Weekend wrap

Posted by: Jorgy at 10:52am March 8, 2010

Taking tickets for the UNI bandwagon.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL
UNI

UNI dominated the Missouri Valley Tournament this past weekend in St. Louis. We’ll have some video from the post game up later today.

During the tourney, UNI’s defense didn’t just slow teams down, it smothered them and had begging for air, or at least a glimpse at the basket. If their defense continues to play like this they are going to be a nightmare for teams in the first two rounds. Mo Valley teams that faced the Panthers twice this year didn’t have an answer for them this weekend. That doesn’t bode well for a team having to face them 4 or 5 days after hearing their name.

As we’ve said all year, UNI is the best TEAM in the State. Coach Jake is pulling all the right strings including getting some bench players some quality time and having them respond. How about little Koch’s brother this weekend – 21 minutes, 5-7 FGs, 13 points? Not a bad line at all for the red shirt freshman.

And talk about your second half adjustments – look at these second half scoring totals for Drake, Bradley and Wichita State 16, 21, and 21 respectively. Jake’s best coaching might be in the locker room at halftime.

This team is going to be fun to watch in the tourney. So now the water cooler topic – what seed? 5, 6?

IOWA STATE
Huge win for the Clones Saturday. Season saving no. Job saving yes. I am not sure Greg McDermott’s job was exactly on the line, but a road win over a Top 5 team certainly doesn’t hurt and help pour some water on the hot seat.

Late in Saturday’s game it appeared Iowa State was headed for another great 35 minute ball game followed by another tough loss. They had out played the Wildcats, but it looked as though another heart wrenching finish was in the books. But give Coach Mac and the team credit, the played through the adversity and mistakes and pulled out the win. Not sure the Clones can make any noise in the Big 12 tourney, but Texas as a first round match up is nice.

A side note – it seems the Iowa State Marketing Department continues to try to capture magic in a bottle. The Paul Rhoads post game speech after the Nebraska win was pretty cool, and made a splash around the country. The McDermott post game at Kansas State, meh? If your going to post video from the locker room, let’s do it every game.

IOWA
Also, Iowa scored 20 points in the first half yesterday in Minnesota. First time they have broke 20 in four games. Really not much to write. It was a blow out, it was disgusting. Men against boys. This is some of the worst basketball I have ever seen a D1 team play not only in this state, but ever. Let’s hope the Michigan goes fast and we can bury this season.

COLLEGE WRESTLING – Brands vs. Sanderson
We don’t cover it much, but as expected the Hawks won the Big Ten Title Sunday, but definitely didn’t finish the way they hoped to finish. The Hawks sent 6 wrestlers into the finals and left with only 2 Big Ten Champs. Most shocking was Brent Metcalf’s lost to Ohio State’s Lance Palmer.

Also, in case you missed it, just because Cael Sanderson move to Pennsylvania, doesn’t mean Tom Brands has grown more fond of him. Check out the video starting at around 7:25. The Penn State wrestler doesn’t hear the whistle and dives after Dan Erekson. Brands jumps up to back his wrestler and he and Cael say hello.

NASCAR
I still can’t watch a whole NASCAR race start to finish, but if Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards are positioned near each other I am watching. Seems there is a little bad blood between these two and Carl decided to extract a little pay back yesterday. Was the wreck intentional? Here is Carl’s Facebook entry:

My options: Considering that Brad wrecks me with no regard for anyones safety or hard work, should I: A-Keep letting him wreck me? B-Confront him after the race? C-Wait til bristol and collect other cars? or D-Take care of it now? I want to be clear that I was surprised at his flight and very relieved when he walked away. Every person has to decide what code they want to live by and hopefully this explains mine.

Doesn’t sound like it was a “mistake”…

Sports

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