Originally posted by The Sleeping Dog:
Iowa needs size, and we need it badly.
What does a wave of 6'8" guys look like? A wave hitting a 6'10" sea wall.
Hawks haven't won with a center under 6'9" since 88. 89, starting center 7'0" Les Jepsen, with 6'8" Ed Horton and 6'10" Matt Bullard as forwards. 91-93, 6'11" Acie Earl with 6'9" Chris Street and 6'8" Russ Marble, 95 and 97, 6'9" 10 year NBA career Ryan Bowen, with some Russ Millard and Jess Settles at forward. 99-6'10" Guy V Rucker; 2001 6'11" Jared Reiner, 05 & 06 6'11/7' Erek Hansen, 14 & 15 7'1" Adam Woodbury backed by 6'10" Gabe Olaseni.
Even the 88 team played a ffreak line up with Kent Hill (who was a Charles Barkley kind of body-a young Charles Barkley) and 6'8" 250 pounder Al Lorenzen as centers...with a healthy dose of Ed Horton on the low blocks.
in 1985 Ravelling has Stokes 6-10, Payne 6-9, Lorenzen 6-8 Lohaus 7-3; Wright 6-8---and struggled to finish 5th in the BT...& lost in the 1st round of the NCAA. The next year, adding Horton 6-8 & Les Jepsen 7"---and high'flying 6-7 Bill Jones,. while losing Stokes & Payne, he again finished only 5th, again lost in the 1st round. In short, having 2 or 3 guys over 6-9 is no guarantee. (Do I need to point out that Raveling's last Iowa team would have towered over the 2014 Michigan BT champions or the 2015 Wisky winners?)
In 1987 Tom Davis inherited all five of the big guys---and won. Maybe, just maybe, in made a difference that he added a couple of lightweight guards in BJ Armstrong & Kevin Gamble.
The 1988 (24-10, 3rd) Hawkeyes had Bullard, Jepsen, Horton, Lorenzen, and tough, wide-bodied 6-7 Kent Hill---too small? or just too short? 1n 1989 (23-10) they still had Horton, Jepsen, Bullard---guess being too short exlains why they had that extra loss over the year before.
In 1990 (12-16) we got taller...& worse (still had Jepsen & Bullard, added 6-9 Mike Ingram & 6-11 Acie Earl---only won 4 BT games, just too tall & awkward I suppose. In 1991 we lost 3 big guys in Jepsen, Bullarfd & Ingram. Naturally, disaster was the result; lucky bounces, thought, allowed us to win six games more in the BT, finish 5th. The next two years with Earl still on hand, with no one else above 6-8, we still won. Then in Jan 1993 Chris Street was killed, our only player besides Senior Earl, So we won with two guys 6-5 & two 6-2.
Size didn't seem to matter all that much, as we were dwarfed by out BT opponents.
From 1994 until 1999, Tom Davis last year, Iowa never had a starting center taller than 6-8; they didn't his last year either, but Davis moved 6-9 F JR Koch to center to compensate for the graduation of Ryan Bowen, even though that meant moving undersized Senior walk-on Jason Bauer in as the starting SF. But he did have academically-challenged 6-9 Guy Rucker on the bench, with Koch sliding backover to his F position. Rucker was dropped before his senior year, which was Alford's first.
Alford began his career with an underwized, under-talented team in 2001, but the 2002 team saw Luke Recker transfer in, and a 6-8 All-American juco, Reggie Evans, join a still-smallish team that still went only 7-9 in the BT. Andf ther botton fell out--as it would regularly for Alford from then on. The nerx year he had a Center over 6-8 in 7' Jared Reiner---and they fell to 5-11 in BT play. Reiner lost his starting job, and Alford went with a 3-guard lineup freshman PG Horner & "center" PF Greg Brunner. The next three two years, as the troika of Horner-Haluska-Brunner, with solid play from 3rd guard Mike Henderson in a 4/5s Iowa lineup, brought 9-7.7-9 & 11-5 records (Alford's only finish as high as 2nd place). But Alford did start the only 6=9 or taller post in his time at Iowa, other than Jared Reiner, in a skinny juco from Texas--who could block shots--though most of the playing time went to another juco in 6=7 Doug Thomas ---who coud rebound
In 1987 Tom Davis inherited all five of the big guys....and won. Maybe3, just maybe, it made a difference adding a couple of lightweight guards in BJ Armstrong & Kevin Gamble...as well as Davis in charge.
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(I guess you could credit Alford with another 6=9+ center or two, depending upon which one you want to admit once started for Iowa: kurt Looby & Seth Gorney (if you really think size is the key to winning basketball, please note that Alford's last team was perhaps the tallest 8-man rotation in the 100 + years of Hawkeye basketball.
Lickliter probably was happy to inherit Looby & Gorney; he wasn't able to find anyone over 6-6 who could play hoops...and only Gatens, May, Fuller & Kelly smaller...and only the rist two (Iowans) stayed around. Lick's biggest disappointment was when he was told his son was not 6-9, but only 5-9.
Hope the history lesson on Hawkeye hoops was worth the effort.
