Drake Had An Impressive 'White-Out,' And Creighton's Dana Altman Was Part Of It

 

Poor Dana Altman.

Creighton's basketball coach showed up at the Knapp Center wearing a white dress shirt, which meant he blended in perfectly with the "white-out" atmosphere Drake had for its game with the Bluejays.

Drake's fans thought Altman was doing his version of the "Unleashed!" white T-shirts they were handed when they came into the arena.

I took Altman's picture [above] a couple of times while he addressed reporters at his postgame press conference, and his eyes were closed both times.

That seemed to be the way he was during the game, too. He looked a lot like Randy Brubaker in an afternoon news conference at the paper.

Drake, of course, defeated Creighton, 75-65, for the second time in nine nights.

It was the first time the 16th-ranked Bulldogs -- who have a 19-1 record and have won 18 straight games -- have swept a regular-seaosn series from Creighton since 1994-95.

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Speaking of Altman, I'm wondering if he's had any regrets that he didn't stay longer than 24 hours in the Arkansas coaching job last spring.

The man who's in his 14th season as Creighton's coach evidently figured out right away that he wasn't the man who should be doing the "S-o-o-o E-e-e-e Pig!" hog calls at Fayetteville, Ark.

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An overflow turnout of 7,152 at the Knapp Center meant Drake has had five consecutive sellouts.

Quite a bit different than in recent years, when the only full house was when the Iowa-Drake game was played here every other season and Hawkeye fans bought most of the tickets.

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I wonder what Rudy Washington thinks about all of this?

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The way Altman kept talking about Drake guard Adam Emmenecker, I thought he wished he'd recruited him.

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As Yogi Berra says -- or maybe it was Casey Stengel -- Keno Davis gets amazinger every night.

Here it is almost February. I still look at his lineup and wonder how he's won 18 straight games.

That's national coach of the year stuff as far as I'm concerned.

Coach K, Billy Donovan or Roy Williams couldn't do any better -- maybe not as well -- with these Drake players.

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Tom Davis told me he wished Bump Elliott a happy birthday the other day.

Elliott was the Iowa athletic director who made a wise decision and hired Davis as Iowa's coach many moons ago.

I could tell by the way Davis talked that he's got a lot of respect for Elliott, who put out a lot of fires when he was Iowa.

Davis was about ready to take the Houston job when Elliott hired him.

Just think, if Tom hadn't come to Iowa, Keno probably wouldn't be Drake's coach now.

By the way, something tells me Davis and Bob Bowlsby don't exchange birthday greetings.

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I sat next to a reporter from USA Today during last night's game.

She seemed like a very nice person, so I'm hoping that working for a Gannett operation that requires stories to be no longer than five paragraphs won't wreck her career.

She told me she was at the Knapp to do a feature story, and I'm pretty sure it's on the Korver brothers -- who it seems have been putting their family seal on the Missouri Valley Conference since basketball's short-pants-and-Chuck Taylor-canvas-shoes days.

If she gets that into a 4-inch story, she's my Pulitzer Prize winner.

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I had to go into the men's room at the Knapp Center to put on my "Unleashed!" T-shirt before the game.

First, I checked to make sure Larry Craig wasn't in the room or hiding in a stall.

I had to take off my olive-colored turtleneck and my undershirt to put on the T-shirt underneath.

I thought that made more sense than carrying the shirt around all night.

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After buying a $2.50 small-sized box of popcorn from a matronly-looking lady wearing a Dowling baseball cap in a Drake concession stand, I ran into the Register's Bill Neibergall.

He wasn't buying popcorn; he was doing what he does best -- taking great pictures.

Bill is the talented guy who is a member of a talented news photographer family.

Bill's dad was the late Larry Neibergall, a man I covered many a sporting event with for a lot of years.

He was a hustler and a guy you could always count on.

Bill's brother, Charlie, is an outstanding Associated Press photographer. He also was working at last night's game.

Bill was wandering around the arena, doing a photo album on fans before the game, for the paper's website. The website gets as much attention, if not more, than the paper gets these days.

Bill is a big part of a shrinking photo staff at the paper. Some real heavyweights like Dave Peterson, Gary Fandel. Bob Nandell and Warren Taylor have left the place in recent months -- or soon will be leaving.

Naturally, when people leave, the paper takes forever to replace them -- or doesn't replace them at all.

Bud Appleby wonders how soon it'll be before reporters are told to take pictures, too.

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I recall Keno Davis saying early in the season that he'd call his dad on the phone after games, asking for a review of the performance from the Old Master.

Now I'm wondering if maybe the Old Master calls The Kid after games, and is the one asking the questions.

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I know I've been saying a lot about Keno Davis being my choice as national coach of the year.

I don't know if there's any award called the athletic director of the year, but if there is Drake's Sandy Hatfield Clubb should get it.

That woman is doing a fantastic job.

My advice to school president David Maxwell: Make sure you keep her. She's a winner.

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I wonder what Tom Abatemarco thinks about all of this?

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After being criticized heavily early in the season by Drake fans for its back-by-the-tire-ads coverage of the Bulldogs, the paper has gotten its act together.

There were at least four working writers at last night's game. It was good to see that somebody even woke up the boss, gave him directions to the arena and told him to make sure he took his computer.

Hell, for all I know, Carolyn Washburn was wearing a white outfit [isn't that a horrible thought?] while snooping around the student section to see if anybody wanted to run for president before calling in the box score to the copy desk.

In addition, two retired writers showed up, and seemed like they still knew a basket counted two points. So did Joe Patrick, a retired newsside copy editor who never goes anywhere without his paste pot. A couple of photographers who took video and still pictures most of the night were there, too.

I mean, those photographers were lugging around such huge lenses for their cameras that they'll need to get appointments at the pain clinic at Mercy Hospital when the season is over so their backs will quit hurting.

There was so much coverage that you'd have thought it was the bicycle trip all over again.

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"I can't help but to bark like a Bulldog!" R.H. of Des Moines tells me in an e-mail. "Guys like Jay Bilas, Hubert Davis, and Digger Phelps should pack up their stuff and come out to the Knapp to do ESPN 'College Gameday' and stop their yapping about Drake not being for 'real.' These Bulldogs are for real and they find ways to slam the door on their opponents at the end of each game!"

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In a very nice gesture, Creighton brought Red McManus to the game.

Red was celebrating his 83rd birthday. He's a former coach at Creighton and at old St. Ambrose Academy in Davenport.

Keno Davis' Drake Record Is 18-1, But His Son, Brady, Can Top That. He's 2-0 In the Games He's Attended and the Bulldogs Are 17-0 Since He Was Born

I've got some big news for you today.

There's a member of the Davis family who's got an even better record than Keno, the basketball coach.

It's Keno's son, 11-week-old Brady.

"Brady is 2-0 in the Drake games he's attended and we're 17-0 since he was born Nov. 12," Keno told me.

The only loss for 16th-ranked Drake was Nov. 10 to St. Mary's [Calif.], 72-66.

So, obviously, Brady must've announced to his dad that the losing was over the day he was born.

Keno Emlen Davis is the proud father of Brady Keno Davis, who has built incredible records of 18-1 overall and 9-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference in his rookie season as a collegiate head coach.

Brady was in his mother's arms when the Bulldogs won a wild 69-68 game Jan. 16 at Bradley and when they slipped past Northern Iowa, 58-54, last Saturday at the Knapp Center.

Brady's mother is Krista, who was a 5-foot 10-inch volleyball player at Southeast Missouri State.

Keno, a University of Iowa graduate, was an assistant coach at Southeast Missouri State when former Drake coach Gary Garner was the head coach. Krista earned her degree from Southeast Missouri State and did graduate work at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville

"We're hoping Brady gets his mother's height," said Keno, who also stands 5-10.

Keno didn't take it as news when I pointed out that Ralph Miller, the late Wichita State, Iowa and Oregon State basketball coach, always looked at the height of a prospect's mother when he was on a recruiting mission.

Miller felt that if the mother was tall, her son would be, too.

"I agree with that," Keno said.

Keno said that although his son has the same first name as the last name of the New England Patriots' Tom Brady, he wasn't named after the quarterback.

"I'm a big fan of the Patriots [who play the New York Giants in Sunday's Super Bowl football game], but Brady is not named after the quarterback," Keno said.

"Krista and I were going through names, and we came up with 15 girls' names we liked, but couldn't come up with a boy's name. Finally, we were going through a book and found Brady."

Keno said it wasn't his idea to give Brady his middle name.

"My wife talked me into it," he explained. "She thought it was important to keep the Keno name going."

I asked Keno if he's documenting this banner season in any way so his son will know about it once he is aware of what his dad does for a living.

After all, the little guy probably isn't keeping score or using a video camera yet while in his seat at the Knapp Center.

"We'll always have videotape of our games," Keno said, "and we'll keep some articles -- especially those that have his name in them."

Brady's proud paternal grandparents are Tom and Shari Davis. Tom, of course, was the winningest basketball coach at the University of Iowa and was Drake's coach for four seasons before the job was turned over to Keno following the 2006-2007 season.

Tom has been watching Drake's home games while sitting at press row. I've sat next to him at a few games, and it's been fun for me to observe his emotions as Keno demonstrates a style that I feel is worthy of him being named the national coach of the year if the Bulldogs can continue this spectacular season.

Keno said his mother is in Des Moines, "and, for the most part, watches our games on TV. She supports our team that way."

Both Tom and Shari, an accomplished artist, have a lot to be happy about. What a winter it's been for them in Des Moines.

Alex Karras Said, 'I Never Graduated From Iowa, But I Was Only There for Two Terms -- Truman's and Eisenhower's'

The Super Bowl will be played Sunday, so I guess that means the football season still isn't over.

George Wine is basking in the Florida sunshine these days while another Iowa winter threatens to turn my body parts purple.

Wine, who retired after 25 years as Iowa's sports information director, sends me lots of e-mail that's full of funny stuff.

His latest message was titled "Football Wisdom" and includes alleged quotes from some of the gridiron giants of the past and present -- alive, retired and dead.

The quotes have obviously been passed from one person to another over the years, and wound up in Wine's computer. In fact, Wine says he received the quotes from his friend and mine, Al Schallau:

"After you retire, there's only one big event left.... and I ain't ready for that."

--Bobby Bowden, Florida State coach

"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."

--Woody Hayes, Ohio State coach [pictured at the left]

"You can learn more character on the 2-yard line than anywhere else in life."

--Paul Dietzel, Louisiana State coach

"I never graduated from Iowa, but I was only there for two terms -- Truman's and Eisenhower's."

--Alex Karras, Hawkeye and Detroit Lions player [pictured at the right]

"I could have been a Rhodes Scholar, except for my grades."

--Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State coach

"Always remember ..... Goliath was a 40-point favorite over David."

--Shug Jordan, Auburn coach

After USC lost, 51-0, to Notre Dame, his postgame message to his team: "All those who need showers, take them."

--John McKay, Southern California coach

Maybe Dana Jacobson Was Drinking To Drake's Basketball Success

It was mid-morning today and two people who have been in the news a lot lately were talking to each other on TV. One was Dana Jacobson, a vulgar, vodka-pounding drunk who had just come off a one-week suspension after embarrassing herself, her family, her network, Valley High School, all of West Des Moines, the Catholic church, Mike Ditka and no doubt a lot of other people at a roast for two other ESPN announcers. Also on the tube was Keno Davis, rookie coach of the 16th-ranked Drake basketball team that has an 18-1 record and has won 17 straight games. It was the "First Take" show on ESPN2, and Jacobson was lavishing praise on Davis, who is my choice for national coach of the year. Actually, it could've loosely been called an all-Des Moines metro show. Jacobson graduated in 1989 from Valley before enrolling at the University of Michigan, where she must've learned all her rotten habits. Davis is doing a tremendous job in his first season as a head coach. It was because of Keno's stunning success at Drake that he was invited by ESPN2 to go to the WOI-TV studios in West Des Moines to be interviewed for the show. Jacobson was suspended by ESPN after she made a fool of herself at the roast. It's been all over the Internet that the foul-mouthed woman said such things as "Fuck Notre Dame!" and other horrible phrases using the "F" word while drinking vodka sraight from the bottle. She even said something about Ditka's sex organs and whether they still worked. I don't know if Jacobson has personal knowledge of Ditka's body parts, but evidently she talked about their ineffectiveness during the roast. Ditka says thanks a lot, Dana. Ditka's wife probably didn't think much of what Jacobson said either. Before today's show, Jacobson made Davis aware of the fact she spent time growing up in this area. In fact, she even mentioned Peggy's and other Des Moines drinking establishments in the first part of the show to illustrate that she wasn't just another TV dummy who's had more than her share of wine straight from a bottle with a twist-off cap. For all I know, Jacobson was drinking to Drake's basketball success the night of the roast. She didn't break any new journalism ground with her questions to Keno today, but you know everybody at Drake ranging from the president to the ballboy at the Knapp Center liked it that Davis was on the show because of the national publicity the university gets from such stuff. Jacobson told her audience, "Drake is THE team and THE hot topic in Des Moines....The Bulldogs are about a month away from what could be their first NCAA tournament since the 1970s." It was only natural that Jacobson got Keno talking about his dad, Tom, who was Drake's previous coach. "He gave me a lot of good advice when I was growing up," Keno said about his dad. "But in my first year as a head coach, he told me I had to make my own decisions. I was also an assistant coach under Bruce Pearl [who now is doing big things at Tennessee] and Gary Garner, a former Drake coach who has been in a number of other coaching jobs since [including an assistant with the Iowa Energy]. Davis said he was hopeful very early that Drake could do better than the ninth place it was picked for in the Missouri Valley Conference's preseason poll. The Bulldogs are now 9-0 in the league. Davis said the 18-1 overall record "is beyond my expectations." Keno said Drake doesn't have the best talent in the Valley, "but we work as hard as any team." Jacbson pointed out that there's no NBA, NFL and no major league baseball team in Des Moines, and asked Keno what an NCAA tournament bid would mean to the city. "It would be big for our longtime season ticketholders who have been waiting a long time for this, but we're just happy to be getting the [attention] we're getting now." Naturally, Jacobson had to ask where Keno got his first name. "Well, when my father was a high school coach he had a player with that name. My parents went away from the most common name, Tom Davis, to the most unique name, Keno," Davis said. "I've enjoyed it. It's always a topic of conversation." Then Jacobson asked Keno about his middle name. "It's probably more uncommon than Keno," he said. "My middle name is Emlen--named after my two grandfathers, Emory and Leonard." Mike Mahon, Drake's sports information director, told me he mentioned to Keno that he should invite Jacobson to a future Drake game. Well, why not? Peggy's is still there, so Dana may come. Or at least accept the invitation.

Bulldogs' Basketball Climb Continues -- They're No. 16 In the AP Writers' poll, No.17 In the Coaches' Poll

Drake basketball coach Keno Davis and a roomful of Bulldog fans had a lot to celebrate during the lunch hour today at Christopher's restaurant in Beaverdale. Davis was told before addressing the fans that his team had risen six spots to No. 16 in the Associated Press sportswriters' poll. Drake is No. 17 in the coaches' poll. Keno didn't exactly pick up his plate of food and throw it into the face of radio announcer Larry Cotlar [who was sitting at the same table] to display his happiness -- but it was obvious he was pleased. The Bulldogs will take records of 18-1 overall the 9-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference into Wednesday night's game against Creighton at the Knapp Center. They have won 17 straight games while matching the No. 16 writers' ranking that the 1974-75 team had in the final poll. Fans were told that Wednesday's game is sold out, and so is the Feb. 9 game against Evansville. Drake has suddenly become a tough ticket in Davis' first season as head coach.

Keeping Up Long-Distance With the Bulldogs' Incredible Success

Mankato, Minn. -- Like they always say, time flies when you're having fun.

Pardon me, I mean when I'm having fun.

As I told you a couple of days ago, I'm traveling this weekend, but thanks to ESPN and my computer, I was able to keep track of yet another victory by Keno Davis and his Drake basketball team.

It was good to see an e-mail early this morning from Mark Robinson of Iowa City, who also brought up the subject of the Bulldogs:

"Hi, Ron;

"My 19-year-old son Alex, who lives in Austin, Texas, asked me this question [last] night while we were on the phone.

'"Dad, it looks like Drake just won.again...why can't I read about them in any of the papers or on the online websites?'

"In so many words, I told him that Ron Maly was the only writer providing up-to-date poop on Drake. I told him that even the local paper couldn't match Ron with regard to coverage of Drake basketball.

"Ron, I think the whole damned world has been waiting for Keno's crew to bite it, tank it, whatever. You have been the only writer who has put it on the line, and with good reason.

"They are for real.

"Keep writing,"

Mark Robinson

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Great hearing from you, Mark, and thanks for the very nice comments. I'm writing this from Nankato, Minn., where my 13-year-old granddaughter has been participating in a junior high school basketball tournament. But I was able to keep up with the outcome of Drake's 58-54 victory over Northern Iowa via ESPN and my computer. When I left the hotel last night to watch the St. Paul Central Lutheran Cougars' fifth-place game, Drake was leading UNI, 28-20. But Mike Mahon, the Drake sports information director whom I jokingly refer to as my special correspondent, had his usual thorough story about the Bulldogs completed when I checked my computer after Central Lutheran's 29-16 victory. Obviously, UNI made a game out of it in the last half before 22nd-ranked Drake extended its records to 18-1overall, 9-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference and 17 victories in a row. The 58-54 victory didn't surprise me because Keno Davis' team has been feeding off capacity crowds at the Knapp Center in recent weeks. I fully expect Drake to get past Creighton on Wednesday at home before hitting the road again for games at Indiana State and Illinois State. Keno's 22nd-ranked team has certainly become a big story in a season when it was picked to finish ninth in the Valley standings. The Bulldogs survived Josh Young's ankle injury and they've continued playing hard despite putting a lineup onto the floor that certainly isn't mentioned [even by me] in the same breath as Kansas or North Carolina. The Bulldogs just keep cranking it out night after night, and -- in the long run -- that's all any of us can ask. I kept thinking it would all come to a bigtime halt in, say, the games at Bradley and Creighton or at home against Southern Illinois, but the good things continue happening. The Bulldogs have been an incredible story throughout a very cold winter in the state of Iowa].

