Less than 24 hours after the Iowa Men’s Basketball team found themselves celebrating a historic March Madness victory over the #1 seed Florida Gators, the women were on the receiving end of a crushing March defeat. An 83-75 loss to the #10 seed Virginia Cavaliers in double overtime.

Alvaro Folguerias’ clutch three pointer won the game for the men. The women lost because they couldn’t get one for themselves.

The basketball gods work in mysterious ways. Maybe that’s the price of a miracle.

The struggles that doomed the women’s team against Virginia were the same ones that nearly ended their season on Saturday against the #15 seed Fairleigh Dickinson Knights: three point shooting.

Iowa went 1-for-13 from deep against FDU. They closed out the first half against Virginia with an eerily similar mark of 1-for-12.

“When I briefly looked at the box score, I didn’t believe we deserved to win it,” head coach Jan Jensen said after the game.

Iowa finished 5-for-29 from downtown against Virginia, but it would be a mistake to reduce their season to their three point struggles down the stretch. This year was a resounding success. 

They went from being picked to finish outside the top five in the Big Ten to being conference tournament runner ups and a March Madness #2 seed. They suffered an injury to a key senior in Taylor McCabe and seemed to get even better with breakout sophomore Taylor Stremlow starting in her place. Two of their best players were sophomore center Ava Heiden and guard Chit-Chat Wright. Those two made 1st and 3rd Team All-Big Ten respectively.

But the loss also marks the end of Hannah Stuelke, Kylie Feuerbach, Jada Gyafmi, and McCabe’s storied careers. The last key contributors from Iowa’s national championship bids in 2023 and 2024.

“Spending time with these girls has been such a blessing to me,” Stuelke said.

“It’s just really hard to process those emotions, and it’s really hard to know that I won’t be able to play again,” Feuerbach said.

When the clock hit zero in Iowa City, Stuelke tearfully embraced her mother as a swarm of photographers descended upon the scene. The same thing played out in Tampa Bay when Folguerias found his mother in the stands. Their emotions could not have been more different.

Grief and glee. The dichotomy of college sports.

The post The Price of a Miracle, Women’s Basketball Iowa v. Virginia appeared first on KRUI Radio.

As the final horn and a couple of loud pops echoed around the cavernous Gainbridge Fieldhouse court, the Iowa Hawkeyes quickly and quietly exited into their locker room. The same way they entered, the same way they played.

At the same time, a downpour of blue and white confetti rained from the rafters. The colors of the UCLA Bruins. The colors of the Big Ten champions.

Some scores don’t tell the full picture of what happened in a game. UCLA 95, Iowa 41 certainly does.

While the Bruins are a Big Ten college basketball team on paper, in practice, they are a collection of soon-to-be professionals, getting their last licks in on the rest of the college basketball world.

Four of UCLA’s starting five are projected top 10 picks in the upcoming WNBA draft. It’s a roster that boasts Big Ten Player of the Year Lauren Betts, First Team All-Big Ten Kiki Rice, Second Team Gabriela Jaquez, and Gianna Kneepkens.

“Most of us have one or two go, but they have a lineup like that,” Iowa head coach Jan Jensen said.

UCLA didn’t just beat Iowa. Beat is when you lose by 10. A blow out is when you lose by 20. Brutalized is 30. There isn’t even a word to describe a 51 point loss.

And this was the championship game. In theory, between the two most deserving, battle tested squads.

UCLA’s quarterfinal against Washington on Friday was close for three quarters, until the Bruins pulled away to win 78-60. Their semifinal bout with Ohio State was stress free the entire way through, finishing 72-62 Bruins.

Iowa cruised to a 64-58 win in their quarterfinal game vs Illinois that only looked close in garbage time. Then on Saturday, the Hawkeyes put together one of their best fourth quarters of the year to pull away from Michigan 59-42. 

“In that fourth quarter, to start it, I just had everybody do a zen moment,” Jensen recalled.

