Latest / The Lunch Rush with Trent Condon / Hawkeyes knock off Nebraska, Blake Walker & Andy Pollock Join Trent, John Bohnenkamp talks Hawkeyes

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Hawkeyes knock off Nebraska, Blake Walker & Andy Pollock Join Trent, John Bohnenkamp talks Hawkeyes · The Lunch Rush with Trent Condon

• 0:00
  Good afternoon and welcome in Miller and Condon on the air
• 0:02
  with you on a Wednesday as we tap talk the world of sports.
• 0:07
  Taking it till 2O clock here this afternoon before Lucas
• 0:10
  Strain, Connor Ferguson and the crew take you home from 2:00
• 0:13
  until 5 O clock. Coming up today on the program
• 0:16
  light on the guest list. We'll be joined here at the
• 0:19
  bottom of the hour. John Bowencamp is going to join
• 0:21
  us from The Associated Press. The AP writer as he was on the
• 0:24
  beat last night, the Iowa, Nebraska game and plenty on that
• 0:28
  coming up. John will join us here at about
• 0:30
  12:30. One O clock hour begins as it
• 0:32
  does each and every Wednesday with David Kaplan, ESPN 1000.
• 0:36
  A look at what we have in Chicago sports.
• 0:39
  Bears preparing for the offseason, what they need to do
• 0:42
  salary cap wise, A lot of question marks of what they're
• 0:45
  going to do on that front. And of course, we get ready for
• 0:47
  the Chicago Cubs season. Bulls and maybe not Blackhawks,
• 0:50
  probably not, but plenty to talk about with David Kaplan today.
• 0:55
  We're going Dooley's on the other side of the glass for me
• 0:58
  today. Two guys in studio.
• 0:59
  I've never done this before. It's an exciting time.
• 1:02
  Guys that are going to be absolutely sick of me by the
• 1:05
  time we get done because they're also going to be hanging out
• 1:07
  with me for wrestling coverage down at the state tournament
• 1:10
  starting later this afternoon. It is Blake Walker and Andy
• 1:13
  Pollock in the hot seats today. Blake.
• 1:15
  Good to see you, Andy. Good to see you, Blake.
• 1:18
  Well, you got the number one chair there.
• 1:20
  You got here first. So you get that a chair.
• 1:22
  How you doing, Blake? I'm doing good, I'm doing good.
• 1:24
  It's been good to be here, excited to talk sports as I
• 1:27
  always do. I'm sure Andy and I could talk
• 1:28
  sports for hours. And yeah, it's good to be here.
• 1:30
  Last I talked about it coming in last.
• 1:32
  Good. Nice.
• 1:33
  Wednesday, it feels like when the snow comes back.
• 1:35
  Absolutely, as we know girls state basketball right around
• 1:38
  the corner in the cold weather that'll be likely coming with
• 1:40
  that by the time we get to that. Doesn't matter where it falls in
• 1:43
  the calendar and then moves up and moves back a week, you're
• 1:45
  going to get bad weather at girls stated and we always have
• 1:48
  a thought feels like sometime during state wrestling sometimes
• 1:51
  also bad weather comes along with it.
• 1:53
  Andy Pollock, who I have known adjacently for decades, just
• 1:58
  adjacently ran in the same circles, knew many of the same
• 2:01
  people. And Mr. Pollock, we have a
• 2:04
  story. Maybe a little bit later we can
• 2:06
  get into my high school, your high school, an epic game and I
• 2:10
  believe a story in what is it, 2026.
• 2:13
  In 23 years on the radio, I have never said we might have to get
• 2:18
  bring that one out a little bit later on.
• 2:19
  I can't. Wait, I know exactly where this
• 2:23
  is going. And I've told this story to a
• 2:25
  few people before, and you shared it to me once.
• 2:27
  And yeah, we're gonna go back in the archives about 30 years to
• 2:30
  talk about that story, but this will be a good one.
• 2:32
  Yeah, we are old. We are old.
• 2:34
  So we're the old guys here, no? Doubt for sure.
• 2:36
  And a story that is, I don't know, I, I think we're past.
• 2:39
  I think I won't get in trouble for it, and I should get in
• 2:41
  trouble we. Actually limitations is up.
• 2:42
  Absolutely. It was an honest mistake, but it
• 2:45
  was a mistake that caught the ire of the guys up in AP and my
• 2:49
  Green Devil. I don't think many people in
• 2:50
  Osage know the story either. There's just three of us and
• 2:53
  we'll get to that one a little bit later on.
• 2:55
  But we begin today's show, obviously with what happened
• 2:57
  last night and look back. Iowa, a needed victory against
• 3:01
  Nebraska. Nebraska team that certainly
• 3:03
  came in playing at a high level, though they'd lost what, 3 their
• 3:06
  last five games. We know how good that Nebraska
• 3:09
  team was. It wasn't aesthetically pleasing
• 3:11
  by any means, but just on the Iowa front, Blake, we'll start
• 3:14
  with you. For Iowa to get this kind of
• 3:16
  victory, doesn't matter how ugly it is.
• 3:18
  Look, they're not going to put the resume up and put a little
• 3:21
  asterisk next to it saying but the game was ugly.
• 3:23
  A win is a win against a top ten team that is going to be 1.
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  Not just a quad one victory, but a good quad one victory.
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  It was a resume builder and one after the two consecutive
• 3:33
  losses. I would definitely need it.
• 3:34
  Yeah, they did. And I feel like, you know, Andy
• 3:36
  Katz kept bringing it up as the night kind of went on on the Big
• 3:38
  10 Network, he said. This is going to be one of those
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  wins that when we get to tournament time for the Big 10
• 3:43
  tournament, they're going to pull up Iowa's resume, going to
• 3:45
  do it the rest of the year. And Nebraska's going to be one
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  of the top wins, quad one wins. And obviously Indiana's going to
• 3:50
  be there as well. And I think for Ben just to get
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  a ranked win, you know, for Kirk, this last couple years of
• 3:55
  football, it's just been when are you going to get the ranked
• 3:57
  win? When are you going to get it?
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  And now he finally got it against a good team.
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  And I mean, Nebraska has not done well in Carver.
• 4:03
  So I felt like Iowa, yeah, it felt like they had to win.
• 4:05
  And after Wisconsin's loss last night, they really had to win.
• 4:08
  I mean, Ohio State took it to the Badgers, and now Iowa has
• 4:11
  Ohio State, Wisconsin next, Wisconsin, then Ohio State.
• 4:13
  So much needed win again. It was very ugly 5752, but it
• 4:17
  was the defensive game that Iowa needed and I think it worked out
• 4:20
  in their favor. Andy, you have different rooting
• 4:22
  interests that Blake and I Yeah, so you, you look at this a
• 4:25
  little differently. You're a Cyclone fan.
• 4:27
  And on top of it, you got the other sideline there.
• 4:30
  So how weird is it for Cyclone fans or for you as a Cyclone
• 4:33
  fan, seeing Fred Hoiberg over there, the success that they're
• 4:35
  finally having, breaking through this season, what he's doing it
• 4:39
  and having Fred Hoiberg do it, it has to feel at least a little
• 4:42
  bit odd, doesn't it? Actually, no.
• 4:43
  You know, Fred's a guy. I grew up Idaho realizing the
• 4:45
  guy, I'm a big fan of what he's done.
• 4:47
  I think both schools, Iowa State and Nebraska are in a better
• 4:50
  place right now because he's gone.
• 4:52
  And it's nothing against what he did at Iowa State.
• 4:54
  He had an opportunity to move up, failed miserably, but he had
• 4:57
  an opportunity to move up. No one can blame him for that.
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  And it's been it's been good. We can't complain at all as
• 5:02
  cyclone fans right now about the situation we're in with that.
• 5:05
  So I feel pretty good about it. And I think Nebraska fans, you
• 5:07
  know, a year ago he's on the hot seat and they got to be thrilled
• 5:11
  right now. A top ten team still.
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  I mean, the gauntlet that is Big 10 basketball going through it
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  all, you're not going to go through and lose only five games
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  really. Even that, you got to be a
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  private Michigan, about the only team that's going to go through
• 5:24
  and not lose 5 games in the season this year.
