Iowa-Maryland ball situation blown out of proportion

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — A line of postgame questioning about Iowa players competing with a different basketball has turned into Big Ten Ballgate.

About 20 minutes after Iowa dropped a 74-68 decision at Maryland on Thursday, myself and Des Moines Register reporter Chad Leistikow interviewed four different Iowa players. Other media were present but asked few questions.

With Iowa (a Nike school) playing at Maryland (an Under Armour school), Chad asked Iowa senior point guard Mike Gesell about playing with an Under Armour basketball. A perfectly logical question. Home schools provide the basketballs and with every league member tied in with a shoe company, the balls are a bit different.

Gesell answered the line of questioning matter-of-factly. Here are a couple of Gesell's responses:

'Every team plays with a different ball so we're used to it. We practiced with it all week.'

'We know what the other team is going to play with, so the week leading up to it we practiced with it.'

Chad then asked whether Iowa had played with an Under Armour ball previously.

'We did one year,' Gesell said. 'Northwestern used to play with it. They switched now, though. They play with a Spalding now, though. That's the only time I've ever played with it.'

I then asked Gesell if the basketball has a different feel.

'It's a little different feel,' Gesell said. 'At the same time it's the same weight, same size. Same shape, too.'

Chad and I approached Iowa shooting guard Peter Jok for a postgame interview. He was asked a handful of questions about the Under Armour basketball. Here is that portion of the question-and-answer session:

Does the Under Armour ball feel any different from a regular ball?

'For sure. It feels different,' Jok said.

In what way?

'It's heavy, like a street ball. It's like an outside ball. But no excuses. It just feels weird, but oh well. It's college.'

You guys have been working with that since, what, probably Sunday or Monday, I guess?

'Huh?"

You guys have been working with an Under Armour ball for what, the last two or three days?

'Last three days.'

Were you guys shooting well with it in practice?

'A lot of guys were complaining about the ball, but I don't think it has anything to do with the ball. A ball's a ball. We didn't play as well as we usually do.'

OK, no big deal. I barely mentioned it in my story. Chad wrote a bit more about it.

The only people to ask either of the Iowa players about the basketball were myself and Chad Leistikow. We prompted it, nobody else. Somehow, it became an issue. CSN Mid-Atlantic had a story titled 'Iowa complains about feel of Maryland's basketballs after loss' which cites Leistikow's story. The headline is much more provocative than the story.

Then today, Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery was asked by The Gazette's Marc Morehouse in a teleconference about the basketball. McCaffery explained that the basketball change had no impact on his team's poor shooting performance. McCaffery also expressed his displeasure with the subject, likely because of the CSN post.

'I don't know why anybody would ask about the ball,' McCaffery said. 'Idiotic.'

This subject has gotten carried away. The questions were not 'idiotic.' When a top-five team posts its worst shooting performance of the season and they're handling a different ball, those questions are pertinent. But just as important, the players emphasized they weren't making excuses for their poor night.

The whole incident is blown out of proportion, from unfair and laughable accusations of Iowa complaining to McCaffery taking exception to the line of questioning. Unfortunately, there's no way to put the same air back into the same basketball.

l Comments: (319) 339-3169; scott.dochterman@thegazette.com