PELLA, Iowa – Central College outscored Coe 13-6 in the final 2:40, as they pulled away with a 67-58 victory in Iowa Conference play Thursday night. The loss was the first against Central for Coe in 13 games.

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IOWA CITY – It is easy to take Matt McDonough for granted.

Fans have become used to the University of Iowa’s top-ranked 125-pound senior igniting the Hawkeyes powder keg in wrestling duals. You don’t rack up 113 career wins, 39 career pins and two NCAA titles without providing a spark or two.

McDonough’s performance will be as important than ever when the third-ranked Hawkeyes (15-1, 5-0) host No. 1 Penn State (8-0, 5-0) in a Big Ten dual Friday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, beginning at 8:04 p.m. He is expected to face second-ranked Nico Megaludis in a rematch of last year’s 125-pound national championship bout.

McDonough (13-0) expects Megaludis (16-1) to be aggressive and not hold anything back just like their two meetings last year, including a 3-1 overtime win by McDonough in Penn State’s 22-12 victory in State College, Pa.

“I had two matches against him and both of them were battles,” McDonough said. “I don’t expect it to be any different.”

McDonough’s recent results haven’t been indicative of his career, consisting 79 bonus-point wins with 33 major decisions and seven technical falls. He is five falls away from tying Chuck Yagla for 10th on Hawkeyes’ all-time pin list.

He has recorded five straight decisions, which is his longest streak as an Iowa starter without at least a major decision. He is still capable of fireworks.

“I sure hope so,” McDonough said. “I’m going out there and trying everything I can to get the dual started off on the right note, but not only that (but) start every single match and continue my season on the right note.”

He said the key is to wrestle at a high pace and being stingy surrendering point, putting a 41-match win streak on the line.

“Some of my matches I haven’t been able to get to the guy like people may think, but that’s not what the problem is,” McDonough said. “The problem is moving forward and building each and every match and I think I’ve done that so far. It’s still a work in progress every single day.”

McDonough, 133-pounder Tony Ramos and Mark Ballweg at 141 are favored on paper. They could be important to setting the tone for the dual. It won’t matter where those matches fall in the dual, according to Iowa coach Tom Brands.

“Depending on how I am as a competitor, when it’s my turn to step on the mat it doesn’t matter,” Brands said. “Those matches are important regardless of where you place them in the dual meet.”

The three are a combined 44-1 this season, posting a 13-1 mark against ranked foes. Ballweg (15-1) is coming off a big 3-1 win against Minnesota’s Nick Dardanes.

“Ballweg is wrestling well,” Brands said. “I think he knows what he wants to do. He is confident.”

The Hawkeyes senior is 40-4 in his career at 141. He has eight major decisions, a technical fall and pin against unranked foes and is expected to face unranked Bryan Pearsall. Ballweg echoed Brands sentiments.

“I probably am wrestling the best I have maybe my entire wrestling career,” Ballweg said. “I’m feeling confident.”

The Hawkeyes will need a complete team effort. Iowa lost the last four matches in a 16-15 win on criteria over highly-ranked Minnesota and lost the last five matches against No. 2 Oklahoma State. They need some vital wins, especially at 174 pounds when Iowa’s Mike Evans (11-2) and Matt Brown (17-2) wrestle. Both are ranked as high as fourth in national polls.

“I think for our heavier weights, and our whole team, it’s important to come out and be ready, because if we’re not you’ve seen some of the scores they’ve put up on teams once they get to rolling,” Iowa 165-pounder Nick Moore said. “It can be hard to stop them, so I think our whole team needs to be ready to step out on the mat.”

Moore earned Wrestler of the Week honors from the Big Ten and themat.com for a convincing win over a ranked foe Saturday. Now, he has a huge undertaking, trying to slow down second-ranked and defending NCAA champion David Taylor.  Even if he doesn’t pull out a win, limiting possible bonus points will be key for both teams in all matches.

“I have to go out there and fight for seven, eight or nine minutes or however long it takes,” Moore said. “I just have to wrestle the whole time without fear.”

