1986 Iowa Hawkeyes Basketball Film
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BJ Armstrong still appears 10 years old here. 
Should have won it all. Fk Unlv.
I'd give anything to feel about Iowa men's basketball today the way I felt about Iowa men's basketball when this was made. I was 14. Let's get us back there BG.
Fit Bruce Pearl, Dr. Tom, Bump, Zabel, Bill 'Clarence' Jones, the Vanilla Gorilla, a Sir Jam-A-Lot cartwheel dunk, Horton, BJ, goldchained-Marble, Les Jepsen pumping iron, and of course Lohaus with the OG broccoli haircut..not to mention the Dire Straits soundtrack. Good Times!
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All time comeback against a great team. My favorite game that season.
Thanks OP ...brings back some awesome memories.
The butthurt from that loss is incredible. They were mirror images of each other. And, UNLVs roster was top notch. Score was close, as were the teams.
The roster might be top notch but we simply choked during the second half. Slow ball, on our part, destroyed the tempo, as did a timid zone defense.
Davis 100% did not sit on the ball vs UNLV.
Not a shred of evidence to support that narrative
Everyone is Overreacting…
….How soon we forget about all these non-conference wins against the likes of: East Texas A&M, Southern, South Dakota, Washington State, Rider, USC Upstate, New Orleans, Utah, and New Hampshire. I mean do we not expect these wins against this elite schedule to pay dividends come March?!?!? 😊🤔
iowa.forums.rivals.com
Not at all.
Have linked a pretty good summation of the footage.
Post #23 in that thread
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Man, I had no idea how good I had it as a little kid discovering Iowa basketball for the first time.
Almost 40 years of frustration and mediocrity since.
Almost 40 years of frustration and mediocrity since.
Some very interesting definitions of "mediocrity" out there.
"Mediocre" is often used as a description for Iowa football. And they are one of five programs in the nation to have won 8+ games in nine straight non-covid seasons. How "mediocre" and "Iowa football" are ever used in the same sentence completely blows mind.
Iowa basketball hasn't been quite as strong as Iowa football lately. But still better than mediocre.
And in the 90's under Davis; far better than mediocre.
On a separate note, I'm not sure people understand how hard it is to even consistently be mediocre. Sure, it isn't the goal and isn't something that should be settled for after a certain amount of time. But it's a lot harder to achieve than people realize.
There are a lot of teams that suck year after year. Just are unable to pull themselves out of the gutter. There are other schools that are good for a couple years and then suck for a few years.
Iowa sports has rarely had to deal with shitty seasons, and Iowa fans should be more thankful for that.
A couple guys on the bracket shows tonight talking about how hard it is to even make the NCAA tournament. And they are exactly right
Dr Tom, a great coach and a great person.
No. This is ALL on Tom Davis.
Vegas was a good team. But there is no way that Iowa team should have been held to just 23 points in the second half.
Then again, we were blessed to see that with Fran coached teams on many occasions this year.
Iowa scored 58 in 1st half
Iowa scored 23 in second half.
Vegas scored 42 in both halves.
Mirror image?
Don't need to read it.
I watched and lived it.
It's an opinion. I'm OK if you disagree with it.
There are opinions and there are informed opinions.
One of us has backed up our opinion with a good deal of information
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No. What you've done is provide a Tom Davis shortcoming.
24 second half shots "due to Vegas switching defenses." Davis couldn't ake proper adjustments.
Don't give me the "they were more athletic and talented" BS. Iowa had 6 future NBA players on that squad.
Perhaps we aren't quite arguing the same topic.
My contention is with what I've most commonly heard over 38 years, that Davis "sat on the ball".
The link provided goes pretty in-depth as to why that isn't true. But really, it's much simpler than that. Again, UNLV had the lead with 10 minutes to go. Never in my life have I seen a team sit on a lead while trailing in the ballgame. And never in my life have I seen a team full-court pressing while trying to sit on a lead. And again, Iowa was full-court pressing the entire time the lead evaporated. There is simply no truth to the narrative that Davis "sat on the ball". I'm also pretty sure I've never seen a team attempt to sit on the ball with 20 minutes to go.
Clearly that narrative has been blown out of the water. Zero truth.
Perhaps it isn't your contention that Davis "sat on the lead", but rather that he got severely out coached. With this, you would at least have a semblance of an argument. But upon examination, it's a pretty weak one.
I never said "Vegas was more athletic and talented". But since you brought it up, Vegas was considered to be the better team. They were ranked #1 for much of the season, were the #1 seed, and were favored in the game.
When the coach of an underdog gives his team a chance to win, it's awfully hard to categorize a loss by that underdog team as an epic coaching failure. In my opinion, that categorization is never applicable in that situation. Davis gave his underdog team a chance to win. In no way could it have possibly been an epic coaching failure.
But I'm sincerely interested to hear why you would say otherwise. To say, after 38 years, that the loss was "ALL on Davis", you must have some pretty extensive reasoning to make such a drastic claim. So far you've only responded to a point that was originated by me, by having said that Davis failed to adjust to UNLV'S adjustment.
In regards to that, I'm also wondering just what you think Davis' adjustment should have been to UNLV having returned to their base straight man D at halftime. If you feel it was a "Davis shortcoming", and there were adjustments to be made, surely you have a couple ideas of how he should have adjusted.
