The Sub(par)continent. It's not often we lead INP with golf, but it's even rarer that an awesomely-monikered Iowa golfer wins the conference's top individual award. That's what senior Vince India picked up this week, becoming just the second golfer in UI history to be named Big Ten Player of the Year. He was also named first team all-conference, along with fellow Iowa senior Brad Hopfinger. Junior Chris Brant, who finished second at last week's Big Ten Conference tournament, was named second team all-Big Ten.
India, Hopfinger, and Brant, along with junior Barrett Kelpin, have been the centerpieces of the rise of Iowa golf, a once-moribund program that has risen to prominence under new coach Mark Hankins. Iowa's third-place finish at the Big Ten tournament marks the first time the Hawkeyes have ever finished consecutive seasons in the conference's top three (last year, the Hawks finished second). Iowa took five tournaments over the course of the year and won the consolation bracket of the Callaway Collegiate Match Play. Throughout the campaign, nobody has been as consistently great as India, who also won the Les Bolstad Trophy for low stroke average in the conference (a meagar 71.08). He's the best Iowa golfer in a generation, and about nine people have noticed. Iowa plays in its NCAA Regional in two weeks at a site to be determined, with a second NCAA tournament birth in three years the ultimate prize. Go Hawks. Go low.
So, About that Expansion Thing... Remember how Nebraska was an academic fit with the Commitee on Institutional Cooperation (the academic wing of the Big Ten) just as it was an athletic fit with the Big Ten? How it was one of 63 universities that made up the Association of American Universities, a consortium of schools that share research goals and that includes all twelve current CIC member schools? How any questions of Nebraska's academic credentials were dismissed due to Nebraska's 102-year association with the AAU?
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, after 102 years' membership in the Association of American Universities, has been given the boot by the association of 63 top research universities.
The AAU members voted this month to end UNL's membership based on its inability to meet certain requirements, Chancellor Harvey Perlman said in an email to faculty and staff Friday.
"I think it's unfortunate after 102 years of membership that our membership is discontinued," said University of Nebraska President James B. Milliken. Perlman said he was notified Tuesday that a two-thirds majority of the group's members had voted to end UNL's membership. The AAU's other members began voting on UNL's membership on April 11, he said.
Harvey Perlman further blamed the downward-pointing thumb on "a group of institutions who believe the organization should be smaller" and those focused on four measures of research performance which placed Nebraska last in the AAU. Perlman also said Nebraska received support from "almost all" of the Big Ten member institutions and all Big XII schools. But here's the thing: You need to only stop a 2/3 majority (or get 22 votes) to stay in, meaning that the 16 or 17 votes they received from those conferences (7 Big XII member institutions are in the AAU, plus 9 or 10 Big Ten members) should get you over the line unless there is near-unanimous opposition from the remaining schools. This wasn't a small group of schools wanting to make the AAU smaller; it was a wholesale rebuke of Nebraska's research programs from every University that doesn't have a vested interest in NU (and even a couple who do). This is due in large part to Nebraska's emphasis on agricultural research, a problem which hasn't gotten Iowa State kicked out of the AAU. What I'm saying is maybe NU should diversify a little.
Also, this will have no effect whatsoever on Big Ten expansion, because football rules everything.
Rise and Fired. So there's a nasty rumor going around that Gus Johnson is leaving CBS, meaning he wouldn't be available for Iowa's triumphant return to the NCAA basketball tournament in 2013. There is a good reason for this innuendo: Johnson' contract with CBS expired at the end of this year's tournament, and he's been given an offer by Fox to cover NFL games (which he did for CBS the last few years) and Pac-12 football, and apparently CBS now has a chance to match it.
But even if Gus took the Fox offer, are we sure it means he can't call the tournament? Gus worked for Fox last year --during college basketball season -- as a play-by-play guy on BTN because CBS remains loyal to Uncle Verne (justified) and King of the WASPs Jim Nantz (not so justified) during its regular saturday basketball coverage. And CBS calls in all hands for the tournament, including broadcasters who spend their November through February at Fox and ESPN. Gus would change stations on Sunday and call more college football. This is a good thing, so long as basketball remains as is.
WASHINGTON BULLITZ:
Someone you haven't ever heard of ranked Anthony Hubbard the 14th best JUCO basketball recruit in the country. Confetti. Horns.
Two-time Missouri state wrestling champion Patrick Rhoads committed to Iowa. He compiled a career record of 171-19 with 113 pins, and is expected to wrestle at either 157 or 165. Caring is grapply.
Ryan Donahue, Jeff Tarpinian, Jeremiah Hunter, Allen Reisner, and DJK went undrafted. None were selected in the UFL Draft earlier this week -- DJK says it was by choice -- and they're simply biding time until the lockout ends. I just realized this isn't a news story at all. It is, in fact, an anti-news story, like the Today show breathlessly reporting that a blonde girl didn't get attacked by a shark in the Gulf of Mexico.
SBN Okie State blog Cowboys Ride for Free charts Big XII fanbase interest by sport. The surprises: Kansas is closer to a football school than you think, Kansas State is officially crazy about Coach Crazy, and Iowa State is still in the Big XII.
Run of Play kills it in a post on fans' reaction to postgame comments by managers of the world's biggest soccer teams, though you could run a Find/Replace command in a couple of key areas and make it about college football.