The Hawkeyes are 6-1 against ranked teams and the last time they faced a top-ranked team they beat Penn State, 22-13, in 2011 at State College, Pa. The last time Iowa hosted Penn State in 2009, Cael Sanderson’s first season has Nittany Lions head coach, and won 29-6.

This is Iowa’s first home dual since 29-9 win over Purdue on Jan. 6. Less than 1,300 tickets remained available to the public as of Thursday morning, according to the UI. Brands said being home can be an advantage, but the wrestlers’ performance have to give them a reason to be excited and make a difference.

“Regardless of where it is, you have to get ready,” Brands said. “There has to be energy in your wrestling. Being at home is good for us.”

“Let’s give them some entertainment. Let’s give them some top-dollar entertainment.”

IOWA CITY — Six minutes into Thursday night’s game and trailing Penn State by seven points, Iowa needed someone to step up as a go-to player.

Iowa forward Aaron White (30) puts up a shot against Penn State forward Ross Travis (43). (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

Sophomore Aaron White stepped forward, then showed out for the Hawkeyes in a 76-67 win against the Nittany Lions at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. White, who moved to small forward in the starting lineup, scored seven consecutive points on three straight possessions en route to a career-high 27-point performance.

Iowa (14-7, 3-5 Big Ten) scored just twice on its first eight possessions and trailed 10-3. White first scored on a layup, then followed with a basket and a foul. Then after pulling down a defensive rebound, White raced down the floor and scored off a crisp Zach McCabe pass.

“Coach (Fran McCaffery) keeps saying we need to find someone that when times get tough you’ve got to be able to go to and step up as a leader,” White said. “It was 8-1 and we all knew we had to make something happen. The transition really got us going. If that’s what helped, I tried to step up and got a few easy buckets.”

White later pushed the Hawkeyes’ lead to nine points with a 3-pointer. He sank four more free throws on four attempts to finish with 14 points in the first half. To go along with his game-high 27 points, White was 10-of-11 from the free-throw line, grabbed five rebounds — including four offensive — and blocked two shots.

“He played (last night) with great energy,” McCaffery said. “I wouldn’t have said that we’d be able to play him 34 minutes. He seems to have been tiring a little bit to where I need to play him 28.

“But we just felt like he was affecting the game at both ends, and we needed to leave him out there. When we took him out, time to put him back in. He was terrific.”

White’s play was necessary to elevate the Hawkeyes past a two-game losing slump after consecutive road losses at Ohio State and Purdue. Iowa’s offense sputtered early, as did last week. White shifted to small forward at the start when McCaffery inserted junior power forward Melsahn Basabe into the lineup and taking out point guard Anthony Clemmons.

White was able to get out in front in Iowa’s transition and make plays.

Penn State (8-13, 0-9 Big Ten) cut Iowa’s lead from 13 to seven points with 1:30 left in the game. White then drove to the basket, scored and was fouled. He missed the free throw, but the Hawkeyes kept the possession alive and White scored inside to push the lead back to 12.

“Aaron White is a great player,” Penn State coach Pat Chambers said. “They are playing him at the wing, they are playing him at the three, at the four. He can coverage anybody on the floor. When they need a big shot, he hits a big shot. When they need a big rebound, he gets a big rebound and he gets an extra possession for them. He is relentless. He is a big-time player.”

Here’s the first-half recap:

Iowa rallied from an early seven-point deficit and stormed to a 34-26 halftime lead against Penn State on Thursday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

The Hawkeyes (13-7, 2-5 Big Ten) trailed 10-3 with 15:30 left in the first half. Iowa then rallied with a 14-0 run, spurred with seven straight points from Aaron White. The run was capped by a Josh Oglesby 3-pointer to push Iowa up 17-10.

The Nittany Lions (8-12, 0-8 Big Ten) hung around for most of the half and immediately cut Iowa’s lead to four. But Iowa kept up the pressure on both sides ends of the court and took a 32-21 lead with 1:32 left on a thunderous Melsahn Basabe dunk. Basabe however was hit with a technical foul for apparently making unsportsmanlike gestures afterward.