After the championship game opened with a Taylor Stremlow three pointer, the ensuing 13-0 Bruin run snapped the Hawkeye flow state. Iowa never recovered.

“If you let that margin get a little too great, you can never really ever shrink it,” Jensen said. 

Against a team like UCLA, there is zero margin for error. Not when your basketball team contains nine freshmen and sophomores. Not when UCLA has eight seniors and grad students. Not when you shoot 21% from beyond the arc and UCLA shoots 50%.

Throughout the second half, a steady stream of Iowa fans made their way to the exits at each break. As they did, “Carver East” felt more and more like East L.A.

The Bruins never let up. They closed out the game making nine of their last nine baskets. Iowa went one for nine in the same stretch.

At the end, there were no tears as the Hawkeyes left the court. Just stunned silence. A reality check for a group with all the momentum in the world.

If the semifinal win against Michigan was the best game of the year for Iowa, the championship was by far the worst. The 51 point margin of victory was the biggest ever in a Big Ten Championship game. It was the largest margin of defeat for Iowa in 50 years. 

“Disappointments and setbacks make losers bitter, but they make winners better,” Jensen said after the game. 

There’s no doubt Iowa will be better when they host the first two games of their March Madness run in two weeks. When their run inevitably leads them into another national championship contender, though, is when they’ll need to prove it.

The post Powerless in Indianapolis: UCLA Dismantles Iowa in Big Ten Tournament appeared first on KRUI Radio.

“I’m calling both games” is also the rationale I gave to my professors on why I skipped both of my classes on Tuesday, February 17th.

I blame the baseball team.

See, it was only supposed to be basketball. Iowa vs Nebraska, 8 pm. Well after both classes would have ended for the day.

The baseball home opener was supposed to be a week later on February 24th, but they saw an opportunity to fit a game in between their season opening tournament in Arizona and their first weekend series against Florida Atlantic. That’s how Division III UW-Platteville found themselves in Iowa City for what would turn out to be a historic beatdown.

Of course, we didn’t know that going in. The Hawkeyes lost three midweek games last season and had just allowed 13 runs to Northeastern on Sunday, so we figured the final score might end up something like 13-5 Iowa.

With first pitch at 3:00 pm, five hours before tip-off for basketball, we jumped at the opportunity to be there and were rewarded with 50 degree weather.

That’s important because all KRUI baseball games are called outdoors. Color commentator Logan Melia and I were planning to call the February 24th game regardless of the weather, so we really lucked out.

“God, the pop of the mitt, Ryan. I’m tickled to be back,” Logan said after the first pitch.

Four innings later, with the score 17-0 in favor of Iowa, his enthusiasm had dampened, as had his nose, which was running relentlessly. 

“Once your team scores the 22nd run, you start thinking: ‘let’s wrap it up’. It gets to a point where you pretty much know what team’s going to win and that point was reached probably about three hours before the end of the game,” Logan said later that day.

Morale dropped to mutinous levels after the seventh inning concluded and Iowa was up 27-3, when the usual 10 run mercy rule was not applied.

At that point, the sky had undergone a transition from light gray to baby blue to orange and pink and purple before the sun finally disappeared for good. Without it, the wind that had been chilly all game became a polar vortex.

When I turned to Logan and said “sounds like we’re playing two more”, his agonized response was a sign that we had seen enough and should head across the street to Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Overall impressions from the baseball team: don’t go to a game if you have something else to do later in the day. There will be a lot of runs scored at the Banks this year.

Next, we met up with Cole Krueger, who I would be calling basketball with. 

At the start of the season, nobody thought never-won-a-march-madness-game Nebraska would be ranked top 10 in the country in late February. But as the Huskers kept winning and Iowa hung around in the standings, it quickly shaped up to become the biggest game of the year so far for the Hawkeyes.

And man did they need this one. We’d been saying they were going to get one of the two home games against Purdue and Nebraska, though last Saturday’s demoralizing 78-57 loss to the Boilermakers cast some doubt on that theory.

