Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - GM of the Iowa United, Matt Crawford, joins to discuss the creation of the TBT team and what's coming next

Episode Date: April 7, 2019

We are joined today on a very special Sunday episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast by Matt Crawford, GM of the Iowa United. The Iowa United are going to be joining the TBT tournament as a collection of athletes from each of the four major universities in the state of Iowa. This past week, the United announced their first four additions to the roster: Iowa State's Tyrus McGee, Iowa's Nicholas Baer, UNI's Wes Washpun, and Drake's Reed Timmer. We talk about those players, what the process was to create this team, what are the next steps going forward, and most importantly, how this team is partnering with Fore The Veterans as part of their cause.Fore The Veterans is a 501(c)3 Organization that offers free golf to all US military veterans/active duty in the state of Iowa, creating a healthy and fun atmosphere, as well as exercise and camaraderie for these men and women. For more information, go to www.foretheveterans.comTwitter handles:Iowa United: @IowaTBTLocked On Hawkeyes: @LockedOnIowaHost: @wade_andrew Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are listening to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering the Iowa Hawkeyes for the Locked On Sports Network, hosted by Andrew Wade, editor at DearOldGold.com. Welcome to a very special Sunday edition of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. My name is Andrew Wade, host of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast show and editor over at DearOldGold.com. But today's episode is really going to be more of a Locked On Iowa podcast because today we're going to be talking about the Iowa United, the basketball tournament's entry from the state of Iowa that is combining all four of the big schools in Iowa.

That means University of Iowa, Iowa State, Drake, and you and I. And we have a very special guest joining us on the show today, and that is Matt Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United. So we're going to be getting to that interview here in a few moments, and we're also going to be talking to Matt periodically over the next couple months as we get prepared for the basketball tournament featuring a few of our very own Iowa Hawkeyes and other players from around the state, from Drake, from UNI, and from Iowa State. Before we jump in, though, if you are a first-time listener, and I bet we're going to have a lot of those today just because of the breadth of which we are expanding this podcast to include the state of Iowa, please subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at.

And if you have a smart speaker at home, try this out. Try just saying, hey, Alexa, Google, or Siri, play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. That will give you the latest episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And if you have Twitter or Facebook, you can also follow us on Twitter at Locked on Iowa and Facebook at Locked on Hawkeyes to give you the most recent updates of what's happening with the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. That being said, though, let's jump right into our interview with Matt Crawford. Awesome.

Well, thank you, Matt, for jumping on the show today. Really appreciate you taking the time out of your obviously busy day. I know you have three daughters, a wife here at home trying to deal with all of that. So I really appreciate you being on our podcast for today, a special Sunday episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Matt, just some background on you, obviously. You're the general manager, I guess, is the right term of the Iowa United, kind of the recent team that's going to be forming for the basketball tournament, the $2 million winner take all tournament. And previously,

you've helped out with the Hilton Magic a couple times. So I know you're really involved with forming the previous year's Hilton Magic team. So obviously, we want to talk to you about what it means to form the Iowa United. What is the purpose for kind of getting that team together? Talk about the four players that have been announced already. And then I think just kind of get some background on you and the tournament in general. So just to kind of to kick it off, do you want to give any background as to how you got even involved with the Hilton Magic? Yeah, you know, the general manager at the time, magic yeah you know the the general manager at the time um you know kind of knew him from the gym and he you know we had uh uh you know we kind of we rode uh bikes together uh at the gym and he kind of mentioned uh you know that he was thinking about putting this team together um and i just

told him i go hey if you need any help but you know i'd be more than happy to help you i think it's a good idea um and it just kind of went from there. And, you know, we got on and ended up, you know, recruiting a few players and helping that team out as best I could. Absolutely. And the last two years teams, not to put, you know, insult into, you know, or put some salt in that wound there, but the Hilton Magic, the 2017, they lost in the round of 32 and not exactly a great game. And then last year's team lost in the first round to Illinois BC. So did that kind of leave a sour taste in your mouth in terms of how that team went, and did you expect them to go further?

