Sons and sun come out for Hawkeyes on Sunday

Matt Gatens, son of former Iowa basketball player Mike Gatens. Thirty points in 40 minutes Sunday in Iowa's 78-66 Carver-Hawkeye Arena thumping of Indiana.

Devyn Marble, son of former Iowa basketball player Roy Marble. Ten points, seven rebounds, seven assists, four steals in 38 minutes.

Gatens was Sunday's star. “Matt had an extremely great game,” said Devyn Marble.

Gatens was a Twitter trending topic around 6:45 p.m., Sunday. He dribbled down shot clocks before swishing 3-pointers like the Twitter trending topic of the month, Jeremy Lin.

Marble did yeoman's duty himself, as usual. With point guard Bryce Cartwright out with a sprained ankle, Marble is the point guard. Period.

But let's not ignore Darius Stokes, son of former Iowa basketball player Greg Stokes. Two points and one rebound in 5 minutes. But they came in a second-half flurry that buried the Hoosiers.

Stokes, a red-shirt freshman walk-on who hadn't scored a point since Nov. 20, had his first role in meaningful portions of a game.

“How great was Darius Stokes?” said Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery. “He plays five minutes, gets a rebound and then he gets a tip-in, and played great defense and played with great energy.”

Legacies. The elder Marble and Stokes are the top two leading scorers in Hawkeye history. Mike Gatens played for Iowa in the mid-1970s and has been a fixture in the Iowa City-Coralville community ever since.

Some sons of former players want to go different directions from their dads. These three embraced their fathers' old school.

Devyn Marble was almost defiant about going to Iowa, to show he could hold his own at the school where his dad made such an impact. Matt Gatens grew up in Iowa City, was always surrounded by Hawkeye basketball, and was always going to be a Hawkeye.

Gatens has endured. At 6-8 in the Big Ten with four games to play, Iowa has as many conference wins in a season as Gatens has been part of as a Hawkeye.

“So many down times,” Gatens said. “It's a lot of fun winning.”

It's a lot of fun being part of a win. Darius Stokes was that on Sunday.

“Coach McCaffery talked to me before the game, said I've got to be ready to go,” Stokes said. “He told me to bring energy and rebounding to try to help the team.”

Greg Stokes was one of Iowa's best players. After he was done with pro basketball, he made his home in Cedar Rapids-Marion.

At Linn-Mar, Darius was one of many capable players, but not among the very best. At 6-foot-7 and maybe 190 pounds, he averaged 5.7 points and three rebounds per game as a senior. Not the apparent numbers of a future Big Ten player.

It looked like he might join his father at Kirkwood where Greg has long been an assistant coach for the school's excellent men's basketball program.

“When I got the job … I made a trip up to Cedar Rapids to see Marcus Paige because I knew he was going to be a priority,” McCaffery said, “and Darius was playing.

“The night I was there, he played great. Of course I remembered his dad, and I talked to the coaches up there and said ‘What's (Darius) doing? … Based on what I saw, he can play for me.'

“That's why we red-shirted him last year, because I think he's got a chance. I don't look at him as a walk-on and he's going to run the other team's offense. He's somebody that has some definite talent and character.”

Not only does Greg Stokes have his Iowa number retired, but Darius' sister was everybody's All-America at Linn-Mar. Kiah Stokes is a freshman playing significant minutes for Connecticut's elite program.

Darius could easily have attended a junior college, going low-profile to try to build a profile.

“We invited him down with his parents for a visit,” McCaffery said, “and we offered the opportunity. And they said ‘Well, we'll think about it.' He said ‘No, we're not going to think about it.' He said ‘I've always wanted to be a Hawk,' so it was done right there.”

“This is just my dream school,” Stokes said. “My dad played here and had a big career. It's always been a dream of mine to come here and wear the black and gold. I'm living the dream right now.”

Sons of Hawkeyes, who did three fathers mighty proud on Sunday.