Tidbits From Iowa City

Prior to State's game with Iowa on Thursday night, a couple of student leaders were attempting to fire up the 4,000 students in attendance.  Most suggestions about certain cheers and the fact that MSU players "dissed" the Hawkeyes by jumping up and down on the Hawkeye logo at center court were met mostly by blank stares and silence.  Later, when State was up by 20, the student section started to disperse and file out of the arena.  The students at Iowa are light years behind the Izzone when it comes to supporting their team.  Some will say that support is lacking due to the lack of victories, but Spartan fans know for a fact that the Izzone has been instrumental over the years for helping to get a number of wins.

Fact:  Every year that MSU has gone to the Final Four, they have never lost in Iowa City.  They won in 1979, 1999 and 2000.  They didn't play there in 1957 and 2001.  I know this is idiot, trivial information, but for those of you with lucky pennies and other superstitions, it means a lot.

Finally, Iowa plans to switch from real grass to synthetic turf for the upcoming season.  The reason is that the 20-year old drainage system needs to be replaced, so they might as well go ahead and install the turf.  This would leave only MSU, Penn St., Northwestern and Purdue with grass surfaces.  Does anyone foresee a day when all Big 10 schools have synthetic surfaces?