Two Decades and Counting: Ch 7
Seven
Missouri-St. Louis: Iowa Record (3–0)
Winning is great. The moments after finishing on top of a tournament are amazing. Roy and his teammates celebrated with the silver plate at center court. The press snapped photos, and nobody held back their joy.
The plane left Anchorage at 4 a.m., and everyone was still riding the post game adrenaline rush. It made sleep difficult, and Roy didn’t try to fight it. These were the times that he wanted to remember. Eventually, though, the adrenaline was gone, and three days of leaving it all on the court caught up with the young men on the plane. Some slept, others listened to their Walkmans, and Roy relaxed and let the weekend go.
A couple of the guys were talking about how Louisville had lost their first three games of the season, which had to be a record for a defending national champion. It made Roy think about taking teams for granted. The feeling of victory was too precious to squander with overconfidence. History was filled with great upsets and nobody ever questioned whether the vanquished favorites had let their guard down. That didn’t make a good story. The Iowa Hawkeyes would now be the Goliaths, at which, the nation’s Davids would be slinging their best games. Roy wasn’t sure if he liked the analogy, as they were surely the good guys, but it was true nonetheless. They would be the prize for each team they met. He knew because that was how he felt playing NC State.
With success comes weight. It is added with each game, each triumph, and every step toward March. The coaches will try to tell them that the next game is all that matters, and they are right, but a streak is never silent. It whispers in your ear and tries to distract you. Each game the fans cheer a little bit louder. Clad in black and gold, they are wishing you well, but they are also asking for more with every win.
The papers write stories, but Roy doesn’t read them. He never has and never will. Still, the fans do, and then there are the questions from reporters. They read each other’s articles and when someone like Marc Hansen from the Des Moines Register writes, “Marble … picked up where he left off in his splendid freshman season. Because of his acrobatic style of play and his size, he is sometimes compared with Michael Jordan.” It leads to other questions and comparisons. How does one answer such questions? How does one jump a bar set in the stratosphere? Roy puts it out of his mind. He knows that there is only one Michael Jordan.
The campus has been abuzz, and Roy is glad it is Wednesday. Today the season continues with a matchup against Division II Missouri-St. Louis. He is ready for the story to change.
Dr. Tom Davis knows that overconfidence can sneak up and bite a team. In discussing the relative young Hawkeyes, Rick Brown quotes Dr. Davis in his December 3 article: “Going into the season, the point guard was a big question mark for us, but B.J. stepped in and erased it. He’s very calm and collected; he doesn’t get rattled or upset. He accepts criticism and just listens. He nods his head and does his best. Inside maybe he’s churning, but he doesn’t let on to the teammates or the coaches that things bother him. That’s nice for a leader to exude that kind of confidence.”
Before his first game as new coach, the friendly folks in the stands at Carver Hawkeye—all 15,341 of them—sang Coach Davis a rousing “Happy Birthday.” He had turned forty-eight, and it didn’t look like his players were going to make it a day to remember once the game began.
It is one thing to know that overconfidence can affect play; it is another to prevent it. The Hawkeyes started the game off with 5 turnovers in the first 3½ minutes. In their previous game, the finals, they had shot 69.8 percent from the field but only managed 43.2 percent in the first half. It seemed that they were on course to ruin their head coach’s 48th birthday, but then they settled down. Coach Davis said after the game, “Our offense didn’t go real well, but it didn’t stop us from playing defense. It was a real good win for us because we were coming off an emotional high, yet we played hard. That was very pleasing to me.” The 89–64 win brought the number five-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes to 4–0 on the season.
On Friday they would face Delaware (2–0) in the Amana-Hawkeye Classic. A lot of schools host tournaments early in the season and generally invite teams they feel will not provide too much of a test. This isn’t always the case, though. Iowa had finished third in their own tournament the previous year because of a first-round loss to a very good Arkansas State team. The current year’s tournament also included Loyola Marymount and Washington State, who had finished fifth in the Pac-10 the previous year. If Iowa wanted to continue its unbeaten streak, it would need to continue its solid defense and improve on the lackluster shooting from Wednesday night.
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When Roy was getting recruited, he had a lot of choices. It was a tough decision, and everyone around him had an opinion. Georgetown, under legendary coach John Thompson, went 35–3, were located in the nation’s capital, and played in the Big East Conference. Michigan was an obvious choice, and a lot of people in Flint would have loved to have seen him stay near home. Marquette and DePaul were also in his top five. But it was one single moment that made Roy’s decision to come to Iowa. George Raveling was an amazing recruiter. Coach Raveling had a recording of Jim Zabel, the well-known announcer, calling a game against Indiana when time was running down. Zabel said, “The ball goes to Marble and he hits the game winning shot.” He played it for Roy. Hearing the sound of the crowd going crazy and his own name associated with the triumph, Roy was hooked. Iowa City would be his new home.
