Jeff Horner watches the Bulls’ Kirk Hinrich on a regular basis.
“He’s like I want to be someday,” Iowa’s 20-year-old point guard said about the Bulls’ rookie guard. “I played AAU ball with him. He pushes the ball hard. He defends hard. He’s fearless.
“He’s a typical Iowa kid.”
So is Horner, an ironman while playing football and basketball at Mason City.
Horner leads the Hawkeyes in minutes with an average of 35.9 and ranks fifth among Big Ten players in time spent on the floor. He scores. He defends on the perimeter. He distributes the ball.
“Those are the things that Hinrich did well,” Horner said of the former Kansas star from Sioux City. “I think every guard would want to be like Kirk Hinrich. He’s playing at the highest level of basketball. That’s definitely where I want to be–the NBA.
“Right now, I just want to play. You’re not doing anyone any good on the bench.”
Horner’s toughness shows in the conference statistics: He is the league’s top defensive rebounder and eighth-best overall rebounder in conference games.
“Jeff has everything a coach would want in a point guard,” coach Steve Alford said. “Look at the Big Ten stats. There are 12 categories, and he’s ranking in nine of them. That’s phenomenal.”
Schedule changes: The Big Ten Administrators Council has approved the men’s basketball coaches’ recommendation to limit the number of consecutive road games to two beginning with the 2005 conference season.
Previously approved men’s schedules for 2005 and ’06 have been set aside, and conference office staff was directed to create new schedules that have as the No. 1 scheduling principle no more than two consecutive road games.
“Coaches are pleased that conference administrators were responsive to our concerns over the sequencing of road games,” said Dan Monson, Minnesota coach and 2003-04 Big Ten coaches’ chair. “We believe over time the quality of our teams’ performances will be enhanced with this more reasonable and equitable scheduling standard.”
Minnesota transfer: Minnesota guard Moe Hargrow has decided to transfer, dealing a setback to a team already off to an 0-4 start in the Big Ten.
Hargrow met with coach Dan Monson on Thursday night to say he wanted to transfer, the university announced Friday. His departure is effective immediately.
Hargrow, a junior from St. Paul, was a starter averaging 31 minutes and 11.4 points per game, but had been struggling recently.
Hargrow started all but the last two games this season. He went scoreless against Ohio State last Saturday and was benched in the last 15 minutes of the game.
Stockman on hold: Ohio State’s leading scorer, junior guard Tony Stockman, will not play Saturday at Iowa and must decide “what he wants to do with his career,” coach Jim O’Brien said Friday.
Stockman, a transfer from Clemson, is averaging 12.8 points, hitting 85 percent of his free throws and is third in the Big Ten in steals with just over two per game.
Ohio State (9-8, 1-3) has floundered most of the year because of a lack of cohesion on the floor and wild inconsistency from almost every player on the roster.
Stockman is welcome to return to the team for Monday’s practice, O’Brien said.
Adding it up: Former Indiana coach Bob Knight is first and Purdue’s Gene Keady is second in most Big Ten victories at one school. So who’s next? None other than Lou Henson, who won 423 games at Illinois. He’s followed by Purdue’s Ward Lambert (371) and Indiana’s Branch McCracken (364). Michigan State’s Tom Izzo ranks second to Keady among active coaches, having won 197 games in nine seasons in East Lansing.
