Hawkeyes getting into season shape

You know college basketball is just around the corner when... teams start playing exhibition games! Iowa hopes to avoid "pulling a Syracuse" when it hosts Marian (Ind.) in Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday at 12:35 p.m. Go here to read about head coach Todd Lickliter's press conference where he talked about the importance of playing these preseason games.

The Hawkeyes most likely will go with a starting lineup of freshman Cully Payne at point guard, sophomores Anthony Tucker and Matt Gatens on the wings, sophomore Aaron Fuller at the 4 and junior co-captain Jarryd Cole at the low post.

This might be the deepest squad Lickliter has had heading into his third year with the program. His bench will offer players with experience such as senior co-captain Devan Bawinkel, sophomore forward Andrew Brommer, junior college transfer Devon Archie and redshirt freshman John Lickliter. Also as Lickliter's disposal will be a slew of young and talented freshmen like Cully Payne, Eric May, Brennan Cougill and Nick Neari. If these freshman can show that they are game-ready, things will be looking good for the Hawkeyes.

Since the 1999-2000 season, Iowa is 15-1 in exhibition games with a 79-76 loss to the Harlem Globetrotters in 2002 its only blemish. Marian is certainly capable of an upset though, as it returns its top seven scorers from a team that finished 11-15 last season. And in today's age of parity in college basketball, we all know the consequences of looking past an opponent (see: Syracuse Orange).

Today, the Hawkeyes are actually holding a close scrimmage with University of Illinois at Springfield for just another chance to prepare themselves for the start of non-conference play and what looks to be a brutal Big Ten schedule.

Photo from Hawkeyesports.com.

New Top 25 poll and videos

Here's a fresh video from ESPN with Mr. College Basketball-Dick Vitale. He talks about the first 2010 Men's Basketball ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll that is stacked with Big 10 and Big 12 teams. Kansas received 27 first place votes, Michigan State earned 3 and North Carolina slated 1 vote.

Vitale's Super Six teams: Kansas, Kentucky, Texas, Michigan State, Purdue and Duke.

The Jayhawks are his choice to win it all come March. He said they "have all the components" of a championship team: a great coach, experienced veterans, talented freshman. I agree with Vitale that the off-court issues from this summer will have little if no effect on KU's season.

Top 25 teams with ranking: Big 10 Big 12

Michigan State (2) Kansas (1)

Purdue (7) Texas (3)

Michigan (15) Oklahoma (16)

Ohio State (17)

Minnesota (18)

Others receiving votes, in order, are: Illinois, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Kansas State and Texas A&M.

I think the poll just shows how much the voters understand the top-to-bottom strength in the Big 10 this year. The conference as a whole has developed into one of the top conferences in the nation. Some criticize the conference for its slow pace and lack of scoring, and rightfully so, but I would put its defense up there with the best in the country.

The Big East leads the way with six teams ranked in the poll (Villanova, West Va., UCONN, Georgetown, Louisville, Syracuse) while the ACC only has four (UNC, Duke, Ga. Tech, Clemson).

ESPN release

Follow Dick Vitale on Twitter here.

Here's another video from ESPN-an interview with head coach Bill Self about the high expectations the Jayhawks face this season.

Analysis of Vincent reading

This is also an assignment for my sportswriting class.

(1) In Vincent's paper, he lists several factors that are key in measuring the coverage of female and male athletes in print media. The first one is quantity, which includes the amount of articles and photographs, as well as the number of words/paragraphs in each article and the size of each photo.

The next factor is quality, meaning which page the content appears on: front page, front page of sports, sports or other sections.

Third is position of the page, such as top, middle or bottom, because each position has its own meaning of important.

Content and quality of the photograph is fourth. This means whether the photo is black or white, and what the photo is of-action, competition, mug shot, etc.

Fifth-a balanced coverage (coverage being number, size, prominence and location) of females competing in "female inappropriate" sports with females competing in "female appropriate" sports should be provided.

Sixth-do not thread reports about female athletes onto reports about male athletes.

