"Our schedule (for next season) is not 100 percent set," new Cyclone Coach Wayne Morgan said today. "Bob Sundvold (the only holdover assistant from Larry Eustachy’s staff), has been handling scheduling."

"There were a lot of (teams) that I thought had an interest in playing us that have subsequently said they are not going to play us. It does look like we’re going to play the University of Iowa in January. And we will play the game."

Despite that comment, Morgan said, to his knowledge, there was never a possibility that the Iowa State-Iowa game wouldn’t be played.

Games in the Iowa State-Iowa regular-season rivalry have been played in December in the past 19 seasons. However, since the rivalry was renewed in 1970 after a 35-year lapse, five of the games have been played in January.

The teams split two games last season—Iowa State winning a December game in Iowa City and Iowa winning an NIT game in March at Ames.

Morgan said the Cyclones’ game against Iowa will be played "in the middle of Big 12 play."

And, you can assume, in the middle of Big Ten competition in Iowa’s case.

Morgan said he’d prefer that the game be played early enough to "not interfere with the concentration on conference play, but we want to play the game. I think it’s a valuable game, I think it’s a big rivalry, I think people throughout the state have great interest in it and I actually think it’s a good thing not only for basketball, but for the state. So I think we should play the game."

One of the big raps against Eustachy was the soft non-conference schedules his teams played. That was a factor in declining attendance at Hilton Coliseum.

Iowa State is even planning to lower the cost of tickets to bring fans back to the arena.

"We’ve talked to a lot of schools," he said. "We talked to Arizona State, St. John’s, Miami, Seton Hall, we talked to a ton of schools."

Apparently without success.
"You have to realize a lot goes into scheduling," he said. "A lot goes into a major school not taking a home game. There are major schools that make up to $750,000 per home game, and we don’t pay those kind of guarantees. So it’s difficult sometimes to get someone to come to your arena unless there are schools that sorely need the benefit of the finances. It’s something we’re trying to work through."

Morgan said he’d be willing to schedule a "name" school on a home-and-home basis.

"I will play away somewhere if ABC wants to give us a million dollars," he said. "We’ll do that."

That drew a laugh. A lot of laughs.

Based on last year’s schedules, the Cyclones are due to play Drake at the Knapp Center in Des Moines and they’ll host Northern Iowa at Hilton Coliseum.

Not a good sign.

But at least he had a press conference.

And, once he showed up, he handled himself well.

Eustachy was notorious for not wanting to appear at press conferences, especially at this time of year and on days and nights when there weren’t games.

I could never figure that out because the guy was witty and could wow a roomful of reporters.

Walters, who was the Cyclones’ TV announcer the past six years, will replace the late Pete Taylor as Iowa State’s radio play-by-play man.

Helmers is confident he’ll find a talented successor to Walters for the TV job.

"There are some very experienced possibilities for us to take a look at, even though I’m not yet ready to throw out names," Helmers said. "I’ve gotten three calls in the last 48 hours."

Helmers said Gary Thompson, the former Iowa State basketball standout who has been a fixture on Cyclone telecasts, will likely be back to do commentary in the 2003-2004 season.

:"I talked to Gary yesterday, and I think he’ll be back for some of the games at least," Helmers said.

In the last season or so, Thompson has indicated he might be ready to wind down his TV career, but it’s good to know he’ll return for Morgan’s first season with Iowa State.

Thompson has experience at the network level, and adds some expertise to the Iowa State telecasts that’s hard to match.

"Excuse me," Morgan said. "That might be a recruit changing his mind."

Again, more laughs.

"I considered that, and I looked at some resumes of some people from Iowa—not necessarily high school coaches, but some people involved in college," he commented. "But I thought I wanted to hire the best staff possible.

"I’m looking at this program not only from a local scope, but also a national scope. All of (my assistants) are professional enough and astute enough to get involved with players not only here in the state of Iowa, but throughout the midwest."

Morgan said he and staff plan to "look at all the kids in the state of Iowa and if they want to come here, we will have open arms and hugs and kisses."

When a questioner pressed Morgan again – telling him that Steve Alford at Iowa, Greg McDermott at Northern Iowa and Tom Davis at Drake are expected to make competition for in-state talent fierce – the Iowa State coach said, "I think there’s a lot of young Cyclones out there."