All the Grizzled Old-Timers Got Was Fried Chicken With Feathers

A roomful of people was waiting patiently at a bad Chinese restaurant in Clive.

The scheduled speaker at the Des Moines Register retirees' lunch was Carolyn Washburn, editor of the paper.

Some standout old-timers were there. Grizzled veterans like Otto Knauth, Joan Bunke, Walt Shotwell, Buck Turnbull, Bud Appleby and Gene Raffensperger.

I didn't see Drake Mabry. It could be he had a doctor's appointment.

The old-timers were armed with their usual well thought-out questions:

Questions like why and how long will the circulation keep dropping; why the sports department doesn't pay more attention to the high school games; why Iowa and Iowa State always get more attention from the sportswriters than Drake and UNI, and what the real reason was that Mary P. Stier quit as publisher.

I'm sure somebody would've asked if Washburn thought she'd keep her job now that she made a fool out of herself nationally when she moderated the recent so-called Iowa presidential debate.

A number of national columnists were critical of her performance, and a couple of them even made fun of her physical appearance.

But I guess they did the same thing when Paul Anger was the editor, too.

After all, he's not exactly an old version of Brad Pitt.

Catching hell from the Washington and New York columnists, and the bloggers, too, seems to go with the territory when you're the Register's editor.

One grizzled veteran of the newsroom said he planned to ask Washburn how much money the paper makes from the paid obituaries that are in the paper every day.

But, alas, nobody got to ask any questions of Washburn.

She was a no-show.

Again.

"This is the third time she's canceled out on us," somebody said. "But it was the first time she canceled out after it was in the newsletter."

That person was a woman. I don't know if you can call a woman grizzled. Or even an old-timer. Let's just say she's old enough to not be wearing a two-piece bathing suit when she goes to the pool in July.

The newsletter the woman was talking about is sent every month to Register retirees. I think it's printed by the paper, which is one of the few nice things the place does for the grizzled folks. I know they don't pay for my lunch or Jim Flansburg's lunch at the Chinese buffet.

One guy guessed that Washburn [who is pictured] saw in the newsletter that she was the scheduled speaker at the January lunch, then decided she didn't want to be there.

Maybe it was the fear factor.

All I know is that Marc Hansen and Ken Fuson didn't cancel out. They stood up there and took it when they talked to the grizzled old-timers a while back.

The fact that Washburn has now canceled out three times probably means she'll never be there.

"She probably talked to Stier, who told her to stay away from us," one guy said.

You may recall that Stier spoke to the retirees a few years ago when we had our lunches at Baker's Cafeteria in Windsor Heights.

Baker's has since closed, so that's why the gang is now meeting at the bad Chinese restaurant.

Anyway, Stier gave a spirited talk to the retirees. Some of what she said might even have been true.

As I recall, she mentioned that the paper needed to upgrade its business and sports sections and that the arts needed to be covered better.

She mentioned some circulation figures, but some of the grizzled veterans immediately questioned those numbers.

They thought the numbers Stier threw out were higher than the actual numbers.

Oh, well. She was just the publisher. She was [and still is] an attractive lady, so some of the grizzled veterans gave her a pass on the circulation figures.

Grizzled veterans are like that sometimes.

At the time, I wrote a column about what Stier said. The column must have been hard-hitting -- and pretty good, too -- because it wound up on a national journalism website, where millions of people read it.

Suddenly, Stier and I were both famous. I hope she appreciated what I did for her career.

She sure as hell can't blame me for her being out of the newspaper business a few years later. I did all I could do for her.

Anyway, after my column went nationwide [and has remained nationwide], I quickly began hearing from people I hadn't seen for years and years -- as well as people I didn't even know. Some of them had worked at the Register, and recalled the paper's good old days.

In other words, the days before the Gannett Co. bought the place, and before Mike Gartner's career went into a freefall and he started writing for Cityview.

I know I have 100 percent readership in the Register's newsroom. When -- thanks to my friend Barry Crist -- I broke the news in yesterday's column that Dana Jacobson, the foul-mouthed [and suspended] ESPN announcer, was a 1989 graduate of Valley High School in West Des Moines the folks in the newsroom read it and made sure it got into today's paper.

Before I put this column away and I head for my granddaughter's basketball tournament, I thought you might want to know just how flexible those grizzled old-timers at the retirees' lunch can be.

When it was known that Washburn would be a no-show [for the third time], someone quickly lined up a couple of speakers from the Animal Rescue League.

I didn't stick around long enough to listen, though.

Especially when I saw what the guy seated next to me had on his plate.

He had a piece of fried chicken that still had the feathers on it.

"Ask for your money back," I told the guy.

I mean, that's a bad Chinese restaurant.

Dana Jacobson, the Announcer Suspended By ESPN for Those Horrible Comments About Notre Dame, Is a 1989 Graduate Of Valley High In West Des Moines

It turns out that the infamous Dana Jacobson is one of our own.

Barry Crist of West Des Moines tells me this:

"Dana Jacobson can't put that rivalry with West Des Moines Dowling behind her:

"Jacobson graduated from the University of Michigan in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and communications. She was born and raised in Michigan, where she attended Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills. Subsequently, she attended and graduated from Valley High School in West Des Moines in 1989.

"ESPN recently suspended Jacobson [who is Jewish] for one week in light of unscripted comments she made about Notre Dame at the roast of [network announcers] Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic in Atlantic City.

"Jacobson was criticized by several Catholic advocacy groups, including the Catholic League for her characterizations of Jesus and the Notre Dame football program. An intoxicated Jacobson reportedly appeared on stage drinking a bottle of vodka and said, 'Fuck Notre Dame,' 'Fuck Touchdown Jesus' and 'Fuck Jesus.'"

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[Editor's note: Dana Jacobson [photo at the right courtesy of the Huffington Post] must have acquired her excessive drinking habits at the University of Michigan. It certainly couldn't have been at Valley High School, where almost everyone learns early how to drink responsibly].

'What Kind Of Town Is Des Moines? Not Bad, But It Ain't No Omaha.' I've Got That and Other Stuff As Taylor, Masid Get Ready To Ride Into the Sunset

The shrinking newspaper keeps shrinking.

I hear that Warren Taylor is retiring Feb 4 from the paper, and Sue Masid heads out the door March 1.

"Both requested buyouts," a guy tells me.

Taylor is primarily a photographer -- and a good one. In recent years, he's been working in the office as some sort of photo editor. Masid has many talents, too. She filled various copy editing roles throughout the newsroom.

No sign of them being replaced, which is the name of the game these days.

Keep buying out people, don't hire anyone to take their places, then order everyone else to hitch up their belts and work harder.

Just so the bosses look good to the bottom line at Gannett.

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I asked a guy I know if he had any more information on James [sometimes known as Jim] O'Shea -- who has been fired as editor of the Los Angeles Times.

O'Shea worked at the paper here a number of years ago before going to the Chicago Tribune, then the L. A. paper.

"Jim got the ultimate sweetheart deal to go to L.A.," the guy told me. "They provided a free luxury apartment and unlimited trips for his wife [who stayed in Chicago] to L.A., or Jim back to Chicago. He also had a contract for like two years for the L.A. job. When he left the Chicago Tribune he was managing editor.

"As for Jim's background, he was a card-carrying union electrician. In Des Moines, he began as a general reporter, then moved to the business page. He was sent to Washington to be in the Register's bureau there. He then was hired by the Tribune, where he finally became managing editor.

"Jim is the 'author' of a famous line: Jim had been on the Register staff just a few days. He was in the old Office Lounge and said to a guy next to him, 'I'm new here. What kind of town is Des Moines?' The guy answered, 'Not bad, but it ain't no Omaha.'"

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: The Office Lounge. in those days, was a tavern across the alley from the paper. It was replaced by the Marriott Hotel. That was a horrible exchange. A number of staff members could be found in the Office Lounge consuming large amounts of beer and other beverages, day or night. It was a place that became very, very famous. Indeed, they should've made a movie about it. In particular, one guy from the newsroom used to go to the Office Lounge at 11 a.m. just about every day and return to his desk at 2 p.m. He always wrote better stuff after he'd been drinking for three hours. I don't know what his name was, but his friends sometimes called him Chuck Burdick].

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It's a good thing the paper has freelancer Jody Gifford to write stories for its health section.

Otherwise, there'd be no health section.

The paper is trying to peddle that flimsy, four-page health section to readers and advertisers, but obviously the editors can't find any reporters who know -- or care -- anything about health.

No surprise there. Newspaper people have never given a damn about health.

Unless I'm mistaken, Jody Gifford used to be Jody Crossman, and she was a fulltime entertainment reporter and columnist at the paper a few years back.

I always admired her writing -- even after she was working in Indianapolis. The only negative I could see about that phase of her life was who the editor was of the paper that employed her.

It's good to see her back in town.

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Speaking of Jody Gifford, maybe she should start covering the women's basketball team at Drake for the paper.

Obviously, there's a vacancy there.

I searched today's sports section six or seven times in a vain attempt to find something about the Bulldogs other than their starting lineup buried at the bottom of page 6 for tonight's game against Bradley.

Old reliable -- well, maybe not old, but still usually reliable -- Dan Johnson provided a long game story on fading Iowa State's 80-49 drubbing at Kansas State and a seven-paragraph advance on Purdue's game at Iowa, a team that's been dead all season.

Nothing on Drake and standout player Jill Martin [pictured at the left] that I could see unless the story was masquerading as that page 2 mess about golf at AIB. Or -- pardon the expression -- "Hockey Thursday."

What a shame.

They're trying to drum up interest in this town for the NCAA women's first- and second-round tournament March 22-24 at Wells Fargo Arena, and the paper can't find somebody to write a six-paragraph advance on a Drake home game.

Iowa State is the host school for the regional, but is playing itself out of the tournament.

So much for me comparing coach Bill Fennelly to Bobby Bowden in that TV commercial.

Now I'm wondering what's going to happen if neither Iowa State nor Drake is chosen for the tournament.

I guess Wells Fargo and Des Moines had better hope Kansas State brings 17,000 fans to Des Moines.

*

By the way, I hear through the grapevine that neither Mike Hlas nor Jim Ecker is interested in the editor's job at the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

The job has been vacant for a while.

"We're advertising for an editor who's 'in tune' with the new media [i.e.
website, etc.]," Ecker told me in an e-mail. "I don't think I'd pass that test."

Says Hlas: "If elected, I will not serve."

Well, at least I tried.

Give Me a Break Already. The Bulldogs Are 17-1 and Have Won 16 Straight -- Yet Some ESPN News Knucklehead Still Says, 'They Haven't Played Anybody'

I was watching ESPN News late last night. I don't mean plain old ESPN or ESPN2 or ESPNU or ESPN360 or any of the other 1,000 ESPN channels there are on my DirecTV dial. ESPN News, I guess, gives a viewer like me constant sports news. I mean, 24 hours a day. Maybe 25. Announcers I never heard of not only are always talking about sports, other sports news is flashing on the screen. If a viewer can't get enough sports news on ESPN News, he or she had better have his or her brains looked at in a laboratory at Mercy or Iowa Methodist. Anyway, there were two announcers giving me the collegiate basketball information on ESPN News when I was still half-awake, and they finally got around to talking about Drake's 68-60 victory in overtime at Creighton. One of them said something like, "The rap on Drake is that they haven't played anybody." That was news to me. What the hell was the Iowa State team Drake thumped by 35 points? Or the Iowa team the Bulldogs defeated in Iowa City for the first time in 40 years? Or the Southern Illinois and Illinois State teams Drake handled at the Knapp Center? Or Creighton last night. By the way, the ESPN News announcer who downplayed what Drake has done wasn't Dana Jacobson [pictured at the left], who had already been suspended for a week over another matter. She's been in the middle of the TV news lately for all the wrong reasons. I've been reading on the Internet that she was draining as many vodka bottles as she could while appearing at a roast, and said, "Fuck Notre Dame!" and also used the "F" word a few other times. ESPN's bosses didn't take kindly to that, and I don't think Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis [who was present at the roast] did either. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights says Jacobson has e-mailed the following apology: "My remarks about Notre Dame were foolish and insensitive. I respect all religions and did not mean anything derogatory by my poorly chosen words." Apologies, apologies. We'll see if Jacobson keeps her job. Anyway, back to Drake. Coach Keno Davis thought he'd probably used the "no-respect" card long enough, but maybe he still needs to pull it out of the deck. Drake is ranked No. 22 in one national poll and No. 23 in another. Now people are still saying the Bulldogs haven't played anybody -- even after their record has risen to 17-1 and they've won an amazing 16 games in a row. Yet, they were 7-point underdogs going into last night's game against a Creighton team that is a cut or two below recent Dana Altman squads. No wonder he went to Arkansas to be the coach for 24 hours. Even Las Vegas doesn't yet believe in the Bulldogs. Hey, listen, just because Drake hasn't beaten North Carolina, UCLA and Kansas isn't the fault of Adam Emmenecker and Bucky Cox. It's because the Bulldogs didn't have those teams on their schedule. Give them time. If they hang around long enough in the NCAA tournament, they'll see one or all of those teams. I guess not many people took Maury John's 1968-69 team very seriously either. I'm sure John employed the "no-respect" stuff plenty of times when Willie McCarter, Dolph Pulliam and the gang were beating Memphis State, Cincinnati and Louisville. Hell, when the Bulldogs almost upset UCLA in the Final Four before losing, 85-82, TV announcer Curt Gowdy was calling 'em Duke instead of Drake. Northern Iowa is the next team Drake will beat Saturday at the Knapp Center. Count on it. I'll be in Minnesota, not ice fishing but watching my granddaughter play basketball and checking up on what they're saying on ESPN News. By the way, for the thousands of you who now are interested in seeing my NCIT wristwatch, it'll have to wait. I'm taking it with me. It still keeps good time, so I'll be wearing it.

AND I'VE GOT MORE....

Everybody's pumped about the Bulldogs. Here's an e-mail from Buck Turnbull, who passed up today's sportswriters' lunch: "Hi Ron: No lunch for me today. I'll wait for better weather. This is getting to be a pretty crummy winter. How 'bout them Dawgs!"...From R. H. of Des Moines: "Dear Ron, To paraphrase former Dallas Cowboys' coach Jimmy Johnson: All I got is one thing to say....HOW 'BOUT 'EM BULLDOGS!!!!!!!!"...And from David P. Mumm, the former pastor at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Des Moines who now is the pastor at Concordia Lutheran Church in Machesney Park Park, Ill.: "Hi Ron, I have a thought on last night's Drake win over Creighton. Often when teams break into the top-25 for the first time in many years they falter at their next challenging opponent. Drake's players seem to not have noticed that they are now nationally ranked. That is quite a testament to the coaching staff at Drake. Thanks for your frequent updates on the world of sports. I really enjoy reading your blog." Pastor Mumm also wrote: "Ron, here is a little story that I received yesterday. Thought you would enjoy it. It's from the http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh website. A small-town doctor was famous in the area for always catching large fish. One day while he was on one of his frequent fishing trips he got a call that a woman at a neighboring farm was giving birth. He rushed to her aid and delivered a healthy baby boy. The farmer had nothing to weigh the baby with, so the doctor used his fishing scales. The baby weighed 32 pounds 10 ounces. [Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!]...Despite Turnbull's absence, we covered the waterfront and more at the sportswriters' lunch. We talked at length about the Drake-Creighton game, and one guy mentioned the good job Bill Neibergall of the paper did with the pictures he took -- especially the one showing brothers Klayton Korver of Drake and Kaleb Korver of Creighton talking after the game. The Korver-Korver matchup evidently got much more pregame play in Omaha than it did here...I was about to say that it's a good thing the paper [the one here, not in Omaha] has been noticing Daniel P. Finney's stories in the Indianola Record-Herald. Reprints of Finney's stories have been appearing regularly in the Des Moines paper, which owns the Indianola publication. Without Finney's work, there wouldn't have been much in the paper here. Now the rumor is that Finney is on his way out at Indianola. It wasn't known if he's been transferred, quit or been fired. He earlier was canned by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for being critical in his personal blog [which he wrote on company time] of his Post-Dispatch assignments...A guy also was critical of the story about outgoing UNI athletic director Rick Hartzell in the Des Moines paper. "Very disjointed," the guy said. I said it was probably written for the paper's website, then the reporter added to it later in the day for the next morning's newspaper. "Not much work went into it," the critic said. "Actually, the Cedar Rapids Gazette had the story first, I saw it on KCCI-TV at noon that same day, then it wasn't in the paper until the next day." The guy also doesn't believe Hartzell either quit or was told to quit because he had to answer to a vice-president and not the president of the school. "There's more to it than that," the longtime newsman said. "They had to be pissed off at Hartzell because of the basketball officiating he was doing in his moonlighting job. Not enough digging was done on the story"...Everyone had it figured that Iowa and Iowa State would get clobbered tonight -- the Hawkeyes by Indiana, the Cyclones by Kansas.

