Hilton Magic

Trib article on continuing the home and home series with UNI and Drake. Sounds like it will continue in the near future at least. ISU and Iowa are two of very few high major schools who have home and home deals with two in-state mid-major teams. Teams like Colorado may play Colorado State home and home but KU and K-State won't play Wichita State without a 2-1 or even 3-1 deal, Mizzou won't play SW Missouri State at all, Oklahoma State and OU don't have these deals with Tulsa, etc. I'm a fan of good mid-major teams and wish that more teams would play them, especially at home, but I'm an ISU fan first and these deals do hurt financially. Some people say that giving up a Northern Colorado game would make more sense but we're never going to need to go there so that's great for the minimum number of home games needed to make it financially. In the current state of college basketball a game at another Big 10 or SEC school on ESPN helps your program a lot more than playing in Cedar Falls or at the Knapp Center. It's a tough call because fans in Iowa do have a unique opportunity to see all four D1 schools matchup against each other every year while at the same time Iowa and ISU are making concessions to do this that other schools aren't willing to do and UNI and Drake shouldn't assume that this is their right just because it's been that way for so long.

Also, the confrontation between Morgan and McDermott apparently began when McD yelled "Get that son-of-a-bitch out of the game" to Morgan after Homan's foul. Morgan said "What? Fuck you." McD responded by saying something to the effect of "I'll punch you in the face" and Morgan dropped a few more f-bombs. I find it a little odd that Morgan is getting most of the heat from the media but I guess it is usually the second guy that gets caught. Usually he's such a calm guy but he will stand up for his players when he feels they're being wronged. He dropped a few curses (justifiably) at the refs at the KU game last year after we were jobbed on a couple of plays there which was nice to see.

Speaking of cursing at refs, the same ref that ejected Larry Eustachy during the Michigan State game T'd him up again in his home opener at USM. There was always some talk that Curtis Shaw and Larry had some problems from his days at Idaho so I find it kind of funny that they would get the same ref for his home opener. I'll bet LE was really excited to see him. I still cant believe there were refs that bad in at elite 8 game though. How is it possible to be a charge and a block at the same time? What a joke. Curtis Shaw, Frank Basone, and Lonnie Dixon...you suck.