Only in Iowa

I sit here tonight watching some Iowa basketball (which I will comment on later) having been home now for 4 hours from school. What is odd about that is my basketball coaching career at East Marshall has started. We were supposed to have practice tonight from 5:15 to 6:45 (by the way, the head coach is awesome, just very anal retentive about his schedule, nothing wrong with that though). Because of bad weather though we cancelled practice. Only in Iowa can I be watching the skies for tornadoes on Saturday wondering where I would "hide" in my apartment building, and only a couple days later be listening to the cold winter wind be howling past my windows while it snows outside. Just another example of the old saying "if you don't like the weather in Iowa wait a couple hours and it will change." Well it has been more than a couple hours, but still most certainly true.

As I said earlier, I am watching Iowa basketball. The one thing I love more than Iowa football. My love or passion for it has kind of waned in the last couple years though. I want Coach Alford to succeed, but he does stupid things at times. Then we had the whole Pierre Pierce situation (glad that's over) and other random players quitting the team. On top of that, we always have a mid-Big Ten season meltdown that hurts our chances for the NCAA tournament. Frustrating to say the least. Quietly though I am optimistic for this season. A bunch of seniors, a bunch of Iowa guys who play hard, and it seems like a slight upgrade in quickness and defense. Sure, the exhibition games are glorified practices (Wartburg gave them a game but that was expected by me at least--by the way, really cool to see the Wartburg guys out there on Carver-Hawkeye's floor). The first two opponents of the year aren't anything to really get excited about either, BUT the way the Hawkeyes have been playing "D" and the ease with which they've won, plus the intensity they have despite winning big, makes one wonder if this might be "the year." Probably not, but we can all dream. Here's to a good Hawkeye basketball season!