I mean, I looked at those teams, and there was a lot of talent on those teams, so kind of what, how has that shaped your expectations coming into this year's Iowa United team? Well, it did. I mean, it was definitely disappointing, disappointing you know when you look at the the roster we uh were bringing and then the roster that uh ended up in columbus it was uh you know it was definitely disappointing and i think uh you know it kind of needed that to happen though because it that's kind of where this all bore from um you know that you know we kind of looked at you know that night i think i i sat and i filled up an entire legal pad of just ideas and you know, that, you know, we kind of looked at, you know, that night, I think I sat and I filled up an entire legal pad of just ideas and, you know, what we should do different and,

and things like that. And, you know, I kept coming back to the same two concepts to build this team. And that was, you know, I wanted guys from all four schools, you know, the state of Iowa has just unbelievable fan bases here as far as basketball, just passionate fan bases. And I thought, what better way to get all of them together than to form a team that would have players from all four schools and get their fan bases involved, get them excited about it. And so that's what we did. And, you know, and the other concept too was that, you know, I didn't want this just to be about basketball. I didn't want to, you go you know go lose a game win a game

here or there you know this is such a platform uh being with espn and and all the things we're going to do up until the tournament to use and so we uh partnered with the uh a non-profit here in iowa called for the veterans fore and these guys are unbelievable they get our state veterans that you know suffer from mental health issues ptsd that sort of thing and get them out for free rounds of golf with their brothers and sisters veterans and just a great cause tim fisher the executive director over there has been has been over backwards to help us in any way he can and so that's kind of one of the causes that we're going to raise awareness for while playing for our entire state of Iowa and all their fan bases.

Absolutely. I love that. I mean, obviously, I know you're kind of a charitable guy. People who don't know you, you do a big trip every year, I believe, to the Dominican Republic. You bring baseballs and gloves and bats and stuff. So obviously a very charitable guy. I love to see helping out the veterans in Iowa. And I couldn't agree more with the idea of bringing the state of Iowa together. I mean, personally, I'm a huge Iowa Hawkeye fan. I'm actually a Drake alum,

but watching, you know, not to say anything bad about Iowa State, but I don't really, you know, Iowa State, watching the Hilton Magic, great. I would love to see them do well, but I never really followed them as much, but now that there's going to be some Drake guys, there's going to be some Iowa guys, you can absolutely believe I'm going to be watching every single game and following that

entire process. And hopefully, if you're in one of the regions that's pretty close to my area, I plan on trying to drive out there and at least catch a game or two. So I'm very excited they're going to bring the state of Iowa together. I think that's a fantastic reason. And I think, you know, we talked about this before the call, but you're getting a little bit of, I think, some pushback on it from some, you know, Twitter users and some Reddit users.

You know, not exactly, yeah, not exactly understanding the purpose of this. So what are your thoughts on that and kind of what have you been reading so far? Well, we get it. You know, it's mainly, you know, iowa and you and i and drake fans love it the iowa state fans right now are not not quite on board i think that's probably due to you know what's gone on the last couple years um so and that's fine we get it you know and you know like i i've told somebody you know we understand hey you know george nang isn't walking through that door okay um we get it we but have to understand, the player pool just isn't that big.

And so anybody, and I've said this, anybody that you've thought of calling, we've thought of calling, and we have called or contacted. And having said that, when the final roster kind of drops at the end of next week, I think people are going to see versatility this team has and the toughness it has and the size and the shooters. And I think overall, all the fan bases will be happy with the product that we're going to put out there. Absolutely. I think it's kind of interesting. You mentioned that, you know, it's just not as big of a player pool. And do you think that has something to do with Iowa State's success,

actually? Because they have a decent number of players that are currently playing in the nba um that you know you can't pull from that pool so how does that impact you at least when you were you know creating those teams before it does i mean you take a guy like uh deontay burton last year deontay burton was going to play um with us and he was good to go we were advertising he was going to play Oklahoma City told him that he couldn't do it so yeah you know some of the two-way contracts and the you know the those guys they you know and we get it we understand they don't want to risk it playing in a tournament like this when they've got an NBA career and rightfully so you know they signed a huge multi-million dollar contract you know and some of the, you know, Deontay signed a huge multimillion-dollar contract. You know, and some of the guys, you know, it's difficult.

