My bro-in-law is uncoachable

In fact, Matt T. (not to be confused with longtime UG Matt) might have to join the UG team. He might actually contribute! (Oh, snap.) Here is something he recommended--I thought it deserved its own post. Let's count the uncoachable factors here:

• A big dog.
• Martial arts.
• A big dog doing martial arts.
• The dog's name: Ringo Tsar.
• There's a picture of Ringo Tsar working over his owner to supplement the story.
• A voice of reason: "It seems much better to teach a guard dog to [kickbox] than to bite." I've been saying that for years!
• A bold declaration: "If there was a British Thai boxing championship for dogs, then Ringo would win paws-down every time. There are a few humans he could beat as well." Don't let Mike Tyson get wind of this--it will be on pay-per-view by the weekend.

Fighter teaches dog to kick-box

_

Hoop Hoop Hooray

How great has college basketball been these past nine days?

• All four of my Final Four picks made it to the Elite Eight. A so-so bracket might look pretty nice by Sunday evening.
• The tournament games have been incredibly competitive, night after night. Last Saturday, St. Patrick's Day, might have been the greatest tourney day when you consider no local teams of interest were playing. The Ohio State miracle. Georgetown fends off a tough Boston College team (more like a tough Boston College force named Jared Dudley). Butler knocks off Maryland (one of my wife's Final Four teams!) Pitt gets pushed to OT by VCU (whose point guard was a real UG). A&M escapes Louisville. UNC is pushed by Michigan State. Vandy needs 2 OTs to knock off Wazzu. And even Indiana managed to make UCLA sweat in the final minutes. It was exciting, from noon 'til midnight.
• Wisconsin, picked to win it all by Matt's dad, loses in the second round. (This point was mentioned purely out of spite.)
• Ohio State, Florida, Kansas, and Georgetown--my Final Four--all made me sweat a little bit in their Sweet 16 games before advancing. I'd hate to cruise to a clean bracket, after all.
• Tom Davis stepped down as the head man at Drake. Winning streak versus Iowa? Intact.
  
• Tournament time has Beast so fired up he has started throwing around Harold "The Show" Arceneaux references.
• Oh yeah, Steve Alford is leaving.
  

My gut reaction when it became clear that Captain Hair Gel was going to be the next Head Lobo was a sigh of relief--one for all parties involved. I might find Alford arrogant, and perhaps a bit overrated, but I think another mediocre season in Iowa City might have resulted in something uglier than I'd wish upon anyone. Alford was able to find a decent exit destination, and Iowa can finally move on from this turbulent time in its history.

So who will be the next Iowa coach? There's only about two dozen candidates being tossed around by Eastern Iowa media, so apparently it's a "great job." Here's my short list:

• Tim Floyd. Admit it, when he was at ISU, you wished he was your coach. Just like you wished Dedric Willoughby was your shooting guard. And you wished Fred Hoiberg was your swingman. And you wished Kelvin Cato was your post guy. And you wished you had Kenny Pratt in those "oh shit I might have to fight my way out of this bar" moments. I doubt you longed for Jacy Holloway at the point, however. (When I worked at a deli in Ames, we'd ask delivery orders for a last name. Whenever Holloway called in, he made sure to emphasize that it was JACY Holloway ordering this overpriced sub, dammit. I never had the pleasure of bringing JACY Holloway his eats, but I did deliver to another player, one who was not mentioned above, who tipped me with a contact high courtesy of the bluish smoke cloud that attacked me when he opened his apartment door. Damn, I miss college.)
  
• Larry Eustachy. Admit it, after another home loss to Wisconsin, wouldn't you enjoy stumbling into some house party on Melrose Ave and finding the coach standing there, holding a case of Natty Light with your name on it?
• Norman Dale. He might have the same effect on Tyler Smith that he had on Jimmy Chitwood (in other words, he can keep Smith from bolting).

OK, let's get serious:

• David Davies. (No, not the guy from the Kinks.) He recognized the potential of a 5'4" eighth grader, and inserted him in the starting lineup at power forward for all nine of Waukon Junior High's games in 1987-88. We went 1-8, and I think he started me because I took a lot of guff from my teammates for having cheap-ass shoes, but I was among the team leaders in free throw percentage and flagrant fouls, and I was able to replicate the shot from the oil spot on our driveway in most gyms (Decorah's being the exception). Also, at RateMyTeachers.com, Davies received 5's across the board on a scale of 1 to 5 in the categories of expectations, difficulty, and respect in regards to his math teachings, AND he was praised in the comments section for his coaching abilities. And you want Bruce Pearl to come back? Fuck that.
  
