maly, too: Keno Davis, Who Was the Consensus National Coach Of the Year At Drake, Brings His Central Michigan Team To Iowa for Monday Night Game Against the Hawkeyes. Don't Forget, the Chippewas Upset Iowa, 32-31, In Football On Sept. 22

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Keno Davis, Who Was the Consensus National Coach Of the Year At Drake, Brings His Central Michigan Team To Iowa for Monday Night Game Against the Hawkeyes. Don't Forget, the Chippewas Upset Iowa, 32-31, In Football On Sept. 22

Keno Davis

Keno Davis, the son of the University of Iowa's winningest all-time basketball coach, is coming to Iowa City, and the Hawkeye basketball squad is hoping the same thing doesn't happen to it Monday night that happened to the university's football squad Sept. 22 at Kinnick stadium. It was then that unheralded Central Michigan did the improbable and snatched a 32-31 victory from the jaws of defeat against the Hawkeyes. Kirk Ferentz's Iowa team hasn't done a heck of a lot since in what so far is a 4-6 season. Iowa's basketball team plays its second game in four days when it hosts Keno's Central Michigan squad at 6:36 p.m. Monday.at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City. Tickets are $14 for adults and $5 for youths and University of Iowa students. Fans earn $5 admission to Monday's game by showing their Iowa-Purdue football ticket stub from Saturday. Also, Free pizza will be given away to the first 100 University of Iowa students in attendance.

ON THE AIR
Radio: Iowa games are broadcast on the Hawkeye Radio Network. Gary Dolphin handles the play-by-play, along with color commentator Bobby Hansen. The network includes more than 40 stations that blanket the state of Iowa and include portions of Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. The Hawkeye Radio Network coverage includes a 60-minute pregame show.

Television: Monday's game will be televised on BTN. Eric Collins, Sean Harrington and Kara Lentz will call the action. Fans can also access the contest online at BTN2GO.com or the BTN2GO app.

SEASON TICKETS AND MINI PACKAGES ON SALE
Hawkeye fans can purchase a season ticket for $320. University of Iowa faculty and staff can purchase tickets for $270, while the price is only $80 for University of Iowa students. There are also two mini-season ticket packages. There is a six-game weekday package ($120) and a six-game weekend package ($125). Single-game tickets to home non-conference games are also on sale. Fans can purchase tickets at the Iowa ticket office, calling 1-800-IAHAWKS or online at hawkeyesports.com.

HAWKEYES TOP UT-PAN AMERICAN IN SEASON OPENER
• Iowa defeated UT-Pan American, 86-55, Friday night in the season opener at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
• Four starters scored in double figures: Aaron White (16), Zach McCabe (14), Devyn Marble (11) and Adam Woodbury (10). White also collected a career-high four steals, while McCabe equaled a personal best with four 3-pointers.
• Melsahn Basabe grabbed a game-high 10 boards, marking the 12th time the junior controlled double-digit boards in his career.
• The Hawkeyes outscored the Broncs, 17-4 at the foul line.
• Iowa forced 19 turnovers, scoring 22 points off those UTPA miscues.
• Twelve Hawkeyes scored at least two points, including eight with five points or more.

ALL-TIME SERIES
Monday will be the first meeting between Iowa and Central Michigan. The Hawkeyes are 22-7 alltime against current teams in the Mid-American Conference.

SCOUTING CENTRAL MICHIGAN
• Monday will be Central Michigan's regular-season opener. The Chippewas beat Lake Superior State, 86-76, in an exhibition last week. Four Chippewas tallied double figures, led by forward Zach Saylor's 17 points. Kyle Randall, Chris Folwer and Austin Keel each netted 13. CMU shot 52 percent from the floor and outscored Lake Superior State, 21-10 at the foul line.
• Chris Folwer scored his 13 points via a perfect 6-6 shooting from the field, including 1-1 from 3-point range in CMU's exhibition.
• Central Michigan has six freshmen on its roster, along with one sophomore, three juniors and four seniors.
• The Chippewas went 11-21 a year ago, including a 5-11 mark in the Mid-American Conference.
• Olivier Mbaigoto is the Chippewas' top returning scorer from a year ago (7.1 average).

Tom Davis

Kevin Gamble

FAMILIAR FACES
Central Michigan is coached by Keno Davis, a 1995 Iowa graduate, and son of former Hawkeye coach Tom Davis. With a 269-140 record from 1987-1999, Tom Davis is the university's winningest basketball coach. Tom Davis still lives in Iowa City. Keno Davis served as an undergraduate coach under his father at Iowa from 1991-95, and as an assistant coach at Drake from 2003-07 before becoming the Bulldogs' head coach in the 2007-2008 season. After guiding Drake to a 28-5 record and being named the consensus National Coach of the Year, Keno took the coaching job at Providence, where he served for three seasons (2008-11). Keno was an announcer with the Big Ten Network last season, and got an up-close look at Iowa's team then. Former Hawkeye standout player Kevin Gamble is an assistant coach on Keno's staff. Gamble was a member of two Iowa NCAA tournament teams, including the 1987 squad in which Gamble hit the game-winning shot against Oklahoma to send the Hawkeyes to the Elite Eight. Gamble went on to have a productive NBA career playing for Portland, Boston, Miami and Sacramento. [Most of this story was written by Hawkeye Sports.com; editing by Ron Maly; photos courtesy of Google].

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.