Another title-less year for Hawkeye sports

Major-college athletics is an expensive endeavor, but at least the University of Iowa isn't burdened with the cost of championship banners.

Iowa is without a Big Ten-champion for the third-straight school year. In anything.

That covers 12 women's and 10 men's sports. That covers regular-seasons and conference tournaments.

First, a disclaimer: Iowa was atop the Big Ten standings in wrestling dual meets this year and last. But the conference doesn't count that as an official league championship.

And, you know darn well Iowa's wrestling program doesn't count it.

So, the 2011 Iowa outdoor men's track and field team remains the last Hawkeye squad to earn one of those league banners.

Oh, there were a couple of near-titles close calls in 2013-14. The fifth-seeded Haweyes field hockey team reached the finals of the league tourney and led Michigan State 2-0 at halftime of the final before losing, 3-2.

And the seventh-seeded women's soccer squad upset the second- and third-seeds at the Big Ten tournament before losing 1-0 to top-seed Nebraska in the final. Iowa's program just got a new head coach, Dave Dilanni, who has a career college record of 221-18-18 and three NCAA Division II titles.

Iowa's men's golf team was a strong third at this month's Big Ten Championships, with only eight strokes separated it from champion Minnesota.

Also, the Hawkeyes were second in the league's wrestling championships, the football team tied for the fourth-best record in league play, and both basketball teams finished in the first-division of the Big Ten standings.

Those are your highlights. It's not enough to string together for an hourlong retrospective on the Big Ten Network, is it?

Meanwhile, Penn State had six championship teams of one form or another this school year, while Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota and Nebraska all had five. Illinois and Purdue shared the goose egg with Iowa.

Over the last three years, Penn State has 18 Big Ten regular-season or tournament titles. Michigan has 15. Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State and Wisconsin have 10, Minnesota 8, Indiana and Northwestern 7, Illinois and Purdue 6.

Financially, Iowa's athletic program isn't sitting at the table next to the kitchen. It's almost squarely in the middle of the Big Ten when it comes to athletic budgets, though it lags well behind Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Yet, Iowa appears headed for a third-straight 12th-place finish among the 12 current Big Ten schools in the Learfield Sports' Directors Cup standings, a measure of results in NCAA championships.

But what does all this really, really mean? When the cross country or volleyball or gymnastics or tennis teams aren't winning, it goes largely unnoticed. There's a reason why nonrevenue sports are nonrevenue.

The reality, of course, is that winning in football and/or men's basketball is what feeds the bulldog and keeps the hounds off the athletic director's back. One Rose Bowl trip would shake a lot more green off the money trees than a sweep of all the nonrevenue sports.

Michigan State is the reigning Rose Bowl winner, and won the Big Ten's men's basketball league tourney two months ago.

If 'It's Great to Be a Hawkeye” as so many bumper stickers in the state insist, how good is it to be a Spartan?

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@sourcemedia.net