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New era at Iowa
Posted: Tuesday November 09, 1999 12:38 PM
The Steve Alford era at Iowa will open Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. But Alford's arrival in the Big Ten apparently is no big deal to his former coach at Indiana, Bob Knight, who declined to talk about Alford during the league's media day last week. Alford was the best player on Knight's 1987 championship team, but the two haven't spoken in almost two years -- even though Alford tried to contact Knight shortly after getting the Iowa job last spring. "I don't know what I've done to strain things," Alford told me, "but I've got to move on." The tension between Alford and Knight will undoubtedly be a topic of conversation on January 18th, when Alford's Hawkeyes visit Indiana. Amaker scores big with recruitsThe early signing period for recruits begins on Wednesday, and a number of young coaches at lesser-known schools will lock up many of the top prospects. Iowa's Alford, Marquette's Tom Crean, Alabama's Mark Gottfried and Missouri's Quin Snyder are all putting together surprisingly strong classes. But no one will do better this week than Seton Hall's Tommy Amaker, who is expected sign four players to letters of intent, including two of the nation's best in New York City point guard Andre Barrett and 6-foot-9 swingman Eddie Griffin from Philadelphia. Some experts rank Griffin as the best player in the country, and all of Amaker's signees are on track to be academically eligible as freshmen. Speeding things upCoaches won't have the held-ball rule to kick around anymore. The rule, which awarded most tie-ups to the defense, was done away with in May by the NCAA's basketball rules committee, which elected to return to the alternating possession arrow. The committee also decided to speed up games by giving each team five 30-second timeouts, only four of which may be taken during the second half. That means fewer breaks for television commercials during the last four minutes. Some referees have also been told to put a clamp on impromptu team huddles around the free-throw line. Those huddles not only slow the game down, they are also sometimes designed to freeze the shooter. Sports Illustrated writer-reporter Seth Davis covers the college basketball beat and appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated.
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