Some of the guys play overseas. Some of the guys have, you know, they want that time off. I mean, it's a racket, the schedule these guys keep from just one league to the next to the next to the next. So, yeah, in some ways, it's tough to balance. You have guys that are so good we can't touch them you know George and Naz and those guys or you know they're just probably not at the level we're going to need to compete in a tournament like this so yeah it is it does create its own challenges yeah and so I mean I think I already know the answer to this but it doesn't sound like it was really a very I mean it's not an easy process by any means trying to form a team like this what What has been the work effort that you've been putting in to try to get this team

together? And how have you been helped by your staff? Kind of what does your staff, you know, alignment look like in terms of trying to get all these people in the same area and playing basketball together? Sure. It's difficult. There's no doubt about that. I mean, again, you're talking about guys that are overseas. They don't you know some of the guys don't have you know cell phone reception they're playing in some you know you know they're playing in turkey or they're playing and you know they don't have great you know it's always stuff like that you know it's getting phone numbers from them it's getting them to respond to an instagram message you know things like that so yeah it's not uh it's not as easy as just going you know

hey i've got their number i'll just give a call hey what do you think about this there's you know and then even after you've talked to them um and we we understand their their spot you know they got to go talk to people they got to go talk to their agents they got to go talk to their coaches this is going to be valuable for me so um yeah so when i when i say we've been on this since columbus of last year i'm not kidding i mean it's uh it's that's how long uh i've been on this since Columbus of last year, I'm not kidding. I mean, that's how long I've been working on this. I've got some great help, though. Let me just thank a few people that have been helping. Absolutely.

We've got Derek Hanna with the YMCA Cap City League. He's been great. He's seen a lot of these Iowa State guys come through and just great guys come through. And so he's been invaluable and helped me get contacts. Just talking to these guys about, you know, the tournament and, you know, that gives some validity that, you know, what we're doing. You know, we have Vic Miller, who's Iowa State's men's basketball trainer. He comes with us. He's been with us the last couple of years.

Aaron Stenman-Fahey and Will Schmitz up at Iowa State. We've got the Iowa State Sports Marketing Club doing our marketing for us. That's incredible. Awesome. They developed our logo. They developed our name, the team name. So they've been unbelievable up there. They're going to help do our Twitter stuff and just a lot of our social media stuff.

And then Calvin Clark. Calvin Clark's an Iowa State student. He's going to do some of our videos, kind of some hype videos, teasers, highlight videos, things like that. We're going to drop one either Saturday or Sunday of next week that's going to be pretty awesome. So if you're Game of Thrones fans, you'll want to see it. You'll like it. Heck yeah, man. My'm actually been, my wife and I have been watching, trying to catch back up. We watched the whole series

last year, and then we're trying to catch up now. We're watching about three to four episodes a night, which is probably unhealthy, but just got through the Red Wedding, and it's been it was a rough night last night watching the Red Wedding over again. Definitely. Awesome. Well then, as far, you've already announced four guys.

I'm very excited about the four guys you've announced. I mean, I'm also very excited about the future guys you're going to be announcing. You know, what stands out about these four guys you have announced? Obviously, Tyrus McGee, Nicholas Bayer, Wes Washman, and Red Timmer, or Reed Timmer, excuse me. You know, those four guys are, you know, all from the different universities in the state of Iowa. Tyrus McGee has actually played on the Hilton Magic the last two years. And last year he was really kind of the team leader, you know, went 10 of 19 and 6 of 12 from behind the RCAT 8 boards.

