The Iowa State Cyclones earned a 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will square off with 13th seeded Iona on Thursday in Denver. For Cyclones head coach Steve Prohm, there’s no overlooking a lower seeded team

“I’ve been a 13 seed when at Murray and we beat Vandy, a four seed. I don’t think you can overlook anybody in this tournament. I think our guys are well aware of that.
I put something on the board earlier before we came up here about forget the past, focus on what lies ahead and that’s Iona.”

Prohn expects nothing different from his team in terms of preparation.

“We’ll prepare for them like we’re preparing for Oklahoma or Kansas and our guys attention to detail will be the same like trying to beat Kansas on Big Monday. It’s a great opportunity but you can’t get to the second round until you win the first round.”

According to the head coach, the four seed was about where he expected to be.

“It’s a blessing to be in this tournament, only 36 at large teams. I thought we’d be a 4 or 5 seed. I think the 4 seed just shows that we had 8 top-50 wins, the seventh most in the country, and we played in the number one conference in the country this year and had a lot of really good wins.”

Tipoff on Thursday is scheduled for 1pm.

(Radio Iowa)

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The Hawkeye men are heading to Brooklyn, New York as seventh seed in the Southeast Regional to face tenth seed Temple Friday in the first round of the N-C-A-A Basketball Tournament. Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery knows Temple very well. “Temple is a terrific program, Fran Duffy has built a great program there. He knows what he is doing, he’s been successful for a number of years,” McCaffery says. “He’s a very good friend of mine. I have tremendous respect for him and the job he has done, they’ll challenge us in every way.”

Iowa had a late season skid, but the players say they are together and will be ready to play. McCaffery says that is critical, and he’s not surprised they would say that, especially the seniors. “They’ve been together from the beginning, it’s been an interesting journey. Not just this year — but you go back to when they got here. They were very much a part of building a consistent winner,” McCaffery says. He says the team has battled through a lot this season.

“We’ve had winning streaks, we’ve had losing streakes, but they have remained together. We have stuck with those guys because we know the character that they have, they talent that they have,” McCaffery says. “We just have to make sure in this setting you take care of rebounding, you take care of the basketball, you move the ball. You give your team every chance to win the game.”

The Hawkeyes had been touted at one point as possibly being a high seed and playing in Des Moines, but that fell away with the losing skid, and a first-round loss in the Big 10 Tournament. Seniors Adam Woodbury of Sioux City, says it doesn’t matter where they play. “They could have sent us anywhere, we’ll be ready for the toss,” Woodbury says. The Hawkeyes haven’t played Temple this season, but Woodbury says that doesn’t make a lot of difference either.

“It goes both ways,” Woodbury says, “they are not as familiar with us either. It’s all about just trying to get a grasp of what they do offensively and defensively, and just just trying to get a grasp of their big keys.” Sophomore Dom Uhl is one player who is looking forward to going to New York. It’s where he played high school ball after coming from Germany. “I didn’t hope it would happen, it’s just kind of funny, because I was recruited by Temple too,” Uhl says. He expects it to be a good matchup.

Uhl says Temple is very talented and they will play hard. Iowa finished the season at 21-10 overall and 12-6 in the Big Ten. This is the Hawkeyes third straight N-C-A-A Tournament berth. The game will start at approximately 2:10 p.m.

(Learfield Sports)

The Northern Iowa Panthers are returning to the site of one of their biggest victories in school history, as they earned an 11 seed and a match-up in the N-C-A-A Basketball Tournament against sixth seed Texas Friday in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Panthers upset then top-ranked Kansas in the tournament in Oklahoma City their last time there as they advanced to the Sweet 16. Coach Ben Jacobson says it’s nice to go back.

“You know for some of us, it’s familiar,” Jacobson says, “And I think that’s good. They guys who are playing, they guys who really matter, they have not been there before. For some of us it’s nice to be able to go back there, but we’ve got a different team. Those guys haven’t been there,” Jacobson says. Jacobson says he’s only watched a few of the Longhorn’s games, but knows their coach Shaka Smart well from games against his former V-C-U team.

He says he doesn’t know enough about Smart’s Texas team to know if it is like his teams at V-C-U. Jacobson does like the Friday game over Thursday. “One of the things talking about about it all week and getting asked different questions… if I had my choice, I’d rather play on Friday,” Jacobson says. “You do have the extra day of prep, you have a little more time to make travel plans. It takes a little bit of the anxiety out of it because you’ve got that extra 24 hours to do the stuff on the front end.” He is happy with the 11 seed.

