LOVE IT or LEAVE IT: Stormin’ the Field

LOVE IT: The last few years there has been a debate in college sports about the danger of field/court storming. On one hand, the spontaneous overflow of excitement that pours onto the field following a huge win really cannot be matched by any other display of fandom in sports. On the other, there is always the danger that stuff like the infamous Randy Peterson incident will happen. Oh and then there’s this thing...

Just for the record, I don’t think the Michigan player had any bad intentions there. Storming the field/court is a stormer-beware activity. Having said that, I love storming. Yes it is dangerous, but as long as people are smart and respectful of the opposing team leaving the field, I think it’s a great look for fans celebrating their home team. You can’t beat images like this...

Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sports

LEAVE IT: Ok it’s rant time. BTN Plus can GTFO. Not only are we relegated to watching our beloved Hawkeye basketball team play not one, not two, not even three but FIVE *%#$@ games over the internet instead of TV, but that internet stream is ridiculously low-quality and seems to be getting worse. To be clear, I don’t know if the product is a result of a poor student production or BTN itself. And I also don’t know and don’t care enough to find out if this is the case across the conference. My very uneducated guess makes me think that there isn’t enough bandwidth available at the University to produce a solid steam, but who knows.

There are two things that don’t make sense to me. First, BTN maintains two alternate overflow channels for football games. It really should not be that hard, nor that expensive, to make use of those channels for the cupcake basketball games. Second, BTN is a Fox-owned company. It’s not like an independent production company that no one has heard of runs the show. ESPN can make it work with ESPN3. There is no reason the BTN has to suck this badly with its internet channel. My guess is that BTN makes several hundreds of thousands of dollars on BTNPlus subscriptions. Those subscribers are getting jipped with a cheap and low-grade product.

But I bet our strongly-worded collective letter to Jim Delany won’t do much good as long as the schools are cashing their checks.

LOVE IT: The image above is the reason we play the game folks. On a Saturday that seemed to have a lot of bleh matchups, the 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9 teams all lost. Oh and the last time 2,3, and 4 all lost...well let’s just say Jim Harbaugh remembers that day. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why March Madness is so popular. We as fans love the underdog. We also love dramatic finishes. In one night, Iowa and Pitt suddenly became darlings of the college football landscape. My advice to everyone would be to not focus on the ones that got away from Iowa this season. We have all offseason to do that. Enjoy the moment we have now.

Photo by Tyler Smith/Getty Images

MORE LOVE IT: No NCAA stuff to criticize. No Big 12 to make fun of (they let their actions speak for themselves). Very little happened in college sports that made headlines (in a bad way, that is). So here’s some more cool stuff to chew on for your week:

1. Remember Marcus Lattimore? Arguably one of the most talented RB’s of the 2000’s who had his career cut way too short due to a gruesome knee injury (click if you dare).

He’s back in the news now after an early retirement. He was forbidden by the NCAA from joining the South Carolina coaching staff as a volunteer (oh hi again, NCAA), so he has become a varsity high school coach in SC. Good for him.

2. An NAIA conference championship was decided right here in Iowa between two pretty intense rivals in NW Iowa. And it was decided on one hell of a play:

(my Dad’s a Morningside alum so go Mustangs!)

3. D3 powerhouse Mount Union had its amazing streak of regular-season wins snapped at 112. Mount Union was an amazing 222-1 since 1994 in regular season games. Also snapped was a streak of 24(!) conference titles. It’s hard to fathom that kind of domination, but credit to John Carroll.

Enjoy your week folks. Iowa basketball is back on TV (finally) Thursday night against Seton Hall. It should be a good game. Join me at Carver if you choose!