IaSt. Hires Greg McDermott from Northern Iowa

[thedoctor]

katz

[Jimbo's Drinker]

Looks like they jumped the gun with Jeter, ooops.

No Jeter

[greasywheels121]

Heads won't be happy, but it's a good hire.

[Heads22]

GODDAMNIT

[Heads22]

Dear Cyclone Alley member,

 

Iowa State University will introduce its new men?s basketball coach today (March 21) at 6 p.m. in Hilton Coliseum -- and you are invited to attend. This is your chance to help us show the live television audience and the new coach that we have the best student section in the entire country. You know it and I know it. Now we need you to help us make sure we let our new coach and all of the Cyclone Nation know it. 

 

We have decided that Cyclone Alley, the top student support group in college basketball, will be part of the program. You will serve as the backdrop for the news conference and your excitement and enthusiasm in welcoming the new coach is critical.

 

Wear your Cyclone Alley shirts. Bring your ?A? game and have some fun as President Greg Geoffroy and I usher in a new era of Iowa State men?s basketball with the announcement of your new coach.

 

The media conference, which has no admission cost, will be carried on live TV. Come be a part of the scene when ISU introduces its new coach to the campus community. Spread the word to other members of Cyclone Alley and invite all of your friends to join us Tuesday night. Let's make it a festive event.

 

Cyclone Alley members should enter Hilton through the north doors, beginning at 5 p.m. The pep band, spirit squads and Cy will start performing at 5:30 p.m.

 

Go Cyclones!

 

 

 

Jamie Pollard

Director of Athletics

[Heads22]

I'm trying to look at this like the AJ signing. Not a fan of his at all, but love him on your side.....

 

 

I'll be at the rally. Now hire some solid assistants. We don't need the Panther staff.

[Heads22]

Putting the fuel in the Cardinal and Gold Propoganda machine

 

Fri Feb 24, 2:35 PM ET

By Mike DeCourcy - Sporting News

 

ADVERTISEMENT

 

Take a backstage peek at Northern Iowa -- from pregame to halftime adjustments -- as it jockeys for a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

 

Pregame

 

 

Northern Iowa coach Greg McDermott will get to all that shortly, but first he sneaks in a few more reminders to his players about how to properly defend some of Bucknell's screens.

 

"As long as you have their attention," he says later, "it's an opportunity to get one last thing in that they don't forget."

 

If you believe basketball is a simple game, step inside the Panthers' locker room as they prepare for the featured matchup of ESPN's BracketBusters. Their approach is so cerebral, so sophisticated, they should be known as MIT, not UNI. There are more than 140 offensive sets in McDermott's playbook. Rather than deal in general principles, the coaches present defensive plans for every wrinkle of every play that opponents run, and they expect the Panthers to recall that information at game speed.

 

Look there at the wall, where graduate manager Chris Foster has taped diagrams of Bucknell's plays over the top of the marking board. It took Foster 90 minutes to transfer these diagrams from the notebook-sized scouting report to large sheets of white paper. His work will be on display for less than an hour, and hardly anybody will be there to look. The players are on the court warming up. Upon their return, they will examine the charts for just six minutes as McDermott presents a quick review before the final exam. Maybe, though, one moment of essential defensive brilliance will be derived from this obsession with details.

 

McDermott then breaks down Bucknell's key personnel -- each player's strengths and objectives. He challenges each Northern Iowa regular to do his defensive job. "No. 12, (Kevin) Bettencourt, can't let him get going," McDermott says, and the Panthers offer a short burst of clapping in support. This is repeated until every Bucknell regular is cited.

 

"It's really remarkable, the type of mental preparation that we go through," says Panthers star guard Ben Jacobson, a four-year starter. "It takes a lot of focus. It's hard sometimes. You want to just go out and play, you want to keep your mind focused on being up for the game and playing with confidence. But at the same time, there are a lot of things you've got to pay attention to."

