20 years ago Iowa wins 4 Games in 4 Days to win B1G Tournament
- Thread starter Franisdaman
- Start date
My first year at Iowa. Am I dreaming or was The Hawks' Nest assigned seating. I swear my roommate and I sat in the 3rd row on the end for every game.
That championship game had the BTT title game attendance record for a long time; might still hold it...
What a great weekend that was.
What good memories as a Hawkeye bball fan.
I remember trying to punch a hole in my living room ceiling when I jumped & fisted the air in jubilation when the Hawks beat IU to win the BTT.
What good memories as a Hawkeye bball fan.
I remember trying to punch a hole in my living room ceiling when I jumped & fisted the air in jubilation when the Hawks beat IU to win the BTT.
I was there. Can't believe it's been twenty years. Wow.
I remember this very well! I was living in West Des Moines at the time and a group of my buddies and I were watching the games at the local bars. Good times!
Fabulous four days in Hawkeye basketball history. I was so surprised when we won the third game and got up the next morning thinking we could win the whole thing. Sweet memories!
I had student season tickets that year!
that team is was fun to watch and it injuries hasn’t plagued them they had a decent chance to contend for a B1G title that year
that team is was fun to watch and it injuries hasn’t plagued them they had a decent chance to contend for a B1G title that year
I was in the pep band that season, I’m in the background of the video several times, and in Chicago playing for the games. Such an amazing experience. The bracket set up perfectly for us as the 6 seed, we played the lowest possible seed every round and played in the late games the first few nights. Saturday was awesome as right after the game we got piled onto a bus and driven down to the ballroom at the end of Navy Pier for a Big Ten pep rally which was a cool experience. Also, we had the Hawkeye huddle before one of the games in a bar not far from the United Center. Some alum was talking to a few of us while we were outside the bar waiting. He pulled out a hundred and told us to make sure we all have a good time partying at the hotel tonight.
The championship game was awesome. Duez missed the free throw but Reggie had the block at the end to seal the win. The team cut down the net and headed into the locker room after the trophies and celebration. But Alford came over to us and the cheerleaders and thanked us for all of the support throughout the tournament, saying we made a huge impact being so loud cheering during the game. To thank us he let us cut down the other net. I still have a piece of it 20 years later.
This was back before Alford had completely ruined his reputation and was a pretty dang nice gesture that not many other coaches would have done. That is mine of the few good things I will always give him credit for.
Also in 2001, Bluder wins the BTT with her first Iowa team that had a bunch of talent in it, including the person that will hopefully be our next coach some day.
The championship game was awesome. Duez missed the free throw but Reggie had the block at the end to seal the win. The team cut down the net and headed into the locker room after the trophies and celebration. But Alford came over to us and the cheerleaders and thanked us for all of the support throughout the tournament, saying we made a huge impact being so loud cheering during the game. To thank us he let us cut down the other net. I still have a piece of it 20 years later.
This was back before Alford had completely ruined his reputation and was a pretty dang nice gesture that not many other coaches would have done. That is mine of the few good things I will always give him credit for.
Also in 2001, Bluder wins the BTT with her first Iowa team that had a bunch of talent in it, including the person that will hopefully be our next coach some day.
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Had a contractor approach me on the Monday of the BTT week. He had all session tickets. I could only use the first day due to another family obligation. Grabbed a co-worker and we road tripped to Chicago for a day of Big Ten Basketball. Our assigned seats were just about the last row of the stadium, but there were few people there. We worked our way down and sat about 10 rows from the court for all of the games that day. Iowa played the final game on that day and beat Northwestern. It was a sweet ride home!
A
anon_b29nm7v7dwp6r
Guest
I believe Iowa/Indiana (22,081) held it until the 2005 Illini unsurprisingly broke those records when they surpassed it in each of their three BTT games at the United Center, with the highest getting to 23,697.
2001 was the first NCAA season I really remember, and I definitely remember that run by Iowa!