There Once Was Something Called the National Commissioners Invitation Tournament. I've Got the Wristwatch And Drake Had the U.S. Ranking To Prove It

Call me lucky, I guess.

Name a bigtime sports event and I've been there.

I mean, it's not everyone who's sat on press row at the 1975 National Commissioners Invitation Tournament.

The NCIT, as the basketball junkies used to call it, was the NCAA's short-lived attempt at trying to kill the National Invitation Tournament.

The NCIT isn't exactly something that rolls off your tongue, but it's important in Drake basketball history.

Even if only 90-year-old Paul Morrison, Bob Ortegel and I were the only guys who remembered it until this week.

The last time Drake was nationally-ranked until now, you see, was right after the 1974-75 Bulldog team coached by Ortegel -- who was in his first season -- swept past Southern California, Bowling Green and Arizona to win the National Commissioners Invitation Tournament championship at Louisville, Ky.

Drake's present team, which has a 16-1 record, is ranked No. 22 in the Associated Press sportswriters' poll and No. 23 in the coaches' poll.

The 1975 Bulldogs, who finished with a 19-10 record, were ranked No. 16 in the final AP writers' poll.

*

However, the No. 16 ranking 33 years ago must have caught some people at Drake by surprise.

That's because, in the university's 2007-2008 basketball guide, a list on page 98 says the most recent national ranking for the Bulldogs was in 1971.

Maury John's final Drake team that season was ranked No. 16 by United Press International and No. 19 by the AP.

Some sleuth -- no doubt either Morrison, who marches around the office with a huge magnifying glass every day, or sports information director Mike Mahon must've found out that Ortegel's team was ranked No. 16 after seizing the NCIT title in 1975.

*

I was at Freedom Hall in Louisville in a working capacity for that tournament.

As I said earlier in this column, the NCIT was something the NCAA was employing to wipe out the NIT.

The NCIT was called a tournament for conference runnersup, which meant that any team invited to it wouldn't be going to the NIT.

Not that anyone slashed his or her wrists over that.

Drake had won five of its last six regular-season games -- including a 110-102 decision at Tulsa -- and Ortegel and his players were more than happy to be invited to the NCIT.

*

Ortegel coached at Drake at the same time Johnny Orr was at Iowa State and Lute Olson was at Iowa.

Notice that all three guys' last names started with "O."

Occasionally, people in Iowa City and Ames would refer to Olson and Orr as Coach "Oh" and Ortegel as Coach Zero, but I think they were just trying to have fun.

Anyway, Ortegel was Drake's coach from 1974 through 1981, and some folks thought he might be another Maury John after winning the tournament at Louisville in his first season as head coach.

However, things deteriorated quickly. Ortegel's 1975-76 team went 8-19. Nothing much good happened again until Ortegel recruited Lewis Lloyd in 1978. Lloyd played so well and looked so good with gold chains wrapped around his neck that his jersey was retired by Drake.

The leading scorer on the '75 NCIT title team was Larry Haralson with a 20.1 average. Terry McKissick averaged 8.4 rebounds.

I didn't quite know what to expect from the Bulldogs in their first-round NCIT game against Bob Boyd's Southern California squad.

I guess I probably figured it'd be one-and-done for Drake.

But, lo and behold, Drake won, 80-70.

*

I must have gotten pretty excited.

Not that I charged onto the floor at Freedom Hall so I could do a dance with Haralson at midcourt after the game, but with the way I wrote my story for the next morning's newspaper.

All I know is, the boss called me in my hotel room early in the day and started raising hell with me for not making a bigger deal in the story about one of USC's better players being out of the lineup because of an injury.

I argued with him for a half-hour. I finally said, "Get off my ass and go have coffee with Maury."

He eventually decided he was wrong. He said, "You're right, Ron. I should have known better than to second-guess you. You wrote a damn good story, and I'm sorry I called."

That's the kind of relationship the boss and I had in those days.

I didn't hear from him the rest of the week.

Drake handled Bowling Green, 78-65, in the second game, then absolutely thundered past Arizona, 83-76, in the championship game.

That, of course, was before the famous Lute Olson was coaching Arizona. Somebody named Fred Snowden was in charge of the Wildcats' program then, and he was no match for Ortegel's basketball expertise.

So Ortegel, his assistant coaches, his players, the student manager, probably the sports information director [who then was Dick Dietl], maybe the ballboy and the janitor who locked up the gym where Drake practiced in those days got NCIT wristwatches.

I got one, too, and it's pictured at the top of this column.

I didn't know what to think, though, when somebody broke into my home 30 years ago or so when I was out of town on a Big Ten football Skywriters trip. The guy stole the 20-Year Club pocketwatch I'd gotten at work, but left the NCIT wristwatch.

I don't know, maybe he thought the NCIT watch wasn't worth anything. I heard a rumor that the pocketwatch wound up in a downtown Des Moines pawnshop, and somebody bought it for $5.50 so he could get a couple of beers.

[And, by the way, I'm wearing my Drake blue sunglasses in this column to help celebrate Drake's first national ranking in 33 years].

The NCIT didn't last long -- three or four years maybe -- and neither did Ortegel. After Lloyd used up his eligibility, Ortegel went into the pizza business in Texas, and now is a Dallas Mavericks TV announcer and Hollywood movie extra.

*

Winning the National Commissioners Invitation Tournament, of course, meant that Louisville was a place that was very good to Drake.

It was in 1969 at Louisville that Maury John's team wrapped up a 26-5 season by finishing third [and almost beating eventual champion UCLA] in the NCAA Final Four.

As the song says, those were the days, my friend.

Maybe, just maybe, it'll happen again this year.

*

Ron Maly writes about anything that interests him in these columns, and he's always working on another book.

Hey, Somebody At Drake Tell the Writers and Coaches -- There Was No Hurry [First Ranking Since '75, Bulldogs Are No. 22 and No. 23 In National Polls]

It's about time. For the first time in about a century -- give or take a few decades -- Drake's basketball team is nationally-ranked. The Bulldogs, who have a 16-1 record and have won 15 staight games under first-year-coach Keno Davis [right], are No. 22 in today's sportswriters' poll and No. 23 in the coaches' poll. Actually, it's the first time since the final AP poll of the 1974-75 season that Drake has been ranked in the top 25 of any major poll. The Bulldogs were No. 16 at that time after winning the National Commissioners Invitation Tournament -- an event I covered in Louisville, Ky. "For a team that lost five seniors and four starters from last year and was ranked ninth in the Missouri Valley Conference preseason poll, we felt, our team and coaches, and probably our fans, felt we could have a pretty good team this year and be better than people expected but this wasn't what people were thinking, a national ranking," said Davis. Drake received 313 points in the writers' poll, ranking ahead of Xavier, No. 23; Arizona State, No. 24 and No. 25 Baylor. Drake received 92 points in the coaches' poll. The Bulldogs were ranked ahead of No. 24 St. Mary's, which handed Drake its lone loss of the season, 72-66, on Nov. 10 in Moraga, Calif.

AP Sportswriters' Poll

1. Memphis (49) 17-0 1,777
2. Kansas (23) 18-0 1,751
3. Tennessee 16-1 1,591
4. Duke 15-1 1,543
5. North Carolina 18-1 1,536
6. Washington State 16-1 1,442
7. Indiana 16-1 1,351
8. UCLA 16-2 1,312
9. Georgetown 14-2 1,235
10. Michigan State 16-2 1,175
11. Wisconsin 15-2 1,048
12. Texas 14-3 887
13. Pittsburgh 15-3 781
14. Vanderbilt 17-2 748
15. Butler 17-2 742
16. Dayton 14-2 567
17. Mississippi 15-2 529
18. Villanova 13-3 502
18. Texas A&M 15-3 502
20. Stanford 15-3 444
21. Marquette 13-4 332
22. Drake 16-1 313
23. Xavier 15-4 230
24. Arizona State 14-3 182
25. Baylor 15-2 173

Others Receiving Votes

St. Mary's 144, Clemson 136, Kansas State 120, West Virginia 90, Florida 49, Massachusetts 47, Gonzaga 32, USC 26, Rhode Island 17, Miami (FL) 15, Louisville 7, Cincinnati 5, South Alabama 5, Oklahoma 4, New Mexico 3, Mississippi State 2, Akron 2, Cleveland State 1, Creighton 1, Maryland 1.

Dropped From Rankings

Miami (FL) 21, Rhode Island 23, Clemson 24.

Coaches' Poll


1. Memphis (21) 17-0 765
2. Kansas (10) 18-0 754
3. Duke 15-1 682
4. North Carolina 18-1 666
5. Tennessee 16-1 653
6. Washington State 16-1 620
7. UCLA 16-2 581
8. Indiana 16-1 565
9. Georgetown 14-2 543
10. Michigan State 16-2 517
11. Wisconsin 15-2 443
12. Texas 14-3 381
13. Vanderbilt 17-2 336
14. Butler 17-2 316
15. Mississippi 15-2 284
16. Texas A&M 15-3 280
17. Pittsburgh 15-3 267
18. Villanova 13-3 257
19. Dayton 14-2 203
20. Marquette 13-4 158
21. Stanford 15-3 151
22. Xavier 15-4 112
23. Drake 16-1 92
24. Saint Mary's 15-2 89
25. Clemson 14-4 84

Others Receiving Votes

Arizona State 61, Florida 56, West Virginia 42, Rhode Island 24, Gonzaga 14, USC 12, Baylor 11, Massachusetts 9, Kansas State 8, Louisville 7, San Diego State 7, Connecticut 5, Mississippi State 4, South Alabama 3, UNLV 3, Oregon 2, Miami (FL) 2, Arizona 2, Illinois State 2, Cincinnati 1, Houston 1.

Dropped From Rankings

Rhode Island 21, Miami (FL) 24, Arizona State 25.

The Board of Coaches is made up of 31 head coaches at Division I institutions. All are members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. The board for the 2007-08 season: Mike Adras, Northern Arizona; Dana Altman, Creighton; Tommy Amaker, Harvard; Tevester Anderson, Jackson State; Randy Bennett, Saint Mary's; Eddie Biedenbach, North Carolina-Asheville; Jim Boeheim, Syracuse; Matt Brady, Marist; Rick Byrd, Belmont; Charles Coles, Miami (Ohio); Steve Fisher, San Diego State; Pat Flannery, Bucknell; Tim Floyd, Southern California; Greg Graham, Boise State; Tom Green, Fairleigh Dickinson; Johnny Jones, North Texas; Mike Lonergan, Vermont; Mike McConathy, Northwestern State; Bob McKillop, Davidson; Phil Martelli, Saint Joseph's; Ron "Fang" Mitchell, Coppin State; Dave Odom, South Carolina; Matt Painter, Purdue; Tom Pecora, Hofstra; Doc Sadler, Nebraska; Scott Sutton, Oral Roberts; Jimmy Tillette, Samford; Bob Thomason, Pacific; Perry Watson, Detroit Mercy; Gary Williams, Maryland; Doug Wojcik, Tulsa.


*

MEDIACOM WILL CARRY DRAKE-CREIGHTON TELECAST

Mediacom said today its statewide Connections Channel will carry a live telecast of the Drake basketball game at Creighton Tuesday night in Omaha.

Tipoff is at 7 p.m. The game can be seen on basic cable in Mediacom areas throughout most of Iowa. In most areas, Mediacom Connections can be found on channel 22 (channel 5 in Mason City; channel 74 in Iowa City).

"We're thankful that Mediacom has provided this great opportunity for Drake fans across the state of Iowa to watch this big basketball game," said Drake athletic director Sandy Hatfield Clubb.

In addition to picking up broadcast rights for Tuesday's game, Mediacom has televised seven of this season's home games for the Bulldogs, with two more games to be produced by the Connections Channel Jan. 30 and Feb. 9.

*

TRENTON BACK SAYS HE'LL ATTEND UNI


Standout Trenton running back De’Andre Vandevender said he'll play football at Northern Iowa, the Trenton Republican-Times said. Vandevender set several school records, including the career rushing record with 5,407 yards.

Is This a Circus Or What? Despite All the Stuff Going On In the Strife-Torn Newspaper Business, the Good Thing Is That They're Firing the Editors

Amid all the lousy, rotten and downright crappy things going on in the newspaper business these days, there's also some good news.

They're firing the editors.

And, before I get too far into this, I can suggest two or three editors I'd like to see get the ax before the day ends.

The latest high-profile editor to get canned is someone named James O'Shea, who worked at the same place I did longer ago than I care to remember.

O'Shea was dumped as editor of the Los Angeles Times in what media sources are saying was a budgetary dispute with the publisher.

That means the people baying the bills didn't want to spend the money covering the news that O'Shea thought was necessary.

Upon hearing the news of O'Shea's ouster, I contacted a genius of a man who knows everything there is to know about the newspaper business.

"Hey, Mr. Answer Guy, what can you tell me about this battered and bruised lad named O'Shea?" I asked.

"I didn't know the man," he promptly told me via e-mail carrier pigeon, "but as quickly as they go through editors around the joint, it's clear to me the place functions quite well without one. So if they're looking to make cutbacks, I have a few suggestions....

"As for the working environment .... As I kid I used to enjoy going to the circus when it came to town. I just never imagined I'd be working for it."

Thank you, Mr. Answer Guy.

The thought of working in a newspaper office that has no editors makes me slobber all over my computer.

However, in the interest of fairness, I want to make sure you know this town has not been devoid of any good editors over the years. The trouble is, the last good one worked here about 35 years ago.

O'Shea picked up his paychecks in Des Moines at a time when reporters -- even Diane Graham -- wore flared pants, tie-dyed shirts and sometimes washed their hair. Donald Kaul may have even been working at the paper then, too.

Kaul lasted until Jim Gannon came to town.

At that time, I think people in the newsroom were protesting something every day. A few rabble-rousers and other pissed-off newsroom folks even tried to organize a union. Needless to say, the vote didn't carry. They even flew a photographer into town when he was on vacation so he could cast a ballot.

I think an editor got canned after that, too.

O'Shea [pictured at the right, courtesy of the Times] had been a reporter, editor and Washington correspondent in Des Moines before leaving for the Chicago Tribune in 1979. From Chicago, he went to Los Angeles.

The Times says O'Shea is the fourth senior executive at the paper to leave in less than three years.

Not a good sign in any business, newspaper or otherwise.

"The push and pull over budgeting is a long-running story at the Times, which has seen its editorial staff shrink in the last eight years to less than 900 from about 1,200," the paper said. "At the same time, the paper's weekday circulation has dropped to about 800,000 from more than 1 million."

The Times said O'Shea had replaced Dean Baquet as editor in late-2006, who was forced out of the paper for refusing to make budgetary cuts. Earlier, John Carroll quit as editor, complaining that budget pressures threatened the quality of news reporting at the Times.

O'Shea joins a growing list of other editors who have been shown the door around the country.

Hell, even the editor of the little Cedar Rapids Gazette was told to take a hike.

No wonder editors in places like Indianapolis and Des Moines are looking over their shoulders, wondering how soon they'll be lined up in the employment office at Home Depot.

I don't know if they've named a new editor at the Gazette yet or not. If not, I hope either Mike Hlas or Jim Ecker gets the job. They make as much sense as anyone there.

*

All this is not meant to completely diminish the quality of the Los Angeles Times.

I mean, it's not like the paper has turned into another Cityview.

Any publication that's still got Bill Dwyre writing for it is an outstanding one.

Dwyre [pictured at the left, courtesy of the Times] is another guy who used to work at the same place I did in Des Moines. Even though I didn't know James O'Shea, I knew Bill Dwyre -- and I thought he had enormous talent. Nice guy, too.

Dwyre was good as a sports copy editor in Des Moines, but blossomed once he got out of here.

He became the sports editor at the Milwaukee Journal, then became sports editor of the Los Angeles Times.

He's still writing columns for the Times now. I read one of them today, and I could see he's making more sense than a lot of other people in the newspaper business.

Keep up the great work, Bill.

In a Game Tom Davis Thought Might Be Gone, Keno and His Incredible, Unbelievable Bulldogs Again Found a Way To Win

On the most incredible night yet of what has become an incredible Drake basketball season, I'm sitting next to Tom Davis as The Show goes on.

Tom Davis is the 68-year-old father of Drake's 36-year-old coach, Keno Davis.

An overflow crowd of 7,152 in a Knapp Center that's supposed to seat 7,002 is watching the Bulldogs play Illinois State in a game matching the only teams with unbeaten records in the Missouri Valley Conference.

At a university where, a few years ago, a fan might be able to call the ticket office and ask, "What time is the game?" and the guy answering the phone may have joked, "What time can you be here?" a sellout had been announced several hours earlier in the afternoon.

I talk to a suburban man who was unaware of that. When he got to one of the ticket windows with his young daughter, he was told the tickets were all sold.

Suddenly, a guy said to him, "Do you need a couple of tickets? I've got two general admission I'll give you free."

The suburban man can't believe it. He remembers attending Drake games as a child at Veteran Memorial Auditorium, and he knows the frenzy around the Bulldogs these days is about what it was like then.

Louisville in 1969, Illinois State in 2008.

Maury John in 1969, Keno Davis in 2008.

Like I said, it was The Show, then and now.

*

Tom Davis is dressed in Bulldog blue on this bitterly cold January night.

He's wearing a navy blue sportcoat and a light blue shirt, open at the neck. The trousers are gray.

He had watched some of the basketball games on TV earlier in the day. He knew No. 1-ranked North Carolina had lost. The Tar Heels had been beaten by his friend Gary Williams of Maryland.

I survey the scene.

