New era for Iowa basketball begins Sunday

IOWA CITY - It's a new era of Iowa basketball, and Iowa junior guard Matt Gatens couldn't be happier about it.

Gatens, an Iowa City native and son of former player Mike Gatens, remembers attending games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena where the bowl was filled and the crowd was loud. It wasn't that long ago - just five years, in fact - when Iowa was 17-0 at home and averaging a near sell-out during the Big Ten season.

But recent times have ranked among the worst in Iowa basketball history with three consecutive losing seasons for the first time since the 1929-32. Paid attendance bottomed out last year with an average of 9,550 and filled seats barely hit half that number. Iowa lost a school-record 22 games last year, and Coach Todd Lickliter was fired.

One season later, the smiles are back in Iowa City. Gatens, sophomore point guard Cully Payne and senior post Jarryd Cole are among the players seeing the new era under Coach Fran McCaffery as a fresh start. It's a chance to rebuild a rabid fan base that once ranked among the nation's best. That's what Gatens - a lifelong Iowa fan - hopes to see beginning Sunday.

"I think we're going to be a fun team to watch or to cheer on and hopefully - obviously if we win some games - fans will come out and support us and get around us," he said. "We need it because it makes this place a lot tougher to play when it's packed.

"These last few years have been just a huge disappointment from playing and the fans and everything."

The first step for McCaffery was to change the offensive system and the team's mentality. Gone is Lickliter's grind-it-out style of offense. Now it's an uptempo brand that relies on endurance, speed and athletic ability. That style fits players like sophomore forward Eric May, who's one of the Big Ten's most athletic players. It also benefits Payne, who prefers to push the ball up the court rather than walk it.

McCaffery proved last Sunday his talk about fast-paced basketball wasn't empty rhetoric. Iowa scored 111 points in an exhibition against Illinois-Springfield and and connected on 61.4 percent of its shots. It had Iowa City talking about basketball once again, something almost foreign to Payne, a Schaumburg, Ill., native.

"I went to The Vine and I think the owner was there. He was like, 'Oh 111 points, that's great, that's awesome,'" Payne said. "I think people are excited about that. It's fun to watch, and I think we'll really fill this place up soon."

It may be a new attitude at Carver-Hawkeye Arena this year, but it's just a new beginning. Payne discovered that one day after the 111-point output while meeting with assistant coach Kirk Speraw over video.

"I was giving him a hard time because I thought I played well," Payne said. "He went up there and there was all this stuff that I played well and didn't do well."

The first step for Iowa is a winning start, something that avoided the team last year. Iowa began 0-2 for the first time since 1970 and opened at home with a pair of losses for the first time since 1931. The Hawkeyes face South Dakota State on Sunday, then host Louisiana-Monroe on Tuesday. A couple of wins could vault the team in confidence and fan interest, Gatens said.

"It definitely didn't go how we expected or hoped," Gatens said. "It didn't help at all getting off to that start. You'd hope getting off to that start maybe it would (tick) you off and get everybody going in the right direction. We struggled last year and had some good ups and downs. But hopefully we can get off to the right stuff.

"The first few games are vital to get off on the right foot."

Gatens' status is undetermined for Sunday. Two weeks ago he tore a tendon in his non-shooting hand, which was surgically repaired. He just started shooting again this week.

Payne started every game as a freshman last year and dished 122 assists, third-most by an Iowa freshman. He was named to the Big Ten's all-freshman team. May, Cole and freshman Melsahn Basabe will join Payne and Gatens as starters. If Gatens can't play, freshman Zach McCabe will fill in.

McCaffery looks at the exhibition as a building block. The point output is nice, he said, but it's more about how the Hawkeyes executed the offense.

"I don't want to get too excited about what happened," McCaffery said. " But at the same time, we did what we were supposed to do. Our intensity level was there defensively. We created some opportunities to score in transition."

It's only one exhibition against a Division II opponent with a losing record last year. Iowa still plays in perhaps the nation's toughest conference. The Hawkeyes won only 10 games last year and just 38 in the last three years. But it's a new era for Iowa, starting with McCaffery's impressions on his players.

"You should have asked me last night, I would have wrote a report or something," Gatens said. "He's a great guy and his style is going to be a lot of fun to watch."