Where Nebraska had wins over highly ranked Illinois and Michigan State teams, Iowa was a team without a signature result on the season. They’d had chances, like having halftime leads against Iowa State and Purdue on the road, but had never capitalized. Worse, they had been struggling recently, with a bad road loss to Maryland and the aforementioned blowout at home to Purdue. 

Their most impressive game this season might have been outlasting a fiery USC team at the end of January, which was a game they were always supposed to win anyway.

But something flipped in this one, as the Hawks defensive intensity, coupled with a vicious crowd, frustrated the Huskers all night.

Head coach Ben McCollum has made a point to thank the fans after every game and let them know how important they are to the team. Although attendance has been up this year compared to last, I had yet to see a student section as packed as it was for this one. Filled in from top to bottom, clad in black. A healthy amount of Nebraska fans in red and white were scattered throughout the stands as well.

Pretty quickly, it became apparent that this was going to be the opposite of the baseball game earlier. Blowout vs nailbiter. Scoring at will vs a defensive slog. Can you believe that Iowa baseball scored more runs than either basketball team had at halftime?

Cole kept saying how it felt like Iowa could have been up 10, but both teams struggled from three all night. And in the second half, things began to get chippy. Multiple players went down away from the play, always without a whistle.

Down the stretch, as had been the case all year, Bennett Stirtz made the difference. With six minutes to go, he went down hard after contacting Brayden Frager on a layup. Then after a break that gave him a chance to walk it off, Stirtz hit a sidestep three in Frayger’s face to give the Hawks a 50-45 lead.

With Iowa up two scores and under a minute to go, the fans began to make their way to the staircases.

Not to go up and beat traffic. Down to rush the court.

Iowa fans have been starving for a storming opportunity. Twice during the football season they lined up against Indiana and Oregon, and twice they were sent home empty handed, watching their team lose the lead in the final two minutes.

Some icy free throws from Cooper Koch and Tavion Banks made it official. An outpouring of black engulfed the court to celebrate the Hawks’ first signature win in the Ben McCollum era.

Then, we quickly signed off the air and went down to join in on the celebrations.

“I just feel so lucky to have been there to see that game,” Logan said.

“It was just like a monkey off the back feeling,” Cole added.

Even though the team’s March fate still hangs in the balance, this one will go a long way to help them realize it.

The post I’m Calling Both Games appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Some 2300 kids, droning and buzzing like worker bees, shrieked with every goal, every scuffle, and every “67” reference, which there were a lot of.

Though the puck dropped at 10:30 a.m., as concession stands were closed and their metal folding windows were fastened shut, it felt like a playoff game.

“It’s just amped up like crazy,” Jen Van Otterloo, a third grade teacher at Heritage Christian School in North Liberty, said.

“The Best Field Trip Ever”, the Iowa Heartlanders’ theme for their December 10th game, turned into one of the best hockey games that most of the kids had probably ever watched. The Heartlanders took down the Kansas City Mavericks 5-4 in a dramatic overtime thriller, complete with momentum swings, fights, and brilliant goals.

“Kids for some reason, bring the energy tenfold,” Heartlanders superfan Marc Korver said.

Amongst a sea of mostly black, gray, and gold, Korver stuck out not only for his age (decidedly not in grade school) but also his outfit.

Green and white striped zebra pants. A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hockey sweater. A half dozen bead necklaces and chains, some in team colors, some adorned with letters spelling out words like “puck” and “goal”. Yellow and black dreadlocks, and to cap it off, a backwards gray Heartlanders cap with antlers sticking out on either side. 

“More well known as the Antler Man” he said after introducing himself, then turned away from us. “116! Let me hear you! Let’s go!”

The 300 plus grade schoolers in the section began screaming in response.

“I think of just the enthusiasm of the crowd and the home team, the community it builds,” Shari Bozorgzad, the head of St. Vincent’s School in Keokuk, said. “They’re so excited.”

A few students were hockey buffs. Others were there watching their first ever game. All of them instinctively knew what to do.

