Demi and Ashton split -- costing the Hawkeyes a fan?

So the marriage of Demi Moore and native Iowan/Hawkeye fan/sitcom actor Ashton Kutcher is ending. That's unfortunate. The fact that I just linked to Perezhilton.com, that is. And no divorce is pleasant, either.

The history of the couple and University of Iowa men's basketball, of course, is legendary and chock full o' controversy.

While the couple attended more Hawkeye football games than basketball games, a day they spent at Kinnick Stadium sent the basketball program into disarray. Well, not quite. But it was good for a laugh when all was said and done.

Then-Cedar Rapids Washington senior Josh Oglesby and Linn-Mar junior Marcus Paige - both prospective basketball recruits at the time - toured the Kinnick press box last Sept. 11 and met Kutcher and Moore.

Four days later, the university received a letter of inquiry from NCAA officials into the incident. The NCAA considered Kutcher and Moore as representatives of the institutions's athletics interest, a violation of NCAA Bylaw 13.01.04. Iowa officials concurred, writing the encounters “were the result of sloppy management by our basketball staff” in a letter to NCAA officials.

It turned out, of course, to be much ado about absolutely nothing. The NCAA allowed Iowa to continue to recruit both players. Oglesby committed to Iowa that month. Paige ended up making a verbal commitment to North Carolina.

On Twitter, Kutcher's response was “Glad to see this has been cleared up. I would never do anything to jeopardize my Hawkeyes.”

Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery had this view on the "incident":

“I'll be honest with you, I feel bad for (Kutcher and Moore) because they could not have been more delightful. When they come to an event, they just can't sit in the stands. So where do they sit? Well, they stand on the sidelines for a while; Demi doesn't want to stand for four hours. So they have to put them somewhere.

“They asked if they could sit in my box; I'm not going to say no. ‘If you want to sit in my box, absolutely. We made it very comfortable for them. They could not have been nicer to anyone that came in to say hello to meet them. I think that's what's unfortunate.

“It was as innocent and unprepared as it could possibly be. I don't want anybody to think anything negative; the kids certainly did nothing wrong.”

But we'll probably never see Demi at an Iowa game of any sort again. She probably won't even be a Hawkeye fan any more. Although, who knows? Maybe her next beau will be a nice young man from Iowa.

Meanwhile, Kutcher didn't really endear himself to a lot of Hawkeye fans or a lot of other people last week when he tweeted this:

"How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste."

After a backlash of epic Twitter proportions, Kutcher put this out:

"Heard Joe was fired,  fully recant previous tweet! Didn't have full story."

Well, all of us 99-percenters should have Kutcher's problems, eh? He's earning $700,000 per episode of "Two and a Half Men."