He says he thought they would be a 12 seed and would have been surprised to be a 13 seed, and is”mildly surprised” they are a 12. U-N-I had big wins over North Carolina and Iowa State in the non-conference, but started conference play at 2-6 and were 10-11 overall before going on a late season run and winning the M-V-C Tournament. Jacobson says the team has never stopped playing hard and pushing for a change to get back to the N-C-A-A’s.

“Now we didn’t play very good for two-and-a-half weeks, but even in this last six weeks, we have played like a team that’s got something to prove. So, I think that will absolutely be a part of what we do this week,” according to Jacobson. U-N-I is now 22-12. Texas was 20-12 and 11-7 in the Big 12 where they finished fourth.

(Learfield Sports)

MOLINE, Ill. (AP) — Tyonna Snow recorded her second straight double-double with 17 points and a career-high 15 rebounds and No. 3 seed Missouri State won its 10th Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in 15 trips with a 71-58 victory over top-seeded Northern Iowa on Sunday to advance to the NCAA Tournament.

Missouri State (24-9) won its first title since 2006 — for its 14th appearance in the NCAAs. It was the first time in conference history that a third-seeded team won the championship. Liza Fruendt made three 3-pointers and added 16 points for Missouri State. Snow won the MVP after scoring 52 points and grabbing 34 rebounds in their three tournament wins.

Regular-season MVC champion Northern Iowa (22-10) was led by Madison Weekly with 17 points and Sharnae Lamar’s 16. They were both named to the all-tournament team. The Panthers made just 3 of 19 from distance and were outrebounded 40-22.

VIERA, Fla. (AP) — Max Scherzer had another solid outing and Ryan Zimmerman made his spring training debut as the Washington Nationals and the St. Louis Cardinals played to a 4-4 tie on Sunday. Zimmerman, bothered by plantar fasciitis in his left foot since early last season, singled and drove in a run in his first spring at-bat. Scherzer allowed one run and two hits over four innings. He walked one and hit two batters, but also struck out five.

St. Louis starter Michael Wacha was touched for three first-inning runs and allowed six hits while striking out two. He also was charged with a balk and a wild pitch in his two full innings of work. Jeremy Hazelbaker had two hits, scored twice and drove in a run for the Cardinals. Bryce Harper hit a two-run double off Wacha in the first inning.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Donnie Duncan, a former Oklahoma athletic director and Iowa State football coach, has died at the age of 75. Son-in-law Patrick Reardon says Duncan, who suffered from cancer, died in his sleep Saturday in Dallas. Duncan was on Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma football staff from 1973-78, and he helped the Sooners go 62-6-2.

He went 18-24-2 in four seasons at Iowa State. His 1980 and 1981 Cyclone squads were ranked, and the 1981 Cyclones began 5-1-1 and were ranked as high as No. 11 in The Associated Press poll. Duncan’s squads went 3-1 against Iowa, including three straight wins in 1980, 1981 and 1982.

Duncan was executive director of the Sun Bowl and Gator Bowl before returning to Oklahoma. He was athletic director from 1986-96. He became Big 12 director of football operations when the conference formed in 1996.

The Hawkeye Ten Conference released its All-Conference Boy’s Basketball teams late Friday.

Six players were unanimous selections to the First Team: Ryan Hawkins of Atlantic, Andrew Blum and Nate Mohr of Glenwood, Kyle Juhl of Harlan, Matt Dentlinger of Kuemper Catholic, and Makonn Anderson of Shenandoah.

Atlantic Junior Garrett Franken was also named as a First Team selection and Sophomore Scott Leonard was an Honorable Mention selection.

First Team

Kyle Juhl, SR, Harlan
Andrew Blum, SO, Glenwood
Ryan Hawkins, SR, Atlantic
Nate Mohr, SO, Glenwood
Makonn Anderson, SR, Shenandoah
Matt Dentlinger, JR, Kuemper Catholic
Will Lansman, SR, Harlan
Garrett Franken, JR, Atlantic

Second Team

Caleb Rasmussen, JR, Harlan
Connor Weis, SR, Glenwood
Jake Cerven, SR, Shenandoah
Jacob Schaefer, JR, Kuemper Catholic
Chad Moran, JR, Lewis Central
Blake Elam, JR, Lewis Central
Kylan Smallwood, FR, Creston
Travis Miller, SR, St. Albert

Honorable Mention

Ethan Knudson, SR, Harlan
Jacob Degase, SR, Clarinda
Scott Leonard, SO, Atlantic
Christian Stanislav, FR, Glenwood
Steven Martin, JR, Shenandoah
Parker Badding, SO, Kuemper Catholic
Mitchell Brinkmann, SR, Lewis Central
Cody Crawford, JR, Creston
Jesse Taylor, SR, Red Oak
Weston Rolenc, JR, Red Oak
Nhial Biliew, SR, Denison-Schleswig
Matt Fagan, SO, St. Albert