What Has Happened to Iowa Basketball??!!

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jamiche

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I'm not talking about the team, I'm talking about the crowd. The building was half empty and the crowd was so quiet I could hear the squeak of the sneakers most of the game. Maybe it's the economy, although the farm economy is pretty good. Maybe it's the after effects of the Alford era. This was a big win for the gophers and Tubby but at least part of the credit (blame?) goes to a small, sleepy Iowa crowd.

Playing against a crowd of 5,000 is a helluva lot easier than playing against 15,000. Let's hope the gophers walk into empty buildings at NU, PSU and, maybe, Michigan.
 

I thought their student section looked really really empty too. It looked like the size of the Monson's Mob group from back in the day. I bet if they had a better turnout they could have got some crowd noise going to try to push the Hawkeyes to victory. Hard to feel pumped up playing in a morgue.
 


Yeah, still on break, and perhaps a few other reasons why the non-student sections weren't filled.
 

That makes more sense then. I wish I had a nice long break, but I like still getting a paycheck.
 


jamiche said:
What Has Happened to Iowa Basketball??!!
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They haven't come back from this yet:

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To answer Jamiche's original question: Don't know and don't care :)

I'm just happy to be 14-1 and 2-1 after tonight!!!:D
 

Jike Spingleton said:
They haven't come back from this yet:

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Click to expand...

Yeah, I've converted that into an audio file and now it's my ring tone. I also used the play-by-play in the vows for my (Vegas) wedding.
 

The Iowa radio call is even better, if you just want audio. Haven't heard it for awhile, but I believe Dark Star still plays it every night on WCCO radio, just past midnight.
 



I think the Iowa call has named a blog as well...Northwestern Wins.

Edit: The blog was active but isn't anymore.
 

I don't see the Alford era as bad at all results wise, but Iowa fans couldn't stand him by the end of his tenure. The Alford era could be part of the reason, but I believe the cost of Iowa football tickets may be another. Iowa football is a much bigger deal (at least from where I sit) than it was a decade ago, and with the expansion of the football stadium came increased prices for tickets. Many people who live in Des Moines make the trip to Iowa City to fill up the football stadium, but for a basketball night game during the work week, it's tougher to make that round trip. If Iowa was a ranked team, I think you'd see a bigger crowd, but the state is much more interested in football than basketball right now.
 

You're right, EG#9. The Alford era wasn't bad results wise, but it was terrible in lots of ways:
1. Alford was not the master of PR. He showed disdain for anyone who questioned him, was not well liked by the media, and was not well liked by the fans. He was aloof and didn't respond well to questions regarding his mistakes or coaching decisions (think Childress times 10). Not unexpected, as he learned from Bobby Knight, I guess.
1a, His handling of the Pierre Pierce incidents was a flat-out debacle. A lot of fans left the program because of him.
2. When he didn't have a good team, they underachieved. When he had a good team, they still underachieved. Low Big Ten regular season finishes with Reggie Evans and Luke Recker. First round loss to Northwestern State in the NCAA tournament with Jeff Horner, Greg Brunner, and Adam Haluska. In fact, no NCAA tournament success.
3. The one thing that he did do well was in the Big Ten Tournament. But that too became a double edged sword. Fans would ask, "where the _______ was this in the regular season?
4. He left very little for Coach Lickliter to work with. As detailed in last night's broadcast, he let Tyler Smith out of his scholarship to go to Tennessee. He let Tony Freeman leave for S. Illinois. Coach Lickliter is not a recruiter like Tubby Smith, so it may be a few years until he gets the players he wants. I am hopeful watching freshmen Matt Gatens and Anthony Tucker this year.

Coach Lickliter has a huge job ahead of him. He is just about everything Steve Alford is not. And that is a good thing.
 

I would pretty much concur with everything SPH said.

My impression from beign a Gopher fan living in Des Moines is that Alfrod started with very strong support, and gradually lost most of it over the years as his personality "began to come acrosss to Hawk fans" over time.

When Pierce went up on the SECOND sexual assualt charge, the response down here was a lot like the response up there to Dominic Jones' thing up in Mpls ("ewwwwww"); Alford may be in the textbook for how to *NOT* handle this type of c%&%!

Lickliter seems to be doing a fine job, but I liken Alford's toxic effect on the Hawk program to Monson's on ours. He started out real good, and deteriorated year-by-year.

Also, at least in and around Des Moines, it did not help HAWK basketball status that the coach who was forced out by the HAWK A Dept. was now at Drake Unviversity, doing rather well (thank you!) and playing *exciting basketball*! The success of Dr Tom's son Keno last year (including an absolute *pasting* of the Hawks in the head-to-head game) added salt to the wounds....I suspect a lot of Hawk fans have disengaged (somewhat) from the team. Remember what is was like with the Molinari team just before Tubby? A lot of us stayed fans, but we didn't expect a whole lot.

Lickliter is a good coach, but it may take a little time to bring things back....
 



What happened to Iowa fans?

