Hoops handicap for Hawkeyes?

Nine days removed from his Iowa coaching career, Steve Alford conducted an interview on Fox Sports Net in 2007 and paused during a commercial break.

The reporter whispered to Alford, “Is Iowa really a football school?” Alford, who had just accepted the New Mexico coaching job, replied, “Oh yeah, big time.”

Iowa has carried the football school stigma for years, and officials acknowledged it when they hired Todd Lickliter to replace Alford. A 2007 internal memo, which was obtained by The Gazette via the Freedom of Information Act, outlined a number of questions Lickliter would face in his introductory news conference. Among them was a question about Iowa's reputation as a “football school.”

Predictably, Lickliter was asked about it.

“My answer would be, if Florida and Ohio State are football schools, I'll take it,” he said about that season's title game participants in both football and basketball.

But the football school image at Iowa hasn't translated into recent basketball success. As Iowa's football program rose to a No. 7 national ranking this year, the basketball program is on the verge of setting a school's season loss record.

Iowa's football program dwarfs its basketball counterpart in revenue, the same as at every major college. But a college gets labeled a football school when resources are directed toward that sport, often to the detriment of the basketball program.

Since 2002, Iowa has spent more than $93 million in football facility upgrades, including an $89 million renovation to crumbling Kinnick Stadium. In 2008, more than $10 million in pledges went to upgrade the football practice facility and another $5 million was split between the football and basketball programs.

Bruce Rastetter, an Alden businessman who pledged $5 million toward future football renovations, called football the “front gate” to the university.

“I think my perspective on it clearly is that it's football (that) helps drive the whole revenue with the university and the athletic department,” Rastetter said.

Carver overload

While Iowa's football program has sustained excellence, the men's basketball program has languished in outdated and overcrowded facilities. Six sports competed at Carver-Hawkeye Arena this year, causing basketball coaches to scramble to area gyms for shootarounds and practices.

In 2008, Oakland (Mich.) was sent to the 82-year-old North Gym for practice a day before its game against Iowa. Oakland Coach Greg Kampe called the practice gym “God-awful.” In 2009 and 2010, Iowa hosted gymnastics meets at Carver-Hawkeye Arena the night before day games against Penn State. The Nittany Lions didn't get a shootaround and lost both games.

“I think it needs to be looked at,” Penn State Coach Ed DeChellis said. “Friday night they've got gymnastics or wrestling, and in the morning the home team's taking a shoot, and they give you a 7 a.m. shoot or something, which really doesn't work for anybody.”

Iowa shares arena practice time with the women's basketball and volleyball teams, which creates overlaps, especially in late fall. The arena shortcomings were addressed by Alford and continued by Lickliter.

“Would there be some things I'd do different at Iowa? Yeah,” Alford said on CBS in early February. “But probably the biggest thing I would do would be even more vocal on the changes that need to be taking place.

“I felt in those eight years there had to be things in place that just weren't: my own strength coach, my own practice facility. If you want to compete with the best of the best, you've got to have the best of the best.”

From 2002 through 2008, the athletics department spent or allocated at least $127 million on facility improvements, including $6.5 million on a $7.5 million boathouse for the rowing team and $9 million toward a $70 million wellness and recreation center. None of those improvements included the basketball program.

Lickliter has reiterated Alford's points. He was given a dedicated strength coach in 2009. Lickliter said a basketball practice facility “was a topic” during contract negotiations, and he spoke openly about the need for it.

Iowa began construction on a $43 million renovation project last summer, and it's slated for completion in 2011. The facility will include two side-by-side regulation-court gyms. Basketball and volleyball will share the facility.

“Of all the things I wished could have happened sooner, even maybe before I arrived, if we could have had that practice facility sooner, I think it would have paid dividends,” Athletics Director Gary Barta said. “Competitively and training-wise, it's going to have tremendous upside. We have all these teams trying to use one court. And it's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together and having 27 pieces left over when the puzzle is over. It just isn't possible.”