For the first time since 1999, former IU All-American Steve Alford won’t lead the Iowa Hawkeyes into Assembly Hall to face the IU men’s basketball team. \nAlford, who led IU to its fifth and most recent National Championship in 1987, coached the Hawkeyes from 1999-2007 and left after last season when he accepted a job at New Mexico. \nAlford said he always enjoyed his trips back to Bloomington, and that might be because Alford found moderate success as a coach against his former team. He was only 2-6 in all his trips to Assembly Hall, but those two wins came within his last three years at Iowa. Overall, he was 8-6 against the Hoosiers, including two wins in Big Ten Tournament play.\nBut the man replacing Alford on the bench is familiar with the Hoosiers, too.\nTodd Lickliter, like Alford, is a native Hoosier. Lickliter graduated from the same high school (North Central, Indianapolis) as current IU star freshman Eric Gordon. Lickliter coached at Butler from 2001-2007.\nAlford and Lickliter have more in common than that, though. Alford handed IU its most recent home loss when the Hawkeyes topped IU 70-67 in 2006. Lickliter handed Sampson his first loss as Hoosier coach when Butler knocked IU out of the Preseason NIT with a 60-55 win last year at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
What goes around \ncomes around\nTonight’s game is the first rematch of the season for the No. 7 Hoosiers. The two squads met on Jan. 2 in Iowa City when IU survived a late flurry of 3-pointers to beat the Hawkeyes 79-76.\nThe Hoosiers have more than two weeks until their second rematch of the year, a trip to Champaign, Ill., to face the Illini.\nDue to the expanded 18-game Big Ten schedule, the Hoosiers have a home-and-home series with eight-of-10 teams in the Big Ten, the two left out being Michigan and Purdue. In years past, Big Ten teams had a home-and-home series with just six conference rivals.\nIt will be Lickliter’s first rematch as a Big Ten coach, and during a teleconference with reporters Monday, he said the second game against IU approached quickly.\n“We’re returning a game already, so that’s interesting,” Lickliter said. “It hasn’t been that long ago.”
Learning from past \nmistakes\nIn the last matchup between IU and Iowa, the Hoosiers had a 13-point lead with 2:10 remaining in the game. That’s when Iowa’s senior guard Justin Johnson unloaded and hit six 3-pointers in the waning moments to bring the Hawkeyes as close as two points with four seconds left.\n“It was a three-point game, but it wasn’t near that close,” Lickliter said. “We were able to shoot some threes at the end.”\nJohnson converted one 3-pointer into a 4-point play after he was fouled by IU senior guard A.J. Ratliff. Another of his 3-pointers came from near the half-court line.\n“Well, believe it or not, we looked at all six of those shots,” Sampson said during the teleconference. “I don’t know what you say. You pat the kid on the back and say those were great shots.”
