maly, too: This Isn't Looking Good: Missouri State's 4th Victory Of the Season Sends Drake's Missouri Valley Conference Record To 0-3 As Crowd Of 3,804 Watches At Knapp Center. Some Might Say It's Still Early, But Maybe That's Not the Case. It Could Be Later Than You Think

Saturday, January 5, 2013

This Isn't Looking Good: Missouri State's 4th Victory Of the Season Sends Drake's Missouri Valley Conference Record To 0-3 As Crowd Of 3,804 Watches At Knapp Center. Some Might Say It's Still Early, But Maybe That's Not the Case. It Could Be Later Than You Think

Three nights after losing an overtime heartbreaker on the Missouri Valley Conference road, Missouri State’s basketball team closed the deal. Answering each Drake run in the second half Saturday night, the Bears beat the Bulldogs 77-65 at the Knapp Center for their first road victory of the season. Senior guard Anthony Downing scored 26 points and freshman Gavin Thurman added 13 as MSU improved to 4-11 overall and 2-1 in the Valley. Drake fell to 6-8 and 0-3. Freshman Joey King scored 21 poins and had seven rebounds for Drake. Another freshman, Micah Mason, couldn't play for the Bulldogs because of an illness. “We knew it was going to be a hard-fought game,” Drake coach Mark Phelps said. “Missouri State has been playing really, really well and gaining a lot of confidence in their last three games. We were able to trim the lead down in the second half but just weren’t able to get enough stops in combination with conversions on our end to get over the hump.” Drake forward Ben Simons said, "We got back to within two points and then we didn’t get stops to keep the momentum and gave up a couple of drives to the basket for layups. When we get back in the game, we need to do a better job of sustaining our energy and that’s one thing we’ve got to work on.” Missouri State coach Paul Lusk, a former Iowa player, said, “We played our tails off the other night and it was great to see our guys respond, Our three upperclassmen (Downing, Keith Pickens and Nathan Scheer) are playing their best basketball of the season.” Downing said the Bears didn’t hang their heads. “Not at all,” he said. “We came in with a lot of confidence and swagger. We should be 3-0 in the league.” Lusk said he put the onus on Downing, as the lone senior, to get his teammates in the right mindset. “I put a lot of Downing before the game,” Lusk said. “I said, ‘You’ve got to be the toughest cat in the gym. And he was the toughest cat in the gym tonight.” MSU shot 51 percent from the field in beating Drake for the sixth straight time. For a while, it looked like it was going to be a runaway. The Bears led 36-20 at halftime after shooting 47 percent and holding the Bulldogs to 27 percent from the field. But the Bulldogs came roaring back, cutting the lead to 43-42 after Ben Simons’ jumper six mintues into the second half After a Bears’ missed shot, the Bulldogs had a chance to take the lead. But Keith Pickens blocked Jordan Clarke’s layup and MSU got a jumper from Downing and a Pickens dunk to push the lead back to five. Pickens scored six straight during the 8-0 run, but it wasn’t safe just yet for an MSU team searching for its first road victory of the season. Drake closed within 61-57 at the three-minute mark when Thurman fired in a 3-pointer. Drake wasn’t closer than five the rest of the way with MSU making 10 of 11 free throws to clinch the victory. Downing helped get the Bears going with 11 points in the first 12 minutes before he picked up his second foul and had to sit out the remainder of the first half. His 3-pointer was part of an 11-1 run that sent MSU to a 26-14 lead.

[Headline by Ron Maly; story by Lyndal Scranton, Springfield [Mo.] News-Leader, with contributions from Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].

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.