When a Mavericks player went to the penalty box, they banged on the glass incessantly. With every bone crushing check, they cheered with a bloodlust that straddled the line between endearing and troubling.

There were homemade signs scattered throughout the crowd. Some on posterboard, some on scrolls of paper.

One banner said “Hartlanders” in kid handwriting with alternating yellow and black letters. Later during the game, each of the five kids holding it up received a black t-shirt. Another sign said “St. Vincent’s ♡s the Heartlanders”.

When we asked the St. Vincent’s students what their favorite part of the game was, the response was unanimous down the line: the fights. That sentiment was shared by the Heritage Christian kids as well.

Nobody dropped the gloves, but there were shoving matches, trips, slashes, interferences, and headlocks. Every time, the kids ate it up.

“It was a great environment and I think the guys really fed off that,” Chuck Weber, Iowa’s head coach and general manager, said.

But because they were still technically in school, the kids were at the mercy of the school day. When some groups began filing out in the third period to catch their bus home, Kansas City seized the advantage with two goals in 13 seconds to tie the game at 4-4.

“I’m almost worn out with these kids,” Korver told us before the start of the third period.

But as the game went to overtime and his section remained mostly intact, he found a second wind, leading “Lets go Landers” chants as if he was the conductor of an orchestra.

With kids jumping to their feet and screeching, then falling back into their seats after every missed shot, the chaos reached its peak with a snapped stick and a counterattack led by Heartlanders forward Elliot Desnoyers.

In the final minute of overtime, he surged down the right wing, took the puck across his body, and slotted it past Mavericks goaltender Jack LaFontaine to win the game for Iowa. 

He then dropped to one knee and glided across the ice towards Korver and the students, who pounded against the plexiglass in celebration.

The Heartlanders entered the day undefeated in morning games throughout their franchise’s five years and counting of operation. They kept it intact with a little help from the next generation of hockey fans.

“These kids are awesome,” Korver said. “They need to come all the time.”

The post The Iowa Heartlanders Field Trip Experience appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Much of what lay inside was familiar. The smells of pizza, pretzels, and popcorn wafted through the air. A spread of gameday programs sat fanned out on a folding table. Concession workers and security stood in position.

But looking from the ledge of the concourse down at the court below, so much was different, too. A remodelled student section with expanded floor seating. Hundreds of yellow ties packaged in crinkly plastic bags glistening under the lights. 12 new players on a roster of 14 warming up on the court.

All this at the discretion of the Hawkeyes’ new coach, Ben McCollum.

For McCollum, this offseason has been focused on the fans. Righting the wrongs of the past. 

“Our goal is to get Carver-Hawkeye Arena filled back up,” he said during his introductory press conference.

The bleachers were emptier than normal last year, as fans grew tired of Fran McCaffery and the mediocrity consuming the Iowa Men’s Basketball Team. 

Attendance dwindled. Losses stacked. Opinions soured.

McCaffery’s final minutes on the court concluded with a pair of technical fouls in quick succession, an ejection, and a solemn walk into the tunnel. His team played out the final 13 minutes of their season without him, ultimately losing 106-94 to Illinois in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament. McCaffery was fired less than 24 hours later.

And then came McCollum. 

Born and raised a Hawkeye fan, he developed a reputation as a fiery head coach and a serial winner over 15 seasons and four Division II national championships at Northwest Missouri State. 

And in his lone season at Drake, he led the Bulldogs to a 31-4 record, a Missouri Valley Conference championship, and a March Madness win. 

But now at Iowa, beyond recruiting players, McCollum had to recruit fans back to a program that turned its back on them.

When he walked into Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the first time back in March, McCollum passed through a gathering of students and fans sporting plain white dress shirts and yellow ties, emulating his signature look. He posed for pictures and signed apparel before heading up to the podium.

Then he spent the summer going to fan events and doing interviews, continuously stressing the need for fans to come out to games.

“It makes the environment so much more fun,” he said.