"You've become the face of Drake University," I tell Tom, who now is a special assistant to Drake athletic director Sandy Hatfield Clubb after coaching Drake four seasons. "People can't wait to talk to you about all of this."

Old men, young men, old women, young women, people dressed in blue, people wearing smiles, a guy from the newspaper who wants to interview him....they all stream to the press table to talk to the man who became the winningest coach at Iowa, being told he was no longer welcome, then being lured out of retirement to take a shot at bringing Drake's program back from the dead.

The way I look at it, if Davis hadn't shown that somebody could win at a place that had become known more for its law and pharmacy schools than its major-college basketball program, Division III and no basketball scholarships would have been the next stop.

But Davis went 17-15 last season, and it was Drake's first winning record in 20 years.

Then the coaching job went, not surprisingly, to Keno Davis -- a young man who had never been a head coach.

Hey, let's face it, when a coach is in his first season in a coaching job -- whether it's in a church league, in high school or in a pretty tough Division I league like the Missouri Valley Conference -- no one can predict what's going to happen.

The guy maybe can't coach his way out of a paper bag. The guy might surprise everyone, including himself and his dad.

*

Tom Davis' word for it to many of the fans who flock around him before, during and after this game is "unbelievable."

He's talking about records that have grown to 16-1 overall and 7-0 in the Valley.

The top 25 rankings are next for this team that keeps finding ways to win.

As the game goes on, Tom Davis says several times, "What do you think, Ron?"

"I'm not liking what I'm seeing," I tell him.

No use sugarcoating it.

I wonder if this is the night it all the winning ends.

At one stage, I tell Tom I don't like it that Illinois State is shooting 65 percent and Drake is shooting 38 percent.

"They're a very quick tean," Davis says of the Redbirds.

I had watched Illinois State earlier in the season win a game on TV at Creighton.

That showed me something. If Illinois State can win in Omaha, it can win in Des Moines.

*

Tom Davis admitted it. When the Bulldogs trailed by a dozen points, things looked bleak.

"I thought this game was gone," he tells me.

But Adam Emmenecker, Leonard Houston, Bucky Cox, Klayton Korver and the rest of the Bulldogs wouldn't let it happen.

They stormed back and made it 15 straight victories.

The beat goes on although Josh Young, Drake's leading scorer with a 16.3 average, still doesn't suit up for games because of an ankle injury.

Bulldog fans are starting to worry.

Swelling in the ankle hasn't gone down and no one is capable of venturing a guess on when he might be able to play again.

And Creighton -- at Omaha -- is next on the schedule Tuesday.

*

Unless something surprising happens in a season of surprises, the victory over Illinois State probably means Drake will play at Butler in a Feb. 23 BracketBusters game.

"That would be the featured game on ESPN," Tom Davis tells me.

"But if we'd lose this game to Illinois State and if we'd lose a couple of games, there's no way of knowing what might happen."

If Drake against Butler becomes reality, it would match Keno Davis -- my choice as national coach of the year to this date -- against Butler's Brad Stevens, another first-year coach.

It was at Butler where Todd Lickliter had a 29-7 record last season. Lickliter is now struggling to get to .500 in his first season at Iowa, and one of his losses has already been to Keno and Drake.

*

Tom Davis and I talk about Adam Emmenecker and Jonathan "Bucky" Cox, the two players on Drake's roster who came to school without basketball scholarships.

I've been thinking all along how rare it is for a Division I team to have two starters who were unwanted by Division I coaches.

Cox is a 6-8 junior forward from Barrington, Ill., Emmenecker is a 6-1 senior guard from Saginaw, Mich.

Davis tells me that Cox and his mother showed up on campus one day, and the kid wanted to play basketball.

Tom found a place for him, and he's glad he did. So is Cox. Emmenecker, too.

*

Tom Davis sits with a scorecard in front of him, but doesn't keep score.

He watches intently as the game is played.

Like everyone else on press row, he is given periodic box score updates.

"Do you still feel like you're coaching?" I ask him.

"Oh, sure," he says. "That never goes away."

I had talked to Tom earlier in the season and asked him if he misses coaching.

He does.

That probably will never go away either.

*

Drake's students still aren't attending spring semester classes, and won't start until Tuesday.

But there are plenty of them back on the campus, and they've made plenty of noise.

But there is no pep band and there are no cheerleaders.

With less than a half-minute to play and Drake assured of yet another victory, I tell Davis not to worry. I won't be jumping over the press table and joining any celebration with the students.

I think that makes him happy.

He won't be jumping over the table either.

I didn't go out there when the students celebrated beating Iowa at the Knapp Center in Tom's final season in 2006-2007, and I didn't go out there when the Bulldogs clobbered Iowa State by 35 points on Dec. 5 this season.

But nobody storms the floor tonight. People holler a lot, but they seem to have taken yet another Drake victory for granted.

Give these Bulldogs time, they figure, and they'll find a way to win.

The game ends. I'm one of about 50 people who shake hands with Tom Davis. He sits for a few seconds, taking it all in as Keno and his players celebrate.

It's been quite a show.

Incredible is my word for it.

*

Ron Maly writes about anything that interests him in these columns, and he's always working on another book.

Church League, YMCA Games May Be Next for Zebra Hartzell; Kudos To Keno; Plus, I'm Thinking Of Buying and Giving Away 10,000 Drake NCAA Tickets

George Wine, a retiree who included Northern Iowa as one of the places he was a sports information director [Memphis State and Iowa were the others], weighs in on the Rick Hartzell situation today:

"This is puzzling. Hartzell did a very good job at UNI in hiring successful coaches and putting a good face on the program. I agree he should not be officiating basketball games when his own team is playing (if then), but that was the agreement when they hired him so I can't see how the UNI administration can bitch now."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Hartzell is the soon-to-be-former UNI athletic director who is out -- effective Jan. 31 -- after not getting his bosses to budge on several requests. Hartzell wanted changes made in his contract, wanted his contract extended and no doubt wanted a pay raise, and didn't like it that he had to answer to a vice-president instead of the school president. I guess that tells all of us that Hartzell wasn't happy about anything at UNI. No wonder he kept interviewing for other jobs, and didn't get any of them. Hartzell, 55, evidently showed plenty of stubbornness at UNI. He wouldn't give up on his requests, so his bosses told him, in effect, to shove it and take his act elsewhere. If a guy Hartzell's age can get a better job someplace else, good for him. Meanwhile, he can continue officiating major-college basketball games around the country. Maybe he can start adding Cedar Falls church league games and noon leagues at the Waterloo YMCA to his schedule now. He'll have plenty of time on his hands, and it would be a nice way to give back to the communities that supported him so well in the past].

*

Cleo from Conesville, not his real name, writes:

"Kudos to Keno! He is winning games in improbable ways in a magical first season as head coach. I hope it lasts, but as Hayden likes to say, "The sun don't shine on the same dog's rump every day."

In Iowa's game earlier this week, the officials compounded a bad call by hitting Coach Lick with a technical. That decided the game, in my opinion. A bunch of three-pointers by Purdue didn't help either."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Cleo is referring to my column a couple of days ago in which I wrote that Keno Davis of Drake is my choice as basketball's national coach of the year -- at this stage anyway -- after a 15-1 start and 14 straight victories. Hayden, of course, is former Iowa football coach Hayden Fry [pictured at the right], who had novel ways of saying various things. The "Coach Lick" mentioned by Cleo is Iowa's first-year coach, Todd Lickliter, who would like the sun to shine on his rump a little more often these days].

*

Bud Appleby sent me this item from the Indiana Statesman:

"As a way to thank the community, two Indiana State alumni purchased 10,000 tickets to give away for the Feb. 2 men's and women's basketball conference doubleheader against Drake. Natalie and Chad Overton, owners of the Servpro Industries Inc. franchise in Terre Haute, bought the tickets for both games and are giving them away for free, Chad Overton said."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: I'm thinking of buying 10,000 tickets for the NCAA tournament appearances by Drake's men's and women's teams in March. They don't call me "Deep Pockets" for nothing. I'm not an alumnus, just a guy who roots for the underdog].

*

Speaking of Drake's NCAA tournament situation, Andy Glockner's "Bubble Watch" for ESPN.com has been updated. He writes:

Teams that should be in: Drake, Butler, Gonzaga

Work left to do: Illinois State, Kent State, South Alabama, Creighton, San Diego State, UNLV, Sam Houston State, Cleveland State, Ohio, George Mason, Valparaiso, Cal State Northridge, Virginia Commonwealth, New Mexico, UAB

This still isn't the greatest crop, but some teams are improving their positioning. Right now, BCS leagues still look ready to get a very high percentage of this season's at-larges. Butler's position in the Horizon League could become an issue for another at-large team come March. Something worth keeping an eye on.

Should be in:

Drake, RPI: 18, SOS: 176] These Bulldogs would make it if the season ended today, despite an overall slate that has been somewhat light. A last-second layup at Bradley helped them stay perfect in the Valley despite the absence of leading scorer Josh Young, which is a good sign. The 6-0 conference start is their best since 1969-70. The best non-conference wins are over in-state rivals Iowa and Iowa State, along with Duquesne. They have a matchup tonight with Illinois State, the league's other surprise 6-0 team. The only loss is at St. Mary's by six.

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: The sooner the Bulldogs get Josh Young back, the better. Keno Davis and his players know they need to continue winning, and the job doesn't get any easier. After tonight's difficult home game against Illinois State, the Bulldogs play Wednesday at Creighton -- which is always a difficult out regardless of the Bluejays' 4-2 Missouri Valley Conference record. Drake still has tough [aren't they all tough?] assignments at Indiana State, Illinois State, Southern Illinois, UNI and Missouri State, plus a Feb. 23 BracketBusters game at somewhere [here's that word again] tough. Keep your fingers, and anything else you've got, crossed].

Hartzell Out At UNI; Now He Can Officiate All the Games He Wants

Rick Hartzell will be able to officiate all the collegiate basketball games he wants to now that he's out as the athletic director at Northern Iowa. Hartzell [pictured] either quit or was told to quit by the university, and his resignation is effective Jan. 31. It's always controversial when a guy at a university leaves in the middle of the school year. Actually, this is really no shocker because Hartzell has been interviewing for athletic director jobs around the country for quite a while. You've had to have a sack over your head if you were thinking the guy was 100 percent happy at UNI -- or that UNI was 100 percent happy with him. You've got to figure that somebody at UNI didn't like Hartzell, Hartzell didn't like one or more of his bosses -- or both. I've been a frequent critic of Hartzell because he often can be seen moonlighting as a zebra [aka referee or striped-shirt referee] at major-college basketball games in leagues around the country. On those same days and nights, his UNI team might be playing a home game in Cedar Falls. I've always wondered why his bosses permitted him to do that. His first responsibility should be to his employer. In an announcement e-mailed to me about Hartzell's resignation, UNI said he began his tenure as the athletic director in August, 1999. His latest contract was set to expire in June 2009. My friend Jim Ecker of the Cedar Rapids Gazette writes that Hartzell wanted certain parts of his contract renegotiated and that he wanted a contract extension past June, 2009. You can see where that got him. Out the door. Between his officiating moonlighting and his contact demands, I'd say Hartzell has outworn his welcome. Something tells me Hartzell wasn't seeing eye-to-eye with Tom Schellhardt, UNI's vice-president for administration and finance. You see, Hartzell had to report to Schellhardt. Sometimes reporting to a an ambitious VP instead of the president isn't what every guy likes to do. I'll tell you this -- Hartzell will be damn lucky to get an athletic director's job at some other univerisity where the bosses permit him to leave the campus two and three days a week to officiate basketball games in the Big Ten, Atlantic Coast and other conferences. The guy has never had it so good at Cedar Falls. I'd say he was dumb to let his situation there disintegrate the way it evidently did. According to Schellhardt, UNI will name an interim athletic director by Feb. 1 and begin a national search for a new athletic director as soon as possible. "Under Rick's leadership and guidance our athletic programs and student-athletes have set high standards, both on the field and in the classroom," said UNI president Benjamin Allen. "Rick has helped build a strong foundation of Panther excellence. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. "Said Hartzell: "I'd like to thank our great staff and coaches, and our terrific student-athletes, for all they've done to help make UNI one of the premier athletics programs in the country. I'm very proud of what we've accomplished during the last 8 1/2 years. I'd also like to thank our great alumni, the people of the Cedar Valley and state of Iowa, and Panther fans everywhere for their fabulous support. I'm considering my future career options, but Jill, Jackson and I look forward to making the Cedar Valley our home for the long term." Hartzell, who played football and baseball for the Panthers, is a 1974 UNI graduate with bachelor's degrees in physical education and English. He received his master's in educational administration from UNI in 1977.

*

Thinking out loud: I guess if I was looking for an athletic director, one of the people I'd go to would be Sandy Hatfield Clubb of Drake. Just for advice, of course. She's already doing a great job and she's already got a great job.

Idiots At Work Again--The Fallout: Golfweek Editor Fired, Apology Issued

Here's a classic case of another sports story that won't go away because there are so many idiots continually adding fuel to the fire. The Associated Press reports today that Golfweek magazine apologized for putting a noose on the cover [top photo] to illustrate the controversy over Golf Channel anchor's Kelly Tilghman's use of "lynch" in a comment about Tiger Woods. The editor, Dave Seanor, has been fired. "We apologize for creating this graphic cover that received extreme negative reaction from consumers, subscribers and advertisers across the country," Turnstile Publishing Co. president William P. Kupper Jr. said. "We were trying to convey the controversial issues with a strong and provocative graphic image. It is now obvious that the overall reaction to our cover deeply offended many people. For that, we are deeply apologetic." Turnstile is the parent company of Golfweek. Tilghman [pictured at the left], who is now serving a two-week suspension, will likely be the next one to get canned. She's the dummy who started all of this by not knowing when to shut up.

*

MEREDITH PUBLISHING TAKES A HIT FROM WAL-MART

This isn't good news for my pals at Meredith Publishing of Des Moines, a place where a number of people have gone to work after either quitting the Register's newsroom or being told to quit. Keith J. Kelly of the New York Post reports that good old Wal-Mart "is tossing more than 1,000 magazines from the racks in its stores, sending yet another shock wave through the battered publishing industry. Most of the magazines are small, and more than a few of the victims are titles that have long since stopped publishing, including Child, Celebrity Living, Elle Girl, Teen People, Suede, Shop Etc., Weekend and FHM. However, virtually no major publisher was spared. Wal-Mart is believed to be responsible for generating more than 20 percent of all retail magazine sales in the U.S. One of the biggest corporate losers appears to be Meredith Publishing. Its flagship Better Homes and Gardens is out, as is its sister service magazine Ladies Home Journal. Family Circle stays, however. Fitness, which Meredith picked up from the defunct Gruner & Jahr, is out, though rivals Shape and Self are still in. Time Inc.'s In Style will remain, though its spin-off title In Style Home is out. The main Sports Illustrated will remain on shelves, but Sports Illustrated for Kids is getting the heave-ho."

The Davis Family Has Saved Major College Basketball At Drake, And Keno Is My National Coach Of the Year [So Far]; My Advice: Don't Let Him Get Away

You know, of course, that this is a team of destiny.

This Drake basketball outfit, I mean.

I've been around plenty of teams of destiny in my time -- Iowa's 1981 Rose Bowl football team, Drake's 1969 Final Four basketball team and Iowa State's 1970 College World Series baseball team to name a few -- and these Bulldogs are one of them.

This is a team that wins the games it should win, and also wins when I don't think it has a chance of winning.

Like at Iowa in December. Like at Wichita State in the first Missouri Valley Conference game. Like at Bradley last night.

If Rudy Washington had been coaching Drake last night, Adam Emmenecker would have dribbled into a corner and lost the ball out of bounds when the buzzer sounded at the end. He never would've gotten off the shot that won the game, 69-68.

If Tom Abatemarco had been coaching the Bulldogs when they went to Wichita State, one of the players would've used his cell phone to call a lawyer in Des Moines so he could tell him Abatemarco was mistreating everyone and that he should be fired immediately.

*

Keno Davis has a very, very good thing going with this 15-1 team, folks.

This isn't the most talented team in the country, but he's got the players believing they'll win every game.

I hear that the players are still pissed off that they lost that game in November to St. Mary's, and that's probably a good thing.

Ir doesn't hurt to be pissed off once in a while. After all, this is a long season.

*

I'll flat-out say that Keno Davis is doing the best job in the country of any first-year coach.

Not just in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Anywhere.

He's my national coach of the year.

So far anyway.

No guy in his first season can match what this 36-year-old rookie is accomplishing.

Sure, Brad Stevens is 16-1 and his Butler team is ranked No. 12, but he's coaching players left over from Todd Lickliter's team that went 29-7 and advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 last season. Afterward, Lickliter [who now is at Iowa] was named the national coach of the year.

The way I look at it, Keno had a lot less to work with in putting his team together this season than Stevens had at Butler.

*

I also feel that Keno Davis and his dad, Tom, have saved Division I basketball at Drake.

When Tom was talked out of retirement and accepted the Drake job after Kurt Kanaskie's 2002-2003 team went 10-20, I thought he maybe would be the last chance to preserve the Bulldogs' major college program.

Nobody could win over there and fans were staying away from the arena in droves. The folks who followed Maury John's teams in the 1960s and early 1970s had grown old. Some were already in Resthaven and Glendale. Their kids had become Hawkeye and Cyclone fans.

Before Davis & Davis came to town, I was fearful somebody at Drake might get the bright idea to drop the program to Division III -- where there'd be no scholarships and gatherings of a couple hundred friends and relatives of the players would be all that would attend the games.