You know, was he kind of your first big-time recruit in terms of getting this team together? Or was he kind of a guarantee as far as getting this team together? Yes. Yeah, Tyrus was one of those guys that was a must have uh just because he's such a competitor uh you know i always tell this story when i first met tyrus with the hill magic legends this guy i you know i picked him up at the airport gets off the airport we're not even to the car yet and he wants a gym to go shoot at and i'm like this would take me 30 minutes just to you

know get stretched out i don't even know how you do it but you want to go straight to the gym and shoot he's just a gym rat just a great guy but yeah we're we're excited about these four guys uh they're they're all highly skilled they're they're um you know they highly heralded many awards um and they're just tough kids and they're all good guys um and that's that's what i like most about is they're just all and they've all been super excited about the opportunity we you know every one of my ass every timmer reed timmer's great we uh uh you know we're sending a message just kind of a feel out hey you know reed here's what we got going on you know we'd like to see if you'd be interested in playing it's like three four in the morning over in

germany reed's messaging back yeah i love it yeah tell me in playing. It's like 3, 4 in the morning over in Germany. Reid's messaging back, yeah, I love it. Yeah, tell me more. Yeah, and he's, like, chatting about it. I'm like, hey, you know, we can talk about this in the morning. Get some sleep. So, you know, we talked early the next day. But, you know, Reid's been all over it, just like the other guys. They've been so excited about it.

So that's been good to see. That's awesome. Yeah, and I think let's kind of go through some of these guys, maybe starting with, you know, Reed Timmer. I feel like if you are a fan of one of the universities, you kind of monitor the other teams a little bit. I mean, if Iowa State's playing, obviously, in the Big 12 tournament, for example, I do root for Iowa State. And that might cause some Hawkeye fans to cringe a little bit. But I think if you don't root for the other teams, I think it's almost kind of dumb.

Like you said, the state of Iowa has a lot of pride. There's a lot of talent here. And as a state, we kind of all need to stick together, I think, in a lot of things. I mean, we don't have a pro team. So I don't follow some of those other schools as much. I think for the people who are joining us on this podcast, I think it'd be great to give some overviews of some of those guys. Maybe we start with Reed Timmer. I mean, obviously, I'm a Drake alum. I followed him a little bit. All-time leading scorer. He's currently playing in Germany. I think one of the things I loved about him is that he also was a pharmacy major at Drake while playing basketball there and being one of the best players to ever come through Drake. So when you talk about that enthusiasm, I think something else to kind of mention with that is the intelligence and the passion and the drive for doing things not just basketball-related, but just his whole kind of mantra is very kind of incredible so what are your thoughts on reed timmer as a player yeah reed's great i mean

you know when you know i don't care what level you're at if you can add a school's all-time leading scorer uh 2 000 points that's uh that's that's an unbelievable value so uh yeah i've always loved reed's game uh great shooter just a great shooter 38.3 percent from three in his career yeah i mean yeah so just a you know highly skilled player uh playing overseas doing a great job and uh you know we're happy to have him but yeah he was great in cap city leagues and just at drake it's uh He's a guy I always kind of liked his game. So we're happy to have him. Absolutely. And another guy who's around a similar size, but I think a different type of player,

Wes Washman from UNI, originally a Tennessee transfer. I believe he's from, is he from Clinton originally or Marion? Oh, boy. He's from that northeastern Iowa spot. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Wes is great. You know, Missouri Valley tournament MVP. You know, another just very smooth player.

Got to know him a little bit when he was with the Wolves, playing in the G League down here in Des Moines. Yeah, just a nice player. Playing over in London right now, having a nice season. And I think they're in the playoffs currently. But yeah, another guy that's kind of been through the wars. He's been in the high-pressure tournaments and excelled. He's another guy we're happy to have.

Yeah, and I actually was looking up some videos of him this past couple of days and whatnot. I saw a video of him actually jumping over a center in the London, you know, in the, you know, the European basketball league in, you know, the UK and whatnot. And it gave me, uh, kind of reminded me of, uh, you know, a Nate Robinson that, you know, he's a little bit shorter, a little bit quicker, um, and it can just jump through the roof. I mean, one of his dunks, it felt like he was hanging in the air for multiple seconds. So I think that's something, you know, that we typically don't see is, you know, a very dynamic point guard

that kind of brings a different element to the team. Absolutely. Very athletic. Can jump out of the gym. Yeah, can distribute the ball. And that's the big thing on this is that you've got point guards that can get the ball where they need to go. Because, I mean, this is not an easy tournament. You've got some grown men.

