Fun Facts: Davidson-Iowa

Wouldn't it be wild if the founder of Davidson College were named Harley Davidson?

But it isn't. It's named after Brigadier General William Lee Davidson, who never once drove a motorcycle. So that isn't a Fun Fact about Friday's Davidson-Iowa NCAA tournament basketball game. These are:

1. The only meeting between Iowa and Davidson was in February 1969. Iowa won, 76-61, in Chicago. The Wildcats were ranked fourth in the nation. Here's the first paragraph of the Chicago Tribune's story about the game:

Tiny Davidson college, a sort of geographical giant in the world of collegiate basketball, was chopped down by the furious pursuit of the Iowa Hawkeyes in Chicago Stadium last night.

2. It's Iowa's third NCAA tourney appearance in Seattle. The Hawkeyes beat Oklahoma in the 1987 West Region semifinals and then lost to UNLV. The following year, they lost to Arizona in the West semis. All games were at the now-gone Kingdome.

3. The last time Iowa won a game in the Pacific time zone was a 75-73 triumph over Kansas State in Las Vegas in 2008.

4. This was Davidson's first season in the Atlantic 10 Conference, and it won the regular-season title.

5. Davidson Coach Bob McKillop is 7-6 against Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery. McKillop has been Davidson's head coach for 26 years. McCaffery coached UNC-Greensboro in the Southern Conference for six years. Davidson moved from the Southern to the Atlantic 10 last year.

6. The Atlantic 10 and Big Ten have 14 teams apiece.

7. Iowa is a No. 7 seed. Last year's national-champion, Connecticut, was a 7th-seed. Before that, no No. 7 had ever reached the national-championship game. Virginia had been the only previous No. 7 to reach the Final Four, doing so in 1984.

8. The NCAA's seventh-seeds are 73-47 against tenth-seeds.

9. Davidson has players from Finland, Greece, Nigeria and Scotland. Iowa has players from England (Gabe Olaseni) and Germany (Dominique Uhl).

10. Dr. Judith Davidson was Iowa's field hockey coach from 1978 to 1988. She is now a senior financial advisor for Merrill Lynch in Sacramento, Calif. I emailed her to ask if she was rooting for Iowa or her namesake. Her reply:

'My heart is always with the Hawkeyes.”

11. Mike Gminski will be the color commentator of this game for TNT. Gminski's senior season at Duke was 1980, the last year Iowa went to the Final Four. He played in the NBA from 1980 to 1994.

12. This is Iowa's 24th NCAA tourney, Davidson's 13th. Iowa's record is 27-25, Davidson's is 8-13. This is the Wildcats' first NCAA appearance as an at-large team.

13. Davidson, N.C. is 19 miles north of Charlotte. has 1,850 students on campus. Almost one-fourth of all students are Division I athletes. Davidson's students-to-faculty ratio is 10-1. Iowa has 31,387 students. The students-to-faculty ratio is 16-1.

14. Oh, you want some basketball details? OK, Davidson is second in the nation in 3-pointers per game (10.9), sixth in scoring (79.9 points per game), 13th in 3-point percentage (.397) and ninth in fewest turnovers per game (9.5).

15. Iowa is 8-7 against teams that are in the NCAA tourney. Davidson is 2-4.

16. Davidson's opponents have shot 93 more free throws than the Wildcats. Iowa has shot 181 more free throws than its opponents. Davidson has taken 267 more field goal tries than its opponents. Iowa's opponents have taken 12 more field goal tries than the Hawkeyes.

17. Stephen Curry, an MVP candidate with the Golden State Warriors, is easily Davidson's most famous player in the NBA. Fred Hetzel and Dick Snyder are the only other former Wildcats who played over 100 NBA games.

18. Former Iowa players Fred Brown, John Johnson and Reggie Evans all played for the Seattle SuperSonics.

19. It's 2,778 miles from Davidson to Seattle. The only longer tournament trips this week are Virginia Commonwealth-to-Portland (2,863 miles) and Georgetown-to-Portland (2,800).

20. KeyArena in Seattle was home to the NBA's Sonics, now the Oklahoma City Thunder. It is the current home of the WNBA's Seattle Storm, and the Rat City Rollergirls of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association.

21. Coming to KeyArena are Ariana Grande (April 14), Neil Diamond (May 10), Barry Manilow (May 19), Bette Midler (June 1) and Shania Twain (June 5).