At 25, Prime Time League still serves Iowa (and Northern Iowa, and others) basketball well

NORTH LIBERTY - There's a tendency to dismiss the Prime Time League as mere pickup basketball, good for cardiovascular exercise in the summer but not for honing a variety of skills.

No, PTL teams don't run orchestrated plays, or employ defenses other than man-to-man, or have possessions that would wear 35-second shot clocks to a single-digit nub.

But this league wouldn't have the blessings of coaches Ben Jacobson of Northern Iowa and Fran McCaffery of Iowa if they didn't think their players were benefiting from it.

This league wouldn't be celebrating its 25th year this summer if it didn't have substance behind the style that so many players put on display.

Randy Larson of Iowa City formed the league in 1987, and you get the feeling he'd run it another 25 years if he could.

“I try to teach old-school basketball,” Larson said. “You don't see that many examples of it anymore.”

Before each season starts, he tells the players on all six teams (and on the teams in his women's Game Time League) what is expected of them. Namely:

“Teamwork always beats talent. Hard work is the only way to get ahead. Determination is the most telling of all the attributes you can have.

“I believe in the really old tried-and-true. Share the ball. Set good screens. Take good shots. And I think you still see it. Dallas just won the NBA title. That was a team that believed in the pass. The ball will come back to you if you pass it.”

Defense is played in the PTL. The scores may not reflect it, but only because it's an up-tempo pace. Players don't want to be embarrassed by a fellow competitor. That's the way it's always been here, dating to the first year.

“Randy knew what he was doing,” said Roy Marble, Iowa's all-time leading scorer who played in the PTL's debut season. “He'd been the facilitator of pickup league ball in Iowa City before the Prime Time. He and Coach (Tom) Davis just put some organization in it.

“It's great for the fans, but we took it personal on some of those nights, just like if we were back home in Detroit or Flint.”

After Davis' first season as Iowa's coach, he wanted some structured basketball for his players, a reason to keep them together in Iowa City.

“Tom sought me out,” Larson said. “The NCAA had just OK'd summer leagues and he thought we could maybe figure out the rules and have a league. It's been a fun thing ever since.”

“Randy is the heart and soul of it,” said Ron Nove of Cedar Rapids, who has coached in the PTL since its second year. “He's the one who makes it work. I know he's done some things out of his own pocket.”

The list of players who have passed through the league include people who had long pro careers, in the NBA and abroad. The first time I saw longtime NBA power forward Reggie Evans play in the PTL, it was clear Steve Alford had recruited a difference-maker for the Hawkeyes out of junior college. Even in the PTL, Evans virtually demanded every rebound within his reach.

Former Hawkeye Darryl Moore is still playing in the league at age 35. He said the best player he's seen in the league was ex-Iowa point guard Andre Woolridge.

“Hands down,” said Moore. “He made everybody around him better.”

Larson cited Ricky Davis, who played one season at Iowa, then 11 in the NBA.

“When he was a ninth-grader in the PTL, I thought Ricky was going to be an NBA player,” Larson said. “He was such an explosive jumper and he could shoot. He'd hit 20-footers, and he could dunk every way in the world.”

But Larson spoke with equal and perhaps higher regard for some other former and current Hawkeyes.

“Jess Settles, Matt Gatens, Ryan Bowen - they weren't afraid of anything,” said Larson. “They weren't the fastest or biggest or strongest or necessarily the best shooters, but they found a way.

“You could see it in them right away. They took on the challenge of playing here when they were ninth-graders. It's shocking to me the number of high school players who have made the decision not to play here. They're used to scoring 20 points a game and maybe they don't want to compete against older guys and average seven. It's just weird to me.

It isn't just Hawkeyes at the PTL, either. Players from all sorts of college programs are represented, as well as former collegians and a sprinkling of European pros who come home to Eastern Iowa in the summer.

Most of Northern Iowa's players drive from Cedar Falls to North Liberty on Sundays and Tuesdays. You know Jacobson wouldn't let his guys put that much time on the road if he didn't see a value in it.

“I've had several UNI kids on my teams,” said Nove. “They've been great.”

Marble has gone from being a PTL player to a spectator. Last Tuesday, his son scored 27 points in a PTL game. More importantly, Iowa sophomore-to-be Devyn Marble looked like a more confident, take-control player than he was a year ago.

“You don't come back here the same way you were a year ago,” Roy Marble said. “You better have something in your arsenal that you didn't have.”

The biggest basketball growth the elder Marble had as a Hawkeye was between his freshman and sophomore years. In Iowa, summer is growing season.