Seventh-do not portray female athletes in sexist of trivial ways.

Eighth-define female athletes through their athletic rather than gender role.

(2) The inferences and main conclusion of the study is that media are extremely powerful in spreading ideas of mainstream social value and beliefs of stereotyped gender roles. The paper mentions that parents are the most influential people in a child's life, and if they don't see media giving value to female athletes, they won't choose to have their daughter compete in athletics-an important part of a healthy lifestyle, especially in today's "fast food" society.

Also, the media portray the female body in images that are idealized, sexualized and unrealistic to young females. Overall, the paper says it is important that young girls "be able to identify with sporting role models that are determined, powerful, independent, and strong female athletes that are valued by society," without being based on constructed stereotypes of gender roles.

(3) I think that Vincent's recommendations are realistic for equitable media coverage of female and male athletes. From my own experiences, I know many females that are athletes at high levels. They understand that it is ok for women to be athletic and "feminine" at the same time. Personally, I think the media should be more conscious about giving equal coverage to females. I have been a beat writer for two women's sports teams at Iowa, and I always push for my articles to be on the front page and have a photo with them. However, I do understand that media have financial obligations and that male sports articles typically receive more attention by readers. It will be a process and there is still a ways to go before female and male coverage is equal, but with people like Vincent making the issue prominent, hopefully the day will come sooner rather than later.

Iowa City West High preview

This post is an assignment for my sportswriting class.

The theme for the 2009-10 Iowa City West High Trojans women’s basketball team will be an up-tempo game, said head coach B.J. Mayer.

“We’re not very tall,” Mayer said. “That’s going to be one of our weaknesses, defending people inside. One of the things we’re going to have to try to do is create that tempo to be chaotic and crazy, see if we can’t get people out of their element.”

Mayer fields a small and also young lineup after losing five seniors from a year ago, including current Iowa volleyball freshman Emma Krieger Kittle. But he has high hopes for the Trojans nonetheless as he inherits a junior class that went 20-1 as sophomores.

The juniors look to mix well with an experienced senior group of Kristin Fomon, Courtney Fritz, Mackenzie Reed, Sophie McDougall and Mallory Daily. Mayer also has been impressed with sophomore Tatum Klein, who he said is the team’s best defender.

Given the depth West has, Mayer plans to use that to his advantage in the fast-paced attack.

“We want to be able to just wear teams down,” he said. “We feel that with our ten kids, we’re going to be able to run kids in and out and not lose a lot of depth and intensity. That’s going to be the biggest challenge for us—playing as many young kids as we’re going to be playing. It’s going to have to keep taking steps forward and hopefully by the end of the year we’ll be playing as good as we can.”

The Trojans are coming off of a 16-6 season in 2008-09 in which they were defeated by Ankeny in the final game of sub-state play. The team learned some good lessons from the experience.

“It’s really difficult to get to the next level until you’ve been there once,” Mayer said. “At West, no one in the girls basketball program has ever been to the state tournament. So to get to that game before state I think was just a huge confidence builder. The more experience you have in those games, the better prepared you are, not only as a coaching staff, but the players who have been there.”

Getting to the tournament surely won’t be an easy path. West has to get through the competitive Mississippi Valley Conference schedule first that boasts top teams like Linn-Mar, Cedar Rapids Kennedy and, of course, the Trojans’ cross-town rival Iowa City High.

Still, that doesn’t take anything away from the goals that Mayer has for this team when it begins practice on November 9.

“We always want to expect a postseason run,” the coach said. “We feel that we play in the top conference in the state. Just by doing that, it gets us better competition and makes you improve in order to compete. Hopefully, when we get to tournament time, we will be playing our best basketball and get that good experience from playing in the Mississippi Valley Conference.”

Advice from the Sports Guy

My favorite sportswriter is ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy. His ability to combine an incredibly deep knowledge of professional sports with witty, edgy jokes about pop culture is unmatched.

Simmons is also regarded as one of the best sources on the NBA, and consequently released "The Book of Basketball" yesterday. It's a 700-page tale of how the league developed and became what we know it as today.