• Ed Nealy. No explanation needed.
• Tom Crean. If Iowa can't get Davies or Nealy, this might be the best move.
  

El Loco gets benched?!

I don't understand this move: Illinois state basketball time is upon us, and Crazy Andrew (aka El Loco) is not part of this week's vidcast. Troy and Todd fill the chairs. Now I think it's simply an objective observation to say that Troy, despite his encyclopedic knowledge of all things Illinois prep sports, ruins the Hoops Talk chemistry we've come to enjoy.

It's not so bad when it's Troy and Crazy Andrew, because El Loco is crazy enough to turn the show on its ear regardless of his co-pilot, but Todd seems a bit down without Andrew. There are times when Todd kinda stares at his feet, sneaking upward glances to his right, hoping to be ambushed by the craziness of El Loco. But instead, Troy keeps talking about high school dudes.

Oh well. El Loco, nosotros le perdemos.

Hoops Talk WITHOUT Crazy Andrew

March Badness

First, let me remind you of something I wrote around this time last year:

My Alford Plea: Get Lost

OK. It's nice to be able to recycle material. But some new comments wouldn't hurt.

First: I thought I'd wait a day to react to Iowa getting shut out of the NIT, so I could include the reaction I witnessed on campus today. Here it is, in a nutshell:

(cue chirping crickets)

Yep. Nobody really cared. The students are all on spring break, which certainly contributes to the silence, but the same silence was there on Friday, the day of Iowa's lone contest in the Big Ten Tournament. There was no vibe anywhere. I had lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings on Friday, and it wasn't going to be all that hard to find a table for the early afternoon tip versus Purdue. (I left at 1 p.m.)

Let me put it to you this way: last summer's U.S.-Ghana World Cup match lured more people from my department downstairs to Brother's (my office is in a sweet location, yeah?) than the Hawkeyes Big Ten tilt.

And let's talk about Stevie whining about how a team of the Hawkeyes' standing in the Big Ten was jobbed out of the postseason. Every article and column I read today had the same sound bite from Alford: we finished tied for fourth in the Big Ten!

That's like Ringo Starr saying he tied Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe for the fourth-best Beatle. Or like Tori being the fourth-hottest girl to attend Bayside High School (all apologies to Violet). It's nothing to brag about.

Alford also went on to say the Hawks beat every Big Ten opponent they faced this year ... except for Wisconsin and Ohio State. You know, the two real teams in the conference.

Stevie also hit the magical rewind button and wrote new scenarios to some of their bad losses: Arizona State, UNI (at home), and a third game that I can't exactly recall. What I can recall is that he said with those revised outcomes, they'd have 20 wins.

Yep. More wins. Guess you should've scored more points in more games. Then you would have ... you guessed it, more wins.

The Register's Sean Keeler went as far as to call Alford a "miracle worker" in his Sunday column, and earlier this season, fellow UG Matt has been saying the same thing: Alford is doing a hell of a job with Haluska, Tyler Smith, and a bunch of hacks. Ignoring the total letdowns during the stretch run (Penn State, Purdue), you might have a point.

Maybe Alford should have a talk with the guy who recruits these subpar squads, and let him know just how difficult it is to coach this ragtag bunch.

Oh wait ....

AD Gary Barta came out and said the program must improve next year. Glad you thought of that AFTER giving the coach an extension the second you waltzed into town.

*********************

My Final Four picks: Florida, Kansas, Georgetown, and Ohio State. The "Elite Eight" losers: Wisconsin, Pitt, Texas, Texas A&M. I have very few upsets: George Washington (an 11) makes the Sweet Sixteen. Old Dominion is my 12-beats-5 pick (over Butler). The aforementioned G-Dub is my 11 seed; Georgia Tech is my only 10 seed getting out of the first round.

I have Kansas beating Florida and G'town over OSU. G'town wins it all.

*********************

The Knicks extended Isiah Thomas' contract. I never thought I'd be happy about this--and I'm not happy. But I'm not cursing the move either. Going into tonight, the Knicks were eighth in the East, already six wins ahead of last year with 19 games to go. Granted, they're still seven games UNDER .500, but that's no matter in the NBA, where more than half the teams find postseason berths. I find myself checking the Atlantic Division standings every so often this year--which is an improvement on last year. It's still the NBA, though--wake me up come conference finals.

El Loco y futbol americano

Yes, this is from the prep football season, which ended, like, months ago. And there's no video of Todd and Crazy Andrew this time. But there's a third guy in the mix, and I believe this is where "Crazy Andrew's" Spanish handle was born, so it's a wash in terms of enjoyment.

The Hoops Guys Talk Football Months Ago