Something Old. Courtesy of EDSBS, Hayden Fry meets Hayden Fox's girlfriend:
Hayden's "Aw shucks, we only pay for everything, leave us be!" wisdom is both truthful and more than enough to bring the angry football-hating Jill Gaulding mob down the mountain armed with torches and hornbooks. There's a reason why Fry made an appearance like this: Not only was Craig T. Nelson's Hayden Fox based loosely on Fry (who occasionally consulted on the show), but the original script of Coach had the head man coaching Iowa, and the campus B-roll they used to split up scenes was from Iowa's campus (in particular, the coaching offices were actually UI Student Health).
Something New. Another week, another dominant summer league performance by incoming freshman Melsahn Basabe, who went for 36 points (on 13-of-23 shooting) and 18 boards as his PTL squad beat whatever other PTL squad they played (this time, the one with Ali Farokmanesh) by two points.
The bigger basketball news, however, is that 2011 basketball recruiting opened yesterday with the first of two ten-day contact windows in the month of July. Caring is creepy, to be sure, but McCaffery's first offseason at the helm could clue us in on what we can expect in the years to come. The first sign: After 11 years of recruiting nothing but Indiana and the Dakotas, we're casting a wide net:
Devin Coleman, a 6-foot-2 guard from Wynnewood, Pa., and a 6-8 Iowa product, forward Jarrod Uthoff of Cedar Rapids Jefferson, visited Iowa City last month and left with scholarship offers....
Josh Oglesby, a 6-5 guard from Cedar Rapids Washington, received an offer from Illinois last month after participating in a team camp in Champaign, Ill. Oglesby also has offers from Arizona State, Boston College, Minnesota and Northern Iowa.
Iowa coaches also are known to be actively recruiting 6-9 Eric Katenda of Chesire Academy in Connecticut, 6-9 Greg Sequele of Compton, Calif., and 6-8 Jacob Lawson of Oak Ridge, N.C., for the class of 2011.
That's Pennsylvania, Connecticut, California, North Carolina, and little old Iowa on the list. As a frame of reference, the current roster consists of three players from Iowa, one more part-time Iowan, two from border states, and one from Indiana. There isn't one player currently in the program that is from outside the Big Ten footprint. The hiring of Fred Hoiberg in Ames could be treated one of three ways by McCaffery: Fight the hometown hero from house to house across the Hawkeye State, focus on the best in-state talent while picking off a player here and there from the territories, or throw regional loyalty to the wind and go national. With that initial list of recruits, it looks like McCaffery went for door #3; if he can pull it off, if he can convince kids from Compton and the east coast preps that Iowa is a viable option, he'll be an astounding success here.
Something Borrowed. NFL defensive end-on-loan Adrian Clayborn continues to swim in accolades. Not only was he recently named the Big Ten's best returning player by ESPN.com Big Ten blogger Adam Rittenberg (who cited Clayborn's "game-defining plays and truly dominant perfomances" in moving him ahead of Michigan State's Greg Jones and Wisconsin's John Clay), but Clayborn tied Nebraska cornerback Prince Amukamara atop Sports Illustrated's list of 2011 NFL Draft prospects, grading out at 7.3 on a scale of 9.0; as a frame of reference, NU defensive tackle/destroyer of worlds Ndamukong Suh received a 7.0 grade last summer. With that said, preseason rankings are clearly not SI's forte: Of the three players to receive 7.0 grades a year ago, two (Ole Miss DL Greg Hardy and LSU WR Brandon LaFell) dropped past the second round; Hardy almost went undrafted.
Something Blue...Well, Greene. One spectacular postseason in the books, and Shonn Greene is already being encouraged to occasionally avoid contact in an attempt to extend his career:
"We don't run out of bounds," Greene told Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. "I've been taught that all my life. . . . I don't think that's going to help the way I play by doing that. If I just go out and do what I do, everything else will take care of itself.
But it sounds as if the Jets prefer that Greene not be quite so hard-nosed.
"You have to teach him when to avoid, when to go down and when not to take on three people just so he can get through a season," running backs coach Anthony Lynn told Mehta. "That's an education process."
Not to say that he should change his running style or anything, but if Greene ever needed confirmation of what could happen should he decide to Duong every linebacker and safety in professional football, he need look no further than his newest backfield mate, LaDanian Tomlinson, who fell off the cliff like so many pro halfbacks do. The Jets system, utilizing multiple backs and limiting Greene's exposure in pass blocking, should help his career longevity.
DOLLA DOLLA BILLZ:
- Speaking of green, former Iowa linebacker and current Miami Dolphins fourth-round draft selection A.J. Edds signed a 4-year, $2.26M contract with his new club. No word on how much was guaranteed. Former center Rob Bruggeman is making another attempt at catching on with the Atlanta Falcons (third story down); Bruggeman spent last year on the Atlanta practice squad.
- The Daily Iowan dedicates 500 words to the offensive line, coming to the conclusion that there are some might big holes to fill. In other DI news, the sky is blue and Hitler was a pretty bad guy. We kid, we kid. It's the offseason; Christ, we have a story dedicated to tailgating today.
- Over at The Sporting Blog, erstwhile mGoBlog editor Brian Cook crowns Iowa "Team America" after Ray Hamilton cited "Love it or leave it" as part of the Iowa recruiting pitch. BHGP is absolutely on board with increasing Iowa's scholarship limit to 300 so that we can rid the world of those Pinko commie bastards in
Ann ArborNorth Korea. - Google Maps! Google Maps! Party Time! Excellent!