• 5:26
  So what he's done over at Nebraska is really
• 5:28
  unprecedented. Never won an NCAA Tournament
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  game and will continue to bring that up until they can break it.
• 5:34
  And I'm fine with that. I grew up hating Nebraska, so
• 5:37
  I'm absolutely fine with bringing that up as much as we
• 5:39
  want. Well, and that's kind of the
• 5:40
  weird part too. And it goes, I think, hand in
• 5:41
  hand for people like you, Cyclone fans watching this.
• 5:44
  Well, it's still Nebraska. I mean, for growing up, that was
• 5:48
  a a program and just a school that you absolutely hated.
• 5:51
  And thinking of the football games back in the 80s and 90s
• 5:53
  and some of the ugliness that happened there.
• 5:55
  They have that component to it. And then it brings us to Price
• 5:57
  Samford last night and the booze that were raining down the
• 6:01
  chance. OK, But it's also so odd because
• 6:05
  A, there's a part of you that says, just imagine Price Sanford
• 6:09
  on this Iowa team. If he would have stuck in Iowa
• 6:11
  City and think of having an extra score like that to go with
• 6:14
  Bennett Sturtz and what this team would look like.
• 6:16
  There's still, I was 19 and seven right now.
• 6:18
  And if they had Price Sanford, I think a minimum, they got a
• 6:21
  couple more wins on the resume and maybe even higher than that
• 6:24
  with his skill set, what he can do.
• 6:26
  You have that component. You have the frustrations, but
• 6:29
  then you also have Peyton Hawkeye, great, a guy that left
• 6:32
  it all on the floor. There are just so many angles to
• 6:34
  a Blake. It's I I'm never going to yell
• 6:37
  at students for chanting things unless it goes completely out
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  of. Great about college.
• 6:40
  Bachelors right, yes, that goes that is part of it that's going
• 6:44
  to happen and I don't think anybody should have been
• 6:45
  surprised that that happened last night for Price Sanford.
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  But it is just that that weird kind of back and forth that you
• 6:51
  have. Is it a little too much because
• 6:54
  it's not just a guy that left your program.
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  It's a guy that's older brother, but four years of hard work into
• 6:58
  your program and you had a coaching change.
• 7:00
  Those things are going to happen.
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  And he's also playing for a guy that he idolized growing up.
• 7:04
  I mean, it'd be the same if we played Creighton.
• 7:06
  I mean, we'd be doing the same thing.
• 7:07
  Owen Freeman. So it's just, you know, it's
• 7:09
  just part of it. I mean, Iowa fans, they'll
• 7:11
  always be like that. They treated Nestor, Jon Nestor,
• 7:15
  who went to Minnesota. I mean, they treated him
• 7:17
  terribly when he came to Iowa City.
• 7:18
  And then he gets scored on by Reese Vanderzee in football.
• 7:20
  So I mean, it's just part of it. Yeah.
• 7:22
  Some of the chants aren't great. I mean, that's just always going
• 7:25
  to be a thing. But a lot of Iowa State fans on
• 7:27
  social media were vocal about Kylie Feuerbach, you know, on
• 7:29
  that side for Iowa. And they were like, well, you
• 7:31
  know, you leave, you go to the opposite side.
• 7:33
  Iowa, Iowa State transferring within is bad.
• 7:36
  I mean, that's just. That's crazy.
• 7:37
  Yes. Nebraska.
• 7:38
  Yeah. And what was it?
• 7:39
  He hit his three-point record last night for Nebraska.
• 7:41
  So that was a big deal. And, you know, I, I think Price
• 7:45
  did the right heat in the post game.
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  He's like, I didn't hear any of it.
• 7:47
  You know, he's like, I didn't hear anything.
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  And I thought that was a good way to go about it.
• 7:50
  But it's, it's college athletics.
• 7:52
  I mean, they're the kids are going to do it.
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  We'll talk a little bit more after the game too.
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  And Fred Hoyberg flipping the phone out of the hand or towards
• 8:01
  the fan and I tried to get him away as he was put the camera up
• 8:03
  in his face. We'll get to that.
• 8:04
  But I do want to talk about this game and talk about it was ugly.
• 8:08
  I mean, if you were not a fan like Andy, not a fan of either
• 8:11
  team, and watching this game last night, I'm sure it was not
• 8:13
  exactly the most beautiful basketball game that you've
• 8:15
  watched, Ben McCollum said in his postgame press conference.
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  I think we took offense of basketball back 30 years and
• 8:20
  this one was definitely the case because it was ugly at times and
• 8:24
  those last 10 minutes I would just clinging to that lead,
• 8:27
  holding on, not running anything offensively.
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  It was just passing along front. I think that goes hand in hand
• 8:33
  also with the defense. And I think that's where the
• 8:35
  story begins for Iowa getting this victory in the fashion that
• 8:39
  they did, doing what they did on that end of the floor, because
• 8:42
  I've been talking about here for the last couple of weeks.
• 8:44
  Even during that six game-winning streak, you look at
• 8:47
  the defensive metrics for Iowa, they'd taken a major step back.
• 8:50
  They had six consecutive games even in wins where they were
• 8:53
  plus 100 a hundred. It was is considered average in
• 8:57
  all those defensive performances in those games and then what we
• 9:00
  see in the last couple of times out would cratered against
• 9:02
  Purdue and their worst defensive performance of the season.
• 9:05
  The defense was on point and he got to start with the guy we
• 9:08
  normally talk about, Blake offensively, Bennett, Sturtz,
• 9:11
  what he did against Price, Amper defensively.
• 9:13
  Yeah, and they always talk about, I mean, even McCollum
• 9:15
  talked about it. Price is one of the best movers
• 9:17
  in the Big 10. Like, he draws double S That's
• 9:20
  what they did against Illinois and everything else that worked
• 9:22
  so well for Nebraska. Price draws people around and
• 9:25
  where he goes. And I thought Bennett did a
• 9:26
  great job locking him down. Bennett took a lot of hard hits
• 9:29
  last night, whether they were fouls or they weren't fouls.
• 9:32
  He took a lot of hard hits. And you know, he he talked about
• 9:34
  with McCollum in the post game. McCollum was like, you know, I
• 9:37
  asked him, you doing OK? You doing OK?
• 9:39
  And he's like, yeah, I'm fine. But yeah, Price, I mean, that's
• 9:41
  just kind of who he is. And Bennett did a great job.
• 9:44
  I thought Banks had played a great game.
• 9:46
  I it just felt like one of those games that Iowa knew they had to
• 9:49
  win and they didn't get egotistical, They didn't get
• 9:51
  above themselves defensively. Nebraska was held to 52 points.
• 9:54
  This is one of the better three-point shooting teams, best
• 9:56
  shooting teams in the Big 10, and they just look so exhausted
• 10:00
  offensively. And they did the same to Iowa.
• 10:02
  I mean, Bennett shooting 8 of 22.
• 10:04
  I know a lot of people are really not a fan of that, but
• 10:06
  Ben said that's going to happen. And statistically, they are one
• 10:09
  of the worst rosters in the Big 10.
• 10:11
  It's incredible that this team sits at 19 and seven when you
• 10:15
  look through all these guys going through slumps and we've
• 10:17
  seen glimpses, I think from everybody.
• 10:20
  Mikhail Combs is playing awful right now and it's been for the
• 10:22
  better part of three weeks now that he's been feels like
• 10:25
  unplayable. Yet he's still out there.
• 10:27
  He's still OK defensively. I know McCallum, earlier this
• 10:29
  week he mentioned that he's dealing with a bit of an injury
• 10:32
  and he's got to watch that because if he's not helping on
• 10:34
  the defensive end of the floor, you're getting nothing from him
• 10:36
  offensively. He becomes unplayable.
• 10:39
  Howard, it's been up and down for him, though.
• 10:40
  He had some good moments last night defensively.
• 10:43
  They were connected. They were solid all the way
• 10:46
  through Andy for you, when you look back at this game you're
• 10:48
  watching last night, you're seeing this 15752 the final
• 10:52
  starts 8 of 22, knowing the amount of miles that he had to
• 10:56
  have. I'd love to see an odometer in
• 10:57
  one of those tracking devices and see just how many they.