White leads all scorers with 14 points. Basabe has five rebounds and Adam Woodbury has four.

Iowa switched up its starting lineup, shifting Basabe in and taking out point guard Anthony Clemmons. Basabe started at power forward, White moved to the small forward, Devyn Marble to off-guard and Mike Gesell took over at point.

McCaffery transcript:

Coach McCaffery - 01 31 13 by Marc Morehouse

IOWA CITY — Sure, it was a basketball game that was a lot more rattle than hum.

Iowa doesn’t have an abundance of half-court offense, and Penn State has less. Put that together, and you don’t have the ingredients for a classic. The meeting of the two Thursday in Carver-Hawkeye Arena had the flow of the Iowa River on a night with a vicious windchill.

But the Hawkeyes prevailed, 76-67, over the Nittany Lions team that now is 0-9 in the Big Ten. Any win is a big win when you came in 2-5 in the conference and face trips to Minnesota Sunday and Wisconsin three days later.

Aaron White puts up an awkward shot early in the game, but took care of business with 27 points (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

Iowa made 31 of 39 free throws, and let’s call that the story of the game. Why not? Foul-shooting is an eroding art in college basketball, and the Hawkeyes need to keep making freebies, among other things, if they are to win in Minneapolis or Madison.

But before you go too ho-hum over this expected Iowa triumph, hey, 76 points and enough aggression to get 39 foul shots.

January reminded us Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Hawkeyes have offensive shortcomings to shore up before they’re taken seriously inside the Big Ten. Still, 76 points. And, real basketball players with genuine potential.

The 2-5 Big Ten start led to understandable frustration, but look at who Iowa played and where it played them. Put its last eight conference games in the first eight dates of the league schedule, and today there would be giddiness about the Hawkeyes being in the higher altitude of the league standings.

“They’ve got big-time players,” Penn State coach Patrick Chambers said with conviction after the game, as if he were trying to make sure Iowa fans and media understood the Hawkeyes are pointed in the right direction.

“Aaron White’s a great player.”

Sophomore forward White had a career-high 27 points. One mark of a good player is when he or she kind of quietly posts a whopping point total. Instead of hitting some sort of wall in the dog days of winter, White played 34 minutes Thursday.

That’s what top players do when it’s required.

Junior power forward Melsahn Basabe is becoming a top player. He has averaged 10 points over the last six games, 9 rebounds over the last three. He hadn’t started a game all season after 52 starts in his first two seasons, but McCaffery could wait no longer.

Into the starting lineup Basabe went Thursday, with no drop in production. He was an authority figure, to put it mildly. He had 10 rebounds, 10 points, 10 free-throw attempts.

Iowa Hawkeyes forward Melsahn Basabe (1) puts up a shot during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against the Penn State Nittany Lions Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

“He’s been a beast,” Chambers said.

“I felt like he had earned the right to start,” said McCaffery.

“He’s been very efficient. He makes his free throws. He sticks his nose in the glass. And defensively, he’s just so far ahead of what he used to be.

“He used to hurt us defensively … He was in the wrong place a lot. That’s why he was fouling. Now he’s in the right place.”

McCaffery wasn’t bubbly after the game, and certainly wasn’t down the stretch when his team wheezed down the stretch as its 15-point lead was shaved to 7.

This wasn’t a game for bubbly. This was one to put in the win-column and move along. Next week is big.

IOWA CITY — The first stat in the season box score is “gp-gs.” That’s sports shorthand for “games played-games started.” For junior forward Melsahn Basabe, that read 20-0 until Thursday night.

The whole starting concept isn’t a big deal for Basabe. The 6-foot-7, 228-pounder sees it as an “administrative decision.”

In his first start of the season, forward Melsahn Basabe put up a double-double (10 points and 10 rebounds) in Iowa's 76-67 victory over Penn State. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

“Honestly guys, I really don’t get caught up in that,” Basabe said. “I get caught up in the game and having fun and competing and battling. I trust my coaches. I listen to them and take the information they give to me and use it to my advantage. And I let them make all those administrative decisions and whatever’s going down, I’m totally with.”

