It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It Cares (But Not In A Creepy Way)

It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It is BHGP's regular news roundup. Send all tips to any of the email addresses at the bottom of the page. But preferably not all of them at once. We usually end up laughing at people who do that. 

Counting is... not creepy.  Fran took a little time out from shaking hands and kissing babies on the I-Club circuit to talk about recruiting; aside from teasing news about an impending signing (but you already knew that), the most interesting knowledgebomb he dropped was probably how many recruits he's looking to add this spring:

"Honestly, probably not three," said McCaffery, who is entering his second season as Hawkeyes’ coach. "It’s probably more of a function that I don’t think we need three. But again, if the right three presented themselves, we would."

Good news, Jordan Stoermer!  You might be on scholarship next year after all.  (Although we're holding out hope for Branden Stubbs.  BSTUBBS4EVER)  In a way, it makes sense; attrition hasn't ravaged the Iowa team to quite the same extent we'd grown accustomed to seeing and even if he just signs two this spring (or summer), that's still a total of four new faces.  There's also no point in locking up a scholarship for 2-4 years in someone you're not totally sold on; unlike football, you really can't afford to whiff on a basketball scholly.

Meanwhile, one of Iowa's top targets, Anthony Hubbard, is apparently down to two schools -- Iowa and Nebraska -- and will be announcing his decision this weekend.  Hubbard would probably be the closest thing to a home run Iowa could hit during this recruiting period -- he averaged 21 points and 11 rebounds last year -- and could add a much-needed scoring punch.  I suppose you could say that Fran feeling good about having new recruit news to talk about soon plus Hubbard annoucing his decision this weekend equals Hubbard to Iowa; we did the math and came up with 2+2=97, but that's Sioux City math for you.  Either way, we'll know more soon.

And while caring about the decisions of high school juniors and seniors (and JUCO kids) is creepy enough, caring about high school sophomores swapping schools is probably even creepier; nevertheless, we couldn't pass up this news about Roy Marble's kid transferring to West Des Moines Valley.  Mostly because his name is Merrick Mackdanz-Marble.  The Mack Danzy!  Jeff Horner is currently a coach at Valley; maybe he can help steer Marble to Iowa if he turns out to be a good player.

GRAPPLE GRAPPLE GRAPPLE.  As we said, the I-Club circuit is in full swing, and while Team Ferentz hits half the stops, Team Fran is hitting the other half of the stops.  Team Fran also includes Tom Brands (and Norm Parker, making it for sure the team we'd want to see) and after only a year Fran is clearly already smitten:

BRING IT, MARS.  YOUR INTERPLANETARY CHAMPIONS ARE OUR CHAR-GRILLED SPACE-MEAT. 

We eagerly await next year's dual on Mars.  Try and top that, Cael.

Anyway, in other wrestling news, caring is creepy isn't just for hoopyball -- it's for wrestling, too, and Iowa just added a new commit to this year's class, Brody Grothus from Davenport Assumption.  Grothus went 52-0 as a senior and won the 145-lb. state title in 2A, but wasn't ranked by any of the recruiting services because he didn't wrestle much outside the high school season (he's also a good baseball player).  He projects as a 149/157 guy, which is a pretty cluttered weight at Iowa.  Derek St. John, Dylan Carew, Mark Ballweg, Jake Ballweg, Nick Moore, and Mike Kelly are already at those weights (though some of them can and probably will move to other weights), so Grothus will have his work cut out for him.  He's an intriguing prospect, though, because he sounds like a late bloomer and a guy who hasn't really focused extensively on wrestling in high school (he played baseball in the summers), which means he could have a lot of room to improve.  If nothing else, he's already got a great name for wrestling.

And in wrestling news only tangentially related to Iowa, two-time national champion Mark Perry is coming back to the Big Ten to be associate head coach at Illinois after spending the past two years at Cal Poly.  Within five years, I'm betting Perry will be a head coach somewhere -- quite possibly at a Big Ten school.  The toughest conference in the country's only gonna get tougher.  Finally, Iowa City's hosting the U.S. Olympic Trials next April (April 21-22, 2012) -- now there's a website you can hit up for more info about that event.

Hardball, softball.  The Iowa baseball team (14-20) picked up a much needed win over Western Illinois on Wednesday, blasting the Leathernecks, 14-8.  It was a much-needed offensive explosion after scoring just three runs in three games against Indiana last weekend, though hopefully they saved a few runs for this weekend's homestand with Michigan.  Five different Iowa players recorded multi-hit games, led by Kasey Carling, who went 3/5 and scored three runs.  Meanwhile, the Iowa softballers also had some mid-week success, downing Iowa State, 4-3 behind a 3-run home run by Jenny Schuelke.  The win gave Iowa a clean sweep against Iowa State in bats-and-balls sports, since Iowa State baseball forfeited for the tenth straight year. 

GROUND RULE DOUBLEZ

* It's not as delicious as the rumor about him going to Iowa State, but Anthony Tucker is apparently interested in going to Minnesota now.  Apparently he wants to be linked with every Iowa rival within a few hundred miles.

* FRY Fest is honoring Dan Gable this fall and "going country" this fall; one of those two things is awesome and if you can't guess which one, I hate you.

* If you weren't watching the live Coachella webcast on YouTube last weekend, you missed out on some killer performances; luckily, you can catch a few of them here anyway.