• 10:59
  Wear them. They've got them all.
• 11:00
  I promise you they got the. It's under their.
• 11:02
  Shirt yes, it's tracked. It's where it looks like they're
• 11:04
  wearing sports bras yes, yes, yeah.
• 11:06
  It's because of those tracking devices.
• 11:08
  I would love to see Bennett starts in a normal game compared
• 11:10
  to what it was for him last night.
• 11:12
  Now you're an offensive line coach.
• 11:14
  I mean, you got to like, at least like that.
• 11:16
  Yeah, defensive basketball, right?
• 11:18
  Well, here's, you know, watching last night too, and you brought
• 11:21
  it up. I think you said not athletic,
• 11:22
  aesthetically pleasing. And that's spot on because
• 11:26
  you're using words that are too big for me.
• 11:27
  I had to look up what that meant.
• 11:28
  But yeah, those that's a great way to describe it.
• 11:30
  Each team was right around 25% shooting.
• 11:32
  I mean, it's that's terrible, absolutely terrible.
• 11:35
  But you hear it over and over again.
• 11:37
  You can take your defense and you can win games with defense,
• 11:39
  you know, that way. So if you make it ugly, and
• 11:41
  honestly, that's how I was going to win probably a lot of their
• 11:43
  games against the top ten team right now, they don't have the
• 11:45
  offensive horses besides Sturtz to go ahead and keep themselves
• 11:49
  in the game like that. So you play good defense and you
• 11:52
  know, before you know it, you come out with a win.
• 11:54
  And something else with that, though, that bugs me about last
• 11:57
  night and it's driven me nuts for a long time.
• 11:59
  I will. Basketball fans, they are so
• 12:01
  fickle. Men's basketball.
• 12:03
  I don't mean woman's basketball. Yeah, woman's basketball fans
• 12:05
  over there are as loyal as you can possibly be.
• 12:08
  Why is there only 11,000 fans in the seats last night for that
• 12:11
  game? As we got smoked by Purdue.
• 12:12
  Yeah, that's a part of it. Top five team, but even with
• 12:15
  that, there might have been another 1500 in the stands, even
• 12:19
  if they would have pulled up the offset against Purdue.
• 12:22
  It's it's difficult and it is difficult to wrap your mind
• 12:24
  around because Andy, we're the same age and we grew up when it
• 12:27
  was 15,500. Every single night.
• 12:30
  You knew they were going to be there.
• 12:31
  They were going to be ready to go and the Hawkeye fan base was
• 12:33
  going to be there and it was going to be an intimidating
• 12:36
  environment. Now I know, I mean, we go way
• 12:38
  back and you go way back. It started with Steve Alford, A,
• 12:41
  he was a terrible person, period.
• 12:43
  He was unlikable, he was arrogant, so many things.
• 12:47
  And you couple that with a terrible person that also
• 12:50
  brought back Pierre Pierce that pushed away.
• 12:52
  I was at Iowa at the time that pushed away a huge, huge swath
• 12:55
  of the fan base and said I'm never coming back, I'm never
• 12:58
  supporting. Then you go from what we grew up
• 13:00
  with the Hawkeye Basketball Network across the state.
• 13:04
  It didn't matter if you were in Sioux City or Mason City or
• 13:06
  Waterloo, whatever corner of the state you were, every single
• 13:10
  Iowa basketball game was televised.
• 13:12
  And that started to go away and we evolved into the Big 10
• 13:14
  network and now we got all the streaming platforms that I think
• 13:17
  also hit. And it also happened and that
• 13:19
  coincided with the big dirt downturn in Iowa basketball when
• 13:22
  Licklider came in. There are factors, there are
• 13:24
  reasons. Still, for a game like that,
• 13:27
  yeah, you need more than a lot of this.
• 13:28
  Is a good, this is a pretty good team right now, yes.
• 13:30
  I mean, record wise they're they are punching above their weight
• 13:33
  and that's, that's a team that people need to be out
• 13:35
  supporting. Yes, and that's one that is
• 13:37
  difficult to wrap our minds around.
• 13:39
  So the video goes viral. Last night, Fred Hoiberg, after
• 13:41
  the game, slaps the phone away of a student that was running
• 13:45
  onto the floor with his camera out.
• 13:47
  Put it up in to Fred's face. All right, Pollock, I'm going to
• 13:51
  start with you because you're a Hoiberg fanboy, so I want to get
• 13:54
  your perspective first before we lay it out here.
• 13:56
  What did you think when you saw that one?
• 13:58
  So I got to Caddy for Hoiberg, probably, you know, 10 years
• 14:02
  ago. That's a nice complex.
• 14:03
  Yeah, look at that. It was.
• 14:04
  But it was, it was awesome experience.
• 14:07
  Got to sit with him throughout the day and just find out, get
• 14:09
  into his mind. The guy is as competitive as
• 14:11
  anybody I've ever met. And there's not, you know, he's
• 14:13
  got that innocent, youthful look to him.
• 14:16
  Everybody remembers him from Ames High School, then Iowa
• 14:18
  State. I mean, he still looks the same
• 14:19
  as he did in 1996 at Iowa State. It still looks the exact same.
• 14:23
  But as you as you see that right now, it's hard to imagine seeing
• 14:27
  the guy kind of loses cool a little bit in that situation.
• 14:29
  But I mean, it's it's sports, right?
• 14:31
  And that that's one of the risks of court storming.
• 14:34
  And that happened. And I'm all I'm all in favor.
• 14:36
  Of course, I love the environment that comes with a
• 14:38
  wild student section. I'm all in.
• 14:41
  And the student section brought it last.
• 14:42
  Night even though. The building was not full.
• 14:44
  The student section was great. And I'm all, I'm all in favor of
• 14:46
  that stuff and it's one of those he needs to do a better job
• 14:49
  though, and keep his cool in a situation like that.
• 14:51
  Be the bigger man. You're the guy making millions.
• 14:53
  Be the bigger man in that situation.
• 14:56
  I feel like, you know, when they started storming, I I looked
• 15:00
  right to Santa because I was worried about Sanford and say he
• 15:02
  was, I mean, he was swarmed and there were students, there's
• 15:05
  video of it, students going after him.
• 15:06
  But in those scenarios, it's almost like if, you know, the
• 15:09
  courts gonna be stormed, maybe just avoid the line.
• 15:12
  I mean, maybe just avoid the shake up line.
• 15:14
  Just wave. Yep.
• 15:14
  Yeah. And just be like get off as
• 15:16
  football. You can run to the tunnel.
• 15:17
  Nobody's going to follow you in the tunnel for them.
• 15:19
  They're just blocked. So like, I mean, it is tough.
• 15:22
  And from that video angle, like it almost looks like the kid
• 15:25
  jumps over the table to get in front of Fred.
• 15:27
  And it's like I was looking for Gary and everyone else, but that
• 15:30
  that's tough. I mean, and Andy said it best.
• 15:33
  I mean, yes, you got to keep your cool, but like also, I
• 15:36
  mean, they're college kids. I was a college kid once.
• 15:38
  But at the same time, it's like we gotta be somewhat respectful,
• 15:42
  you know? Yes, that's so tough.
• 15:44
  And that's why court storming in football, it's really dangerous
• 15:47
  because you could get trampled. It still isn't basketball.
• 15:49
  But I mean, does the Big 10 find court storms?
• 15:52
  I'm not. They don't.
• 15:52
  It's not like the SEC where it's an automatic find every single
• 15:55
  time. Yeah.
• 15:56
  And let the kids enjoy it. Iowa hasn't had a court storm
• 15:58
  since Michigan State, maybe when they were number one.
• 16:01
  Yeah, it's been a long time. Absolutely, and you can see the
• 16:04
  students. It was fun and that takes away
• 16:06
  from the moment. I'm with you.
• 16:07
  I love court rushes. I think they're great.
• 16:09
  I love field storming. I think all those things are
• 16:11
  excellent. I love when we see it after a
• 16:13
  high school basketball game that we call it right and seeing the
• 16:15
  fans pour odd and the students there and jumping around.
• 16:18
  It can be a celebration, but it goes to that.
