Fun Facts: Gardner-Webb vs. Iowa

Basketball season? Really? OK, I guess.

And it starts tonight for Iowa with Gardner-Webb? Really? OK, I guess.

On with the Fun Facts:

1. The Running Bulldogs and Hawkeyes have met just once before, a 65-56 Iowa win in 2012. GWU led 38-18 at halftime and was ahead by as much as 23 points. The comeback was the largest in the Hawkeyes' history.

2. The teams shot a combined 33.9 percent from the field in that game.

3. Gardner-Webb was 20-15 last year. It finished its season with an 87-78 first-round loss in the College Basketball Invitational at Colorado. The crowd for that game was announced as 1,280.

4. Gardner-Webb beat Clemson and Purdue last season.

5. GWU's first home game this season is against Toccoa Falls. Last year, the Bulldogs beat Toccoa Falls, 100-61.

6. Gardner-Webb has never participated in an NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.

7. The Running Bulldogs have players from four continents. Besides the U.S., Austrailia, Benin and France can claim Bulldogs.

8. About two-thirds of Gardner-Webb's 2,688 undergraduate students are females.

9. Gardner-Webb was named for North Carolina Gov. O. Max Gardner and his wife, Fay Webb Gardner.

10. Gardner-Webb is located in Boiling Springs, N.C. There also is a Boiling Springs, S.C., and a Boiling Springs, Pa.

11. Vancouver, B.C. holds an event called Pet-a-Palooza. Last year it featured a Running of the Bulls for English and French bulldogs.