UNI may beat Iowa by eleventy billion tomorrow

Do you have any NCAA eligibility left with the University of Iowa? Have you ever dribbled a regulation-sized basketball? Will you fit into a medium-sized jersey without stretching it in the middle? If you can answer "yes" to two of these three questions, Todd Lickliter invites you to show up at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls tomorrow night; he's got a starting role at point guard waiting for you. Heck, even this might even be worth some minutes:

You see, between Dan Bohall's Zima-riffic performance in the Hillcrest bathroom stall, Tony Freeman's squeaky wheel, and Jeff Peterson's leave of absence, Iowa will be left with the following guards tomorrow:

• SG Jake Kelly, Fr., 6'6"
• SG Justin Johnson, Sr., 6'6"
• ...
• ...
• um...
• ...
• ...
• ...
• did we mention Jake Kelly?

Seriously, just Jake and Justin. That's all. Time to see if those two can put in 40 minutes at the 1 and 2 (no, not these) straight. Looks like we'll be going with this lineup:

PG J. Kelly
SG J. Johnson
SF J. Cole
PF K. Looby
C S. Gorney
----------------------
J.R. Angle
C. Tate
T. Lickliter
Traffic Cone
Dreams
Unicorn
D. Palmer


Wow. Iowa's, uh... Iowa's going "big," I guess. Jeff, our thoughts are with you and your family, and we hope you come back soon.

About the only good thing for Iowa fans making the trip up to Cedar Falls (you know, since we've been doing such a great job of filling Carver) will be the Panthers' gorgeous new basketball arena, which opened in 2006 and is a wonderful facility for a mid-major program like UNI's. From any meaningful standpoint (atmosphere, aesthetics, acoustics), it's an unquestionable upgrade from the UNI-Dome. Our NE Iowan readers would do well to catch a game or two up there.