Know Your Iowa Basketball Foes: Md.-E. Shore

The Salisbury Sea Gulls were in over their heads Tuesday night. They went to Princess Anne, Md. (that's right, Princess Anne, Md.) to play the Maryland Eastern Shore Hawks.

Final: UMES 95, Salisbury 55. That's Division III Salisbury.

The win isn't taken lightly by the Hawks, since they went 2-26 last season. They're 1-1 this go-round, after opening with a 73-54 loss at Columbia. That was played before 1,274 fans in New York. There will be more people than that in Carver-Hawkeye Arena Thursday when UMES plays at Iowa. And that's just in the line for the soft-serve ice cream.

What the Hawks did to Salisbury, the Hawkeyes should do to the Hawks. UMES is one of the perennial worst teams in D-I basketball. That's saying something. But the Hawks' best record in the last decade was 11-21. And this is a team that plays in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, one of the weakest for hoops in D-I.

Give credit to the school for sticking with coach Frankie Allen. His record at UMES is 35-113. His career record is 260-410. He previously coached at Tennessee State and Howard. Winning is a lot harder at some places than others.

Junior guard KyRee Jones has 50 points and seven assists over his first two games. He went to six different high schools, then went from Northern Illinois to Kankakee Community College to Maryland Eastern Shore. Play basketball, see America.

Iowa played UMES in 1991, 2001, 2005 and 2007, all in Iowa City. The scores were 101-45, 89-59, 86-41 and 65-48. Guess who won.

In that 101-45 game, Iowa's Rodell Davis scored 13 of his team's first 19 points. He played sparingly after that because of an upset stomach. It was probably for the best. Had he stayed in the game, it could have become an uncompetitive rout.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Western Shore in Maryland. It includes the city of Baltimore.