• 16:20
  So the first video that I saw was the one of the kids actual
• 16:22
  angle of him and he just see Fred going right at him towards
• 16:26
  the camera and I'm like, oh, this is a bad look for Fred
• 16:28
  Hoiberg. But then you see the second
• 16:30
  angle and you see the route that the kid takes to get him and
• 16:32
  shoving that camera right in his face.
• 16:35
  It paints a completely different picture.
• 16:37
  So I would tell anybody if you've only seen one of the
• 16:39
  angles, take a look at both of them.
• 16:41
  I think it does paint a bit of a different.
• 16:43
  I don't think Fred Hoiberg is going to have any repercussions.
• 16:45
  Maybe I don't even think it'll be a public reprimand.
• 16:48
  It might just be Big 10 office make a phone call.
• 16:50
  Hey, don't do that, that kind of thing.
• 16:52
  I don't think it's going to be anything major.
• 16:53
  I don't think it's going to be anything major.
• 16:55
  But I will tell you one thing, when Iowa finishes up the season
• 16:58
  against Nebraska Pinnacle Bake Arena, as poor a basketball
• 17:03
  history as that program has, that building is going to be
• 17:06
  charged up in a big way March 8th.
• 17:07
  There's going to be a lot of mullets in the bleachers that
• 17:09
  day. They're already throwing beer
• 17:11
  cans at Purdue's bench. I can't imagine what they did at
• 17:13
  Iowa's bench. Absolutely it is Iowa.
• 17:17
  The big difference in the game, 17 of 18 at the free throw line.
• 17:20
  Make your free throws and they absolutely did that.
• 17:23
  Needed every single one of them. The officiating was brutal.
• 17:26
  Jeffrey Anderson and high knees sucks.
• 17:27
  He is terrible. It doesn't matter what game
• 17:29
  you're watching. Big 10, Big 12, ACC, he's
• 17:31
  terrible at every single one of them.
• 17:33
  He gets out there. It's all about him.
• 17:35
  He puts on a show with the stupid high knees things.
• 17:36
  He's a terrible, terrible official.
• 17:39
  That aside, and Nebraska, I think they got hosed twice in
• 17:42
  the last minute of that ball. Game Is there good officiating
• 17:44
  in college basketball anywhere? Maybe in the lower levels that
• 17:47
  we don't even see, yeah. If I go to a Warburg game, am I
• 17:50
  going to see good officiating? It's been years.
• 17:52
  But I mean, seriously, it's it's terrible.
• 17:54
  And in their defense, there's a lot going on.
• 17:57
  There's a lot to watch. If you get a 58 guy running
• 17:59
  around out there high stepping or doing whatever and he's got
• 18:01
  to see is there contact up here, you know, as he slaps at the
• 18:04
  hand or is there body, there's a lot he's looking for.
• 18:07
  That being said, these guys are terrible.
• 18:09
  That basketball officiating is by far and I I've umpired, I've
• 18:12
  officiated, I've done it all. Basketball is the most difficult
• 18:15
  because every single down call a foul, you dictate the pace of
• 18:19
  the game, the way the game is played.
• 18:21
  What I want is consistency, and we see so many times that the
• 18:23
  consistency just isn't there. And I was late in the game.
• 18:28
  The thing that really ticked me off was we had that ball go out
• 18:30
  of bounds and the side, the nearest side where the fans are
• 18:33
  not on the bench side clearly out on Iowa, but we review it
• 18:38
  and because the ref who's looking right at it can't and
• 18:39
  you're just wasting time and you're that's why games take
• 18:42
  longer. And the charge on Bennett starts
• 18:44
  was just I mean, he just dropped.
• 18:46
  It was a complete flop. But then on the other side
• 18:48
  there's the I don't know, it's just it's disappointing and as
• 18:52
  an Iowa fan, yes, it's a win, but it's like, I'm not stupid.
• 18:54
  I know Nebraska got hosed a couple times.
• 18:56
  Yes, you didn't want it to overshroud it.
• 18:58
  Couple of things. Yes, definitely went.
• 19:00
  I was way there at the end. The moving screen?
• 19:03
  That's a brutal call. He was right.
• 19:05
  He stood still. Yeah, I don't know what I mean.
• 19:08
  Hurst was just, I don't know. I don't know what else he can
• 19:10
  do. Rick Mast was right there, but
• 19:12
  in the end you'll take a couple of those calls going your way
• 19:14
  and that's maybe what I would needed to push through.
• 19:16
  They get a little time off now. They travel on Sunday to
• 19:20
  Wisconsin to take on the Badgers, a Wisconsin team coming
• 19:22
  off of they just got throttled by the Buckeyes last night.
• 19:26
  It's a Wisconsin team that has two of the best wins in the
• 19:28
  country. They have the road win against
• 19:30
  Michigan, giving the Wolverines their only loss of the year
• 19:33
  going in beating Illinois on the road.
• 19:35
  These are talk about high level Rd. victories.
• 19:37
  They're not many, many teams that have some odd things
• 19:40
  similar to that on their resume. There's also a team, though,
• 19:42
  that has 8 losses that lost to TCU.
• 19:45
  We know the TCU team, we say now may be different than that team
• 19:49
  that we saw back in November, that TC lost to New Orleans.
• 19:52
  Not the Pelicans, No. The Pioneers.
• 19:54
  Yeah. Privateers.
• 19:55
  Yeah. I think it's privateers.
• 19:56
  Privateers. The privateers.
• 19:57
  Tim Floyd. Tim Floyd.
• 19:59
  Yes, Yes. Tim Floyd And and not Magic
• 20:01
  Johnson. Irvin Johnson way back in the
• 20:04
  day that's New Orleans yes, as we go back in the way back
• 20:07
  machine that is Iowa as they get it done and it'll be a match up
• 20:10
  against Bucky coming up on Sunday.
• 20:13
  That will be AI believe 4:00 tip off for that one.
• 20:16
  Well, we got Andy Pollock here with us.
• 20:17
  You are a cyclone fan. You weren't here with us
• 20:19
  yesterday so you didn't have a chance to react.
• 20:21
  But a three day stretch as good as you're going to find.
• 20:23
  Speaking of in college basketball, yes, they were both
• 20:26
  at home beating Kansas, then coming back and beating Houston,
• 20:30
  doing it in the fashion that they did down double figures to
• 20:33
  come back against you, that's not coming back against anybody.
• 20:35
  Houston might be the most difficult team in the country to
• 20:38
  come back from down double digits.
• 20:40
  After the game, Otts got interviewed by Scott Van Pelt,
• 20:42
  which is the first time in his career he didn't know that, but
• 20:44
  really he was on SVP show. Yeah, I was watching it and it.
• 20:47
  Was Yeah, they mentioned that and it was a great interview and
• 20:49
  Otts is calm, cool and collected when he gets done.
• 20:52
  He's very calculated and everything that he's saying.
• 20:54
  He mentioned the way Scott Van Pelt set up the interview was
• 20:57
  awesome. He said you out tough the
• 20:59
  toughest team Houston and the in the way Samson and Otts glazed
• 21:04
  over each other. They just were like complete,
• 21:08
  you know, lovey dovey everything.
• 21:10
  So much respect for both these programs.
• 21:12
  But SVP put it perfect. The Iowa State out toughed
• 21:15
  Houston at the end of that game. That to me is one of the
• 21:19
  biggest, I don't know if you talk about the full 40 minutes,
• 21:22
  but the biggest maybe 5 minutes in Ox's coaching career.
• 21:25
  They could have easily folded at the end of that game and they
• 21:27
  did not. He's got a he's got a tough crew
• 21:29
  right now. They do, they're tough, they're
• 21:30
  deeper than they've been in the past and that's one thing I've
• 21:33
  been talking about a lot here recently.
• 21:35
  Blake is this team. We talked about it.
• 21:37
  We'll get Pollock's perspective as a fan and and cyclo fans.
• 21:41
  A lot of you guys, you crack me up and I got to a lot of buddies
• 21:43
  in my life and they don't want to get too high because of the
• 21:46
  start. Ready for it?
• 21:47
  Yep. And what's going to come?
• 21:49
  The inevitable, is it Aaron Craft?