It had already happened in football, of course, and Chuck Shelton -- the guy who beat Colorado twice, plus Iowa State and Kansas State when he was the coach -- has never forgiven the university.

I'd heard coaches bitching about the tough academic standards at Drake, and that there'd be no chance to win games until they were loosened.

My question always was this: Why can't basketball players be both good and smart?

Davis & Davis began bringing in better players [last season, Tom produced the university's first winning record in 20 years] and everything I hear is that most of them are pretty smart.

It's also nice to know, too, that they're staying out of jail. That's been a problem at plenty of other Division I schools, you know.

*

Still, I advise all of you to enjoy this.

At Drake, history says it comes only once every 35 or 40 years.

The chemistry was there this season for Keno to make a huge splash.

This team believes in him and in the mission.

This team is winning games it shouldn't win and, in my opinion, will continue doing so.

*

It would sure be nice if the Bulldogs didn't still have to play at Creighton and Illinois State.


*

I fully expect Drake to beat Illinois State in Saturday night's collision at the Knapp Center of teams that are atop the Missouri Valley Conference standings.

Illinois State has been a huge surprise, too, under first-year coach Tim Jankovich. But Drake is at home, and I see no way Emmenecker, Leonard Houston, Klayton Korver, Jonathan Cox and the gang are going to let this game get away.

*

I hate to bring up something like this, but I will anyway.

With a season like Drake is having, and if next season's Bulldogs should follow with a 20-victory year, Keno Davis will start getting some looks from larger universities in leagues that get their teams on ESPN a lot.

Davis & Davis have been very, very good for Drake, and it wouldn't be a good thing for the university to lose Keno.

I'd advise his bosses to keep him happy.

*

By the way, for a look at Emmenecker's dramatic game-winning basket last night at Peoria, Drake's Mike Mahon says to go to this website: www.week.com and click on the sports link.

Impressive stuff.

No More Bad-Mouthing the Big Ten Network for Me

A guy I know has been asking me for a couple of weeks what I think of my satellite dish.

"I put my arm around it every day," I said. "We're virtually inseparable."

After having an ugly business relationship with some installer named Ben from DISH Network a few months ago -- which I chronicled in this space -- I hooked up with DirecTV one snowy Saturday, and now I wonder why we [DirecTV and me, I mean] waited so long.

You're not going to believe this, but one of the reasons I like the satellite is because of the Big Ten network.

I've been critical of the Big Ten network plenty of times in the past, but that was before I quit Mediacom and got the dish.

I haven't had many good things to say about Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany lately, especially since he came to town and told my friends at the paper that his league might soon be adding a 12th team.

Hilarious, huh? An 11-team league that calls itself the Big Ten that's thinking about adding a 12th team.

Anyway, it turned out to be bullshit. I've got it figured that Delany just wanted to get his name and the name of the Big Ten network in the paper, so he sold my pals at 8th & Locust a phony story.

I think, at the Big Ten football meetings in Chicago later, Delany even implied that he didn't say his league would expand to 12 teams.

I think he thought the reporters he talked to in Des Moines couldn't write and the people subscribing to the paper couldn't read.

But I know the guys who interviewed him quoted him correctly. They never make mistakes.

That's beside the point, though. I know Delany's trip to Des Moines was meant to sell Iowans on the value of having and watching the Big Ten network.

Even if Mediacom doesn't think it's such a good idea.

I certainly don't spend all my time watching the Big Ten network on DirecTV's channel 220. But, whenever I turn it on, I'm pretty impressed with what they're trying to do.

Don't forget, I said trying.

They try to run it like a mini-ESPN, giving us lots of games. Maybe not all the volleyball and field hockey games and wrestling meets some people want, but lots of events nonetheless.

Also plenty of shows with an anchorman or anchorwoman along with a couple of people who are supposed to be experts.

The experts are usually guys who wish they were still coaching, but can't get a job.

One is Gene Keady, the former Purdue coach with the greasy-looking hairpiece. If Des Moines Area Community College offered him a chance to be an assistant coach tomorrow, he'd leave the TV studio and jump at the chance.

Keady [pictured at the left] isn't very good as a TV panelist, but he tries. He's a gamer, just like he was when he coached the Boilermakers.

I haven't seen or heard Wayne Morgan yet, and I can wait a very long time before I do. He's another guy who can't get a coaching job and probably shouldn't be on TV.

And don't get the idea the Big Ten network gives you only sugarcoated stories. There was a show last night where three people were talking about whether some hotshot high school quarterback would, or should, wind up at either Michigan or Ohio State.

They talked about Big Ten underclassmen who have declared for the NFL draft, and they offered opinions on whether the players had made the right decision.

The Big Ten network also showed me the Wisconsin-Penn State basketball game. It was sure fun watching that. [I'm kidding. It was like watching Uncle Otto get his taxes figured at H&R Block].

Looking at the big picture [and mine is a 37-inch HD unit], I could tell that Joe Paterno isn't the only Penn State coach who should hang it up. The basketball coach -- some guy named Ed who should've gone into selling fertilizer -- needs to go, too. Sorry I have to talk about your boss like that, Kurt Kanaskie.

Purdue and Iowa are on the Big Ten network at 6 o'clock tonight. Then, at 8 p.m., it's Michigan at Illinois.

Hey, I know that's not exactly Drake-Bradley or Duke, North Carolina and UCLA, but it's Big Ten basketball -- where they separate the men from the boys, which has always been a good idea, especially if Larry Craig is in the area.

Now back to the guy who was asking me about DirectTV.

He's having it installed at 1 p.m. today.

The company said I'd get $50 off my next bill by recommending DirectTV to the guy. He'll get $50 off his bill, too.

What a deal.

*

For Northern Iowa's basketball team lately, it's usually a matter of how soon the Panthers go into the tank.

Sorry to say, it didn't take long this season.

UNI is in the tank.

I saw its game last night against Creighton on ESPN2, and it wasn't pretty.

UNI now has lost its last four games, and has been beaten in eight in a row by Creighton.

The Panthers didn't have a clue during big parts of the game -- like when Creighton outscored them, 17 to zip.

And only 5,205 fans showed up in a gym that seats 6,500. Maybe. It could be that Iowa's ticket manager was counting the fans. TV cameras showed plenty of empty seats in the UNI gym.

I can't believe this is the same UNI team that won at Iowa State, 61-48, in November.

I guess I'm wondering what the future -- in both the short-term and long-term -- holds for second-year coach Ben Jacobson.

*

Whenever you're wondering about decisions that are made at Drake -- in the athletic department or any other department -- never, never forget David Maxwell, the university's president.

He's the boss over there.

He signs off on everything.

Make sure he stays in the equation.

He's the guy who hired Sandy Hatfield Clubb, who's doing a marvelous job as the athletic director.

He's the guy who thought Keno Davis was ready for the Bulldogs' coaching job.

And now Keno is 14-1, with 13 straight victories.

Welcome To the Club, Hy-Vee -- But Forget the Zetia and the 99-Cent Eggs

Welcome to the 21st century, Hy-Vee.

I received a big postcard in my mail box that verified I'm still on a first-name basis with my favorite supermarket.

The card from Hy-Vee was addressed to "Resident."

That means I can just call Hy-Vee the "store."

The card said the store's pharmacy would, as of today, be offering 400 generic prescriptions for $4 each.

That's $4 for 30 days of pills, by the way.

What a deal. I take plenty of generic medications, and I usually get them in 90-day supplies so I don't have to rush to the drugstore all the time.

Now I'll be able to get each one for $12 every three months.

What a deal. I'm thinking about going outdoors and running a 4-minute mile.

It's nice that Hy-Vee finally came around. The "friendly-smile-in-every-aisle chain is doing something that Wal-Mart did six months ago or longer.

Wal-Mart began charging $4 for 30 days of certain pills last year, then places like Walgreen's, K-Mart and Sam's Club followed.

Finally, Hy-Vee has fallen into line.

I can't wait to get my first $4 prescription. Obviously, it doesn't take much to keep me happy these days.

*

Making sure I'm up on the latest health news is more important to me than checking on the basketball scores.

I was watching one of the network news shows on the tube last evening when I heard the announcer say something about Zetia, one of the newest cholesterol-lowering drugs on the market.

I thought I heard the guy say that Zetia wasn't working for some of the people taking it.

So I figured I'd better research that a little more.

I looked on the Internet and found all kinds of stories about the ineffectiveness of Zetia.

HealthDay News said the long-awaited results of a trial of Zetia, which is prescribed to about a million Americans, shows the drug confers no medical benefit.

Nice, huh?

By the way, Zetia is not one of those $4 prescriptions Hy-Vee, Wal-Mart, Walgreen's, K-Mart and Sam's are offering consumers.

The price of Zetia is up there with the big boys. I'm sure it makes people who have been taking it real happy to find out all the money they've been shelling out for Zetia hasn't been worth it.

They may be sicker than they were before.

The Zetia news hasn't been well reported by the local press [a small story was buried in today's paper]. Maybe they were waiting until tomorrow's special section on health appears.

By that time, however, 200 people might have died in the ER of clogged arteries.

So I figured I'd better get the news out so everyone can call his or her cardiologist and ask how long they've got to live.

The bad news is that artery-clogging plaques formed within vessels almost doubled in patients taking Zetia along with another cholesterol-lowering drug, Zocor, compared to those taking Zocor alone.

The two medications are also marketed in one prescription pill, called Vytorin. About 60 percent of U.S. patients who are taking Zetia now receive the drug as part of Vytorin.

A two-year trial of 720 patients sheds doubt on whether it makes any sense for people battling cholesterol to take Vytorin versus Zocor alone. The study was funded by the two companies that make Zetia, Merck and Schering-Plough.

So now get back on your niacin.

*

Speaking of Hy-Vee, they've got a dozen large eggs for 99 cents.

But, don't forget, eggs are supposed to be bad for your cholesterol.

Two eggs for breakfast and a Zetia might get you a good spot with the swans at Resthaven.

Try oatmeal, flaxseed and skim milk instead.

Bulldogs Are Now No. 26 and Still Climbing

Close, but still no cigar.

Drake's basketball team, which has won 13 straight games and has a 14-1 record, today climbed to 26th place in the Associated Press sportswriters' poll.

So the Bulldogs, who share the Missouri Valley Conference lead with Illinois State at 5-0, still haven't made it to the top 25 in longer than people care to remember.

It's the highest ranking for Drake in the writers' poll since being No. 19 in the final 1970-71 poll.

The Bulldogs received 75 votes and trail No. 25 Villanova by 65.

Climbing in the coaches' poll has been even more difficult for Keno Davis' team. Drake is 30th in that poll.

This is another difficult week for the Bulldogs. They play Wednesday night at Bradley, then collide with Illinois State at the Knapp Center at 7:07 p.m. Saturday.

SPORTSWRITERS' POLL

1. North Carolina (45) 17-0 1,765
2. Memphis (24) 15-0 1,739
3. Kansas (3) 16-0 1,678
4. UCLA 16-1 1,578
5. Georgetown 13-1 1,439
6. Tennessee 14-1 1,404
7. Duke 13-1 1,362
8. Washington State 14-1 1,342
9. Indiana 14-1 1,215
10. Texas A&M 15-1 1,184
11. Michigan State 14-2 988
12. Butler 16-1 985
13. Marquette 13-2 955
14. Dayton 14-1 793
15. Pittsburgh 14-2 670
16. Vanderbilt 16-1 658
17. Wisconsin 13-2 649
18. Mississippi 14-1 612
19. Texas 13-3 592
20. Xavier 14-3 395
21. Miami (FL) 14-1 286
22. Arizona State 13-2 257
23. Rhode Island 15-2 196
24. Clemson 13-3 187
25. Villanova 11-3 140

Others Receiving Votes

Drake 75, Stanford 53, Florida 47, St. Mary's 41, Oregon 39, Louisville 16, West Virginia 15, Oklahoma 11, Illinois State 7, Arizona 5, Arkansas 5, Baylor 4, Ohio State 3, Kent State 2, Missouri 2, Connecticut 2, Gonzaga 2, Kansas State 1, South Alabama 1.

COACHES' POLL

1. North Carolina (23) 17-0 765
2. Memphis (6) 15-0 747
3. Kansas (2) 16-0 719
4. UCLA 16-1 680
5. Duke 13-1 614
6. Georgetown 13-1 600
7. Tennessee 14-1 582
8. Washington State 14-1 574
9. Texas A&M 15-1 544
10. Indiana 14-1 503
11. Michigan State 14-2 449
12. Butler 16-1 425
13. Marquette 13-2 379
14. Vanderbilt 16-1 330
15. Mississippi 14-1 316
16. Pittsburgh 14-2 294
17. Wisconsin 13-2 272
18. Dayton 14-1 259
19. Texas 13-3 248
20. Xavier 14-3 147
21. Villanova 11-3 105
21. Rhode Island 15-2 105
23. Clemson 13-3 99
24. Miami (FL) 14-1 84
25. Arizona State 13-2 67

Others Receiving Votes

St. Mary's 39, Florida 36, Oregon 29, Stanford 23, Drake 17, West Virginia 9, Arizona 8, Arkansas 3, Brigham Young 2, Notre Dame 1, Utah 1.

Dropped From Rankings

Stanford 23, Arizona 24.

Board of Coaches -- Mike Adras, Northern Arizona; Dana Altman, Creighton; Tommy Amaker, Harvard; Tevester Anderson, Jackson State; Randy Bennett, Saint Mary's; Eddie Biedenbach, North Carolina-Asheville; Jim Boeheim, Syracuse; Matt Brady, Marist; Rick Byrd, Belmont; Charles Coles, Miami (Ohio); Steve Fisher, San Diego State; Pat Flannery, Bucknell; Tim Floyd, Southern California; Greg Graham, Boise State; Tom Green, Fairleigh Dickinson; Johnny Jones, North Texas; Mike Lonergan, Vermont; Mike McConathy, Northwestern State; Bob McKillop, Davidson; Phil Martelli, Saint Joseph's; Ron "Fang" Mitchell, Coppin State; Dave Odom, South Carolina; Matt Painter, Purdue; Tom Pecora, Hofstra; Doc Sadler, Nebraska; Scott Sutton, Oral Roberts; Jimmy Tillette, Samford; Bob Thomason, Pacific; Perry Watson, Detroit Mercy; Gary Williams, Maryland; Doug Wojcik, Tulsa.

*

'SURPRISE TEAM OF THE VALLEY' COULD BE HEADED EAST

Harold Yeglin, an old friend from my years in the newspaper business, is getting a look at some "Bulldog Fever" -- Bulldogs as in Drake Bulldogs, that is -- while residing in the eastern part of the nation.

Here's his e-mail:

"It's only mid-January, but . . .

"'Seeding the NCAA Field' in Sunday's Washington Post, by basketball writer Eric Prisbell, has Drake as the No. 8 seed in East Region. His commentary: "The surprise of the Missouri Valley."

"Prisbell's East Region lineup: North Carolina, Washington State, Dayton, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, Gonzaga, Notre Dame, Drake, Connecticut, Kent State, Virginia, New Mexico, Holy Cross, Hampton, Idaho State, and 16th, split between Harvard and Southeast Missouri State."

Harold Yeglin

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Yeglin was the guy who taught me how to write a 35-head a century or so ago. He's also become a world traveler in his golden years, and it's good to hear from him. I'll tell you what, if the NCAA's East Region is going to look like Prisbell has it figured, it's going to be very difficult field. Drake eventually being matched up against No. 1-ranked North Carolina? Heck, why not. Keno Davis would take it right now.]

*

DRAKE'S JONATHAN COX IS VALLEY'S PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Drake forward Jonathan Cox today was named the Missouri Valley Conference's player of the week after averaging 15.5 points and 10 rebounds while leading the Bulldogs to two league victories.

Cox, who came to Drake without a basketball scholarship, also averaged 2 blocked shots and 2 steals in victories over Indiana State and Missouri State. He shot 64.7 percent on field goals [11-17] and 57.1 percent [4-7] from three-point range.

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: As you've read here before, I consider Jonathan Cox the best overall player on Drake's roster. I'm glad the Missouri Valley Conference is noticing].

*

AL SCHALLAU SAYS IOWA'S FOOTBALL PROGRAM CONTINUES TO 'FADE DOWNHILL'

Al Schallau, a Hawkeye football fan from way back, has some some negative thoughts about the Iowa program:

"Ron,

"Presently there are four head coaching vacancies in the NFL. That means that at least 40 very qualified and experienced assistant coaches are out of work.

"Iowa should be grabbing up some of those coaches. But they are not and they will not. Iowa will stay with the same group of inadequate assistant coaches, and will finish no better than 4-8 in 2008.

"If the Hawkeyes played real opponents in their first two games (instead of Maine and Florida International), the Hawkeyes might be more like 2-10 in 2008.

"Iowans have the unfortunate belief that keeping the same assistant coaches for nine years is a STRENGTH of the Hawkeye football program.

"Instead, that is the greatest WEAKNESS of the Iowa football program.

"I also notice that in January, 2008, we don't have to read and listen to that annual phony crap about coach Kirk Ferentz leaving Iowa to become a head coach in the NFL. His chances of EVER being offered an NFL head coaching job are about 4 percent better than mine, (and 4 percent of zero is zero).

"Meanwhile, at UCLA, Rick Neuheisel is assembling a group of assistant coaches that will be one of the best coaching staffs in the country....The Bruins will become a very powerful football team very soon.

"And the annual rite of passage occurs again at USC, where Pete Carroll will lose at least two assistant coaches from his current staff. He will probably lose linebackers coach Ken Norton, jr., to UCLA. That will hurt because Norton is one of the Trojans' most effective recruiters in addition to being an excellent teacher and motivator of defensive players.