But I won't hold my breath. Because when a team returns to their base D, there isn't much of an adjustment for it's opponent. Iowa's main adjustment was to emphasize the things they had worked on going into the game, as UNLV'S base D is what was expected in the first place.
Iowa mixed in some sets. They tried to exploit some matchups. But essentially, they ran their base continuity man offense vs UNLV's base man D. I'm not sure what other adjustment you are looking for there.
Iowa's continuity man offense was plenty capable and put players in potent and efficient positions. At some point, the players have to outplay the opposition.
At what point was Davis supposed to have scrapped a base offense that had gotten his team to the elite 8, for the purpose of trying to avoid a 3 pt loss?
And again, what was he to have scrapped it for? Interested to hear your suggestions.
Iowa even had two good opportunities at the end. A great set play out of a timeout that wasn't executed. And an open look for Gamble that didn't fall, off the same action that he beat Oklahoma on the last second shot in the previous round.
At what point was Davis severely out coached? I'm guessing not in the 1st half, as Iowa led by 16 at half. I'm guessing not the last few minutes of the game, when Iowa narrowed UNLV'S lead. So you must be speaking of the segment when UNLV came from behind.
I'm not sure what happened in the 1st ten minutes of that 2nd half to warrant an "epic coaching failure" categorization by you 38 years later. To me, it looked during that time, like one of Iowa's best players just wasn't able to get several good looks (literally lay-ups) to go down on an off night. And that Iowa turned the ball over several times in that first 10 minutes of the 2nd half, as a result of UNLV having returned to their comfort zone on D, which was to make their opponent uncomfortable. They had that ability. Give them credit.
Could it be that simply a great team beat Iowa in a close ballgame by 3? I'm not sure what the point spread was. But it was probably something real close to UNLV-3. Could it be that the game went pretty much exactly as expected? Or does it have to be a dramatic narrative 38 years later that Davis "sat on the ball", or Davis "epically failed"?
I get it. It's tough when you're that close to the final four with a really good team. It's tough when you have a good lead that didn't hold up. But it was only a 16 point lead at half. In a fast paced game a 16 point lead can evaporate with a quick run. Which was just how Iowa built its lead. Nothing out of the ordinary. Although I will say, at that time it wasn't quite as ordinary, as it was the first year of the 3pter in college. So I get where fans at that time felt the blown lead to be a little more extreme.
But in the end, the game wasn't at all out of the ordinary. It just hurt bad enough for fans to have made it into something it wasn't
No reasoning then, for your claim that the loss was "ALL on Davis"?
No suggestions for the adjustments he needed to make?
I noticed GoHox has disappeared too
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It was great!
Different world now. If is wasn't in their phone growing up, they ain't interested
That's just silly . . . back up an opinion. LOL What world are you livin' in? Dontcha know all opinions are the same? There are people on both sides. Some say lasers from the moon set California on fire. It's just an opinion. Others say MAGAs are stupid. Just another opinion. "Informed opinions." What a quaint notion.
There absolutely is. Dr Tom is on record admitting as much.
I'd love to hear what he said. Got a link? Sounds an awful lot like a game of telephone.
Because the footage just doesn't support the claim. Again, never in my life have I seen a team sit on a lead without a lead (which was the last ten minutes of the game). And never in my life have I seen a team try to slow the game down while full-court pressing
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If you’re actually a Hawkeye bball fan, you’ve seen the interviews. He’s claimed on multiple occasions that he got scared and coached not to lose, which filtered down to the players. I loved, and still love, Dr Tom and appreciated his willingness to own it.
You’re honestly being contrarian just to be contrarian. It’s kinda your schtick.
Dr. Tom was also brilliant at taking the blame off his players and would sometimes just say things to go along with the media. Part his personality, part his intentionality.
I'd still love to see a link to the exact language in those interviews.
That is a stand up thing to say by him, regardless of context. But again, part of that is Davis being a leader. It doesn't necessarily mean he coached a horrible ballgame.
And the tape doesn't show that he did. His team had the ball, down one, with about 20 seconds to go. He drew up a great play in the timeout that didn't get executed.
Even if Davis coached a little scared at times, and it trickled down to his players, that's a subtle assessment that pretty much only coaches are able to make. It's not worthy of 38 year fan narrative of "epic coaching failure". Who knows, maybe fans have taken the interviews you refer to and run with them?
But again, the main narrative that you hear over the decades is that Davis "sat on the ball", and that overwhelmingly is not true.
Could Davis have infused more confidence into his team? Quite possibly. But if people want to claim it was an "epic coaching failure", that just isn't true.
Again, Iowa had the ball, down one, with like 22 seconds to go. Davis was aggressive enough to have continued to full-court press the whole game. Poor games from some of their better players. Turnovers. Could more confident leadership from Davis have helped his team play better? Yes. But an "epic coaching failure", or "sitting on the ball"? No
Man, I miss those years. Davis may not have been the guy to take us all the way, but he sure was a GREAT man!!!
I used to grab lunch with a buddy and sit up in the nose bleed at Carver, and we’d watch practices. Can that even be done today?
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