• 21:50
  Is it, Michigan stated. And they eliminate all those
• 21:52
  different stories and all the different heartbreak that has
• 21:55
  happened in the NCAA tournament. But this team with the depth
• 21:58
  that they have, the ability to go 8 deep and not have a major
• 22:01
  drop off. When they do it, I think it sets
• 22:03
  them up so much better for March than the past.
• 22:05
  Because recently we've seen so many Iowa State teams that have
• 22:08
  had these great starts a year ago, a great start, but an
• 22:11
  injury here, lack of depth, just a tired team at the end of the
• 22:14
  season. It feels like this team has a
• 22:16
  chance to be better in March because they haven't had to play
• 22:19
  basically six guys. It feels like T JS kind of
• 22:21
  learned from the past and he's now contributing that to now.
• 22:26
  And you talked about, I mean as an Iowa fan, Iowa State has now
• 22:29
  more top ten wins in the last two days than we've had in. 10
• 22:32
  years something. Like that.
• 22:34
  So it's like, yeah, we'll take that burn.
• 22:35
  But I mean, just the way that Iowa State schedule set up, it's
• 22:39
  a gauntlet here at the end of the year.
• 22:40
  I mean, I think they got BYU next, Utah, Texas Tech, Arizona,
• 22:44
  Arizona State, who just got a win over Texas Tech last night.
• 22:46
  So I mean, it, it'll be really interesting.
• 22:48
  And for me as an Iowa fan looking at it, I was like, well,
• 22:51
  let me see how they go against Kansas.
• 22:53
  Let me see how they go against Houston.
• 22:55
  I was very impressed against Kansas.
• 22:56
  I mean, they couldn't miss. They shot lights out and that
• 22:58
  was the Kansas team who has been improving.
• 22:59
  And then Houston, obviously incredible.
• 23:02
  I as a somewhat you and I fan, I'm sure it hurts to see Knight
• 23:05
  Heisey doing what he's doing. But I mean, besides Arizona, I
• 23:09
  think they take care of Texas Tech, but the Arizona one will
• 23:11
  be a big one. This feels like a team that
• 23:13
  maybe they won't win the Big 12 title, but isn't that been a
• 23:15
  thing in the past? Like if Iowa State wins the Big
• 23:17
  12, they're usually not set up well for the.
• 23:20
  Tournament, yeah. Yeah, it's a, that's a gauntlet
• 23:23
  at the end of the year, games that you have to play.
• 23:25
  It'll be four games right that you play over the course of the
• 23:27
  last four days to do that. It's not worth it.
• 23:29
  It doesn't prove your seating at all.
• 23:30
  In fact, it's almost like the the bowl season where you want
• 23:33
  to sit out that right just get to the postseason.
• 23:36
  But that's one of the things you're talking about the depth
• 23:38
  of this Iowa State team. Not a single player scored over
• 23:41
  12 points the other night and that went over to Houston.
• 23:42
  That is that's an incredible stat.
• 23:44
  I mean that's that's depth, that's balance.
• 23:46
  How do you how do you defend that?
• 23:47
  And they Heisey that's that's America's family right now.
• 23:50
  I love I love all the stuff, but it's what an incredible story of
• 23:53
  what's going on in that family right now too.
• 23:54
  It's great. And I've learned as a Cyclone
• 23:56
  fan as you get pretty as you prepare to take that kick to the
• 23:59
  nards at some point during the postseason, you got to enjoy
• 24:02
  these moments like this. So during the during the regular
• 24:04
  season and then be there for it and enjoy it and it's it's
• 24:07
  great. I mean, it was so exciting the
• 24:08
  other night. My man Jr.
• 24:09
  Blunt actually got off the out of his seat and started
• 24:12
  coaching. That's how pumped up he got.
• 24:14
  So if you can get Jr. out of his seat, it's pretty exciting.
• 24:16
  You know, that's the thing that I think is incredibly important
• 24:19
  for fans is not worrying about that outside noise and when it
• 24:22
  starts to happen. And that's another part that I
• 24:24
  hear, oh, now national people are talking about it.
• 24:26
  Embrace it, have fun with it. Enjoy when you have the national
• 24:30
  people that are singing your praises and you get to go on
• 24:32
  Scott Van Pelt right after the game and the number of eyeballs
• 24:35
  that are seeing Hilton Coliseum, not just at the game, but then
• 24:38
  after the game and the environment that it is and all
• 24:40
  those different things. Embrace that.
• 24:41
  Yeah, there's only one team in the NCAA tournament that is
• 24:44
  completely happy at the end. Out of the 68 that make it,
• 24:47
  there's only one that's going to win the 6th consecutive and win
• 24:49
  a national championship. Enjoy the ride and if it ends
• 24:52
  with an upset in the round of 32, yeah, that sucks.
• 24:55
  But there were so many high moments and that happens.
• 24:57
  That is what the NCAA Tournament is about.
• 25:00
  You guys have Hampton, we have Northwestern State.
• 25:03
  It's going to happen in the tournament, but don't let that
• 25:06
  taint all that. You went through all the great
• 25:08
  moments because boy, Iowa State's had a ton of them
• 25:11
  already. This.
• 25:11
  Year boy, you are causing a lot of PTSD amongst college
• 25:14
  basketball fans at the state by dropping those two names that's.
• 25:17
  Right for UAB too. Oh yeah, that was.
• 25:19
  Yeah. That you that Hampton one?
• 25:21
  That was a long time. I was sitting in my college dorm
• 25:23
  room that night. I sat there by myself with my
• 25:24
  head in my hands. I That was back before I handled
• 25:27
  losses so well. I was back home for spring break
• 25:30
  and just chuckling in my parents living room because that was.
• 25:33
  As I was doing for the Northwestern State game there.
• 25:35
  That was not hilarious. Yeah, to me that was the same
• 25:37
  day Wayne Morgan got fired. I was sitting at 3 bag and we
• 25:40
  sat there and it was actually the Iowa, the I club, Polk
• 25:43
  County I club was having their game watch here and had another,
• 25:45
  the guy that hates the Hawkeyes most that I know was watching
• 25:48
  the game with me. He physically grabbed my hand
• 25:50
  under the table in Northwestern State.
• 25:51
  Hit that 3 point shot at the end.
• 25:53
  Saw coming in Alaska almost made the three quarter court heave,
• 25:56
  but alas, it didn't. Happen or PTSD you bring up the.
• 25:59
  Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:00
  Hey, we're going to continue here on the Hawkeye talk coming
• 26:03
  up here with John Bowencamp from The Associated Press.
• 26:05
  He's going to join us. We got more Cyclone talk as
• 26:07
  well. Don't worry, Cyclone fans, we
• 26:08
  got you covered. A lot of great topics here.
• 26:10
  We're also going to talk some high school sports.
• 26:12
  Says all three of us do a lot in the high school realm.
• 26:14
  And we got your state wrestling coverage right here on One O 6.3
• 26:18
  KXNO. That will start tomorrow evening
• 26:21
  with the Class 3A quarter finals, the semifinals on Friday
• 26:24
  night and then full coverage of all the classes for the state
• 26:27
  championship round on Saturday on KX note today our coverage
• 26:30
  begins 4:00 this afternoon on 96.9 FM.
• 26:34
  What other news item? As I was running back coach Omar
• 26:38
  Young after a year on the job, he is expected to be hired by
• 26:41
  the Las Vegas Raiders after one season replacing Liddell Betts.
• 26:45
  Omar Young moving on to the NFL. So once again, Iowa in the
• 26:48
  market for a new running back coach this season.
• 26:51
  We'll talk about that a little bit more.
• 26:52
  What we come back? John Bonkamp joins us as we
• 26:54
  continue. It's Miller and Condon on the
• 26:56
  Iowa Sports Radio Network. Just past 12:30 on Wednesday.
• 27:01
  It's Miller and Condon on the Iowa Sports Radio Network
• 27:03
  flagship 106.3 KX&O along with our stations in Sioux City, IA
• 27:08
  City, Cedar Rapids in the Quad Cities.