They don't want to waste their time in a winner-take-all traveling hundreds and hundreds of miles to go get beat up. So that was kind of things we thought about when forming the team. There's got to be a certain toughness to this team that maybe we haven't necessarily had in the last couple of years to kind of overcome some of this stuff. So, Wes is one of those guys. Not a big guy, but he's a tough kid.

And that's what we like about him. Yeah, and I think the toughness is a very good transition to talking about Nick Bayer. You know, the people who are listening to this podcast, they obviously know who he is. You know, former walk-on, you know, great six-man off the bench for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Even on his senior night, he didn't want to-on, great sixth man off the bench for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Even on his senior night, he didn't want to start because he wanted to come off the bench because he knew what kind of energy he brings. He knew how that impacts the team. Obviously, if you haven't watched Iowa basketball games,

you kind of hear the bits and pieces of him. You may be wondering kind of what's going on with this, but I think he might be one of those sleeper additions to this team that can make a huge impact. I mean, you saw him at Iowa. He led the team in steals three years in a row on the defensive side of the ball. He brings a ton of energy. He can also shoot the three very well. I believe he shot over 38% this year. He brings that passion off the bench that I think gets teams going that they don't typically have on that second string unit.

Yes, absolutely. Who doesn't love Nick Baer? going that they don't typically have on that second string unit yes absolutely you know i i mean who doesn't love nick bear he's he's unbelievable and his story is so good um you know just from that you know uh you know not having scholarships and just working his way and you know believing in himself and you know stayed after it to be the player that he is i mean there's uh there's a lot to be said for that when you talk about uh toughness but yeah you know stayed after it and to be the player that he is i mean there's uh there's a lot to be said for that when you talk about uh toughness but yeah you know former big 10 sixth man of the year he's a perfect sixth man um just brings in that energy and and just a great kid um he'll be a great ambassador for this team and and yeah we were thrilled just for the you know

even though i'm an iowa state guy i was thrilled that we were able to add Nicholas to this team because we know how much Iowa fans love watching him play. And it's something I told him in our conversation when we first started talking. I was like, the thing about having you on this team is you're one of those guys that you win 25 games or you win 10 games. You're a guy everybody loves to have on their team. And they're going to say, man, I'd love to watch Nicholas play one more time. And that's this kind of opportunity that he's got to play with us. So we're excited to have on their team. They're going to say, man, I'd love to watch Nicholas play one more time. And that's this kind of opportunity that he's got to play with us. So we're excited to have him.

And we won't do it today, but we've got a special announcement with Nicholas that we'll probably do on our next podcast that the Iowa fans will really love. I love it. I'm looking forward to that announcement, man. Yeah, definitely. It's going to be great. I think it's kind of one of those things, you know, you look at some teams, I think of like a Grayson Allen at Duke, right? He's a guy that people love to hate. And I think of Nick as the exact opposite. Like I said, people love to love him.

He's a player that you can get behind. If you don't like Nick Baird, there's probably something wrong with you, I feel like. Right, right. Awesome. Well, then we talked a little bit about Tyrus McGee, but maybe just to give a little bit more, you know, details for people who are joining the podcast from, you know, that have rooted for, you know, a Drake or the UNI teams or the, you know, the Iowa teams. What is Tyrus McGee, like you said, bringing to this team, you know, physical, aggressive, played on the last Hilton Magic, the last two Hilton Magic teams. What are your thoughts on him?

And like you said, is he kind of the, one of the key players of getting him on this team? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you said, is he one of the key players of getting him on this team? Yeah, definitely. He's a European champion. He's Big 12 six-man of the year. Just a competitor. Just loves the game of basketball. And just a great shooter.

I think that's one of the things you'll see with this team, the guys we had next week as well, is that we've got shooters. There's no shortage of shooters. We're pretty thrilled with that. Tyrus is Tyrus. Everybody knows what he brings to the table.

He's an excellent player. Like I said, playing overseas, I think he's in another playoff as well for European Championships. Playing at a high level over there, he's in another playoff as well for European championships. So playing at a high level over there. And, yeah, he's great to watch.