Thursday night in Iowa’s 76-67 victory over Penn State at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, credit Iowa coach Fran McCaffery with the correct administrative decision.

Basabe made his first start and responded with 10 points and 10 rebounds, the 10th double-double of his career and Iowa’s third this season (forward Aaron White has the other two).

Basabe said it wasn’t a big deal, but he did know that he started the first 52 games of his college career.

“I appreciated that coach wanted me to start and I wanted to bring energy,” said Basabe, who’s scored in double figures in four of Iowa’s last six games.

Given Basabe’s recent oomph, McCaffery knew he wanted him in the starting lineup, but he didn’t know who he would replace until the last minute before lineups were turned.

Freshman guard Anthony Clemmons, who’s struggled recently, went to the bench. He responded with eight points in 14 minutes.

“They wanted me to bring energy off the bench and give Mike [Gesell] a shot at the point,” Clemmons said. “It was a lot of stress relief. Coming off the bench, all I thought about was giving my team a boost.”

So, everything worked Thursday night, granted it was against the last-place team in the Big Ten. The Nittany Lions fell to 0-9 in league play. So yes, it was a good night to break in a new lineup.

“Melsahn Basabe was terrific,” PSU coach Pat Chambers said. “He’s playing really well, that’s probably why they started him tonight. The last four or five games, he’s been a beast. He played all over the glass. He was aggressive and dunking everything. He’s playing great basketball.”

At 3-5 in the Big Ten, the Hawkeyes face a three-game critical stretch that goes at Minnesota on Sunday, at Wisconsin on Wednesday and then Northwestern at Carver-Hawkeye next Saturday.

McCaffery’s plan right now is to go forward with Thursday’s lineup, which included Basabe, center Adam Woodbury, forwards Aaron White and Devyn Marble and point guard Gesell.

That “gp-gs” will at least go to 20-2 and beyond for Basabe, who drew a technical foul for a taunt after a first-half dunk.

“He’s been very efficient,” McCaffery said. “He makes his free throws. He sticks his nose in the glass. He gives you a low-post presence. And defensively he’s just so far ahead of where he used to be.

“He used to hurt us defensively. Well, he was in the wrong place a lot. That’s why he was fouling. Now, he’s in the right place. He’s seeing the game and affecting the game at both ends. What you’re seeing is a guy who has more confidence in himself.”

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — Karisma Penn scored 18 points, Adrienne GodBold and Amber Moore added 17 apiece, and Illinois closed with a 14-2 run over the final 5:11 to knock off No. 24 Iowa 74-62 on Thursday night.

Penn pulled down eight rebounds for the Illini (12-8, 5-3 Big Ten), whose last victory over Iowa in Champaign was Feb. 9, 2003. Ivory Crawford chipped in 14 points to help Illinois surpass its win total from the 2011-12 season.

Samantha Logic had 13 points, 10 rebounds and six assists for the Hawkeyes (16-6, 5-3) but also committed eight of Iowa’s 27 turnovers. Illinois converted those turnovers into 30 points.

What had been a back-and-forth game swung the Illini’s way after Iowa’s Jaime Printy tied it at 60 with a layup with 5:31 to go. The Hawkeyes wouldn’t score again until Kayla Timmerman’s jumper with 13 seconds left, after Illinois had reeled off 14 unanswered points.

Mark Gronemeyer. (Gazette file photo)

Mark Gronemeyer is set to resign as principal of Prairie High School.

The College Community School Board will vote on Gronemeyer’s resignation at a special board meeting scheduled for noon Friday, Feb. 1.

Gronemeyer will take a role as the district’s secondary curriculum specialist, a newly created administrative role, but he is set to resign as a College Community School District employee altogether at the end of the current school year.

John Speer, superintendent of the College Community School District, said the decision to transition Gronemeyer to the new position was made within the last week. He said that district contracts traditionally run from July 1 through June 30, but did not confirm Gronemeyer’s planned final day with the district nor when he submitted his resignation.