"But, as always, Pete will replace those men with other assistant coaches who are even better. And in 2008, USC will spend at least part of the season ranked No. 1 in the nation. USC plays Virginia and Ohio State in its first two games in 2008. USC does not play Maine or Florida International.

"After Coach John McKay lost two assistant coaches at USC in the early 1970s, he replaced them with two new assistants named John Robinson and Joe Gibbs. I learned then, and have realized ever since, that consistent turnover of assistant coaches is a great STRENGTH of a powerhouse college football team.

"When will the people at the University of Iowa ever learn that the Hawkeye football program will continue to fade downhill as long as coach Ferentz keeps his current group of assistant coaches?

"Best,

Al Schallau"

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Al, you've got plenty of company from people around here who think Ferentz should shake up his staff, but Kirk has shown that he's extremely loyal to his longtime assistants. And I certainly don't see any wisdom in the Hawkeyes playing teams such as Maine and Florida International. Frankly, I'd like to see the resumption of the Iowa-Nebraska series. The trouble is, I'm pretty sure the coaches from both Iowa and Nebraska don't want it. As Dean Martin said in the song he once sang, "Ain't that a kick in the head?"].

I'm Fairly Certain I Saw Lickliter Smile Once On TV

Nice going, Hawkeyes. I don't know how you did it, but you somehow held Michigan State to a ridiculous 36 points and indicated to Uncle Otto that the men's basketball program at Iowa hasn't been dropped after all.

Tom Izzo [pictured at the left] should turn in his coaching credentials after that one, and his athletic director may bring up that subject in a staff meeting tomorrow..

If those sixth-ranked Spartans are, or were, the best team in the Big Ten, I'm wondering just exactly how bad Illinois is.

This hasn't been known as an Iowa team that plays tenacious defense, or sometimes any defense at all, but the Hawkeyes held Michigan State to a school-record low for points during the shot-clock era. Somebody even woke up Gene Keady on the Big Ten network to tell him. That information almost knocked the greasy-looking wig off the top of Keady's head.

Speaking of Uncle Otto, he asked me how come George Wine went to Florida so early this winter. "See what you're missing," he told Wine in a Western Union telegram today. Uncle Otto and Wine are very good friends. Wine, meanwhile, wonders why Iowa plays its best basketball after he leaves town. He hopes it's not something personal.

I'm figuring Izzo probably had to have something very strong to drink so he could get to sleep last night.

Makes you wonder which Spartan assistant coach will be ordered to trade places with the lead janitor at the Breslin Center this week so he can take the heat for the embarrassing loss in Iowa City.

For those of you who were wondering if Todd Lickliter [pictured at the right] ever gets excited about anything, my answer to you is yes. I saw him smile once on TV last night. But not for very long.

But I didn't see Lickliter's players throw a bucket of anything on him. They didn't want him to show too much emotion.

The only guy who might've understood that pitiful performance by Michigan State was Mr. Excitement himself, former coach Jud Heathcote. A year after Magic Johnson led his Spartans to the 1979 NCAA championship, Heathcote brought the team into Iowa Fieldhouse for a game and ordered his players to hold the ball in the first half. No shot clock then, of course. I had to make the round-trip to Iowa City for that mess. "Heathcote sucks!" Iowa's students chanted over and over. I wasn't sure if that comment was true then, and I'm still not sure. I really didn't wnat to know anything about Heathcote's personal habits. Anyway, the halftime score was something like 5-3. Iowa wound up winning, 44-39, in overtime. Those fans who told Heathcote that he sucks are now living in those $800,000 homes in West Des Moines and calling me twice a week, asking if they can be my financial planners.

I figure if Steve Alford was still coaching Iowa, he'd have found some way to blow last night's game.

I suppose that game ended any chance Drew Neitzel had of playing for the Iowa Energy next season.

Hey, listen, who needs Josh Young? I figured Drake would beat Missouri State with or without him.

But now I'm worried -- I mean really worried -- about Wednesday night's game at Bradley, But I worry every time the Bulldogs play on the road, and Keno keeps bailing me out.

I know there's a fan bus going to the Creighton game. I think there'd better be two or three buses going to Peoria. I know going to Peoria isn't exactly like going to Omaha, but look at it this way -- you can spend 15 minutes or so touring the Caterpillar factory when you get there. Maybe you'll see one you like and buy it. A road grader, I mean.

Now they're pissed off at UNI. I hear a bunch of Panther boosters are trying to get on the Drake fans' website so they can find out how to get hold of Biff at the paper.

If the NCAA Tournament Started Today, Drake Would Be Dancing

I wrote the other day about how Keno Davis and his Drake basketball team have been flying under the national radar on their way to 12 straight victories, a 13-1 record overall and a 4-0 start in the Missouri Valley Conference.

The Bulldogs haven't cracked the national top 25 rankings, but they've caught the eye of Andy Glockner of ESPN.com and his "Bubble Watch."

Glockner writes that Drake would "certainly make the [NCAA tournament] field if the season ended today." He says the Bulldogs' best victories have been "over in-state rivals Iowa and Iowa State, along with Duquesne."

The Bulldogs are up there with the big boys with a No. 15 Ratings Percentage Index. That's better than such teams as -- get this -- No. 16 Duke, No. 18 Ohio State and No. 19 Wisconsin.

Drake, which plays Missouri State tonight at the Knapp Center, isn't that far behind No. 13 Arizona, No. 12 Kansas and No. 11 Texas in the RPI. Memphis is No. 1.

Illinois State, the Valley's other 4-0 team, is No. 31 and Glockner said the Redbirds "don't have quite the paper profile of Drake." He said Illinois State still has work to do to get into the 65-team NCAA field.

Here's part of what Glockner wrote about the Big Dance:

Other at-large contenders

Teams that should be in: Drake, Gonzaga

Work left to do: Illinois State, Kent State, UNLV, South Alabama, Ohio, Nevada, New Mexico, Creighton, Sam Houston State, George Mason, Valparaiso, Cal State Northridge, Virginia Commonwealth

Overall, this appears to be a pretty weak crop, which means that the BCS leagues might get a very high percentage of this season's at-larges. Other than (probably) the WCC and (maybe) the Valley, there's no league right now that's screaming to have more than one NCAA tournament rep. There are several solid teams that missed the RPI cutoff for this week. The best of those might be BYU, which could be the team to beat in the Mountain West.

Should be in:

Drake [11-1 (4-0), RPI: 15, strength of schedule: 144] The Bulldogs would certainly make the field if the season ended today, but the overall slate so far has been somewhat light and now leading scorer Josh Young is out indefinitely, so this feels more reasonable for now. The best wins are over in-state rivals Iowa and Iowa State, along with Duquesne. They also have beaten Southern Illinois and won at Wichita State in league play on their way to a 4-0 start. The only loss is at St. Mary's by six.

Gonzaga [11-4 (0-0), RPI: 22, SOS: 8] You have to like the chances of the Zags and Saint Mary's both getting in, especially as Gonzaga gets healthy. They have beaten Western Kentucky, Virginia Tech, Saint Joe's, UConn and Utah, and all four losses have come to good or excellent teams.

Work left to do:

Illinois State [11-3 (4-0), RPI: 32, SOS: 91] The second surprise unbeaten in the Valley, the Redbirds don't have quite the paper profile of Drake but they're definitely in the at-large mix. The non-conference heft isn't really there -- the best win is over Cincinnati -- but you can't discount the 4-0 Valley start that has included wins at Creighton and Wichita State and at home over Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa.

*

In past seasons, one of the criticisms of the Drake basketball program has been that fans have displayed far too much apathy.

Crowds at the Knapp Center [and Veterans Memorial Auditorium before that] were slim, and there was a general ho-hum attitude about the Bulldogs around central Iowa.

That's changed lately. Along with the Bulldogs' success has come some rare outspokenness among some of their fans. After the hopelessness of the Rudy Washington and Kurt Kanaskie coaching eras, that's a good thing.

Drake fan websites have been full of comments from people who think the Bulldogs have been getting screwed by not only the national polls, but the Register, too.

I'm sure the e-mail and all other types of mail to the paper's editors have been brisk and to the point. But, hopefully, it hasn't gotten to the degree of something that happened a number of years ago.

Some pissed-off fans of a high school team in western Iowa sent a dead chicken in the mail to Chuck Burdick, who then was the paper's chief high school sportswriter.

Those high school fans determined that their team wasn't getting the respect it deserved in a paper that then pretty much was circulated to all areas of the state.

The paper is pretty much just a factor in central Iowa now. In at least one of the Drake fan sites where the paper has been strongly criticized, a photo of the sports editor has been published, identifying him as "Biff." He's also been referred to as "Biff" in the silly weekly Internet "chats" the paper likes to conduct, in which people from the newsroom [for example, assistant managing editor and former Juice editor Chris Snider] have been sending in questions to sportswriters in a forum that's supposed to be intended for readers not employed by the paper.

I guess such efforts have gotten attention at 8th and Locust. Those critical fans should be happy now. The advance story on Drake's game tonight against Missouri State was spread across the top of page 1 in today's sports section, and the advances on Iowa and Iowa State are inside the section.

It has bothered Drake fans no end that stories on the Bulldogs have been buried inside the section when stories on Iowa State and a terrible Iowa team have been on page 1.

*

Speaking of Drake's fans, there's a fan bus planned for the Bulldogs' Jan. 22 game at Creighton. The price is $30, which includes a game ticket along with the bus ride. Interested fans should call the Drake basketball office at 271-3894 for reservations.

*

Back to the paper for a minute, this tiny story was buried today on page 4 among the accounts of last night's boys' high school basketball games:

Marshalltown 64, Valley 59

Marshalltown, Ia. -- Game statistics were not made available to the Register.

What that means is that nobody called the paper with facts about the game. I wonder if any effort was made to call the coaches from either team, or if anyone in the newsroom tried to get some help from the Marshalltown Times-Republican.

Valley's boys aren't very good, and haven't been good under the present coaching staff, but the largest newspaper in the state having to publish a story that says "statistics were not made available to the Register" is an embarrassment.

Valley is one of the biggest schools in this state and the largest high school in the fastest-growing area of the state. The students and parents of the students at the school think it's the very best in everything -- other than boys' basketball, of course.

The paper had a three-paragraph story and a box score on Valley's 60-38 victory over Marshalltown in the girls' game. Evidently, the girls' coaches are a little easier to deal with, and maybe even answer their phones.

I guess if I wasn't sure the coaches were going to call in the results of the Valley boys' games, I'd make sure I sent Dan McCool or some other dependable reporter to Marshalltown to get me the facts.

Anyway, for the benefit of Valley players and parents who are in need of a clipping of last night's boys' game, here's what the Times-Republican wrote about it:

MHS breaks league losing streak

By MARK PAWLAK
Times-Republican

Marshalltown went with a rewrite of a slow opening to come away with the perfect ending Friday at the Roundhouse.

The Bobcats came storming back to claim a 64-59 victory over West Des Moines Valley in CIML Iowa Conference boys’ basketball play.

The visiting Tigers (4-5, 3-2) came out hot and were physical in the paint to build a 13-point first-half lead.

Marshalltown (5-3, 2-2) regrouped in the second half behind Cole Danielson and Michael Appel to end its conference losing streak at two.

“We came out flat for some reason and then came out with more intensity in the second half,” said Marshalltown head coach Ron Ginapp. “We worked hard together as a unit in the second half and we needed that. Whichever of our seven guys were on the floor they decided together to play all for one common goal — get a win.”

Valley led 20-8 in the first quarter before Danielson scored the final five points of the quarter, including banking in a 30-footer at the buzzer, to bring the Bobcats within 20-13 going into the second.

The Tigers led 34-21 before Marshalltown again closed the quarter strong by scoring the final six of the half to be within seven at halftime.

“It was a little physical and we didn’t match how physical Valley was or how the game was going to be called in the first half,” Ginapp said.

Danielson had seven points in the third and Appel had six as Marshalltown chipped away at the Tigers’ lead.

Chanse Creekmur tied it for the Bobcats with a 3-pointer at 50-50 with 6:51 remaining and Marshalltown took the lead for good on Appel’s 3-pointer at 58-55 with 4:37 left.

Danielson finished the night with a game-high 25 points. The senior is leading the team in scoring at 18.4 points per game and has five games of over 20 points.

“That’s why the team picked him as one of their captains,” Ginapp said. “They have faith and confidence in him. Cole’s a kid that loves to play basketball. The rest of his teammates leaned on him tonight and he stepped up.”

Danielson hit 3 of 6 from behind the 3-point arc and pushed his career total of 3-point field goals to 88 to become the Bobcats’ all-time leader. The previous record holder was Jason Allen with 86 (1999-2001).

Appel finished with 16 points, while Creekmur added seven points and five rebounds.

Valley had three players in double figures with Conor Boffeli having 15 points, Alan Cushing 13 and Dan Reichardt 11.

“Defensively we did a much better job on Reichardt tonight than we did last year,” Ginapp said. “Cushing got hot and hurt us, but we got some key rebounds on their misses and were able to hit a few shots at the end.”

Marshalltown continues conference play tonight with a 6 p.m. contest at Mason City. The Bobcats return home to face Urbandale Tuesday at 7:45 p.m.

VALLEY (4-5, 3-2) — Brian Howard 2-2 2-2 6, Alan Cushing 4-8 2-3 13, Dan Reichardt 4-9 0-0 11, Taylor DeLong 2-4 2-4 6, Conor Boffeli 6-10 2-5 15, Chris Lenihan 0-2 0-0 0, Tim Jardine 1-2 0-0 2, Jon Meister 1-1 0-0 2, Tom Keenan 0-0 0-0 0, Andrew Scates 0-0 0-0 0, Rob Burnett 2-2 0-0 4. TOTALS 22-40 8-14 59.

MARSHALLTOWN (6-3, 3-2) — Ben Brennecke 2-2 0-0 4, Cole Danielson 6-13 10-11 25, Chanse Creekmur 2-5 1-2 7, Shaun Mohon 2-6 1-2 5, Michael Appel 6-11 2-2 16, T.J. Flanagan 0-1 4-4 4, Tyler Peschong 1-3 1-2 3. TOTALS 19-41 19-23 64.

Valley 20 14 14 11 — 59
Marshalltown 13 14 16 21 — 64

3-Point Goals — Valley 7-16 (Cushing 3-5, Reichardt 3-8, Boffeli 1-1, Jardine 0-1, DeLong 0-1); Marshalltown 7-13 (Danielson 3-6, Creekmur 2-2, Appel 2-4, Mohon 0-1).

On the Subject Of Nightmares and Other Things

In the two or three weeks of my working years that I had to pay attention to the Iowa Barnstormers, I thought their coach, John Gregory, was a decent guy who knew more than a few things about football and life in general. Now something tells me Gregory has some brain damage, ranging from mild to severe. Maybe that's what living in Arkansas does to a guy. I mean, why else would he want Jason Berryman playing for his Iowa Barnstormers of the arenafootball2 league? The Barnstormers -- the old Barnstormers, I mean -- were known as the team that launched clean-cut Iowan Kurt Warner into the NFL, not a franchise where the players had to take off their handcuffs so they could put on their jockstraps. If I was assembling a team for the arenafootball2 league or any other league, I'd want Berryman as far away from me as possible. He was one of the biggest embarassments in the history of Iowa State football and collegiate football in general. I wouldn't even want him to buy a ticket. Well, I know that wouldn't happen anyway. Knowing Berryman the way I do, he'd try to steal a ticket instead. This arenafootball2 deal is a bush league in more ways than one. There's no sense getting into all of Berryman's background. He's your classic thug. He spent 258 days in jail, once robbed an Iowa State student of a cellphone and $4 and was kicked out of the Cyclones' football program. He's had a ton of second and third chances. The Barnstormers actually announced that Berryman, who was listed as a 235-pound fullback/linebacker, would be on the roster Dec. 3, but it's taken more than a month for news people around here to either find out about it or believe it. I guess they didn't want to ruin their Christmas. Maybe they thought Santa Claus would load Berryman into his bag and take him to jail again. Whatever, Berryman is still listed on the Barnstormers' roster, and I hear hundreds of people who thought about buying tickets to the opening game have decided instead to pay Ken Fuson to write a humor blog for the Barnstormers' website.

*

Speaking of guys trying to make a comeback, I'm worried about Rick Majerus [that's him pictured on the right]. Big Rick -- and I mean he's really, really big -- left the ESPN television booth to return to basketball coaching this season. He's in his first season at St. Louis University, which used to have a strong program. Not as good as Drake's when both schools were in the Missouri Valley Conference, but pretty fair nonetheless. Anyway, St. Louis set a modern Division I record for the fewest points in a game in its 49-20 loss last night to George Washington. By the way, that's not the George Washington of cherry tree fame; it's the George Washington University of the Atlantic 10 Conference. St. Louis, which somehow has won nine games this season, missed a whopping 23 straight shots during one stretch and shot 14.6 percent for the game. The Billikens were 1-for-19 from three-point range. "We have some issues in terms of our offensive proficiency," Majerus told reporters after the game. I think he even said it with a straight face. "I tried to keep coaching the game. Sometimes you miss...." The previous low point total since the shot clock was introduced in 1985-86 was 21 by Georgia Southern in a 40-point loss to Coastal Carolina in 1997. It was matched by Princeton in a 20-point loss to Monmouth in 2005. The fewest points ever by a Division I team was set by Arkansas State in a 75-6 loss to Kentucky in 1945. It was matched by Temple in an 11-6 loss to Tennessee in 1973. I didn't think it was very smart for Majerus to leave his ESPN job before. Now I know he was dumb to do it.