But he's been just personally great just responding and interacting and things like that. So he's been great. But, yeah, he was a must-have to kind of do this, no doubt. Absolutely. And you talked about him being in the playoffs. Talked about Wes being in the playoffs as well. Reed's obviously still playing. Nick just got done with his college basketball season, but finishing up, obviously, his college career.

As far as that goes, how do you get these teams together? How do you get these players together? And what does the practice schedule look like? What does the preparation schedule look like for the basketball tournament? Sure. Sure. Sure. And again, the structure of it is somewhat challenging in that you have guys that maybe want to go to summer camp. You get guys like Nicholas that maybe want to go do summer camp,

summer pro camp, something like that. Well, that ends on July 15th or 16th or something like that. The tournament's that weekend that coming that following weekend so um as far as the practice time we are going to do something different than we haven't done uh the last couple years and we're going to have a mini camp um so once we find out the location um we'll go and get all the guys in uh nice and early and uh you and practice for a couple days. Because none of these guys have played together. And there's no right or wrong way to do it.

Some of the teams in the tournament do practice for a full week. Some practice for a few days. Some don't practice at all. So there's no real right or wrong way to do it. But we haven't done it this way yet. So we thought, let's bring all the guys in and see if we can't get a practice in, get a little more familiar with each other, get our legs under us a little bit. So what was your – I'm sorry.

What was your first – oh, the getting there. Yeah, so depending on – sorry. No, you're good. Depending on where it's at, you know, these guys are all over the place. So, you know, at some point we'll sit down with them and give them a call and say, you know, hey, when the time comes, where are you going to be? Are you going to be back in Iowa? Are you going to be, you know, in Chicago? Are you going to be this, hey, when the time comes, where are you going to be? Are you going to be back in Iowa? Are you going to be in Chicago?

Are you going to be this, that, and the other? Are you going to still be overseas? And then it's just a logistics issue. Who are we going to fly in? Are we in a region close enough we can just bus it there? So, yeah, those conversations will come up um year after bit after we determine you know what uh what regional we'll be in definitely and so as far as you know we talked about the regional and trying to figure that piece out and we talked a little bit before the call but

as far as getting into the basketball tournament what is that process like and what can we as fans do to help you out? Yeah, absolutely. They changed it a little bit this year to where it's almost like a college application. They want to see your entire body of work, socially, your players. Do you have a team that people are going to want to see, which we think we've done that, incorporating all four fan bases. Do you have a social media presence? Yeah, you know we're on our way to that where when we first broke our first player we had what 200 followers in the first day and we're you know 400 and something you know two days later so um and that's only announcing four guys so um you know they want to see just kind of what else you do you know recommendations you know

who are some people that uh maybe have a name there or a celebrity or a thing like that that can recommend you getting into that? So we're working on those things and we've got a few lined up. But you also can go, the biggest thing to, you know, follow us on social media. We're at Iowa United TBT on Twitter. tbt on twitter uh but the biggest thing is after uh next week so starting saturday you should be able to go to the tournament website and log in there uh and support our team that way that'll be huge for us uh because that lets the tournament know okay these people are are backing this team to win it and it's kind of neat the way they've got it set up is you know it's a two million dollar winner take all but they take the top $200,000 off the top of that

and they give it to the winning team's fans. So there's an opportunity, provided we win the tournament, that fans out there can make a nice chunk of change by just going to the tournament and supporting our Iowa United team page. That would help us out the most, yes. That would be awesome. I mean, it's an easy way to make money for the fans, and you get a chance to watch your favorite players come together

and cheer on the state of Iowa as a whole. So absolutely. I'll make sure to tweet that out as well on our Twitter accounts and the Twitter accounts of Dear Old Gold and all that fun stuff. I think as fans, if you aren't going to the tournament and voting for this team, why not? You need to. It only helps them get that team in the tournament.

Just a reminder, that won't be active until next weekend. There's a process to it where we don't want the team published quite yet because we want to release our players in the right way. If somebody went looking for it now, they wouldn't find it. So wait until next weekend. It should be up, Iowa United, on the tournament.com website, tpttournament.com website. Awesome. And I know we've already talked a little bit about this.

