Plenty of gripes on ugly night

Pretty much all of Tuesday night's 73-60 loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes pissed me off. \nIowa scored the game's first seven points and it was all downhill from there. \nEarly in the second half, IU coach Mike Davis was obviously disappointed with the effort of his team and went with a lineup loaded with back-ups. The group of bench-buddies, including Errek Suhr, Earl Calloway and Sean Kline, played hard and tried to bring the Hoosiers back to no avail. \nDavis was clearly trying to send a message to Marco Killingsworth, who has had a tough time on the defensive end this year. \nThe officials didn't help matters either, as Ed Hightower and his crew seem to always call touch fouls on the Hoosiers and allow Killingsworth and the other IU post players to get mauled. Tuesday night, they called 26 personal fouls on IU while only hanging Iowa with 10. A 16-foul difference is ridiculous and if you believe that the Hawkeyes simply played that much cleaner than the Hoosiers, you need to have your head examined. Davis obviously felt the officiating was horrible as he verbally sparred with Hightower all night, eventually receiving a technical foul in the second half. As most people know, the Big Ten has the worst officials in the country, in basketball as well as football. Big Ten officiating is the reason we now have instant replay in college football, because there were so many instances in which they blew calls that we needed to add a system to constantly correct their mistakes. Who can forget Joe Paterno sprinting off the field to almost tackle an officiating crew, just to give them a piece of his mind? The basketball officials in the Big Ten own a similar tradition of excellence. \nHowever, that's not an excuse for the loss, as the Hoosiers simply did not play tough on the road. Killingsworth always plays hard, but sometimes makes bad mistakes, like not being strong with the ball in the post, or making stupid passes when he gets double-teamed. Marco simply needs to work on being stronger with the ball and where to look when he gets pressured. \nThe Hoosiers were bothered all night by Iowa senior center Erek Hansen. The gangly 7-footer altered shots all night and ended up with 11 points. I know he had a nice game, but Hansen really needs to gain some weight. It has become intervention time -- how do his friends and family allow this to go on? He looks like a skeleton wrapped in wax paper. I mean, he's so skinny Mary-Kate Olsen is making fun of him. And I had to watch that guy alter the way our Hoosiers played. \n And since when does Steve Lavin know anything about basketball? This is a guy who couldn't win at UCLA with a team loaded with high school All-Americans, and suddenly he's qualified to be an analyst? \nAlso, I've got a few problems with Iowa fans. The "Marco-Polo" chant? You're college students; you can't be more creative than that? And since when is it OK to rush the floor after winning a game you were favored to win? Are the expectations for your basketball team really that low?\nOh well, guess that's what you get for going to a "safety school"