*

I see they're talking about spending more than $40 million to refurbish Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where Iowa plays its basketball games. I'm all for taking a bulldozer to the place and starting all over again. Maybe they can get a home-court advantage and better access to the toilets in the place the next time around.

*

By the way, I was thinking the present Hawkeye team was making a little bit of progress. Then I saw what happened at Ohio State and I've changed my mind.

*

Getting back to my good friend Ken Fuson [that's him on the left], the best humor columnist in the newspaper business. I mean, Dave Barry who? I saw a letter in the paper today in which a guy [probably one of Fuson's relatives] said he was going to miss Kenny's humor writing. I guess I'm about two weeks behind in everything. When I had a houseful of kids and grandchildren keeping me busy over the holidays, I guess I missed the column in which Kenny said he wouldn't be writing any more humor. Sounds like a Carolyn Washburn deal to me. Anything to keep the circulation dropping. Great for morale in the paper's humor department. Hell, I'm the guy who's been writing that Fuson should write his humor columns two or three times a week so he could get away from some of the other crap they assign him. Shows you what I know about it.

On Drake's Gala 'Dollar Night,' There Were Co-MVPs Of the Game

Call me a team player.

I walked into the Knapp Center, paid $1 for my ticket, waited 20 minutes in line so I could buy two boxes of popcorn at $1 each, showed the uniformed guy my ticket and asked where I was supposed to sit.

He said, "Anywhere in the gray area."

Because my ticket had "student" printed on the corner, I figured I'd be in one of the end zones behind the baskets. I was right. On "Dollar Night," it was a great seat where there was lots of gray paint. Dry paint, by the way.

Drake's students, of course, are still on their semester break. It was too bad a half-dozen or so drummers and trumpet players from the band couldn't have been there to play the school song, but it was a sensational atmosphere nonetheless.

We could see everything, including a 75-50 victory by the Bulldogs' basketball team over Indiana State that tied a school-record 12 straight. Before walking to my car, I made the decision that Jonathan "Bucky" Cox [right] and Sandy Hatfield Clubb [left] were my co-most valuable players of the game.

Cox is the 6-foot 8-inch junior forward who scored 18 points and snared 14 rebounds over a team that lost for the first time in four Missouri Valley Conference games.

I've been watching this Drake team fairly closely, and he's my choice as the best of a hard-working bunch of Bulldog players. Sandy Hatfield Clubb is Drake's athletic director, and she -- along with coach Keno Davis -- is someone who deserves a lot of credit for what's going on at Drake.

Davis, the 36-year-old rookie head coach who never played collegiate basketball, has been brilliant as the successor to his dad, Tom Davis.

Off the court, Clubb has made some very smart decisions. Last year she spruced up the Knapp Center with some new scoreboards, this season she's getting people into the place.

I mean, who'd have thought that an overflow turnout of 7,168 would show up at the 7,002-seat Knapp Center for a midweek game against Indiana State?

Clubb made it happen by offering people $1 tickets, $1 popcorn and $1 hot dogs. Give anybody a cheap seat and cheap food and they'll take it -- whether you're talking about the Depression of the last century or now.

The crowd was the third-largest in Knapp Center history. The biggest has been 7,268 for the Iowa game Dec. 16, 2006, the second-biggest 7,178 for the Creighton game Feb. 3, 2007.

I wasn't a math major and I always need help figuring my taxes, but I know Drake probably didn't make as much money with the dollar tickets as it did when it charged $28 for tickets to the Iowa State game last month [when 6,103 fans watched the Bulldogs' 35-point victory], but I think Clubb was smart to get the seats filled for the Indiana State game.

I wanted to experience the "Dollar Night" atmosphere, so I told Mike Mahon I wouldn't need my seat on press row.

It was fun hearing people rave about how the Bulldogs manhandled Indiana State on their way to records of 13-1 overall the 4-0 in the Valley.

Drake played its usual tenacious defense, holding Indiana State to 29.1 percent field goal shooting, and was all over the backboards with a 39-25 advantage.

With the Bulldogs making enough noise around arenas in the midwest that they may wind up in the nation's top 25 rankings one of these days, I suggest we soak all of this in and enjoy it.

Some difficult challenges lie ahead, of course. Challenges like Creighton, Illinois State and Northern Iowa on the road and at home.

Very few teams in any conference go through a league season unbeaten, so I'm not expecting that.

But these Bulldogs have been doing lots of things all season that nobody -- at least not me -- thought would happen.

It certainly wasn't a good thing that Josh Young, Drake's shooting machine, went down and didn't get up for a long time in the last half after injuring an ankle.

Still, it's a ride that Drake hasn't seen for a long, long time. So my advice is to enjoy it.

Being the Optimist I Am, I Can't Wait Until Aug. 30 When Maine Comes To Town

I, for one, am very happy they are clearing the football air at the University of Iowa. And, being the optimist I have always been about the Hawkeyes' gridiron program, I prefer to look forward rather than backward. Consequently, I'm thinking a lot more about the Aug. 30 season opener against the Black Bears who represent the University of Maine than I am about the Nov. 17, 2007 loss to Western Michigan that closed the casket to a 6-6 season that some people are calling disappointing.

*

I won't identify the people who say things like that because naming names is not something that's supposed to be done these days when it comes to Hawkeye football. Let's just put it this way. A couple of guys who say 2007 was a disappointing Iowa football season are in my Wednesday lunch group. Oh, sure, once the 28-19 loss to Western Michigan became history, I could see there would be no Insight Bowl and...well, no bowl at all for a ballclub that was -- for some reason -- still trying to find its way as Thanksgiving approached.

*

Coach Kirk Ferentz really didn't have to schedule his first press conference yesterday in 52 days, but he did -- and, whatever Kirk wanted to do was fine with me. I know he thinks things through very carefully before doing them. So now that I'm looking ahead rather than back to the ugliness of Dominique Douglas, Indiana, Anthony Bowman, Purdue and other stuff like that, I can see a very positive spring practice that will conclude with a spirited team scrimmage, followed by a number of upbeat "I" Club golf outings and dinners throughout the state that will get people to open their wallets again so Kinnick Stadium can again be sold out for the season. I'm predicting easy victories over Maine and Florida International to start the season. Iowa's first-stringers may not even sweat in those two games, even though the weather will still be hot and humid.

*

Maine, where Ferentz used to coach, lost six straight games en route to a 4-7 season in 2007. Florida International, which bills itself as "Miami's Public Research University," lost its first 11 games before ending the season with a victory over North Texas. The Golden Panthers were nipped earlier by Penn State, 59-0; Kansas, 55-3 and Arkansas, 58-10. Let me put it this way, I can see why the big schools like playing Florida International.

*

Iowa State will probably come into Kinnick and sneak away with a 4-3 victory on Sept. 13, and the Cyclones will, I suppose, be posing for pictures while clutching the Cy-Hawk Trophy on the bus ride back to Ames. I know that can happen, of course. Iowa State keeping the Cy-Hawk Trophy, I mean. After all, the Cyclones have won seven of their last 10 games against Iowa. For some reason, the Hawkeyes don't seem to put as much emphasis on the Iowa State game as they did when Hayden Fry was running things. In fact, I'm predicting one Iowa player will be overheard saying," Iowa State who? Our game at Pitt is all I've been thinking about since our summer workouts" after Iowa State scores two safeties to beat Iowa. Indeed, the Hawkeyes play at Pittsburgh on Sept. 20. The thought of Pitt kind of revs you up, doesn't it? Iowa's next game, on Sept. 27, will be against those hated Northwestern Wildcats. I suppose Northwestern's marching band will make the trip again, and Iowa's students will throw apples at the tuba player like they did the last time. College kids having fun, that's what I call it.

*

So, after that 4-1 start to the season, I'll have a bowl game in my sights for the Hawkeyes. After thumping Northwestern, 17-16, I can easily see three more victories that will put Iowa into the 2008 Insight Bowl. Finally. I mean, nobody can convince me at this stage that the Hawkeyes won't win at home over Wisconsin, Penn State and Purdue. Maybe they'll even find a way to win at Minnesota in the last game. Then I'll really be happy. That's what happens when a guy is optimistic.

*

I heard from George Wine after I wrote some snotty things about Ohio State yesterday.

Here's his e-mail:

Ron, I don't blame the Buckeyes. The BCS is simply bullshit and the best two teams at season's end never meet. This year it should have been Georgia and USC, in my opinion. But until we have at least an 8-team playoff we'll never know. . . Having a good time down here in South Florida. I've been pushing some warm air up your way..."

George, I'm expecting Woody Hayes to show up in Columbus very soon. And he'll have a paddle with him so he can scold Jim Tressel and anyone who hasn't dotted the "I" in O-H-I-O at midfield lately. The Ohio State football picture looks rotten to Woody, wherever he's hanging out these days. Woody can't figure out how the Buckeyes can lose to Illinois at home and to Southeastern Conference teams wherever they play them. Neither can I.

*

Drake sophomore basketball forward Bill Eaddy will be sidelined indefinitely after suffering a sprained right foot in practice Monday. The 6-5 Eaddy has appeared in eight games, averaging 1.8 points.

*

I was going to write something about the makeup and story selection in today's sports section of the paper, but this is Wednesday and I'm being positive. Any second-guessing of the decision to put UNI basketball on page 1 and Drake basketball on page 3 in the city edition will have to wait for another day.

The 'Manila Folders' Of Collegiate Football

LSU's 38-24 victory over Ohio State in the national championship collegiate football game late last night wasn't a half-hour old when Al Schallau sent me this e-mail:

"After their first-quarter fold-up performances against Florida last year and LSU this year, the Ohio State Buckeyes football franchise will now be moving to the Phillippines, where they will be known as the Manila Folders."

Great stuff, Al. The Buckeyes found out what a 10-0 lead means in a game like that.

Absolutely nothing.

Ohio State, whose record is now 0-9 in bowl games against teams from the Southeastern Conference [logo at the left courtesy of Barry Crist and an Arkansas fans' chat board], found out that trying to stop LSU was like trying to stop a runaway freight train.

The sad thing is that Ohio State is the team that's going to be favored to win the Big Ten championship next season.

That tells me it's going to be another tough year for the league.

The problem is that Southern California is going to be an overwhelming favorite to be ranked No. 1 going into the season.

After watching USC dismantle Illinois [which beat Ohio State late in the 2007 season] in the Rose Bowl last week, it's going to be hard to imagine any team from the Big Ten standing up to Pete Carroll's team in 2008.

*

I still can't imagine how Nebraska let incoming coach Bo Pelini continue to be LSU's defensive coordinator.

The TV cameras continually showed Pelini on the sidelines last night wearing his LSU sweatshirt and LSU cap.

Then he got an ice water shower, courtesy of LSU's players, just before the game ended.

I can't believe Pelini has done a whole heck of a lot of work for Nebraska in recent weeks.

*

To me, was interesting to hear TV commentator Charles Davis mention the LSU "Chinese Bandits" of the 1950s during the game.

The "Chinese Bandits" were coached by Paul Dietzel, whose 1958 LSU team won the national championship over Forest Evashevski's Iowa squad.

The '58 Iowa team is regarded as the best in Hawkeye history. Although it finished No. 2 in the national wire-service polls, it was voted No. 1 by the Football Writers Association of America.

Davis obviously did his homework before last night's telecast. Either that or he read Wikipedia on the Internet, or one of the show's producers did, and told Davis about the "Chinese Bandits."

I'll tell you this. The term "Chinese Bandits" was used freely in the 1950s, but there'd be no way it could be talked about and written about in today's touchy "Don't-Say-Anything-About-My-Nationality-Or-I'll-Raise-Hell-About-It" society.

Wikipedia, which isn't always right but might be in this case, says the "Chinese Bandits was the nickname of one of the three units utilized in Paul Dietzel's three-platoon system that vaulted the Tigers to the 1958 national championship. That year, the first team was named the White Team, an offensive unit was named the Go Team, and a defensive unit was tabbed the Chinese Bandits.

"The White Team, naturally, wore white jerseys. The Go Team wore gold jerseys as the word 'gold' was eventually shortened to 'go.' The name 'Chinese Bandits' actually originated when Dietzel recalled a line from the old 'Terry and The Pirates' comic strip referring to Chinese Bandits as the 'most vicious people in the world.'

"In their heyday, the Chinese Bandits were featured in Chinese masks in Life magazine. In 1980 the LSU band revived the Bandit tune played when the LSU defense stalls any opponent's drive...."

Dietzel, in his coaching days, is pictured at the right with Billy Cannon, an eventual LSU Heisman Trophy winner. The photo is courtesy of LSU.

*

Kind of on the same subject as the "Chinese Bandits," but much worse....

Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman has apologized after saying during Friday's telecast of the PGA tour's opening event that today's young players should "lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley."

It'll be interesting to see how safe Tilghman's job is down the road.

*

Tomorrow night's Drake-Indiana State basketball game at the Knapp Center might not be as one-sided as some Bulldog fans anticipate.

Indiana State, under first-year coach Kevin McKenna, match Drake's 3-0 start in the Missouri Valley Conference -- and among its victims are Northern Iowa, 74-56, and Creighton, 62-54.

McKenna was an assistant coach for nine years at Creighton and was the head coach at Nebraska-Omaha before that.

Obviously, McKenna must be enjoying beautiful downtown Terre Haute, Ind. -- a place in which few people before him have thrived.

Other than Larry Bird, of course, who was a little bit strange himself.

Indiana State was picked eighth and Drake ninth in the Valley's preseason predictions. But Southern Illinois received all 39 first-place votes, so that's how accurate that guessing game turned out to be.

The Salukis can't beat anybody now.

*

Drake coach Keno Davis finished fourth in national voting for the Hugh Durham mid-season coaching honor by Collegeinsider.com.

Named after former Georgia and Jacksonville coach Hugh Durham, the award is given by the website to the top mid-major coach in America. Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett earned the Hugh Durham mid-season coaching honor. Saint Mary's handed Drake its only loss of the season with a second-half rally to claim a 72-66 home victory Nov. 10.


*

Reuters says researchers claim people who drink moderately, exercise, quit smoking and eat five servings of fruit and vegetables each day live on average 14 years longer than people who adopt none of these behaviors.

There. Now you know, so behave yourself. Fourteen years is a lot of time to keep living.

Bulldogs Moving At a Snail's Pace In the Polls. AP Has Them Tied for No. 31

For Drake's basketball team, the climb goes on. But ever so slowly. The Bulldogs, who have won 11 straight games en route to a 12-1 record under first-year coach Keno Davis, received 22 votes in today's Associated Press national sportswriters' poll. They're now tied for 31st place with Brigham Young in the ranking. The news isn't so good in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll. Drake was among three teams to get one vote each in that poll. It's no wonder. I mean, notice who's in the list of voters. The only Missouri Valley Conference coach who has a vote is Creighton's Dana Altman. Hopefully, he's the guy who voted for the Bulldogs -- but, listen, you never know. The rankings:

ESPN/USA TODAY COACHES POLL

1. North Carolina (23) 15-0 765
2. Memphis (6) 13-0 747
3. Kansas (2) 14-0 719
4. Washington State 13-0 670
5. UCLA 14-1 655
6. Michigan State 13-1 603
7. Duke 11-1 555
8. Georgetown 11-1 551
9. Tennessee 12-1 534
10. Texas A&M 14-1 499
11. Indiana 12-1 463
12. Vanderbilt 15-0 421
13. Texas 13-2 402
14. Butler 13-1 359
15. Mississippi 13-0 317
16. Marquette 11-2 288
17. Villanova 11-2 235
18. Pittsburgh 12-2 223
19. Clemson 12-2 221
20. Rhode Island 14-1 202
21. Wisconsin 12-2 169
22. Dayton 12-1 159
23. Stanford 12-2 117
24. Arizona 10-4 26
25. Xavier 12-3 24

Others Receiving Votes

Brigham Young 22, Miami (FL) 21, Saint Mary's 19, Notre Dame 18, West Virginia 16, Arizona State 15, Oklahoma 12, Florida 8, Oregon 7, UNLV 4, Syracuse 2, Ohio State 2, New Mexico 2, North Carolina State 1, Houston 1, Drake 1.


The USA TODAY/ESPN Board of Coaches is made up of 31 head coaches at Division I institutions. All are members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. The board for the 2007-08 season: Mike Adras, Northern Arizona; Dana Altman, Creighton; Tommy Amaker, Harvard; Tevester Anderson, Jackson State; Eddie Biedenbach, North Carolina-Asheville; Jim Boeheim, Syracuse; Matt Brady, Marist; Rick Byrd, Belmont; Charles Coles, Miami (Ohio); Jessie Evans, San Francisco; Steve Fisher, San Diego State; Pat Flannery, Bucknell; Tim Floyd, Southern California; Greg Graham, Boise State; Tom Green, Fairleigh Dickinson; Johnny Jones, North Texas; Mike Lonergan, Vermont; Mike McConathy, Northwestern State; Bob McKillop, Davidson; Phil Martelli, Saint Joseph's; Ron "Fang" Mitchell, Coppin State; Dave Odom, South Carolina; Matt Painter, Purdue; Tom Pecora, Hofstra; Doc Sadler, Nebraska; Scott Sutton, Oral Roberts; Jimmy Tillette, Samford; Bob Thomason, Pacific; Perry Watson, Detroit Mercy; Gary Williams, Maryland; Doug Wojcik, Tulsa.