• 27:09
  Glad to have you aboard with us here today as we recap the world
• 27:13
  of sports from last night and the big one in Iowa City as Iowa
• 27:16
  gets it done. Joining us right now, he is John
• 27:18
  Bowen Camp. You'll see a story from The
• 27:20
  Associated Press Iowa College hoops.com as well as he joins us
• 27:24
  here today. John, as always, appreciate your
• 27:26
  time back late, late night for you in Carver.
• 27:29
  You love those eight O clock tip offs.
• 27:31
  I know. Oh God I love them, especially
• 27:33
  when I have to get up at 6:30 the next.
• 27:36
  I'm working on about 5 hours sleep right now so I'm used to
• 27:41
  it but but you know. Well, it's all right.
• 27:44
  It's all right because you got a fun, compelling game now.
• 27:47
  Not a beautiful game by any means, but it was a fun one.
• 27:51
  So let's go in last night as you watch this one and you watch it
• 27:53
  all unfold in front of you. They're at Carver.
• 27:57
  It was such a needed victory for Iowa and you hate to be
• 28:00
  hyperbolic about it. Must win.
• 28:02
  It's way too early to talk about must win, but the importance of
• 28:04
  that game for Iowa last night, you look at the remaining
• 28:07
  schedule, Rd. trips still in front of you got that return
• 28:10
  trip obviously against Nebraska at the end of the year, Michigan
• 28:14
  even at home that is going to be incredibly difficult.
• 28:16
  The importance of last night, John, I don't think it can be
• 28:19
  overstated, especially on the heels of that two game losing
• 28:21
  streak. Well, there there was a
• 28:23
  psychological effect to that win is you needed to get that win.
• 28:27
  You can. You couldn't now all of a sudden
• 28:29
  have a three-game losing streak and go to Wisconsin.
• 28:32
  You have to get that win and and then you had to get that win
• 28:35
  after what happened on Saturday. So there was a lot at play, but
• 28:39
  I just thought they played a really good defensive game.
• 28:43
  Offensively they weren't, you know, they missed a lot of
• 28:45
  shots, but defensively they were really good.
• 28:48
  And I think that was that was what was a big part of that win
• 28:50
  last night. The defense that had taken a
• 28:53
  step back here over the last 3-4 weeks, metrically, it had taken
• 28:57
  a huge step back. I think I saw something where in
• 28:59
  the month of February there were two 142nd in the country going
• 29:03
  into last night in defensive efficiency.
• 29:05
  I mean, you talk about a step back and I we can't win that
• 29:07
  way. And though they had one, you
• 29:09
  look through that schedule and the teams that they beat,
• 29:11
  Rutgers, you get them at home, you slide by in that one.
• 29:15
  Same thing with USC, Northwestern.
• 29:17
  We're not talking about the who's who of the Big 10.
• 29:19
  And though they won those games, there was that underlying
• 29:22
  concerned with this squad. You think they're back connected
• 29:25
  and whatever it took to get them, I guess, shaken back up.
• 29:28
  Is the defense fixed? Yeah, because and one of the
• 29:31
  things I asked, I asked Ben to call him last night.
• 29:33
  He said what what work did the defense?
• 29:35
  And he was basically like, we we just played defense because we
• 29:39
  there wasn't anything we did with the scout.
• 29:41
  It was go play the defense, you know, you can play.
• 29:44
  And he said and those guys did those guys accepted the
• 29:48
  challenge and they went out and did it.
• 29:49
  And and then so I thought, I mean, they just never let
• 29:52
  Nebraska because, you know, we've seen Nebraska this year
• 29:55
  hit a lot of threes, do a lot of things like that.
• 29:57
  They never let them get into rhythm last night.
• 30:00
  And, and you know, I mean, you look at down the stretches, what
• 30:03
  3 field goals in the last 12 minutes for, for Nebraska.
• 30:06
  And I know Iowa didn't shoot the ball well in that time.
• 30:09
  So you had to play good defense last night to win that game.
• 30:12
  And so I think it was, I think, I think Saturday was a wake up
• 30:16
  call for them in terms of we've got to get this right.
• 30:20
  And then I think, I think last night was when it all kind of
• 30:23
  came together. One guy that is continued to
• 30:25
  struggle that is Cale Combs and there was a lot of talk, I know
• 30:29
  in the Zoom earlier this week with McCollum, the question was
• 30:31
  asked about potentially changing up the starting lineup.
• 30:34
  It looked like something or at least sounded like something he
• 30:36
  was considering. Wasn't the case last night.
• 30:38
  Combs was back out there. He's also mentioned that he's
• 30:41
  dealing with some kind of injury at this point.
• 30:43
  But he is such a nothing right now on the offensive end of the
• 30:46
  floor coupled with you got defenders out there.
• 30:48
  We know obviously what Isaiah Howard can do on the wing and as
• 30:51
  a perimeter defender, how good he is in that area.
• 30:54
  Tate Sage continues to give them at minimum solid minutes out
• 30:57
  there with comb struggles. Are we trending to the time that
• 31:00
  it is time maybe to make that change?
• 31:04
  Yeah, You know, I, I think he was, I think he was just a
• 31:07
  little has been, he talked about that, that, that even during the
• 31:10
  winning streak, they talked about should we change some
• 31:13
  things around and that they didn't want to do it because
• 31:15
  they play well. Yeah.
• 31:16
  It's just, it's one of those things that at this point in the
• 31:19
  year, you start looking at things and you're like, can do
• 31:22
  we make a change here? And could that make things
• 31:24
  worse? Could that make things better?
• 31:26
  Or do we keep it the same way and hope the guy gets out of it?
• 31:29
  And I think maybe that's where they're at right now in the
• 31:31
  sense of let's do what we've been doing because you don't
• 31:34
  want to make a whole lot of radical changes at this point in
• 31:37
  the year when you're on the cusp of getting an NC tournament bid.
• 31:41
  So I just think right now he just let's see what let's see if
• 31:45
  these guys can get out of it. And you know, I mean, you know,
• 31:49
  he's not the only one. I mean, some other guys haven't
• 31:52
  had good tame Sage did some good things last night, but he's got
• 31:55
  a couple of games here lately where it's that freshman
• 31:58
  February, you know, that sometimes team guys run into.
• 32:02
  And so I think you're kind of seeing that with him.
• 32:03
  So it's just a matter of this is what we're going to roll with
• 32:06
  this, what we've been rolling with all year and let's see if
• 32:09
  you guys can work it out. Man, Yao, what he was able to do
• 32:12
  a couple of important boards late in that game, playing good
• 32:15
  defense and going up against a really skilled guy and ranked
• 32:17
  mask. And we know that that guy and
• 32:19
  the guy that took a visit to Iowa City, unfortunately for
• 32:21
  Hawkeye fans, ended up in Lincoln.
• 32:23
  He is a really talented guy out there.
• 32:25
  And Tavion Banks, it wasn't a pretty performance offensively.
• 32:28
  He made all his free throws though. 10 rebounds. 10 rebounds
• 32:31
  on top of it, those guys, those glue type of guys, you need
• 32:34
  those performances and kind of at the point now you expected
• 32:37
  out of those guys. Now you just need a couple more
• 32:39
  to step up with those two. Yeah, and I think Kim Manuel
• 32:42
  needed that game last night because I, I think he, I don't
• 32:45
  think, you know, he was happy with his play on Saturday.
• 32:47
  None of them were. And, and I think he needed, from
• 32:50
  an individual standpoint, he needed that game last night.
• 32:53
  So you saw guys, when you look at the box score that all did
• 32:57
  certain things and made plays at certain times.
• 32:59
  And that's in a game like that, that's what you need.
• 33:03
  Iowa gets to win 5752. Now they turn their attention to
• 33:07
  Wisconsin coming up on Sunday. Looking ahead at that match up,
• 33:10
  a Wisconsin team that has been wildly inconsistent this year
• 33:14
  looked awful last night. Metrically.
• 33:16
  This is not a highly ranked team.
• 33:17
  In fact, I'm looking at one of the metric sites right now.
• 33:20
  I think they're 31st at Ken Palm, something like that for
• 33:22
  the Badgers. They're inconsistent.
• 33:24
  But one thing that is incredibly scary, they got two different
• 33:27
  guards that can get downhill. Nebraska really didn't have that
• 33:30
  last night. That's the area that's given
• 33:32
  Iowa the most problems here. So going to have to be a
• 33:34
  different kind of defensive performance Sunday.
