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Lute Olson

Ah yes, the phantom foul on Kevin Boyle I believe, who was about 10 feet away from the play. Never forget Lute chasing him off the court. Made Fran look mild........o_O
My experience with Jim Bain is almost entirely through attending almost every Bradley home game from 1982 through 1991. Bain did a lot of them. I'm not sure he ever flat out cost Bradley a game, but god it was plainly obvious he was terrible.

It seemed like every call he made was — at best — doubtful. Even my mom hated him.
 
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Jim Bain screwed Iowa more than once, before the league kept him away from Iowa games. The Purdue game that Iowa fans remember most was not the most one-sided game he officiated. It just had a bizarre ending to the game with a player getting called for a foul, when he wasn't anywhere near the player who was supposed to have been fouled.
 
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Lute indeed did have some head scratchers in the NCAA - but as I recall, they didn't exactly get a fair shake a couple of those years with bracket assignments.

Wichita State was a home game for them in the "Roundhouse" if I recall correct. The Idaho loss was in Pullman, Washington - which is something like 10 miles from where Idaho's campus is located.

I seem to recall both games were rather...oddly officiated. The Wichita State game was a raucous atmosphere, incredibly loud. I seem to recall WSU shooting an awful lot more FT's than Iowa did. WSU also had a couple NBA players on their team and I believe Cliff Levingston was a beast for them.

Idaho I believe, Iowa had a bunch of players foul out and had to use the last guy off the bench (Jerry Dennard) rather significantly and he played very well considering. I seem to remember Idaho didn't substitute at all and considering half of Iowa fouled out and Idaho didn't...head scratcher.
Good memory.
 
I thought Lute's teams sometimes seemed to run out of gas around mid-February. As far as early NCAA exits go, we had an 18 point lead on Toledo the year before the Final 4 run and still lost the game. That plus WSU and Idaho got really frustrating.

And I hated the 4-corners, but as a game coach I think he was much better than anyone we've had since. He was a believer in controlling tempo - slowing teams down that wanted to play fast, and speeding teams up that wanted to play slow.

A lot of people thought Raveling was an odd follow-on to Lute, and the natives were getting restless by his third year of perceived under-performance. I think he realized he wasn't a good fit for the job, and so decided to leave on his own terms.
 
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As someone previously posted the Mt. Rushmore of
Iowa Basketball Coaches would be Bucky O'Connor,
Ralph Miller, and Lute Olson. The fourth spot is still
to be determined at a later date. The 21st century has
some time left to welcome another great coach.
 
The local HS coach is a conservative, half-court guy. They have a play they call 'Iowa' which is the 4 corners. Usually run it with under a minute left in the quarter. I've seen them run it when behind :)
 
Don’t forget Kenny Arnold being literally pushed out of bounds with the ball in the closing seconds and Purdue being awarded the ball, that non call was actually more egregious than the “phantom” foul call.
 
Is it blasphemy if people claim the foul was actually on Gannon and that Bain just got the wrong guy on the call?
 
This is a great walk down memory lane. Lots of great stuff.

The thing I remember most, is what a big deal Iowa basketball was then. Football was awful, so basketball was king.

It seemed like every game was pressure packed. Lute became very thinned skinned with the media, the officials, the players, the fans .... ordinary games turned into pressure cookers, especially when Lute would roll out the 4 corners.

Without looking it up, it seemed like Lute's team underperformed late in the season and post-season, almost like they were worn down by the pressure.

Great coach. Good man. But, he did need a fresh start.
 
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This is a great walk down memory lane. Lots of great stuff.

The thing I remember most, is what a big deal Iowa basketball was then. Football was awful, so basketball was king.

It seemed like every game was pressure packed. Lute became very thinned skinned with the media, the officials, the players, the fans .... ordinary games turned into pressure cookers, especially when Lute would roll out the 4 corners.

Without looking it up, it seemed like Lute's team underperformed late in the season and post-season, almost like they were worn down by the pressure.

Great coach. Good man. But, he did need a fresh start.

Football was awful? Lutes first couple of years.
 
Lute indeed did have some head scratchers in the NCAA - but as I recall, they didn't exactly get a fair shake a couple of those years with bracket assignments.

Wichita State was a home game for them in the "Roundhouse" if I recall correct. The Idaho loss was in Pullman, Washington - which is something like 10 miles from where Idaho's campus is located.

I seem to recall both games were rather...oddly officiated. The Wichita State game was a raucous atmosphere, incredibly loud. I seem to recall WSU shooting an awful lot more FT's than Iowa did. WSU also had a couple NBA players on their team and I believe Cliff Levingston was a beast for them.

Idaho I believe, Iowa had a bunch of players foul out and had to use the last guy off the bench (Jerry Dennard) rather significantly and he played very well considering. I seem to remember Idaho didn't substitute at all and considering half of Iowa fouled out and Idaho didn't...head scratcher.
Brian Kellerman, I believe, hit the jumper for Idaho that knocked us out that year. And Dennard had a great game as I recall.
 
