Jeff Johnson

Iowa’s men’s basketball team played No. 4 Iowa State to the wire Thursday night before losing by four. As it did two weeks ago after a loss to nationally ranked Michigan State, the Hawkeyes were able to get an immediate bounce back, stomping Western Michigan, 91-51, Sunday afternoon at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Iowa men’s basketball team takes a step back in competition after three straight games against Big Ten Conference/in-state foes, hosting Mid-American Conference opponent Western Michigan.

Tyler Hilton has improved so much since a year ago. The 6-foot-8 Linn-Mar senior boys’ basketball player is averaging 25 points in his team’s first three games this season and had a mammoth 26-point, 23-rebound game Friday night as his Lions beat Cedar Rapids Prairie, 67-59, at Linn-Mar.

After a successful 17-year stint as Center Point-Urbana girls’ basketball coach, Philip Klett has taken over the school’s boys’ basketball program. The Stormin’ Pointers are off to a 3-0 start.

Elliot Desnoyers scored with a minute left in three-on-three overtime Wednesday as the Iowa Heartlanders beat Kansas City, 5-4, at Xtream Arena. It was just the third home win this season for the ECHL club and came on its annual Kids Day, with 2,300 tickets reserved for school children from the Corridor area.

Iowa hopes to learn from blowout loss in last road game at Michigan State. Iowa State hopes not to have a hangover after blowout win at No. 1 Purdue.

Cedar Falls forced back-to-back turnovers in the final 40 seconds to lock down a 69-65 win over Linn-Mar in a wonderful boys’ basketball game Monday night at Linn-Mar.

Cedar Rapids Washington’s boys’ basketball team starts four sophomores and a junior. Four freshmen were starters most of last season. The Warriors say they are older, better and more cohesive overall, proof coming Saturday with a 68-54 win over Iowa City West.

Duane Schulte was the first varsity football coach in the history of Cedar Rapids Xavier High School back in 1998. He has built a program that has won five state championships, including this season’s Class 4A title.

The North Linn boys’ basketball program has qualified for the state basketball tournament nine straight years. It made a state championship game seven consecutive years, a streak ended last season. 69.3 percent of that team’s scoring graduated, meaning this year is a whole new team ... and a new coach, hired in early November.

Iowa seeks its first Big Ten Conference win, tries to rebound from Michigan State blowout.

Michigan State dismantled Iowa’s men’s basketball team Tuesday night in the Big Ten Conference opener for each team, 71-52. It’ll be interesting how the Hawkeyes respond from that shellacking when they host Maryland on Saturday afternoon at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Clear Creek Amana lost almost all of its key players from last season’s Wamac Conference West Division championship team to graduation. But the Clippers newcomers performed well enough to topple Iowa City West, in a similar situation with a ton of newbies, 58-53, in a boys’ basketball opener Tuesday night at west.

In this week’s edition, we crunched the numbers in games between Eastern Conference and Western Conference teams in the United States Hockey League. The East is dominating them.

Cael LaFrentz was a first-team all-state boys’ basketball player last season for the Decorah Vikings. The 6-foot-10 senior center averaged nearly 30 points per game. The son of area legend and 10-year NBA player Raef LaFrentz is still growing into his body and game, which makes the future for him enticing. Not to mention this season.