IOWA CITY, Iowa (SNARKY) – Now that Indiana basketball coach Mike Davis is stepping aside at the end of this disappointing season, it's clear who the Hoosiers have in their succession sights: former All-American and alum, Steve Alford.
Alford is currently the coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes who sit atop the Big Ten conference standings with four games left to play. The team, a loose band of second-tier recruits, is on the cusp of their first Big Ten championship since the 1970s.
What a perfect storyline for the Hoosiers' resurrection. The game was perfected at Indiana and a storied history awaits the next coach. Local boy makes good, returns home for the salad days of life. Cue the Hollywood music, right? Wrong.
Steve Alford is not a savior. And he's not exactly new to the messianic expectations being placed upon him, either. Ask any Hawkeye fan about his tenure at Iowa and the verdict is damning.
In his six previous seasons there, the much-heralded coach has exactly two NCAA appearances and two 20-win teams to his credit. His career winning percentage is a pedestrian .570 prior to this season.
But the lowest moment of Alford's stewardship was the Pierre Pierce debacle and the stains that player's actions placed on the Hawkeyes. Pierce is currently serving a two-year sentence for burglary and assaulting his former girlfriend. At the time of those incidents, Pierce had been reinstated to the team by Alford despite ongoing legal entanglements.
So seven years on, the Hawkeye basketball program is rudderless and largely relegated as an "also ran" in the conference, this anomaly of a season notwithstanding. Alford's navigation of the waters put Iowa on the rocks.
It is ironic that there has been a growing chorus calling for Alford's ouster at Iowa to only now realize that he'll be poached and taken back to Indiana. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
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Technorati: Iowa Hawkeyes, Indiana Hoosiers, Steve Alford, Mike Davis, Basketball, Lukateake
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