I didn't know Lute was responsible for the funeral parlor currently know as CHA.
It will never happen but I wish they would fill CHA with cement and build a normal arena like Hilton or Rutgers or well almost anything else.
 
Lute indeed did have some head scratchers in the NCAA - but as I recall, they didn't exactly get a fair shake a couple of those years with bracket assignments.

Wichita State was a home game for them in the "Roundhouse" if I recall correct. The Idaho loss was in Pullman, Washington - which is something like 10 miles from where Idaho's campus is located.

I seem to recall both games were rather...oddly officiated. The Wichita State game was a raucous atmosphere, incredibly loud. I seem to recall WSU shooting an awful lot more FT's than Iowa did. WSU also had a couple NBA players on their team and I believe Cliff Levingston was a beast for them.

Idaho I believe, Iowa had a bunch of players foul out and had to use the last guy off the bench (Jerry Dennard) rather significantly and he played very well considering. I seem to remember Idaho didn't substitute at all and considering half of Iowa fouled out and Idaho didn't...head scratcher.

We also lost to Toledo in what was nearly a home game for them as well since it was at Bloomington and all the Hoosiers hated Iowa and especially Lute. Toledo's tallest player was 6'7" Harvey Knuckles.

Even in '87 when we spent part of the season as the # 1 team in the country, we got assigned to the West Regional where we were all aligned to play Lute's # 10 seed Arizona at the McHale Center in Tuscon but Lute choked off a late lead to UTEP and we missed another home court disadvantage to a lower seeded team....I was there for those two games.

When we went to the final four it seemed all of our games were home court advantage for our opponents. VCU and NC State @ Greensboro NC and Syracuse and Georgetown in Philadelphia.....
 
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Yes, Lute was the main guy responsible for Carver. Iowa generally trails the rest of the B10 in facilities, and despite the nostalgia, the Fieldhouse was a terrible place to watch a basketball game if you got stuck behind a post. I went to several games there and never once had a seat where I could see both baskets. Plus it became way too small when Lute's teams started having success so it was beyond time for a new arena. This being the early 80's, the only way it was going to get built was if it were a multipurpose design. So for better or worse, it was never optimized for basketball, plus it was built to also be the practice floor for MBB, WBB and VB. It was also built to be energy efficient, and it actually won some architectural awards when it was new.

However, in order to encourage donations, the return promise was seats close to the floor. People with money to donate to things like this tend to be older and less rowdy, and that's really the core of the problem, not so much the building design. It *can* get loud on occasion, but the crowd quiets right down as soon as one bad thing happens, and that isn't the building's fault.

I did think that when the decision was made to do the renovation that they would figure out a way to put in skyboxes along the concourse. That would get the donors out of the way, and remove the need for them to get up and down the stairs. But the other thing is, would many students come even if they could sit close?

And though there are things to be said for a more conventional design like Hilton, anyone who's been in the nose-bleed seats there know its' a looooong ways down to the court.
 
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My experience with Jim Bain is almost entirely through attending almost every Bradley home game from 1982 through 1991. Bain did a lot of them. I'm not sure he ever flat out cost Bradley a game, but god it was plainly obvious he was terrible.

It seemed like every call he made was — at best — doubtful. Even my mom hated him.
Bain's signature move was to come running in from way out of position, blowing his whistle wildly and making a call when another ref was five feet away. He was TV Ted before before Valentine.

He also had his own plane and often scheduled two games on the same day. A lot of us thought he couldn't let the Purdue-Iowa game go to overtime or he would have been late for his next game. Wrinkled piece of dog poo.
 
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Is it blasphemy if people claim the foul was actually on Gannon and that Bain just got the wrong guy on the call?
Could have been but the point is that Bain was way out of position to make either call. Kind of what he did.
 
OK, one more Jim Bain thing and then I'll quit. I found this excerpt from John Feinstein's book "A Season Inside" talking about a game at Mackey between Purdue and Ohio State.

"Williams keeps his team in the game. It isn't easy, though. Early in the first half he gets nailed for a technical by referee Jim Bain while arguing a call that Bain has clearly botched. This is a Bain tradition. When he blows a call and a coach argues, he often reinforces his error by calling a technical. No one in basketball is quite sure how Bain keeps getting top assignments, but he does. He will work a regional final in the NCAA Tournament in March."

Pretty much everybody despised Jim Bain. It was well known that if you were playing Purdue, Indiana or Notre Dame and Bain was working the game, you were screwed before the opening tip. The fact is he had screwed Iowa a lot worse a week or so before the Purdue flap in a game against Indiana. Not a lot was made of it because Indiana was winning by a huge margin with Bain or without him. But it was part of his pattern.
 
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