Poetic Justice? Tom Davis' Bulldogs Have a Chance to Hand High-Flying Iowa State Its First Loss If They Can Control 6-10 Vroman and 6-9 Homan
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RON MALY

Vol 3, No. 85,
Dec. 20, 2003

OK, so it’s unbeaten and high-flying Iowa State tonight against Drake, which has lost just as many basketball games as it’s won.

The Cyclones should be able to name the score at the Knapp Center, right?

Not so fast, Slam-Dunk Sammy.

Just ask Larry Eustachy.

Well, ask him if you can find him anyway.

Eustachy was 0-for-the Knapp Center, including a 48-44 defeat in a 1999-2000 season that saw Iowa State’s NCAA Elite Eight team go 32-5, win the Big 12 regular-season title and the conference’s postseason tournament.

In all, Drake has won three straight over the Cyclones on their home court in the state’s oldest college basketball rivalry. Tonight’s 7:08 game is the 163rd game in the series.

Iowa State is 5-0, but the game is its first on the road. Drake is 3-3.

A key to the Bulldogs’ chances is how well they can fare against Iowa State’s big and poetic front-liners, Vroman and Homan. Jackson Vroman, a 6-10 forward, is averaging 15 points and 9.3 rebounds. Jared Homan, a 6-9 junior center, is averaging 13 points and 4.8 rebounds.

I asked Drake coach Tom Davis about them.

"Vroman is good," Davis said. "He runs the court so good. He comes flying down the middle of the court. You’ve got to sprint back. Luckily, some of our inside guys can run pretty well, but probably not as well as he does.

"He can handle the ball. He’s got good instincts for the game.

"Homan is not nearly as quick, but he is more physical near the basket. We’ll try to keep the ball out of their hands if we can."

Not Expecting Much from Morgan

Something that’s been making the rounds are the comments made by Al Schallau, a University of Iowa graduate who now lives in southern California, where he is a lawyer.

Schallau had a lot to do with Bump Elliott, then Iowa’s athletic director, hiring Lute Olson when the school was looking for a new basketball coach in 1974.

Schallau still follows athletics closely, and obviously isn’t afraid to voice his opinions.

Last spring, he sent a letter to the Iowa State Daily, the university’s student newspaper, after Wayne Morgan was hired as the Cyclones’ coach. Lately, he and his friends have been distributing copies of the letter to anyone who asks for it.

Schallau didn’t paint a rosy picture for Iowa State’s basketball future. This was his scorching letter:

I watched Long Beach State basketball games (on TV and at the Pyramid) during all of Wayne Morgan’s six years as head coach.

You can engrave all of these predictions:

    1. Even though he has a four-year contract, the Wayne Morgan Era at Iowa State will last three years at the absolute most. Cyclone fans will be clambering for his departure during his second year.
    2. During the Morgan Era, Iowa State will not beat the Iowa Hawkeyes one time, and will lose to Drake at least once.
    3. As ISU head coach, Wayne Morgan will achieve a grand total of zero victories against Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech, and no more than one victory over Missouri.
    4. During the Morgan Era, Iowa State will NOT be in the NCAA tournament one time, and probably will not make the NIT tournament, either.
    5. Iowa State’s win-loss record in ROAD games will be awful.
    6. When the Cyclones get 12 points behind in any road game, you can turn off the TV set. Come-from-behind victories will be almost non-existent during the Morgan Era.
    7. During the three years of the Morgan Era, the Cyclones will be out-rebounded very badly. Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas Tech will score many baskets on put-backs of offensive rebounds.
    8. During all three years of the Morgan Era, opposing coaches like Eddie Sutton, Bob Knight, Steve Alford, Tom Davis and Quin Snyder will always say very complimentary things about Wayne Morgan. The last thing that any of those men would want would be for Coach Morgan to resign or get fired.
    9. When Wayne Morgan is under heavy criticism during his third year as head coach, Jim Boeheim and Dick Vitale will say very nice things about Coach Morgan.
    10. With ten games left in his last year at Long Beach State, Wayne Morgan announced his resignation effective at the end of the season. That should speak mountains to ISU fans and alumni. He will do the same during his third year as head coach at Iowa State.

Iowa State Athletic Director Bruce Van De Velde really missed the boat badly on this hiring. One presently-out-of-work coach who would have been a fantastic selection as head coach at Iowa State is Lon Krueger.

When Wayne Morgan eventually resigns or is fired as the Iowa State coach, the Cyclones’ talent level will be at an all-time low. That is what he left at Long Beach State. It will be at least 2008 before the Iowa State men’s basketball program recovers from "the great Bruce Van De Velde blunder." By 2008, Athletic Director Van De Velde will be gone, too.

--Al Schallau

Alford Waiting to Be Dismissed?

Sandra Madden, a frequent contributor to this column, sent this e-mail:

"My opinion about Steve Alford—I think he is waiting to be dismissed from Iowa so he can go back to Indiana. What da ya think?"

Well, Sandy, as one of my former bosses used to say, "You could be right."

I’ll tell you one thing. If Alford doesn’t finish in the first division of the Big Ten standings pretty soon—like this season—his next Zip Code may very well be in Indiana.

Very Bad Day for a Very Good Friend

My very good friend Rob Borsellino has been catching all kinds of hell at the local paper, and now he’s catching hell from one of my readers, too.

I received this e-mail from a central Iowa woman who has made strong contributions to this column in the past:

Ron,

As far as I’m concerned, your "very good friend" Rob Borsellino wrote a "bone-headed" piece in the Register the day after Saddam was found. He insinuated that it was a stunt of the administration. I plead guilty to being a skeptic about certain things, but I can trust also. Did he think that something like that "find" could be a conspiracy that the military could pull off, with their layers of soldiers and command officers, and did he not know that Saddam was identified by several methods including DNA? His article still makes me angry. I think he is one of those guys who would like the Iraq thing to fail because he is against this administration. These things should be above politics. Shame on him. I am done reading him. (I had to get it out of my system. Sorry to unload on a perfectly nice sportswriter).

[MY COMMENT: Well, maybe my very good friend had a very bad day. After all, he’s had a few. Bad days, I mean. But, hey, thanks for the very nice compliment].

[Maybe you remember Ron Maly’s dispatches a half-dozen times earlier this year from Mesa, AZ. He’d occasionally try to slip in a line that said he was in the desert because Aunt Mary wasn't feeling up to par physically. Well, Aunt Mary is now at peace. She died at home in her sleep at 3:30 a.m. today after bravely battling a blood disease for a lot of years. Aunt Mary was a real sweetheart. Maly and a lot of other people loved her].