“Any job you have as a school administrator, there are issues that arise and you just deal with those things as they happen,” Speer said about the staffing shuffle.

In the meantime Erik Anderson, the high school’s associate principal, will act as interim principal. Dan Bubon, who retired last year as an Prairie High School’s associate principal, is set to return and reprise his former role in the interim. The school board will vote on these personnel shifts as well at Friday’s meeting.

Gronemeyer is scheduled to end his term as Prairie High School’s head administrator on Friday, but Speer said Gronemeyer hasn’t been present in the building all week. In that time Anderson — who is already listed on the district website as the high school’s principal — has filled in.

“At that time Erik would’ve been associate principal,” said Speer, who declined to comment on the nature of Gronemeyer’s resignation. “Any time the principal is not in the building, the associate principal handles those duties.”

Speer plans to launch searches to permanently fill the secondary curriculum specialist and high school principal positions this spring.

Anderson addressed the high school’s students Thursday morning about the transition.

“The essence of it was that change occurs and people rally together,” Speer said of the message.

District staff received notification of administrative shuffle Thursday morning as well. Speer said an email to parents is set to go out Thursday afternoon.

After the board meeting, district administrators plan to release a statement with more information about Gronemeyer’s new duties, but Speer referenced “several large things coming up” for the district — including a Department of Education visit scheduled to occur between October 2013 and January 2014 — as the reason to create the secondary curriculum specialist position.

“In general, the district needed to have certain things to transition,” the superintendent said. “It made sense at the time to do that.”

Assistant United States Attorney Peter Deegan speaks to the media during a news conference to discuss the sentencing of Peregrine Financial Group owner and CEO Russell R. Wasendorf, Sr at the Federal Courthouse in Cedar Rapids Thursday, January 31, 2013. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

UPDATE: Former Peregrine Financial founder Russell Wasendorf Sr. said before a judge gave him a 50-year prison sentence Thursday for his fraud and embezzlement scheme that he fully deserved whatever punishment she deemed because he was guilty and the court’s punishment couldn’t be worse than what he did to himself.

“I lost the love of my son and will never see my grandchildren again,” Wasendorf said as he started to cry. “I’m very, very sorry for the financial damage (I’ve caused) to creditors and employees of Peregrine ……and to the industry, community and friends and family.”

U.S. District Chief Judge Linda Reade said she would not vary from the guideline sentencing, which she had the discretion to do, because he had already benefited from a plea agreement, there are a “staggering amount of victims – 13,000, and the sentence must reflect the seriousness of the this offense.

Reade also ordered Wasendorf to pay more than $215 million in victim restitution, as recommended by government.

Wasendorf, 64, of Cedar Falls, pleaded guilty to mail fraud, embezzlement of customer funds, making false statements to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and making false statements to a futures trading association last September.

Russell Wasendorf, S

Wasendorf admitted to stealing the customer funds over 20 years and to the ongoing scheme in a note he left last July after a unsuccessful suicide attempt. Authorities found him and the notes in his car parked in the Peregrine parking lot.

Wasendorf, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and hooded jacket, looked frail and spoke in a soft, hoarse tone. He looked down or hung his head down during most of the hearing.

Jane Kelly, Wasendorf’s attorney, said Wasendorf wasn’t going to dispute the restitution amount. She did argue for less prison time based on his cooperation with the government, regulators and authorities during this investigation.

Kelly said Wasendorf can’t change what he did but asked to court to look at what he had done to help in this investigation. She said the scheme was “quite simple.” He took money from one account and used fake deposits to put money back in. He used a copier and a post office box to keep records from others. The repetitive conduct of his actions didn’t equal complex and “sophisticated means” to commit the scheme, as the government claims to increase his prison time.

Kelly said Wasendorf has done everything possible to cooperate to ensure creditors and customers get back what they are owed. He talked to agents from the moment he was conscious in the hospital after his suicide attempt. He also meet with them other times whenever they requested, which helped the case proceed and got information of the assets to the receiver. Wasendorf also answered questions from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

“He didn’t have to come forward,” Kelly said. “He didn’t get a benefit but the parties benefited – FBI, CFT, the receiver and bankruptcy trustee.”

