Melsahn Basabe has been released from his letter of intent to play basketball at Siena. The Albany Times-Union reported today that Basabe, a 6-foot-7 power forward from Glen Cove, N.Y., was granted a full release and now can sign with any school that he wants to. Basabe is planning on visiting Iowa City and has Iowa high on his list. Iowa and McCaffery has extended an offer to him after he was released.

Basabe signed his letter of intent at Siena based on McCaffery and Francis staying at Siena. My opinion is he will join and play at Iowa next season. This is part of McCaffery’s plan to fill the open slots at Iowa before next season.

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Iowa will name Fran McCaffery the 22nd Men Basketball coach today.

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Iowa (11-4, 1-1) escaped with a win last night against Indiana (5-8, 0-1) 65-60 at Carver Hawkeye Arena just three days after Iowa almost beat Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio.

Iowa had a commanding 13 point leading before Indiana went on a ten point run to pull within 63-60 with about 20 seconds left before Iowa’s defense stepped up against Indiana. Jeff Peterson made two free throws and Andrew Brommer had a steal to seal the win for Iowa.

Cyrus Tate led all scorers with 22 points and led all with 11 rebounds. Peterson also had 16 points and five assists while Jake Kelly had 10 points and two steals for the Hawkeyes. Iowa is now 9-0 at home this season despite blowing a 13 point lead and almost losing the game to Indiana.

Indiana’s Nick Williams had 14 points and two assists while Devan Dumes added 12 points and seven rebounds for the Hoosiers. Indiana lost its three road game (0-3) this season while starting four freshmen against Iowa.

Indiana had its biggest lead at the beginning of the game 4-2 before Iowa hit a three pointer to retake the lead. Indiana regained the lead a few times later on in the first half before Iowa took a commanding lead. Indiana climbed back into the game right before halftime to cut the lead back to six points 33-27.

Iowa shot 46 percent while shooting 36 percent from beyond the arc. Indiana shot almost the same against Iowa by hitting 43 percent from the field and 38 percent from beyond the arc.

Iowa only shot 14 three pointers, while making five of them against Indiana. They tried 14 less three pointers against Indiana then they did against Ohio State. Iowa also improved on turnovers (11) by committing three lesser turnovers then they did against Ohio State.

This is another game Iowa played without their leading scorer Anthony Tucker. In the last three games, Tucker has only played one minute with zero points and two fouls. What has happened to Tucker since his public intoxication incident he had earlier in the season?

Indiana will host Michigan (11-3 1-1), while Iowa puts it undefeated home record up against a red hot Minnesota (13-1 1-1) team next Thursday. Minnesota beat Ohio State 68-59 in Minneapolis while only having played and won away game this season.

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The Iowa Hawkeyes and Todd Lickliter are getting ready to start their 2nd season under the new coaching staff. Last year the Hawkeyes finished 6 – 12 in the Big Ten and 13 – 19 Overall. The 19 losses set a new single season record for losses in a single season for the Hawkeyes. The Hawkeyes are a young team again this year and are picked by most to finish in the bottom half of the conference with no post-season tournaments. Coach Lickliter states he has been impressed on how the Hawkeyes are practicing this season on Hawkcentral.com and on Rivals.com.
From hearing from other fans and reading the forums, the Iowa Hawkeyes showed a lot of competiveness in their closed scrimmage against DePaul. Everything that is discussed from this scrimmage is showing positive outlooks for the Hawkeyes. Since the scrimmage is a closed scrimmage, no one really knows what happened during it since NCAA rules don’t allow any fans or media to attend the scrimmage. The fans and Media will see the first action when the Hawkeyes take on Wayne State in an Exhibition game this Sunday, November 9th at Carver Hawkeye Arena as Iowa starts their season on Friday Nov. 14th against Charleston Southern at Carver Hawkeye Arena.
The Hawkeyes only have 3 regular season games to finish tuning up before they play in the Las Vegas Invitational at the end of November.

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