And after averaging just over 5000 fans a game last season, 9232 showed out last night against Robert Morris. That would have been the second most at any game last year.

“It was great. Energy was great.” point guard Bennett Stirtz said.

Those that came saw high flying alley-oops, long three pointers, and a relentless hunger on defense not seen in Iowa City for a long time. A 17-2 lead built up in the first five minutes blossomed into a 101-69 win. A true team effort, with six players reaching double figures.

All six were transfers, with four: Bennett Stirtz, Tavion Banks, Cam Manyawu, and Isaia Howard, following McCollum from Drake.

As he went through the postgame handshake line, McCollum loosened his tie and ran over to the student section with his players, working his way around the perimeter of the court, high fiving, fist bumping, and handshaking everyone he could in the process.

“You gotta show them you appreciate them. I really, truly believe they need to be in it with us,” he said.

And he asked for one thing in return.

“Keep coming through the goods and the bads. It’s not gonna be perfect. It’s not gonna be like this every night, but it can be really special if we have them on our side.”

One down, 30 to go. A new era of Hawkeye basketball is underway.

The post A New Era appeared first on KRUI Radio.

A few minutes later, with Iowa already up 24-0, Kaden Wetjen steps forward to field a punt at the 50 yard line. And when he does, 69,250 fans immediately think back to two years ago.

A very different game but a similar set of circumstances. Down 12-10 against the same Golden Gophers on a similar cool October afternoon, Iowa return man Cooper DeJean let the ball bounce at the 50 and fielded it at his own 45.

He spun once to slip off a Minnesota tackler, put his head down, and barreled forward as suddenly more than half of the Gophers found themselves chasing from behind.

Only bits and pieces of that day remain in the selective memories of Iowa fans.

The mustard yellow uniforms. The return. The touchdown. Euphoria. 

They’d prefer to forget the review. The reversal. The interception. Misery.

In the press conference after the game, Kirk Ferentz looked his age. Eye bags appeared that little bit bigger. Cheeks red as raspberries. “My theory is the more people that get involved, the more screwed up things are,” he mused.

Ever since, Iowa has been waiting to get another shot at Minnesota in Kinnick Stadium.

As he reels the ball in, Wetjen immediately bolts right and backtracks a few yards to gain depth. Once he crosses the Tigerhawk logo, he turns on the burners and heads upfield.

Just like with DeJean, a host of Golden Gophers are already playing catch up. This time, however, there are also white jerseys converging from left, right, and directly ahead.

But Wetjen floats right through them as if possessed by the ghost of DeJean himself. Two of the Gophers take each other out in the process. Suddenly, it’s Wetjen with teammate KJ Parker in front, and only the punter Tom Weston to beat.

Weston has no interest in making a play. Parker pancakes him for good measure, and Wetjen strolls into the endzone without a Gopher laying more than a finger on him. Effortless.

“And I was really close to fair catching that too,” he jokes. “Thankfully, it was a touchdown.”

Instead of a complaint, “It wasn’t a fair catch” has become a rallying cry for Hawkeye fans. Akin to “Punting is Winning” and “Tight End University.”

It’s appeared behind home plate at the World Series, on the Pat McAfee show, and all across social media.

Subsequent blowout wins of 31-14 and now 41-3 in the years since will do that. The scars of 2023 are less prominent than they ever have been, though the asterisk will never go away.

But maybe the DeJean play wasn’t a scar after all. Scars are permanent. Wounds heal with time.

Just ask DeJean himself: “All smiles”.

The post Shades of DeJean appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Fireball shooters and crushed cans litter the wasteland. Puddles of alcohol begin to evaporate. Popcorn kernels stick to the bottom of shoes. Fraternity brothers and sorority sisters have long since departed for downtown. There’s bar cover to beat, after all. This game has been over since it first appeared on the schedule.

It’s nothing out of the ordinary. The final score reads Iowa 47, UMass 7. It’s a typical non-conference, early season beatdown.

