Over the past few years, Grandpa Mac and I have made one or more trips to Ames to watch the Iowa State men’s basketball team, but we had never ventured to Iowa City. That changed this year, when we snagged a few tickets and made the day-trip to watch the Hawkeyes play the overmatched Lancers of Longwood University, based in Farmville, Virginia.
After stops in Washington and Riverside, we made our way to the New Bo Market in Cedar Rapids. We picked up a few Christmas gifts for Amanda before heading across the street to check out the newly-opened Great American Popcorn Company. With a few dozen flavors, and a hundred or more specialty bottled sodas, the store was a good addition to this up-and-coming neighborhood.
I insisted on lunch at Tomaso’s Pizza before our trip south to Carver-Hawkeye Arena. They hadn’t prepped any large pizza dough for the day, so we ended up with two pizzas for the price of one, a medium, and a small, each topped with half pepperoni and half cheese. As usual, the pizza didn’t disappoint.
Once settled in our seats in the arena, I pulled up some Fun Facts about Longwood compiled by the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Mike Hlas. The stats over the program’s decade in Division I were impressively bad, including four straight seasons with an RPI less worse than 320 (out of 351 teams) and an all-time road record of 18-142.
Students on break combined with a weak opponent made for a fairly stale atmosphere, but the Hawkeyes had no problem handling the Lancers, cruising to a 77-44 victory. Aaron White led all scorers with 19 points, while Jared Uthoff had 11, and Gabe Olesani finished with 10 (and five blocked shots.)