 

Although he is talented enough to have played at a Big Ten school, Jacobson committed to McDermott as a high school junior, just after the coach was hired away from North Dakota State in April 2001. Northern Iowa had earned just one NCAA bid before then and was playing to crowds that barely reached four figures. "I was like, 'Dang, we get more than that at high school,' " Jacobson says. The Panthers now consistently draw between 8,000 and 10,000 for conference games and very well could make their third consecutive NCAA appearance.

 

But even with a Ratings Percentage Index ranking of 26 and a 4-0 record against RPI top 25 teams, this is a game Northern Iowa can't afford to lose. It will not impact the tightly contested Missouri Valley Conference standings, but the Panthers are on a two-game losing streak -- despite having last-possession shots that could have tied or beaten both Missouri State and Indiana State. The game against Bucknell of the Patriot League will come down to the final seconds, too -- three times. In situations like that, it helps to know what you're doing.

 

McDermott's last words: "The past is the past. There's nothing we can do about it. All we can do is prepare to do what we do better, for two more weeks. And all our goals can still come true."

 

Halftime

 

It is 168 steps from the UNI-Dome court to the Panthers' locker room. OK, so maybe it's not quite that many for McDermott, a former Northern Iowa player who stands 6-8. It's still a long way. So he has time to think as he walks, much more than he will next season, when the program will escape this converted football stadium and step into its new home, a still-under-construction basketball arena.

 

McDermott talks to his assistants on the way and thinks a little bit. The players get to the meeting room before him, and they're more emotional. Jacobson throws a bottle of sports drink against the wall. Three different players shout the word "attack," all in different contexts but still for the same reason. The Panthers did not play the first half as a desperate team. They defended well but were so vexed by Bucknell's zone defense that they performed passively and hit only 9-of-26 from the field. They trail, 24-20.

 

Upon entering the room, McDermott challenges his players, albeit in question form: "Is that all we've got? Is that our best?" His tone is more stern than angry -- and not loud -- but this is as close as he'll come to yelling. "You've got self-doubt written all over your faces. Lose it. We've got this long look on our faces, like we're 6-21. We're 21-6. Play like it. Play with some energy. We have to be the tougher team. They are not going to beat themselves. We've got to beat them."

 

With that, he leaves the players to themselves and gathers with his coaching staff in an outside hallway. They examine the box score to see what it can tell them about what went wrong in the first 20 minutes. They discuss how to fix it. All ideas are welcome.

 

It's clear that scoring is the problem. Bucknell shot only 40.0 percent in the first half, and Jacobson's stellar work kept Bettencourt from scoring a field goal. "Their 24 points is not the issue right now," says veteran assistant Ron Smith. "It's our 20."

 

The coaches settle on three plays and two late-clock actions they want to employ at the start of the half, and McDermott presents them to the players upon stepping back inside. On the first, called "wave of the hand," power forward Grant Stout is told to "be creative" in carrying out his assignment. He can screen three different ways or step into an open area for a jump shot. It's up to him to read the defensive action and determine what's best.

 

The audience is attentive. The players' focus is riveted to the front of the room where McDermott is speaking. But they are not comporting themselves as they would at, say, a classroom lecture. They are athletes. They just spent most of an hour pushing the limits of their cardiovascular systems. That leaves a residue. And the players are coughing it up and spitting it out, into tiny green cups with "Gatorade" written across.

 

McDermott's last words: "When it's time to cut, it's time for you to sprint. Think about yourself and the person you're guarding. Is he easier to guard when he cuts half-speed, or is he easier to guard when he's sprinting off that screen? Let's cut harder to start this half. All right: first five minutes."

 

Postgame

 

The last player to arrive in the Northern Iowa locker room did not play in the final 10 minutes. But everyone who gets there ahead of Travis Brown knows there wouldn't have been a final 10 minutes without him. When he walks through the door, his teammates applaud and call out, "There he is!" That's about as rowdy as it gets inside; this is not an overly demonstrative group.