ASSOCIATED PRESS [SPORTSWRITERS]

1. North Carolina (46) 15-0 1,768
2. Memphis (25) 13-0 1,742
3. Kansas (1) 14-0 1,674
4. Washington State 13-0 1,532
5. UCLA 14-1 1,522
6. Michigan State 13-1 1,422
7. Georgetown 11-1 1,332
8. Tennessee 12-1 1,282
9. Duke 11-1 1,257
10. Indiana 12-1 1,125
11. Texas A&M 14-1 1,102
12. Texas 13-2 944
13. Vanderbilt 15-0 925
14. Butler 13-1 822
15. Marquette 11-2 751
16. Mississippi 13-0 650
17. Dayton 12-1 554
18. Clemson 12-2 518
19. Villanova 11-2 465
20. Pittsburgh 12-2 461
21. Wisconsin 12-2 407
22. Rhode Island 14-1 393
23. Stanford 12-2 185
24. Xavier 12-3 128
25. Miami (FL) 13-1 85

Others Receiving Votes

Oklahoma 78, Notre Dame 74, Arizona State 53, West Virginia 42, Arizona 26, Drake 22, Brigham Young 22, Saint Mary's 12, Massachusetts 5, California 4, Louisville 3, USC 3, Sam Houston State 2, Ohio State 2, Connecticut 2, Florida 1, Illinois State 1, New Mexico 1, Niagara 1.

Dropped From Rankings

Arizona 21, USC 22.

U.S. Isn't Sure If It's Drake Or Duke, But Who Cares? These 12-1 Bulldogs Just Keep Winning

This Drake basketball team should be a national story. You know it, I know it. But the Bulldogs, whose 71-68 victory today at Evansville, was their 11th straight, keep flying under the national radar -- and I guess that's all right. I know first-year coach Keno Davis -- a national story himself -- isn't going to slash his wrists because nobody knows about his team. Today's victory improved Drake's records to 3-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference and 12-1 [the best in school history] for the season.

*

It was another gritty --if not pretty -- performance. In the Fox Sports Midwest telecast, commentator Charlie Spoonhour -- the former coach at Southeastern Community College in Burlington, Southwest Missouri and Nevada-Las Vegas -- didn't say anything I haven't already written and didn't already know about Drake. He said the Bulldogs have been "unbelievable" and he mentioned coach Keno Davis' name in the same breath as that of Maury John, whose 1968-69 Drake team went 26-5 and played in the Final Four. I guess ol' Charlie couldn't come up with any more reasons for Drake's success than those I've already chronicled.

*

Don't forget, this is a team that's already beaten Iowa State by 35 points, won at Iowa for the first time in 40 years and ended a 17-game losing streak to Southern Illinois. Sometimes -- like at times today -- it's hard to figure out how the Bulldogs keep winning. But win they do. Jonathan "Bucky" Cox, a 6-8 junior forward, played today like his life depended on it. This kid, who came to Drake out of Barrington, Ill., without a basketball scholarship, scored 19 points amd blocked five shots, was all over the place again and made the three-point field goal that put the game away.

*

People wonder when, or if, Drake is going to be ranked nationally. Hell, who cares? Leave the Bulldogs where they are. They got eight votes in the last sportswriters' poll and a a big fat zero in the coaches' poll. That shows you what the coaches know about it. Especially since Creighton got one vote. Creighton is 1-2 in the Valley. There are many people around the country who don't know Drake from Duke. Come to think of it, Curt Gowdy didn't know the difference in the '69 Big Dance at Louisville. When Drake did something against UCLA, the TV announcer [pictured] said it was Duke. All I know is, this is quite a Bulldog team our man Keno has put together in his first season.

*

Drake was successful on 15 of the 22 field goals it attempted in the last half today. That's pretty fair shooting in the Valley or in the backyard.It wasn't a good day for Josh Young, the Valley's scoring leader. He scored only six points, but how about Adam Emmenecker, who collected 10 points and had 10 assists? Can these Bulldogs keep it up? I don't know why not. They're home Wednesday night for a game against Indiana State [also 3-0 in the Valley] at the Knapp Center. It'll cost you only $1 to get a ticket to the game and another $1 for a hot dog and yet another buck for a box of popcorn. Then Drake plays Missouri State at The Knapp on Saturday. Who knows, maybe by about 9 o'clock Saturday night, Keno's team will be 14-1 overall and 5-0 in the Valley. And people might still think it's Duke.

Drake Has a Dollar Deal for You

Hey, what a deal. On the heels of a near-full house for the last home game, Drake will let you in for a dollar at the next one in the Knapp Center. All general admission seats for Wednesday's 7:05 p.m. Missouri Valley Conference game against Indiana State will cost just a buck, and so will hot dogs and popcorn. Premium and reserved seats will be the regular price. With the students on their semester break until the third week of January, Drake drew a crowd of 6,821 in the 7,002-seat arena for this week's game against Southern Illinois. A 61-51 victory propelled the Bulldogs to records of 2-0 in the Valley and 11-1 overall. I'm guessing the "Buck Night" prices for the Indiana State game will result in another large weeknight crowd.

*

The Bulldogs will try to continue the good times in a 2:05 p.m. game Sunday at Evansville, and it's certainly a winnable game. The Purple Aces are 0-2 in the Valley and 5-7 overall. Drake's Keno Davis and Evansville's Marty Simmons [pictured at the right] are two of the league's five first-year coaches. Simmons, 42, played for Bobby Knight at Indiana for a couple of years before transferring to Evansville. When guys said adios to Knight and his Hoosier program it was either because he wanted them out, their playing time didn't suit them, they couldn't stand Knight -- or all of the above. Simmons spent one season as the coach at Wartburg College in Waverly, where he had a 10-14 record in 1996-97. "Evansville has a very, very special place in my heart," Simmons said when he was hired. "I feel fortunate to again be part of the Evansville basketball program."

*

Earlier this season -- on Dec. 13 -- Evansville held a memorial service to mark the 30th anniversary of an airplane crash that killed 29 people, including the university's entire men's basketball team. The team plane, a twin-engine DC-3, crashed in rain and fog on Dec. 13, 1977. News accounts said Simmons was a sixth-grader in Lawrenceville, Ill., at the time of the crash. He said a victim of the crash, Evansville player Mike Duff, became his role model. "If there is some small way that the spirit of that team from '77 can burn through our team, we would love to share it," Simmons said. I researched the plane crash thoroughly at the time. Gene Raffensperger, who then was my sports editor, sent me to Evansville to write about how the university was rebuilding its basketball program after the crash, and among the things I did was interview three players who had transferred to the school from the University of Iowa. The paper did things like that in those days, and that's why its sports section was one of the best in the nation.

*

Some of us will be able to get Sunday's Drake-Evansville game on TV. It will be telecast by Fox Sports Midwest and Comcast Chicago. I'm looking forward to listening to commentator Charlie Spoonhour, a good ol' boy and former coach at Southeastern Community College in Burlington and Southwest Missouri [now Missouri State]. I guess I'll be able to stand play-by-play announcer Dan McLaughlin if he doesn't talk about the St. Louis Cardinals. He does the Cardinals' games on the tube in the summer, and I like to listen to him and watch him only when the Cubs are beating St. Louis.

*

Very strange editing and makeup decisions in today's paper. The front page of the sports section consists of advance stories on the NFL playoffs, Iowa's No. 1-ranked wrestling team and the very ordinary Iowa and Iowa State men's basketball teams. Buried inside the section -- on page 4 -- were all the high school results. The Valley, Dowling, Ankeny and Waukee boys' teams -- which won their games -- got one paragraph each. Most of the girls' teams got two paragraphs. Horrible. No wonder people in the paper's circulation department can't figure out why they don't attract customers in places like Ankeny, West Des Moines, Waukee and Urbandale. Students in the high schools there are all potential newspaper customers who are being driven away by the lack of coverage. Try putting together a scrapbook of a kid's high school achievements with one-paragraph stories from a newspaper. The high schools should have dominated the front page of today's section and the run-of-the-mill Hawkeye and Cyclone basketball teams should have been inside -- even though a couple of my favorite writers authored the stories about them.

*

By the way, I'm absolutely thrilled that media members were able to fly out of Des Moines without incident after the caucus, and I'm sure everyone else in town is happy the business section documented the facts pertaining to the reporters' exit.

Make No Mistake About It, This Kid Can Coach. And Coach Of the Year [So Far] Keno Davis Is Already Doing Some Things At Drake His Dad Didn't

 

I'm having flashbacks.

The Knapp Center is jumping as I watch Keno Davis and his Drake basketball team win another big game.

Somehow, though, the seating arrangement is reversed.

Mike Mahon has me sitting at midcourt on the official scorers' side of the arena, and Tom Davis is sitting at the end of press row on the opposite side, next to Missouri Valley Conference commissioner Doug Elgin.

Tom isn't wearing the suit and tie I usually see him in at a basketball arena.

Tonight, instead of the suitcoat, he's Mr. Casual-- wearing a sharp-looking V-neck sweater. Maybe it was a Christmas present from somebody. I'm thinking of Tom Davis because of what's happening on the court.

*

It was 21 years ago that Tom, then in his first season as Iowa's coach, won his first 18 games en route to a 30-5 record. His team consisted of players who had been recruited by George [Great Recruiter, Lousy Coach] Raveling -- outstanding talent like B. J. Armstrong, Kevin Gamble, Ed Horton, Roy Marble and Brad Lohaus.

It was a team that came within one victory of going to the NCAA's Big Dance in Tom's marvelous first year.

Had it not been for an 84-81 loss to Jerry Tarkanian's UNLV thugs, Tom's Hawkeyes would have been in the Final Four. On that night in Seattle in the West Regional, I was as disappointed as Tom and his players.

Just like them, I wanted to go to the Dance in New Orleans. Keno Davis -- Tom's son -- was then a 15-year-old kid who dreamed of someday being a college coach.


*

Now Keno is in his first season as Drake's head coach, and he's doing some wonderful things with a number of players who were recruited when his dad was in charge of the program.

It sounds somewhat like what his dad was doing in that outstanding 1986-87 season.

A surprisingly-large crowd of 6,821--just 181 below capacity on a bitterly cold night when there was no pep band, no cheerleaders and not many students because classes don't start for another three weeks -- watched as Keno's team ended a 17-game losing steak to Southern Illinois, 61-51.

Southern Illinois is the team that everybody thought would sweep to another Missouri Valley Conference chmpionship, but now the Salukis' record is 6-7, and people are wondering what's gone wrong with highly-regarded coach Chris Lowery and seniors Randal Falker and Matt Shaw.

Keno's team, meanwhile, has lost only to St. Mary's in the 12 games it's played, and his Bulldogs are the biggest surprise by far in the Valley.

*

Keno has not only been the league's coach of the year to this point, he's been the mid-major coach of the year and he'd certainly get some votes as national coach of the year.

But it's still early. In the first week of January, you always have to say that.

Like Keno points out, Drake has won only two Valley games and there are 16 left on the schedule. It'd much too premature to be saying his Bulldogs can win a championship.

But Keno can coach, make no mistake about it. He didn't get this job just because he's Tom Davis' kid.

He's showing every night that he can coach. His team thrashed Iowa State by 35 points, won at Iowa for the first time in 40 years, won at the Roundhouse in Wichita and now has beaten Southern Illinois for the first time since 1999.

*

Keno has already done some things his dad didn't do in the Drake job.

Tom never started a season at Drake with an 11-1 record. His 2006-2007 Bulldogs started with a 9-2 record, but then lost five games in a row.

Things like that happen.

But, hopefully, they won't happen to Keno. His Bulldogs won't knock you over with their starting lineup.

*

Jonathan "Bucky" Cox is the tallest guy at 6-8. Then there's 6-5 Klayton Korver and 6-3 Leonard Houston, 6-1 shooting machine Josh Young and 6-1 Adam Emmenecker.

No, certainly not physically imposing. But it's a team that shoots well, goes to the backboards hard, plays outstanding defense and never quits.

It's a team that thinks it can win any game it plays.

As long as that attitude continues, Dolph Pulliam is going to have to continue wearing that $800 blue leather suit.

*

In the photo at the top, look at that smile Pulliam had on his face last night when I took his picture at halftime with Larry Cotlar.

Dolph was a standout player and the spiritual leader of Maury John's 1969 Drake team that went to the Final Four.

He knows what it's like to win big.

He's now the commentator on Drake's radio broadcasts, and Cotlar is the play-by-play announcer.

Pulliam wants to keep wearing the blue leather and everybody wants to keep smiling.

As long as Keno keeps doing what he's been doing, the winning and the smiles could very well continue.

That's Keno and his proud dad, of course, pictured at the right.

If You Can't Beat Stanford [And USC Didn't], You're Not the Best

Just because Southern California dropped a 49-17 bomb on Illinois in the Rose Bowl a few people are wondering if Pete Carroll and his players represent the best football team in the country.

Forget it.

They aren't the best.

Any team that loses to Stanford and Oregon is not the best.

Depending on what happens tonight in the Fiesta Bowl, Bobby Stoops' Oklahoma team might be the best.

*

By the way, what's such a big deal about beating Illinois? Even Iowa did that. Held the Fighting [huh?] Illini without a touchdown, too.

*

Say what you want about Lloyd Carr, I'm not real happy they put him out to pasture at Michigan.

Now I won't be able to have any more fun laughing at his coaching, or lack of coaching.

I wonder if Appalachian State sent Carr an autographed team picture as a retirement gift.

One rumor I heard was that when Michigan's players were picking up Carr to carry him to midfield on their shoulders after the game, Mike Hart almost dropped him.

*

I heard from George Wine of Coralville this morning.

In his e-mail, he says: "Hey, we had to come all the way to Marco Island to get it, but we are finally on a cable TV system that includes the Big Ten network! Iowa hosts Indiana tonight. Floridians can hardly wait."

Listen, George, I had DirecTV installed at my home so I could get the Big Ten network and a few other things.

After watching Iowa play, I'm sorry I did.


*

For those of you who haven't heard, Georgia won the Sugar Bowl game last night, 41-10.

People who bought tickets are still wondering what happened to Hawaii.

They still haven't shown up.

*

I hear that Mike Hart's favorite all-time Big Ten player is Ronnie Harmon, a guy who knows all about dropping the ball in a bowl game. Like four times..

*

Bret Bielema is finding out it's not so easy after all.

His Wisconsin team started the season 5-0, but finished 9-4.

*

I thought Illinois looked a lot like Hayden Fry's Iowa teams in the Rose Bowl -- especially the 1981 squad that was shellshocked by Washington, 28-0.

*

I don't care what they say about Illinois' Ron Zook.

I still don't think the guy can coach.

*

I see people at the paper must have gotten into the bubbly when they were ringing in the new year.

Just because 7-foot 7-inch Manute Bol wandered into the state, they called him a former NBA star.

That happens a lot in the news business. Because some guy hung around a pro basketball or football league for a long time, he's a star.

Bol wasn't even a journeyman. He was a sideshow act.

Pretty soon the paper is going to call Kyle Orton a star.

*

It had to make Iowa fans -- maybe Iowa State fans, too -- sick to see teams like Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri and Texas Tech playing in bowl games yesterday.

Just think, Missouri -- which finished with a 12-2 record after clobbering Arkansas, 38-7, in the Cotton Bowl -- thought it would be so overmatched against Iowa that it weaseled out of a two-game series a few years ago.

*

Todd Lickliter's Iowa basketball team will win a game this season that it shouldn't win.

But tonight won't be one of those nights.

*

It would be nice to have a full house of 7,002 at the Knapp Center tonight for Drake's game against Southern Illinois.

Keno Davis and his Bulldogs deserve it.

As much as I'd like to see it happen, I don't think it will.

Too much basketball and football on TV, too many Drake students still playing with their Christmas toys at home, too damn cold outdoors.

By the way, Keno Davis is the 10th Drake coach I have personally observed. All 10 of them, naturally, have wanted the gym to be sold out for home games.

Who wouldn't? People like to be liked.

Todd Lickliter would like Iowa's gym to be sold out, too. But so far the Hawkeyes haven't been able to get a crowd if they let people in free and gave away hot dogs.

We'll see what happens tonight at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. If the Indiana game is called a sellout, I'll think they were counting the janitors, the dance team and the popcorn sales girls.

I started writing about Drake coaches in the 1950s when Maury John was on his way to becoming the best in Drake history,

He wanted bigger crowds, too.

Maury did everything he could to improve attendance -- including having the team benches moved to the other side of the floor at Veterans Memorial Auditorium so Drake's students would be behind the visitors' bench to yell obscenities and throw things at Al McGuire and others.

Howard Stacey, Bob Ortegel, Gary Garner, Tom Abatemarco, Eddie Fields, Rudy Washington, Kurt Kanaskie, Tom Davis and now his son, Keno, followed John, and all have hoped that attendance would improve wherever Drake played its games.

I'm pretty sure C. A. Pell, who coached Drake from 1906-1909, called Paul Morrison into his office and asked how he could get bigger crowds at the YMCA or wherever the Bulldogs were playing in those days.

Hey, Drake didn't build the Knapp Center and move out of an Auditorium that was twice its size just so the games could be played on the campus.

A big reason was that 4,000 people at the massive Auditorium seemed like 750 at The Knapp. Some of those slim turnouts for Abatemarco's games didn't pay for the rent at the Auditorium.

Keno is doing it the best possible way. By winning. When John -- the last Drake coach to finish a career with more victories than losses -- began taking his teams to the NCAA tournament fans got interested and showed up for games.

Keno's team is 10-1 so far. If he keeps it up, I'll bet people will take notice -- but not until school starts again.