I know we have some exciting announcements coming next week, and you're going to be jumping back on the podcast to talk about these additional announcements. But is there anything you would like to tease to the people listening to this podcast now about who's going to be coming up next week as we're going to be announced or you're going to be announcing five five other players to be on the iowa united um oh boy i can't give away names yet so we're going to drop a name uh we're going to drop a name a new player uh monday through friday next week so get on twitter at iowa united tbt um we're going to drop one we

have five players remaining we're going to drop one a day uh so and you know we're doing things up until then we've had little polls of you know what what the fan bases want to see next what player they'd like to see added to the roster. And so far, they've done pretty well. Not too bad, anyway. So they can go on and kind of vote just for fun, just to see if they guessed right of who's going to get added to the roster. But no great teasers. I'll say we get a lot bigger next week.

How about that? Yeah, that's a pretty solid teaser. I mean, right now you look at this team and you've got a lot of guards outside of Nick. So getting a little bigger, I think, will make people a little bit happier when they look at this team and you've got a lot of guards outside of Nick. So getting a little bigger I think will make people a little bit happier when they look at this team and see what they can do. So I'm really excited for those announcements. Matt, I really appreciate you jumping on the podcast today. Is there anything else that you want to share in our initial episode

of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast covering Iowa United for the basketball tournament? No, we just want to thank you guys for helping us get the word out about about the team we're all so excited the players are excited um coach is excited you know we can talk about coach we'll talk about coach next week but uh you know everybody's so excited for it that's been what's really cool is to see uh kind of that interaction on twitter and social media um that everybody's kind of supporting it and and uh being great about it so and that's what we were looking to do when we first started this. So, no, we're excited. Awesome.

And real quick, actually, you mentioned coach, and I had that down as a question. Have we officially announced the coach yet? No, we'll do that next week as well. Sounds good. Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you for – I'm trying to get these things out of you, but you're a good lock chest, so I appreciate that.

Well, Matt, I'm really excited to have you on the show in the next couple days and talk about some of these other players coming up, the coach and whatnot, and talk more about the process as we get into it. Again, you can follow the Iowa United on Twitter at IowaTBT, I believe is the official Twitter handle. You can also follow the LockedOnHawkeyes on Twitter at LockedOnIowa, and I know it says LockedOnHawkeyes, but for the purpose of this, we are LockedOnHawkeyes on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. And I know it says LockedOnHawkeyes, but for the purpose of this, we are LockedOnIowa.

We are going to be covering the state of Iowa and the Iowa United in the basketball tournament. So, Matt, again, thank you for jumping on. I appreciate it, and we will talk to you in a couple days, man. Thanks for having me. All right, and that will do it for our very special Sunday morning episode. Again, a big shout-out to Matt Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United, for jumping on the show and talking to us about the process it's taken to build this team

and get prepared for the basketball tournament and also what his team is standing for. You know, the For the Veterans cause is a fantastic cause in the state of Iowa. I love the fact they are combining Iowa Hawkeyes, Drake Bulldogs, UNI Panthers, and the Iowa State Cyclones to put together an elite team that can compete in the Field of 64. So as we get closer to that time where we can actually do our part as fans and vote for this team to get included into that Field of 64, I will keep you posted on this show. Iowa United will also keep you posted on what to do

and how you can help out on Twitter at IowaTBT, so make sure you are following them there. And again, follow us on Twitter as well at LockedOnIowa. Again, we're going to be having a few of these shows coming up over the next couple of weeks and couple of months as the next five players are announced this next week. We're going to be having Matt on the show again and talking about what this team kind of overall encompasses. And believe me when I tell you, it's very exciting.

There's some really great additions to the team that you're going to find out about later in this week. And we're also going to be doing some updates and some periodical updates as to how the progress of this team is going and what the, you know, kind of where we're at in the, you know, the process to getting into the basketball tournament. So please feel free to keep tuning into the show, the Locked On Hawkeyes. Again, I'm your host, Andrew Wade. I appreciate you joining us on this very special Sunday morning episode. And we'll be back tomorrow with Iowa Hawkeye dedicated coverage. Thank you again and have a great rest of your weekend. guitar solo you