Kelly said the court should also consider what he did in the community  of  Cedar Falls/Waterloo for starting a business and all his charitable donations. He didn’t do this out of greed.

Kelly also asked the judge to consider his age and his health as factors to impose a fair sentence to he can “hug his loved ones” someday and tell his family and friends how sorry he is.

Pastor Linda Livingston of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Marion testified earlier that Wasendorf  had a tumor on the back of his neck, which wasn’t malignant, and had tumor or cyst in his pancreas, which was just discovered last weekend. She said it was of concern because his mother died of pancreatic cancer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan said this wasn’t a case where a legitimate business was ran and someone started pulling out customer funds. This business was a fraud from the beginning and operated as a mechanism to obtain customer funds. It was a “sophisticated scheme right up to the moment it stopped.” He kept a second set of books to conceal the financial situation from regulators and other company officials and employees. He phonied reports every day for the regulators.

Deegan said the company should have been closed in its “infancy.” Wasendorf went to the office every day for more than 20 years to continue the fraud. Peregrine always operated at a loss and was never profitable.

Wasendorf even spent money to cover up the fact that there wasn’t any money, Deegan said. He spent money frivolously on a corporate jet, a penthouse in Chicago and homes with a swimming pool and an Italian restaurant in Cedar Falls that never made money.

“He made himself appear rich so auditors and regulators wouldn’t look close enough,” Deegan said.

Deegan said what difference does it make if Wasendorf cooperated after his arrest. He said all the money was gone. He had nothing to lose. The only reason he stopped when he did was because the regulators were going to start requiring electronic verification the Friday before he attempted suicide on that Monday.

Reade said Wasendorf shouldn’t benefit further from his cooperation because he was already given less charges in the plea agreement. He was originally indicted on 31 charges. The reduced counts made his maximum sentence 50 years and because he accepted responsibility, otherwise it would have been life.

Wasendorf attempted suicide and tried to avoid legal consequences in the first place, Reade said. The regulators already had the information from the suicide note, so there was no mystery for them to solve.They had everything they needed. All the documents were at the business.

“All they had to do was follow the money,” Reade said. “His cooperation may have expedited the process but it wasn’t critical to solving the case.”

Reade said his argument of contributions to the community and charitable organizations was an aggravating factor, instead of a mitigating factor.

“It’s easy to be generous with others’ money,” Reade said. “The victims unwittingly funded the charities. This is also typical of white collar criminals. The contributions made him a bigshot…a trusted community member. This lessened his guilt and boosted his own self-esteem.”

Reade said he also used his “ill gotten  gains” to live a rich life style as Deegan said.

She also rejected Wasendorf’s health argument. His medical condition is unknown at this point and the Bureau of Prisons has facilities to meet his needs or condition if needed.

Reade said the guidelines don’t even factor in how many victims his crime impacted. The guideline states up to 250 and there are 13,000 in this case. The guidelines also don’t factor in the impact this has had on victims’ anger and mental stress.

“It’s highly unlikely they will be compensated,” Reade said.

Peregrine is in the process of bankruptcy, and an auction of assets belonging to the company and Wasendorf raised just over $1 million in December. Those funds will go to the victims and creditors.

The State of Iowa also recently claimed Wasendorf and his ex-wife Connie Wasendorf owes more than $14.1 million in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties, according to an assessment filed in November 2012 by the Iowa Department of Revenue. The Wasendorf’s allegedly underreported their taxable income by $75 million and didn’t pay $6.6 million in taxes. The information was contained in court documents involving the receiver that in the process of liquidating Wasendorf’s assets to reimburse victims.

Earlier this month, U.S. Northern District of Illinois Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer granted the receiver’s request to suspend any efforts by the state to enforce the assessment but perserves all rights the department and state have to assess and collect any lawful amounts owed by the Wasendorfs.