Jason Pinter of the Huffington Post interviewed Simmons about the book and several other topics having to do with his career as a journalist. As an aspiring journalist, I found Simmons' opinions very interesting and took away some great pieces of advice. Here's one part that I particularly liked about finding a voice as a writer:

JP: John A. Walsh (Executive Vice-President and Executive Editor of ESPN) once said of you, "He would not have had his voice in a traditional medium. His entry point allowed him to be himself." With the decline of newspapers and onslaught of blogs, many writers are eschewing 'traditional' journalistic training. Do you feel this path is beneficial to aspiring writers?

BS: With all due respect to Walsh, who's my mentor, I disagree. I could have found that voice in a traditional medium; it's just that the medium was too traditional to ever give it a chance. You were only supposed to succeed by writing exactly like everyone else. I like that about the internet - there's no "accepted" style now. If anything, you're better off NOT writing like anyone else. The basics for aspiring writers are still in place: read as much as possible, figure out what's working for writers that you like, work at a style that combines all of those things, keep writing, keep reading, never settle for being average, and don't just say what you think but say it in a way that's fun to read and is constructed in a thought-provoking way. If you're an aspiring writer and want to blog and settle for immediacy/quantity, that's fine. Knock yourself out. That might be the right choice for you. Really, there's no right answer. It depends on the person.

I just think it's too early to say whether journalism is dying. I'd like to think that it's more alive than ever in a lot of ways. As we covered earlier, 24 year old me couldn't have gotten read in 1994. In 2009, 24 year old me could find an audience pretty quickly.That's not progress?

Check out Simmons on Twitter and his Page 2 Web site full of columns and podcasts, The Sports Guy's World.

Trip to KU

I apologize, I haven't had a new post in a while. But I have a good excuse for being busy-last weekend I took a road trip with my buddies Andy and JT to Kansas (the Sunflower State) to visit my younger sister at KU. It was my fourth trip to the Lawrence campus, and I went to my third Jayhawk football game. Going into the game, I had a 2-0 record but unfortunately Oklahoma got the best of the boys in blue last Saturday.

Anyway, I had the luck and privilege of meeting KU center Cole Aldrich. We ran into each other at the same tailgate party, and he had just gotten done with an early morning prac

tice and was chowing some food. Feeling like a stalker or something, I walked over to the 6-11, 245 junior to chat him up and tell him I was a big from Iowa. I mean, you're not not going to meet the Big 12 Co-Preseason Player of the Year when you randomly see him at a party, right?

The Bloomington, Minnesota native nearly crushed my hand when he shook it. I didn't want to bother him too much, so I kept it short. He said practice was going well, and that he was glad the football team was having such a good season. I also asked him if he knew much about the Iowa basketball team, but he said he usually follows the Gophers. I wished him luck and was on my way, but not before getting a picture with the big fella. Too bad he's sitting down because you can't tell how much he towers over me.

Last year, Aldrich averaged a double-double of 14.9 points and 11.1 rebounds, while leading the Big 12 in blocks with 2.7 a game (12th nationally). He compiled 21 double-dou

bles in all in 2008-09, and even recorded a triple-double against Dayton in the NCAA Tournament with 13 points, 20 rebounds and 10 blocked shots.

Not that I'm complaining, but I wish KU guard Sherron Collins was with Aldrich. I

would've enjoyed meeting the other half of the preseason player of the year honor. The final unfortunate thing about the trip was that we were so busy with the football game and all, I never made it to Allen Fieldhouse. I've been inside it before, but no one that goes to Lawrence should ever leave without setting sights on this legendary facility. It's named in honor of 39-year head coach Forrest "Phog" Allen. It seats 16, 300 (4,000 reserved for students alone) and is the second largest arena in the Big 12 after Texas (16,775).

