1 returning starter in Adam Haluska, who had so far underachieved in his two years at Iowa. They were picked by most publications to finish 8th or 9th in the Big Ten. I was thrilled. They SHOULD be awful. I immediately bought Directv and the season pass to watch every game. I knew this was going to be an exciting season. And it has been. They began with a 7-6 preconference record, including ridiculously embarrassing losses to UNI and Drake (the first lost to Drake since 1992). This hurt. But despite the pain in the early going, some bright spots began to emerge.

Adam Haluska's legit. He'd been in the shadow of Horner and Brunner and was a role player no more. With two games left in the regular season, he's the league's leading scorer, is a finalist for the Naismith award, and was just named Academic All-American of the Year by ESPN. Tyler Smith, though just a freshman, has the most talent on the team. He's the best player Iowa has had since the BJ Armstrong/Roy Marble era, and if Greg Oden had never been born, Smith would be Big Ten freshman of the year.

Other newcomers to the team have made big strides since those first13 games. This is only Kurt Looby's 3rd year ever playing basketball and he's starting to figure out that he's physically longer than everyone else on the court. Cyrus Tate was a Junior College All-American, and he's looking more comfortable playing in the Big Ten. Returning veterans Seth Gorney, Mike Henderson, and Tony Freemanhave been contributing more each game. Freeman will be a stud next year. JR Angle is the only player on the team that makes me nervous when he's on the court. Despite being one of the best high school players in Indiana 3 years ago, he just looks lost when he has the ball. Hopefully he can figure things out for next year but I don't see it happening.

So here we are with a week left in the regular season, and the Hawksare 8-6 in the Big Ten and 16-12 overall. If they win their last 2 games (scarily, 2 games they SHOULD win), they can do no worse than 3rd in the Big Ten. Alford's teams have always done well in the Big Ten tournament, and with another solid performance, they could get into the big dance. If that happens, everyone will expect them to lose in the opening round. That's when the Hawkeyes are most dangerous.

If we lose tonight, the whole conclusion to the article is worthless. Not sure what you want to do about that.

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Added Thursday morning ...

so disappointed. penn st had lost like 13 in a row and they beat us.
i'll have to rewrite the ending of my thing. now the only hope is to win the big ten tournament again.
i hate that.

Poor kid. Good thing I wrote the Hawks off weeks ago, saved me the pain ... OK that's not entirely true, I thought they had a chance if they finished 3rd in the Big Ten. But I like the idea of them winning some NIT games this year.