• 33:37
  Right. But but at the same time, it's
• 33:39
  just they have to give really good effort defensively and they
• 33:42
  have to make sure when you've got those guys, as you said,
• 33:45
  getting downhill, you got to stop them.
• 33:47
  And they haven't done a good job of that.
• 33:49
  And so I do think that is going to be a point of emphasis here
• 33:53
  in practice this week. Getting ready for the game is
• 33:55
  like, we can't we got to shore that up.
• 33:58
  And and so you need the defensive effort you had Tuesday
• 34:01
  night. You've got to be at least that
• 34:04
  on Sunday and maybe a little bit better because again, this is
• 34:06
  the Wisconsin team. You don't know what you're going
• 34:08
  to get. This is the team that has some
• 34:10
  of the best wins in the Big 10 and that also has losses where
• 34:13
  you just kind of like, huh, you know what happened there?
• 34:15
  You know, so, so you don't know what you're going to get on
• 34:18
  Saturday or Sunday. You just got to play good
• 34:21
  basketball. And that's that's the bottom
• 34:22
  line. And and then you've got to play
• 34:24
  kind of the way the way you did last night.
• 34:27
  The Iowa women, as Mark said after the game, great to see
• 34:30
  Iowa still owns Nebraska. They won't in Lincoln, a
• 34:34
  dominating performance. They came out red hot.
• 34:36
  It what, 5 of their first 63 pointers in the first quarter
• 34:39
  and cruised to the victory against the Huskers.
• 34:41
  We do. It might take a little bit of
• 34:43
  time for them to figure out what they need to do without Taylor
• 34:46
  McCabe. Very winnable Rd. game coming up
• 34:48
  tomorrow night as they make their way over to West Lafayette
• 34:50
  to take on Purdue where they're projected to be a 14 1/2 point
• 34:53
  favorite in that ball game. Is it just figuring out roles as
• 34:56
  simple as that, that without Taylor McCabe out there,
• 34:59
  everybody understanding what they need to do now?
• 35:02
  Right, and that was the thing I mean, when she went out, that
• 35:04
  was, you know, 30 plus minutes she had to give somebody else
• 35:07
  and you know, they tried with Addy deal and and it just didn't
• 35:11
  work when they're out in California and and and Taylor
• 35:14
  Stremco has been good for her two years in Iowa and now she's
• 35:19
  getting more runs, she's getting more of a chance to play and
• 35:22
  you're seeing now what she could do.
• 35:24
  And I mean, they are much better with her in the lineup and
• 35:27
  getting a, a significant more, a bigger amount of minutes.
• 35:31
  And so I, I, I just think now they've kind of, you knew that
• 35:34
  was going to happen. You got to figure out who, who's
• 35:36
  going to produce, how many minutes you're going to give
• 35:38
  people. And I think now she's going to
• 35:40
  figure that out and she knows what she's got.
• 35:42
  What is the ceiling for the Iowa women's basketball team?
• 35:45
  The likelihood is that they're going to be hosting first and
• 35:48
  second round. Is it a Sweet 16?
• 35:50
  Is a matchup dependent there to get to the round of eight?
• 35:52
  What would you say is the upside for this women's team?
• 35:55
  I mean, I think they can get to the second weekend.
• 35:57
  The bad thing about it is when they've played really, really
• 35:59
  good teams this year, they have not played well.
• 36:02
  So, you know, you figure if they can get to the second weekend,
• 36:05
  if there are three seed, you're playing the two seed, that's a
• 36:08
  team that's probably going to give.
• 36:09
  If you're a four seed and you've got to play one, you're going to
• 36:12
  have a lot of problems. And so that's why I think here
• 36:15
  the next few games is about building a resume to be a two or
• 36:19
  three. You know, I don't think you're
• 36:21
  going to get to 2, but I think right now where you're at,
• 36:23
  you're you're all almost at on the edge of being a 3-4
• 36:27
  somewhere in there. Just keep playing well and then
• 36:29
  just keep keep your resume in that tag and you'll be in that
• 36:32
  three seat within. And then the only difference is
• 36:34
  the next weekend is the color uniform you wear for that first
• 36:37
  game. So.
• 36:38
  Final thing for you, John, John Bowencamp joining us from The
• 36:40
  Associated Press. Over to Iowa football.
• 36:43
  Some news today. Chad Liczekow reporting that
• 36:46
  Omar Young is expected to be hired by the Las Vegas Raiders.
• 36:50
  Omar Young just one year on the job, replacing Liddell Betts as
• 36:53
  the running back coach. Now I go back to the end of the
• 36:55
  season and it might even been during bowl prep.
• 36:57
  I just remember Kumari Moulton asked about the relationship.
• 37:00
  It was kind of odd, I guess his phrasing that he used here.
• 37:04
  I know his personality is much different than Liddell Betts,
• 37:07
  but this is one that just kind of leaves you scratching your
• 37:10
  head a little bit because he seemed like a different kind of
• 37:12
  fit for the Iowa football program.
• 37:14
  Right. And I mean, he knew, he knew a
• 37:16
  lot of he knew a lot of concepts that that kind of fit in with
• 37:19
  what Tim Lester does. And that's why I think he was
• 37:22
  kind of a good fit. Well, now he's gone.
• 37:24
  Now you got to go find but yelled, you know, I mean, I
• 37:27
  think now, you know, now you want to get stability in that
• 37:30
  room because you're going to have a really good running back.
• 37:33
  And and so I mean, you want to get somebody in there that's
• 37:35
  going to be able to work with these guys and then work with
• 37:38
  the future and stay here for a few years and and and get back
• 37:42
  to what, you know, kind of what they've been, you know, in terms
• 37:46
  of this coaching staff and in terms of this offensive staff.
• 37:48
  So these guys can kind of get known.
• 37:50
  But I mean, there's, you know, keep, you can't keep bringing
• 37:53
  new, new guys every year. I think we got to find somebody
• 37:56
  to be here for a. While getting a little bit of
• 37:57
  stability with of course, Kamari Bolton coming back, Savior
• 38:00
  Williams, Nathan McNeil and the new one as here comes LJ
• 38:04
  Phillips in from South Dakota after nearly 2000 yards on the
• 38:07
  ground. A season to go.
• 38:08
  John Bowencamp joining us from the AP.
• 38:10
  You can also find his work at iowacollegehoops.com.
• 38:13
  John, as always, thanks for the time.
• 38:15
  Thanks for having me on, talk to you soon.
• 38:17
  And no Dodgers talk for you, John.
• 38:19
  We'll do that closer to the season with John Bowencamp.
• 38:21
  We've got Blake and we got Pollock hanging out with me here
• 38:24
  today. Guys, a little bit more on that
• 38:27
  Omar Young story. I want to get your first, Andy,
• 38:32
  as a football coach and as a football coach of a highly
• 38:36
  regarded offensive line prospect.
• 38:39
  You know a lot of college coaches and you get to, I'm sure
• 38:43
  you're getting more FaceTime than you probably ever had
• 38:45
  before maybe and and you've had plenty of guys over there at
• 38:47
  Dowling throughout the years. What when you look at
• 38:51
  personality type, when you look at guys coming in, guys that
• 38:54
  come in from the outside of these college programs that are
• 38:56
  well established, like Iowa State was with Campbell, Iowa
• 38:59
  obviously has been. Is it weird meeting those guys
• 39:02
  for the first time? What is that like from your
• 39:03
  perspective as a high school coach?
• 39:04
  Well, they, you brought up the the well established programs.
• 39:08
  There's not a whole lot of programs like Iowa right now
• 39:10
  that have there's there's no one like Iowa right now that have a
• 39:12
  program that's that established in that deep from a football
• 39:15
  perspective. But as these guys come in from
• 39:17
  the outside, a coach I get not from the area maybe doesn't have
• 39:21
  an appreciation of the tradition that you have at your particular
• 39:23
  school, doesn't know other guys who've come from there, what
• 39:25
  some other guys have done. It's a little bit different.