It was pretty crazy over the course of the weekend how many Iowa fans we met, or at least people that had heard of the university now that the Hawkeye football team is currently undefeated and ranked No. 7 in the country and No. 4 in the BCS standings. People would come up to us at the bars wanting to talk about Iowa. We even requested the Iowa fight song and the deejay played it while we screamed our lungs out to it. I'll never forget that.

Poll results and new poll

We had an interesting and dramatic finish to the Basketblog's first poll, folks. It actually ended in a tie, meaning I have to break it by making the final vote. Here's the rundown of how the 21 total votes panned out, in reverse order, just for the sake of suspense:

Ohio State-1

Minnesota-1

Illinois-1

Purdue-2

Iowa-8

Michigan State-8

Honestly, I'm extremely surprised to see the Boilermakers get so little love from everyone. They have a solid team that is balanced on both ends of the floor, offensively and defensively. I like the optimism by Hawkeye fans, but sorry, I'm going to have to side with the Spartans on this one. The team is just too stacked with quality athletes and their coach's resume speaks for itself. Izzo will have MSU cruising through the Big Ten all the way to Indianapolis in early April.

Don't forget to vote one the new poll everyone-Who will win the Big 12 in men's basketball this season?-and to post comments and send emails!

Photo from sarottefamily.com.

Column Time

Here's a column I wrote for my sportswriting class. I haven't written many before, so be easy on me. Enjoy!

Two words mean the world to sports fans in the Sunflower State: Kansas Basketball.

The mystique that surrounds the Jayhawk hoops team doesn't only exist in Lawrence, either. Every high school kid who has laced up his sneakers dreams

about playing college ball at a university like Kansas, and would give everything for the opportunity to be a part of a program so legendary.

That is why the recent negative actions of a few Kansas basketball players is so disappointing. Sophomore guard Tyshawn Taylor dislocated his thumb after throwing a punch at a football player, allegedly over a girl. Junior guard Brady Morningstar was suspended by head coach Bill Self for all first semester games after driving under the influence of alcohol and violating curfew at the same time.

Why embarrass the name of such a historic program and university? Why waste such a chance to be idolized by an entire fan base? It's beyond me.

That is how they treat the university after everything it has done for them? A free education, free clothes and shoes, television exposure and the opportunity to showcase talent that may land a big paycheck in the NBA didn't stop these athletes from thinking before they acted. Taylor and Morningstar essentially slapped the university in the face with their actions.

Of course, while being a Division I college basketball player does put one in the limelight, it also shines a spotlight on everything he does. Fans and media are constantly obsessed with every little detail of their lives, causing them to live under a microscope of admiration and scrutiny. Thes

e athletes are people too, and they make mistakes like the rest of us. Their screw-ups are just more noticeable.

But that still doesn't make what they did right and that the public should just brush it off.

Morningstar did compose a public apology, in which he acknowledged that he gave everyone associated with Kansas a "black eye." His first sentence reads:

"Recently I made a regrettable mistake that has let down my family, friends, coaches, teammates, fellow KU student-athletes, the University of Kansas, KU basketball fans and the State whose name I wear proudly across my chest."

A native of Lawrence, Morningstar understands the impact of his actions in the community and beyond. He worked hard to earn a scholarship and a starting spot on the team, even going to a prep school in New Hampshire for a year after high school to improve his game.

"I know how lucky and privileged I am to be living my dream and to be a part of the best college basketball program in the country," Morningstar states near the end of his statement.

I thought this was a very sincere and heartfelt apology, and whether if was Morningstar's idea or not to write it is unknown.

These "black eyes" also couldn't come at a worse time for the team. the Jayhawks are unanimous preseason favorites, ranked No. 1 in nearly every poll. There is talk of a second national championship in three years. With a veteran core led by Big 12 Preseason Co-Players of the Year Cole Aldrich and Sherron Collins, and a group of young playmakers under their wings, Kansas looks primed to make a deep title run come March. Or at least it did.

The truth of the matter is that these negative events will soon be forgotten once the season gets rolling along. And they should. But college student-athletes should also be smarter than that because they really are held to a higher standard than normal students. Make the most of your opportunities, Jayhawks.