Thanks for sharing. I really like to hear what 'insiders' experienced. That was a great moment in Hawkeye BB. Too bad that Alford was such a douche. Yours is one of the very few positive experiences with him that I have heard.
Man some how I forgot how big of a douschebag Jon Buetjer was.
LOL. The only thing Glen Worley was known for was you could guarantee he'd have 2 fouls before the first TV timeout.
He was the most foul prone Iowa player I can remember. He couldn't resist getting his hands caught in the cookie jar.
As for the season that was the most disappointment Iowa fans lived through in a season. Such high expectations through January, then injury to Recker and the collapse. The 4 wins in 4 days had to be the most improbable outcome that any Iowa fan could imagine.
If Alford did anything at Iowa in his 7 years at least this team was able to pull off the unexpected and Iowa still stands today as the only team in the BIG to win 4 games in 4 days....
I actually think the following season when Recker and Evans were seniors was one of if not the most disappointing season if sometime for Iowa bball in a long time. Top 10 pre season and not even a bubble team by the end of the year when they almost pulled of another shocker before losing to OSU in Big 10 title game as an 8 seed I believe.
Also with 4 games in 4 days I think Michigan pulled it off few years back when they were the 8 or 9 seed. The year their plane went off runway before the tourney when they played first game in practice unis.
You're right, I forgot that...not only did they win 4 games in 4 days to win the Big Ten Championship but they won another 5 games to get to the Final Four Championship game against Villanova and although Villanova won that game it was a great story.... Beilein was a great coach....love his analysis and insight on the BTN network.
Pre-season to the 2001-2002 season was electric on campus. It looked like Football was getting back to mediocrity by winning enough games for a bowl invite. But we had a pre-season top 10 basketball team. CHA was almost sold out on the whole season. And we had the largest student section in the country that season, in terms of tickets sold. We had Luke Recker and Reggie Evans that both had All-American potential. Our non-con schedule had a stretch that was insane that year after the first few patsies. In the span of 8 days we played #12 Memphis, #5 Missouri, #1 Duke. And then we played Missouri again later when they were #2. A loss to UNI sucked, but we only dropped to #15. Then the calendar year flipped and it was all over until the BTT.
Two NBA players on that team in Reggie and Jared. Luke probably should have been an NBA player if he'd had his head on straight and avoided the injury and Pierre probably should have been an NBA player if he wasn't crazy. It just makes you wonder what that team could have accomplished if they had a coach that could have kept egos controlled and had the team working together. The other thing is that not having a true PG really hurt them. If Deano had one more season I think his leadership could have kept the team on track and pushed them into the Sweet Sixteen or better.
Little did we know what the football team was going to do the next three seasons compared to the expectations of the basketball team in the lead up to that season.
Michigan '17.
1 or 2 seed has won every BTT except 6 times - Michigan (#4 '98, #8 '17, #5 '18), Iowa (#6 '01), Purdue (#3 '09), & Michigan St (#3 '14).
Several others got to the championship game with 3 straight wins but fell short in the final (Illinois #11 '99, #10 '08), Iowa (#9 '02), Ohio St (#8 '03), Minnesota (#6 '10), & Penn St (#6 '11).
Since the current format began in '15, no Wednesday team (#11-14) has reached the Finals or even the Semi-Finals, although 4 have reached the Quarterfinals (2 of them courtesy of the Hawkeyes
).
Thanks for the info. That's interesting. I don't think the BTT Final has drawn more than 18k+ any other years. Do you mind sharing your source? I'd like to read more about BTT attendance history.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
Had to look up the Iowa/Indiana number in an old box score, but the 2005 Illini numbers are on the Wikipedia page for that squad.
Issue that year was alford not having a real good offense and trying to run things thru evans.
He had bad hands and a bad passer.
If alford had told him the only way he’d touch the ball was if he got a rebound (like the tourney win) they had final 4 potential.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
its pretty sad that its been 15 years since we advanced to a Saturday semi-final
Yep. They came into '01-'02 with experience, talent, and momentum from this. But it ended up being a big, fat nothing burger 🍔.