Despite this, head coach Kirk Ferentz receives an orange Gatorade shower. Hugs. Pats on the back. Handshakes. Reporters flock towards him, yellow media bibs flapping as they stride. 

Ferentz entered the game tied with Woody Hayes as the winningest coach in Big Ten History. Now with win number 206 under his belt, he stands alone at the top.

There’s a who’s who of Iowa nobility at this game. Barbara Wilson, the president of the university, walks by on the field and smiles. Women’s basketball coach Jan Jensen takes a picture with students in the crowd. Lisa Bluder waves as she walks through the tunnel.

The Soccer team is here. The volleyball team is here. The men’s basketball team is here. And despite all of this support, everywhere you look, there’s also someone calling for Kirk Ferentz to lose his job.

“I don’t respect Kirk Ferentz because I think he’s a total fraud as an elite coach,” SEC analyst Paul Finebaum said last month. “The guy has done nothing other than being mediocre and pedestrian.”

Or just check the Iowa vs UMass highlights comments section. “Kiek needs to retire, I’m tired of mediocracy,” SKIBUM67 writes matter-of-factly, misspelling Kirk’s name in the process.

But you get the sense from listening to his players and his peers that they view him in a very different light.

Kirk Ferentz’s resume looks different than those of other legendary coaches. There are no national titles. No recent playoff births. You can count the number of conference championships on one hand. His legacy doesn’t present itself on the side panel of his Wikipedia page. It’s made up of intangibles.

Over 1000 players have come through the Iowa program under Ferentz’s eye. 94 of them were drafted. 220 found their way onto NFL rosters. “Most of them like me better after they leave here, I think,” Ferentz jokes.

“ He’s just like the perfect Midwestern guy,” quarterback Mark Gronowski said. “He knows so much about the game, knows so much about life and sports in general.”

This is the disconnect. Hearing Ferentz talk, how can you not love the guy? Watching Ferentz’s team play, how can you not demand change?

Most nights, Iowa’s offense looks archaic. The pass concepts are simplistic. The identity of the team revolves around winning in the trenches. It’s a defense first system.

Tonight, things looked different. Mark Gronowski opened the game with three consecutive play action passes, including a 45-yard strike to Sam Phillips and a 20-yard touchdown to Seth Anderson. 

Iowa held a 20-7 lead at the end of the first quarter, and sat comfortably at 30-7 come halftime. 

Iowa’s utility man Kaden Wetjen bounced back from a rough outing against Iowa State to deliver his most electric performance to date, running laps around the Minutemen kick coverage unit.

He gained 39 yards on his first punt return and took an end around 20 yards to the house before the first quarter ended. In the second, he added another 40-yard punt return. 

His biggest play came in the third quarter. Drifting back to the five yard line to field the punt over his shoulder, Wetjen split a pair of Minutemen defenders, then worked his way across the width of the field to the right sideline. Around the 30 yard line, he cut back to the inside, slipped a couple of arm tackles, and outran the rest of the defense to score.

In the end, it went down as a 40 point win for the Hawkeyes. While Iowa fans celebrated a dominant performance on both sides of the ball, detractors pointed to the caliber of opponent. They say where was this last week against Iowa State. Do it against a Big Ten opponent, then we’ll talk.

In the press room, tripods compete for space like trees in a forest. Bulky news cameras are fastened in place. Discarded suit jackets rest on top of backpacks. Roughly 50 people pack into the poorly ventilated space. Most are there to turn a story. A select few just want to hear what Ferentz has to say about 206.

After some words from athletic director Beth Goetz, Ferentz stands at the podium with a fresh white polo and a smile.

At one point, he fields a question about what he’s built as a head coach. He recalls a time when his wife suggested the idea of changing schools every ten or so years. “She’s probably right. She’s right about most stuff,” he laughed. “The flip side is you think about what you miss.”

“Believe me, the season is what it’s all about, but once you get past the football, there’s a lot more to it,” he said. “If you move around, you miss out on those opportunities. It’s just not the same.”

The post Alone at the Top appeared first on KRUI Radio.