The NWCA National Duals finally announced seeds and and brackets earlier this week for this weekend's event. The location of the finals will be announced at the end of the weekend as well as the bracket for the semifinals and finals -- there's no indication, for instance, that the Ames regional winner will face the Piscataway regional winner in the semifinals. My guess is that they'll seed the finals based on the four remaining teams and then use that to set up the matchups.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no TV coverage of this event planned. According to this link, there will be a live video stream available, as well as a live webcast from The Open Mat. AM 800-KXIC and Hawkeye All-Access will also have Grace and Ironside calling the action. Competition starts at 11am tomorrow, although Iowa won't wrestle until 1pm. (If they win, they'll wrestle again at 3pm.) We'll have an open thread here and I imagine Andy Hamitlon will have a liveblog on Hawk Central.

Ames, IA regional (Feb. 12)
1) Iowa (#5)
2) Oregon State (#16)
3) Iowa State
4) Virginia Tech (#23)
5) UNI
6) Wisconsin

First round: ISU vs. Wisconsin, Va Tech v. UNI; Iowa and Oregon State receive byes
Semifinals: Iowa vs. Va Tech/UNI, Oregon State vs. ISU/Wisconsin
Finals: TBA

On paper, Iowa certainly got the easiest regional of the four. There are only three ranked teams here, and only one (Iowa) is ranked in the top ten. The inclusion of Wisconsin, one of the worst teams in the nation this year, points out the flaws of using an invitation-based system rather than a merit-based system, though. Literally any other Big Ten team would have been more worthy of a spot here than the Badgers. Oh well. Iowa is the decided favorite and should win this regional.

Piscataway, NJ regional (Feb. 11)
1) Minnesota (#4)
2) Michigan (#11)
3) Missouri (#13)
4) Kent State (#14)
5) Rutgers
6) Cal Poly

First round: Missouri v. Cal Poly, Kent State v. Rutgers; Minnesota and Michigan receive byes
Semifinals: Minnesota v. Kent State/Rutgers, Michigan v. Missouri/Cal Poly
Finals: TBA

Minnesota earns the top seed here and will likely battle it out with Michigan or Missouri for the available semifinal spot. They beat Michigan in a dual earlier this season, 23-15, and it's difficult to see either Michigan or Missouri having the top-to-bottom depth to upset the Gophers.

Continue reading this post »

¡Bienvenido a Hamsterdam! Si Will Ferrell puede aprender español para unpapel en una película, entonces se puede gestionar por una noche, verdad? Así que aquí está, la primera Hamsterdam íntegramente español. Tener en él, usetedes.

Continue reading this post »

Iowa's Athletic Director Gary Barta met with members of the media yesterday and took questions on the open coaching positions, Mika'il McCall and the Big Ten's playoff proposal.

Barta says next week is when interviews begin for Iowa's openings on the football coaching staff. The lone opening on the defensive side is linebacker coach and LeVar Woods is thought to be the leader in the clubhouse. An official announcement naming a new LB coach could come next week. The openings on the offensive side could take a little longer.

Per Barta,

"[Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz] decided his best option was to promote on the defensive coordinator [Phil Parker]," Barta said. "Now that's done, he [Ferentz] turns his attention to the two assistant coaches first, not the offensive coordinator. We have a process on campus, and football follows that process just like everyone else does."

About the length of time, Barta adds,

"Whether it's hiring a coach or an administrator, we have a process of approval we have to go through," Barta said. "We have to advertise the position a certain number of days and we work with the campus human resources and have done that throughout."

Marc Morehouse points out that the process is same whether Iowa hires from within or from outside the program.

Some other tidbits from Morehouse's piece:

• Barta wants to fight for a post season tournament game for the men's hoops team
• Barta wants to fight to retain the Big Ten's connection with the Rose Bowl
• Barta is for the seven win minimum for bowl eligibility
• Mika'il McCall wasn't suspended for his "strait bullshit" Facebook post

"We do not kick off or suspend student-athletes in any sport for a Facebook posting or a Twitter," Barta said. "We have conversations with them about it."

Iowa added that the Athletic Department has "social media guidelines" and that student athlete activity is monitored. Barta concluded with,

"Since I've been here, we have not removed someone from the athletic department or from a team for something they said in social media."

Sally Mason says that Iowa isn't "hiding behind anything." Marcus Coker, like McCall, was suspended and decided to transfer from Iowa. Mason and Iowa officials will not release information about the investigation regarding Coker and cites the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Mason adds,

"One of the things we pride ourselves on is that students have a right to privacy,"

Mason also mentions this,

releasing student information protected by FERPA could result in the school losing all of its federal funding - about $400million.

Long story short, Mason doesn't want to get sued.

After the jump, hoops and more links.

Continue reading this post »

[Video still credit: BTN.com]

The game in brief: Iowa got absolutely murdered, giving up 83 points in a relatively slow 60-possession game, allowing 13 three-pointers and an almost unheard of 70% effective field goal percentage while turning the ball over one out of every three possessions. And all this to a team that only played six players significant minutes. This was Iowa's worst defensive performance of the year in terms of points per possession; worse than Indiana, worse than Michigan State, worse than Creighton. The only bright spots were that Aaron White played another outstanding all-around game, scoring 17 points on just 10 shots and grabbing 12 rebounds, that Matt Gatens had a good shooting game, and that the team as a whole actually shot very well, finishing with a 58.9% eFG%. In a normal game, that kind of shooting would have been more than enough to win, but this was not a normal game.