That's the exact question my brother asked me last night when he called me from Maine. For the most part he's been away from Minnesota since the mid to late 80's, so all he remembers is the great Hawkeye fan support during the Lute Olson, Kevin Boyle, Steve Carfino, Kenny Arnold, Dr. Tom & Roy Marble heydays when they were going up against the Jim Dutchers, Mychal Thompsons and Trent Tuckers. He was stunned how empty and quiet the place was. I told him it had something to do with Alford, the Iowa fans got sick of him (as some Hawkeye fans here have posted), as well as football being "the" sport now in Iowa City under Ferentz. Lickliter has a heck of a job ahead of him getting fans back in the seats like it used to be in Iowa City.
 

This is one of the primary reasons why asked if the Iowa rivalry is dying. Can it be a rivalry if no one cares?
 

Hawkeye fans did not go to Carver because of the weather report....there was a 50% chance of cloudy skies. IOW, fair weather fans. But then, it took Tubby and his intensity of, with, and by his team to bring more people back to the BARN.
 

So in other words

Hawkeye fans are not the great fans that they pretend to be. Football and basketball are not the only sports that both schools have. If we had a border battle with Iowa we would wipe them off the mat.

Go Gophers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

What surprised me was how many Iowa fans left with more than 2 minutes to go when game was still in doubt. We had a 6 pt lead but that is not much with that much time left.When I mentioned that the Ia fans sitting by me got up and left too.
 

It's the Bulldog State

At least for college basketball right now. Drake wiped Iowa 60-43 earlier this season and this isn't the first win for Drake against them in recent years. Fear the Bulldogs!

Still, Iowa State is an even bigger train wreck in basketball and football. To bad the Gophers don't get to play them anymore in those sports.
 

The Iowa fans have had to deal with a little adversity and they aren't responding very well to it. How many times over the years have the Hawkeye fans come on to Gopher message boards and say what lousy fans we all are because we don't support our team?

Iowa has not faced adversity even CLOSE to what Gopher fans have endured in both basketball and football over the last 40 years.....maybe now they are getting just a small sample of it. I guess I don't feel even a bit sorry for them.
 

jamiche said:
Maybe it's the economy, although the farm economy is pretty good.
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Iowa City and Cedar Rapids - the two primary markets for mid-week basketball games - was absolutely devastated by the floods this summer, so I do think the economy has something to do with it. There are businesses that are still not open and some that will never re-open.

Also, weeknight games that start at 6pm are a tough spot for Iowa. That basically eliminates Des Moines as a causal ticket buyer market and even makes it tough for a Cedar Rapids person to hit the game on time, too. We have almost 3 million people that live within 30 miles of Williams Arena. So, 6pm games are nothing for us. Iowa has maybe 250,000 people that live within 30 miles of their arena. I'd guess at least half of the people who are normally needed to fill the Iowa arena come from more than 30 miles away. So, if you aren't a season ticket holder and you work during the week, you have no shot to make a 6pm start, so they don't get much walkup (obviously).

Now, all that said, if they were 14-1 and ranked 19th as we are, they would probably be having more success in filling the place. Amazing how winning will force people to make it a priority to get to the game (i.e., MN-MSU at 11am on New Year's Eve Wednesday).
 

Iowa's attendence woes are nothing new though. Some one posted a list of arena size and average attendance a few months ago. It wasn't pretty.
 

It's been almost 40 years since I lived in Iowa while attending Drake but I remember how much of a basketball state it was with strong interest in the high school teams and staying strong in terms of supporting the local universities and colleges. Because of the lack of major league professional winter sports, basketball was pretty much the only "show in the state."

I'm curious if the Iowans on this board still see a similar level of interest in the general public.
 

From the Barn said:
Iowa's attendence woes are nothing new though. Some one posted a list of arena size and average attendance a few months ago. It wasn't pretty.
Click to expand...

Certainly, it is something new relative to history. Iowa is at historical lows this season. In fact, up until Tubby was hired, they outdrew us.


Iowa's average attendance figures (Minnesota figures in parenthesis):

2008-09: 9,442 (12,758)
2007-08: 10,761 (12,452)
2006-07: 12,196 (10,974)
2005-06: 12,006 (11,536)
2004-05: 11,901 (10,567)
2003-04: 12,977 (12,228)
 

Statewide, I would agree.
Drake has a seven game winning streak against Iowa, Iowa State, and Northern Iowa combined.

Iowa State is indeed in trouble in both football and basketball.

Iowa was a young team without much depth. Throw in the Tucker and Tate situation and those problems only get worse. I would imagine seeing more of the beatdowns like Michigan gave Iowa today in the near future. I was really surprised that Minnesota didn't blow Iowa out.
 

tjgopher said:
Certainly, it is something new relative to history. Iowa is at historical lows this season. In fact, up until Tubby was hired, they outdrew us.


Iowa's average attendance figures (Minnesota figures in parenthesis):

2008-09: 9,442 (12,758)
2007-08: 10,761 (12,452)
2006-07: 12,196 (10,974)
2005-06: 12,006 (11,536)
2004-05: 11,901 (10,567)
2003-04: 12,977 (12,228)
Click to expand...

Nothing new as in there were plenty of empty seats last year too. In the grand scheme of things and through out their history they have had a good following.
 

MNSnowman said:
Because of the lack of major league professional winter sports, basketball was pretty much the only "show in the state."
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I guess this disproves that there is nothing to do in Iowa but follow Hawkeye sports. Right? Right? :rolleyes:
 




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