 

A freshman guard from Richfield, Minn., Brown admits to having trouble mastering all of the team's plays and defensive schemes. He understands his role, however. "I know when I go in there they want me to look for my shot," Brown says.

 

His three second half 3-pointers helped rescue the Panthers from a nine-point deficit and allowed them to force one overtime, then another, and finally to earn a 65-61 victory. The improbable comeback and variety of uncommon heroics necessary to produce it justified the cliche of a rush-the-court celebration that enveloped the players.

 

Center Eric Coleman was the star of the second overtime; he scored six of his team-high 15 points by dominating the tiring Bison on the blocks. Guard Erik Crawford, playing his first full game after missing nearly a month with a broken right foot, recovered his own fumble and hit a fallaway jumper to tie the game at 56 and force that second extra period.

 

On the most important play of the game, however, junior point guard Brooks McKowen did little more than think. With 2.8 seconds left and Bucknell up by 2, Bison forward Donald Brown made an inbounds pass from beneath Northern Iowa's basket. But Brown misread a teammate's intentions and threw the ball deep into the backcourt -- where no one was available.

 

McKowen was in position to catch it, but after making sure no opponents were nearby, he let it bounce . . . and bounce . . . and bounce . . . over the opposite end line. This meant Northern Iowa could inbound from under its own basket with those 2.8 seconds intact, which led to Crawford's big basket.

 

"He had his bearings about him. If he catches that ball, we don't win the game," assistant coach Ben Jacobson (no relation to the player) says to the assembled team members while McDermott is doing a TV interview. "Those kinds of plays are why we've done what we've done the last two years. We were a little bit smarter, a little bit tougher. That's an unbelievable effort."

 

When McDermott finally makes it to the locker room, he tells the players he is to blame for "not putting you in the right spots to be successful for about 30 minutes."

 

The Panthers' attack against the Bucknell zone did not work until he brought Stout and Coleman up to the high post to set ball screens for Jacobson, which forced the Bison big men to follow them out or risk having no one available to show on the screens. That helped open the corners for Brown's 3-pointers and ultimately seduced Bucknell into a man-to-man defense that empowered Coleman.

 

When this BracketBusters game was announced a couple weeks earlier, the Northern Iowa players looked at it as an interruption to their pursuit of the Missouri Valley title, a game that could do little to enhance their national standing. Following the two straight losses, though, and with Bucknell coming in ranked No. 24 by the Associated Press, Jacobson conceded this was a game the Panthers were fortunate to have the opportunity to play -- and, as it turned out, to win.

 

McDermott's last words: "It's a great win for our program. We beat a ranked team. We beat a very good basketball team. We beat a team that's a lot like us. Sometimes those are the hardest teams to play against. But like the last minute against Missouri State and the last minute at Indiana State, we never stopped believing we could win. And if you do that enough times, sooner or later the ball will bounce your way."

[WilliamTell]

I can't believe you guys, taking him away from us. It's always the little guys that get bullied around. I'll be sad to see him go, he did a very good job at UNI.

[Heads22]

Indiana?

 

Hawkeyes left in the cornfields as Cyclones get their guy

 

 

March 21, 2006

By Gregg Doyel

CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

Tell Gregg your opinion!

 

 

     

This doesn't happen often, but it happened Tuesday: Iowa State outmaneuvered big brother Iowa for the perfect coach while -- as an added bonus -- showing up the more respected basketball programs at Indiana and Missouri.

 

 

Former Panthers coach Greg McDermott is the perfect man for the Iowa State job. (AP) 

Within four days of firing Wayne Morgan, Iowa State had interviewed two candidates and made its choice, picking Northern Iowa's Greg McDermott over Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Rob Jeter. Iowa State has confirmed McDermott will be introduced Tuesday at a 7 p.m. ET news conference.

 

Judging from Internet chatter, Iowa State fans don't know what to make of McDermott. They'll learn. McDermott is the perfect hire. Perfect. That clear enough? He won huge at Northern Iowa, where winning small is hard enough. He's a state native. His local roots run deep, which means he might never leave Iowa State. And he's candid and charismatic, the kind of guy who will win over new fans every time he speaks publicly.