Northwestern is basically Iowa's kryptonite, an excellent three-point shooting team that spreads the floor, passes intelligently, and moves constantly. They had Iowa both coming and going, generating excellent spacing on the perimeter and then cutting to the basket whenever Iowa overplayed. MVP of the game would probably go to the Wildcats' impressive freshman Dave Sobolewski, who took advantage of the clean looks he was getting and finished with 23 points on just eight shots and put up an astounding 106% eFG% thanks to 3-3 on threes and 4-5 on twos. But really you could give the award to any one of the Wildcat starters. They are a very good shooting team, and their offense worked like a machine to generate open looks. Four players finished with three three-pointers, and 22 of their 27 field goals were assisted. That's mighty impressive.

Continue reading this post »

Thank you for joining me here, Brandon

ya sure coach

Aren't you wondering why we're here?

naw man this is fun

You're having fun?

i like airboats

Well, we're here because I tho--

and turtles

I beg your pardon?

i like turtles

...

...

OK then. We're here because I'm your new coach, and I feel like your previous training was lacking a certain component.

The receivers on this team lack mental toughness.

you mean like science?

What?

science hurts my brain

I don't think I follow--

are we gonna cut up a turtle? because i don't want to cut up a turtle. i like...

like turtles. Yes, yes, I know. No, Brandon, we are not dissecting a turtle.

Look over there.

/points behind Brandon Marshall

GROWL

Wrestle that crocodile, Brandon.

Continue reading this post »

We previewed this game a few days ago (after a fashion), but now it's time to get down and dirty with the game itself. Iowa's trying for their first three-game winning streak of the Matt Gatens Era, as well as their first win in Evanston since 2008. They've also lost three in a row to our jNW oppressors. The loser of this game also probably has their (already very-thin) NCAA Tournament hopes permanently dashed (barring a miracle run in the Big Ten Tournament, at least). So yeah: there are some stakes here.

The game's on ESPNU at 8pm CT.

The usual rules of open threads apply: no links to illegal online streams, no porn, no religion, no politics, no slurs, and no douchebaggery. Go Hawks.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

For those of you who were unable to make it to Saturday's game, it was a pretty special day. Some of you had said things about the commemorative program being sold out, so I scanned the cover. If you haven't read the articles on the history of the players from the 86-87 team, head on over to Hawkcentral http://hawkcentral.com/2012/01/28/iowas-run-to-no-1-where-are-players-on-the-1986-87-team-now/ and Dochterman's page http://thegazette.com/category/blogs/docs-office/ and check them out. It's really great stuff, and some of the Hawkcentral stuff was included in the program.

One of my earliest (and fondest) childhood memories was of a family vacation when I was about 5 years old. My parents, brother, and I went to Iowa City. Dad wanted to take us to Carver, but, being it was the summer, it was locked. A custodian let us in and allowed us to go all the way down onto the floor. Even at that age, I knew it was someplace special. ( I'm sure my brother's enthusiasm might have had something to do with it too). Similarly to what ICHawk had to say in his Fanpost, Iowa Basketball needs to be there for the 5-year old boys (and girls) out there too.

The 86-87 team was the first team I remember watching on TV with my Dad. I was five when they played. My Dad had never been to a game at Carver. It was a spur of the moment trip (we bought tickets on Stubhub on Friday morning), and we decided to make the six hour drive to Iowa City. Seeing my childhood heroes was going to be totally worth it.

Continue reading this post »

IOWA CITY (AP)

Due to what coaches are calling a "communications snafu", Iowa's football team hired a hot drink vending machine as their new quarterback coach yesterday. The machine, a National brand coffee/hot cocoa dispenser model number 633, will take over the position previously held by departing offensive coordinator Ken O'Keefe.

Head coach Kirk Ferentz described how the machine got the job:

"I'll be honest with you: I knew months ago that I wanted to keep a lot of the same guys on my staff, it was just a matter of who would do what. So I got out my sharpie, labeled some darts with "tight ends coach", "linebacker coach" and the like, then gathered the assistants in the lounge. I told them to close their eyes and then turned around and started chucking darts over my head. I guess one of the darts went a bit astray. Must not have heard it over all the caterwauling and 'Jesus Christ, was that a dart!?' and so on."

The matter would have been resolved quickly, but a miscommunication between Ferentz and his assistant resulted in the machine being hired at a salary of $225,000 per year.

"I had to take a call, so I told my feather-brained, near-sighted secretary, Miss [Yvette] Bumblepot, to track down all the darts and assign the proper jobs to the people that I had struck. She dutifully found all the darts, including the one in the machine, and made up the contracts."

When asked if he could rescind the offer and find a more suitable, human candidate for the job, Ferentz said it was impossible. "Those were legally binding darts."

Continue reading this post »