Hlas: White, Hawkeyes top ceremony with substance

IOWA CITY - Senior ballplayers must rise above Seniors Day. It's easier said than done.

The pregame hoopla, the center-court hugs from the parents, the warmth directed at you from the fans - you can lose yourself in emotion before the game has begun.

'Everybody wants it to end perfectly,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. 'It doesn't always do that. You get a little bit sideways. You're so hyped up you can't make a shot, you get in foul trouble. There's so many things that can happen.”

Not to the Hawkeyes' Aaron White on Saturday. Not to his torrid team, which went from a pedestrian 6-6 in the Big Ten to a shiny 12-6 in the space of three splendid weeks.

'Not that I wasn't very appreciative of the (framed) jersey, and the people cheering for me and my fellow seniors,” White said. 'But I was ready for the game. I was excited for the game all week.”

It showed. Iowa beat Northwestern, 69-52. The reigning Big Ten Player of the Week performed like someone who could get the same honor Monday. He didn't wait for a flow of the game to start. He was the flow. A tsunami, really.

White provided the first six points of the game with a pair of 3-pointers, then scored on a dunk in transition before the first TV timeout. The Hawkeyes led 11-4, and stayed in front. They made the substance of Seniors Day something they could treasure along with its ceremony.

It's been a team thing, a collection of upperclassmen playing like veterans.

'They're old and good, and in college basketball that's a good formula,” said Northwestern Coach Chris Collins.

It has been keyed by White. He was disgusted by his own play in Iowa's 66-61 overtime defeat at Northwestern on Feb. 15. He did something about it. That, by the way, was his team's last loss.

'He's a great leader and I think his performance of these last few games have really shown that,” said White's girlfriend of the last three years and his future bride, former Hawkeye volleyball player Grace Burns.

'He wanted to go out with a bang.”

Twenty-five points and eight rebounds was a bang. Five dunks was a bang. A 17-point victory over a Wildcats team that had won five of its previous six games was a bang.

Draining a 3-pointer on his final shot in Carver and then raising his arms toward the rafters, that was a bang.

The emotional part of the day for White came the instant McCaffery called that last-minute timeout to take White and fellow seniors Josh Oglesby and Gabe Olaseni out of the game and get them a final round of applause.

'It was really fun to leave your building on a high note,” said White. 'There's no higher note that I could have gone out on. The pullup three my last shot (with 1:34 left), I got the rebound (with: 46 to go), Coach called the timeout, the place was going crazy, hugging Coach, hugging teammates … it was special.”

As usual, everything White did was within his team's structure. There was no freelancing, no trying too hard to create senior moments. All five of his jams came from sweet setups by teammates. His 3-pointers were sensible shots, not someone trying to post a big number in his home finale.

'You look at what he's done, it's pretty amazing when you look at all the statistical categories that he has impacted,” McCaffery said. 'Most importantly, how that affects our ability to win and how it affects his teammates' ability to be successful.

'I guess that's, to me, the true measure of greatness. … He makes his teammates better. That really doesn't happen very much. But it happened in this case.”

There were other reasons the crowd roared as loudly as it did for White before, during and after this game.

'Not that I didn't think he'd be successful, because he has a fabulous work-ethic,” said his mother, Debbie Kuntz, a fourth-grade teacher in Strongsville, Ohio. 'But he's totally exceeded everything I expected.

'And he's a nice guy!”

There are two more weeks of ball for White and his team, maybe even more. But for the rest of Saturday, the player was going to let himself bask in the moment.

'This will always be one of the best days I've had in my life,” he said.

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