Columnist Steve Carp: Dr. Tom has Iowa clicking

Steve Carp

Monday, March 15, 1999 | 11:40 a.m.

Steve Carp covers college basketball for the Las Vegas Sun. This column is one in a series on the road to the Final Four.

DENVER -- This West Regional is turning out to be pretty good after all.

And when things start up again in Phoenix, there will be a nice warm and fuzzy story for everyone to tell -- that of the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Oh, you thought it was Gonzaga, didn't you? That's the traditional warm and fuzzy storyline. But you usually don't associate warm and fuzzy with Iowa.

Let Iowa sift around in your mind for a moment and what images do you come up with? A bunch of huge farm boys that usually underachieve in football, hold their own in basketball and leave the community split 50-50 on whether or not it was a good season.

Think of Iowa and there's Hayden Fry standing on the sidelines in October looking half perplexed and half ticked off. Fry no longer coaches football at Iowa, so that image has been replaced by a 63-year-old man in a gray suit whose boys have dedicated their season to a lame-duck coach.

Tom Davis has a Ph.D. So he has earned the right to be called "Doctor." Whether he earned the right to be called "Lame Duck" is a matter of conjecture. The players don't think so. The majority of the fans -- some, ironically, who were questioning whether Davis still had the goods a couple of years ago -- don't think so. His coaching colleagues definitely don't think so.

Yet here he is, working the sidelines with the knowledge that his next game could very well be his last. And Saturday at McNichols Arena, it certainly looked like curtains for Dr. Tom and his Hawkeyes as Arkansas was trapping and pressing its way to a 13-point second-half lead in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Instead, back came Iowa with a 16-0 run to retake the lead. And after another Arkansas assault that saw the Hogs go up 66-59 with just over seven minutes to play, the Hawkeyes went on another tear, this one 12-0, to lead 69-66.

Iowa made sure Dr. Tom would have at least one more day in the sun, literally, as the Hawkeyes wound up beating Arkansas 82-72 to advance to Thursday's Sweet 16 in Phoenix. While it may come crashing down at America West Arena against a refocused Connecticut team that is sensing a trip to the Final Four, no one's looking that far down the road.

Certainly not Davis, who has won 65 percent of his games over 28 years as a Division I head coach.

"This is a really good group," he said of his 20-9 Hawkeyes. "They're confident, yet humble. It's been fun working with them."

It is certainly an awkward predicament, one that came about when athletic director Bob Bowlsby decided last summer that Davis' 13-year stay in Iowa City was long enough.

With his team in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1988, with a top-20 ranking in the coaches' poll and one of seven Big Ten schools in the Big Dance, why would someone want to pull the plug on a coach who has achieved so much this year?

Dr. Tom admits not thinking about it has been tough.

"It's so deep, I can't do it justice," he said of the emotions which run through him. "I've been at Iowa 13 years. I've given it my best shot.

"I'm not thinking about the bigger questions. I'll worry about that after it's over. I have plenty to think about right now. All I'm going to do is try and get ready for Jim Calhoun and Connecticut."

Davis is pleased to see his players are approaching it the same way. To get caught up in all the emotional brouhaha would only be self-defeating.

"During the game, you don't have time to think about it," said super senior Jess Settles, who came back for a sixth year with a trick back, just to play for Davis. "You're thinking, 'What defense are we in?' It's after the game that you start thinking about it."

But it's always there. At some point, it's going to end and everyone is going to have to move on. But it's the postponing the inevitable that makes Iowa such a nice story.

It's the players saying to the athletic administration, "We know you're going to get your way, but at least we're going to have a say as to when it happens." It's Davis and his players, not Bowlsby, who are in control at the moment.

"It's always emotional in the NCAA Tournament," Davis said. "You put so much effort into this.

"You hope it lasts. But it can end tomorrow."

For the sake of Davis, who has given so much to basketball, and to hundreds of players, you hope tomorrow never comes.