• 39:27
  But then, well, I think we're going to talk about it later
• 39:29
  with Northern Illinois and the changes that we're going to see
• 39:30
  over there too. But they, they college landscape
• 39:32
  is changing so much. High school recruiting is not as
• 39:36
  big as what it was it. In fact, it's very unless you
• 39:39
  have someone that can contribute right away.
• 39:41
  These college coaches are looking for guys in the portal.
• 39:43
  And that's, they want guys that can come in and play right away
• 39:45
  'cause whereas before some of these coaches might have been
• 39:47
  building up for, to have the next three or four years of
• 39:50
  winning programs, right now they just want to win next year.
• 39:52
  And it's not, that's not the short term fix.
• 39:54
  That's we're only counting on having these guys around for one
• 39:57
  year before they likely hop on the portal and go somewhere
• 40:00
  else. They're looking for D2 guys,
• 40:01
  some cases, D3 guys who saw the Simpson punters.
• 40:04
  Going to Iowa right now, not a whole lot of that, but JUCO
• 40:07
  guys, it's a guy that's 2021 years old that's had a couple
• 40:11
  years of building up to the speed of the game is a lot more
• 40:14
  likely to contribute than a high school kid that you want to
• 40:18
  that's going to be in your program for two to three years.
• 40:19
  And Oh yeah, once he gets to that spot that maybe he can play
• 40:21
  for you. Now he's not around anymore.
• 40:23
  So they're looking, A lot of these college coaches right now
• 40:25
  are just building their programs one year at a time.
• 40:28
  And Iowa has tried to buck that trend, but you even saw it
• 40:32
  there. There's guys leaving Iowa too.
• 40:33
  I mean, they're bringing guys in the portal.
• 40:35
  It's just the way of what it is right now.
• 40:37
  And people can fight it all they want and they can say how it's
• 40:40
  horrible for the sport. You guys have seen the ratings.
• 40:43
  More people are watching college football than ever before.
• 40:45
  Get old. And that was the Indiana
• 40:47
  blueprint, what they were able to do winning a national
• 40:49
  championship this year. Blake, am I reading too much
• 40:51
  into this? I didn't want to go, excuse me,
• 40:55
  I didn't want to go against you. But it just feels like we've
• 40:57
  always known that NFL coaches look at Kirk Ference as like one
• 41:01
  of the top models. Bill Belichick has seen him as
• 41:03
  one of the top models for coaching.
• 41:05
  And why wouldn't she want to take, you know, one of the top
• 41:08
  guys? And for young, it's like it's a
• 41:11
  great spot for the Raiders because Ashton Gente, it sure
• 41:14
  felt like they are. He's one year away.
• 41:16
  He's one or two years away. It's a great hire.
• 41:18
  But then you go back to he was only here for one year.
• 41:21
  He was behind the more offensive line, best offensive line in the
• 41:24
  country. A lot of our running also came
• 41:27
  from our quarterback Mark Gronowski.
• 41:28
  So it is it is really interesting.
• 41:31
  I I wouldn't push too much into it just because, you know, with
• 41:35
  bets it was Caleb Johnson. Then he left and we were just
• 41:37
  worried what was going to happen.
• 41:38
  I'm curious if the running backroom changes any like, you
• 41:41
  know, this, obviously Phillips hopefully is here to stay.
• 41:44
  But you know, was that part of the pitch of anything sort?
• 41:47
  I don't know, but I I don't know.
• 41:49
  I it's just there's Iowa. We are always fortunate.
• 41:52
  We have had coaches that stick with us for a pretty long while.
• 41:55
  It feels like more than others. And then when change happens,
• 41:58
  we're like, oh, are we doing something wrong?
• 42:00
  I don't think that's quite the answer, but I'm sure going to
• 42:02
  enjoy the times that we have with the coaches that are here.
• 42:05
  And I think about that with Kirk Ference all the time, because
• 42:07
  when he's gone, it's like we're stuck in the another, you know,
• 42:10
  who's next? Yes, revolving door, that's what
• 42:13
  college athletes definitely has turned into.
• 42:15
  Quick time out here. We'll come back on the other
• 42:17
  side, put a cap on our number one.
• 42:19
  Pollock mentioned it. Thomas Hammock, the head coach
• 42:21
  at Northern Illinois, leaving, but not just leaving, leaving in
• 42:24
  the middle of February. What does that do for Northern
• 42:27
  Illinois? What does that say about college
• 42:29
  coaching as we're seeing more and more of this coaches leaving
• 42:32
  not to be head coaches to be assistance in the NFL.
• 42:34
  That's next as we continue. This is Miller and Condon on the
• 42:38
  Iowa Sports Radio Network wrapping up our number one and
• 42:41
  Condon continues on the Iowa Sports Radio Network trek.
• 42:44
  Condon here joined by Blake Walker and Andy Pollock here
• 42:48
  today. Been fun guys as we make our way
• 42:50
  through our number one. So Andy, you brought up Northern
• 42:54
  Illinois. Their head coach leaves for a
• 42:56
  job with the Seahawks. Not the head job because
• 42:59
  McDonald's not going anywhere. So that's not open.
• 43:01
  But we've seen this more and more.
• 43:03
  You go back to was a halfly went to your Packers from Boston
• 43:06
  College. Does it say a lot about what
• 43:09
  college coaching has turned into when we continue to see some
• 43:12
  things like this? Yeah, I think it says a ton
• 43:14
  about it. I mean, college coaching has
• 43:15
  turned into professional coaching.
• 43:17
  You've got these CFO's now in college sports that are managing
• 43:20
  the budgets that these colleges have with the NIL budgets and
• 43:23
  the guys coming in halfway through the year asking for more
• 43:26
  money, interrupting the season right away for that.
• 43:28
  And yeah, it's there's a lot fewer headaches moving on to the
• 43:31
  pros and these guys have an opportunity.
• 43:33
  Once you get in the pros, it's a, it's a retread league.
• 43:36
  I mean, these guys, once they get an NFL job, they get floated
• 43:39
  for all these other jobs. You watch these guys that fail
• 43:41
  miserably in the NFL get another job a week later.
• 43:43
  It drives me nuts. Somehow that works.
• 43:45
  I got to find a way to get in the NFL.
• 43:46
  Yeah, that's, well, I mean, you got the right offensive line to
• 43:49
  do it. You can as long as you're an NFL
• 43:51
  coach. Isn't matter if you're a bad
• 43:52
  one. You keep your job as an NFL
• 43:54
  coach somewhere will someone will hire you again.
• 43:56
  It's like I'm the worst NFL coach in the world, yet I can
• 43:59
  find myself a job in the NFL just because I've said I can do
• 44:01
  it. They'd rather take a chance on
• 44:03
  someone that's done it poorly than someone else that might
• 44:05
  come in and maybe have a way that's different.
• 44:07
  And the analyst jobs are now on top of it.
• 44:09
  I mean, you talk about that. I mean, just an absolute
• 44:12
  parachute there for these guys that are fired.
• 44:13
  Well, here's a job you're going to make $150,000 a year breaking
• 44:17
  down film. Pretty nice one to have.
• 44:19
  Yeah. I wish we had something like
• 44:20
  that in our industry. Blake, your thoughts on this?
• 44:22
  And boy, talk about putting Northern Illinois in a tough
• 44:24
  spot. He's had a losing record.
• 44:26
  Had a losing record at Northern Illinois.
• 44:28
  His career is high by the one upset win over Notre Dame last
• 44:31
  year, which is great, But I think it's coming to a point
• 44:34
  where this is where you start to see NIL starting to become a
• 44:37
  really big, not a problem, but these teams can't keep up.
• 44:40
  I mean, it's just they're Northern Illinois is a feeder
• 44:43
  school if anything now. And that's crazy to say in the
• 44:45
  Mac, but they're a feeder school.
• 44:46
  And I mean, you just know that it's going to be harder to keep
• 44:49
  things rolling. Gone are the days of 2011 to
• 44:51
  2015 for Northern Illinois. So I'm excited to see what
• 44:54
  happens for him. But maybe he just wanted to
• 44:56
  ditch the Mountain West. He didn't want to be a part of
• 44:58
  the. Mountain West, our number one in
• 44:59
  the books coming back. David Kaplan joins us on Chicago
• 45:02
  sports.