 

Frankly, considering its low national profile and recent run of ethically suspect coaches, Iowa State basketball doesn't deserve Greg McDermott.

 

Iowa does.

 

But Iowa won't get McDermott, because Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard knows how to run a coach search. Unlike Indiana and Missouri, whose multimillion-dollar athletic departments have sought the help of outside consultancy firms, Pollard did this thing mostly on his own. That's what athletics directors used to do. They were hired to run their department, not to outsource the most important tasks to a headhunter firm located in another state, a headhunter firm that tomorrow will help a hotel hire a CEO.

 

As of late Tuesday morning, Indiana still hadn't contacted Iowa's Steve Alford while Missouri's search for Quin Snyder's replacement was moving along molasses-like as well. Can you believe that? Five weeks into their coaching searches, Indiana and Missouri are still doing their due diligence. Iowa State, meanwhile, has done a firing and a hiring, and soon Greg McDermott will be kicking Iowa's and Indiana's butts for available recruits.

 

Don't feel bad for Alford, because he's making a fortune at a good school, but still ... he has been twisting awkwardly in the wind since Mike Davis' pending resignation went public Feb. 16. That was five weeks ago.

 

Five days ago, Iowa State had a coach. And his name was Wayne Morgan.

 

The biggest loser in Iowa State's schooling of Indiana isn't Indiana, though unless Indiana makes a brilliant hire -- Mike Montgomery or (yes) Thad Matta would do the trick -- the Hoosiers are going to be pretty darned big losers.

 

No, the biggest loser from Tuesday's developments in Ames, Iowa, was the University of Iowa.

 

See, Iowa wanted McDermott too. Had Indiana hired Alford shortly after the Hawkeyes' NCAA Tournament loss to Northwestern State, Iowa would have been all over McDermott. He's been the best coach in that state for years, and anyone who follows basketball there knows it. Iowa athletics director Bob Bowlsby, a former chairman for the NCAA Tournament selection committee, knows it. He's never told me that he knows it, but that's OK. Bowlsby's way too smart a basketball guy not to have realized in about 2004 that McDermott, not Alford, was the right man for the Hawkeyes.

 

Bowlsby will never get to hire McDermott now. Poor Iowa is on Plan B of its coach search, and still doesn't know if it even needs a coach search.

 

Today Iowa is the traffic cone. Iowa State is the Porsche driving circles around it.

 

And then there's Missouri and Indiana. They're still stuck in the garage, surrounded by too many mechanics, too frazzled to fix anything.

 

I like the ISU line there at the end.....

[greasywheels121]

You've seen the IU thread, McDermott wasn't mentioned once in 18 pages. And as I said last night, Doyel knows very little of what he speaks.

[Heads22]

I'm warming to him. Goddamnit.

 

 

 

 

At least our coach isn't Steve Alford......

[Jimbo's Drinker]

I hear Billy Gillespie to IU, i would love that.

[HoosierSox]

Doyel is obviously clueless from this article. Where did he get the idea Indiana is using an outside consulting firm. Maybe Mizzou is but I can guarantee you IU isnt. Greenspan is the one and only guy searching for the head coach at IU not some outside consulting firm.

[Heads22]

Press Conference seemed to have gone well. Sounds like Will Blalock and Tasheed Carr are considering coming back next year.

[Soxbadger]

Okay who wants to bet that even a coachless Indiana would still get better recruits than ISU?

 

That article is some what silly. When you are not even the clear #1 in your state, how can you start saying that a team that has such a basketball history as Indiana will be impacted at all?

 

I guess its just because they are looking for a coach, but last time I checked it wont make that much of a difference if Indiana hires a coach today, tomorrow, or some time in May-June.

 

Wierd article.

[Heads22]

I agree. Indiana could recruit the pants off of ISU right now.

[witesoxfan]

That's a North Dakota siting I see. wo0t

 

He's good to go