Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Interview with Iowa United GM Matt Crawford: What to expect from the Iowa United in year two and will DSM host the TBT?

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

We are joined by special guest Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United, the TBT team comprised of all four major Iowa schools. He talks about what they learned from the first year of experience in the tournament, roster construction in year two, and provides an update on Des Moines landing the opportunity to be one of the host sites in the coming years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of Europe. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off, run away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith! Oh! He got it! Smith! Decks down 85 yards. Iowa. Touchdown, 10.

Taking a shot in the end zone. It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeyes podcast,

your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Wade, and we have an exciting episode coming at you today. I've been teasing this for a few days, but we have Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United, on at you today. I've been teasing this for a few days, but we have Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United on the show today. If you are not familiar with the Iowa United, you clearly have not been listening to the show very long. This is a big part of what we did this past summer is talking to Matt Crawford about what the Iowa United is doing, talking to the players about kind of their excitement for the Iowa United team and the TBT tournament and so on and so forth.

And then obviously we covered the TBT and Iowa United when they played in Wichita in July. So we have Matthew Crawford on the show today to talk about the Iowa United in year two, what they're doing to continue to build on the success of last season, just getting the team together and getting some great talent on that team and what they're going to be doing this year to continue to build on that talent and building on that talent pool of players from Drake, Iowa, Iowa State, and UNI. So that'll be coming up on today's episode.

That'll be a full interview with him and also talking about the possibility of getting the TBT tournament in Des Moines. So stay tuned for that. Before we jump into that, though, lots of news and notes coming up that have kind of happened over the past 24 hours that I want to make sure that I cover. And we'll be covering all these things in more detail on tomorrow's episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, in addition to a preview of the men's basketball game versus Michigan that is taking place at home at Carver.

A good opportunity for Iowa to get another big win in the Big Ten. Tonight, though, make sure to cheer on the women's basketball team. Our ranked women's basketball team is taking on 11-5 Minnesota on the road. Again, another opportunity for them to get a Big Ten win as well. And then some news and notes. Alex Karras and Duke Slater, both former Iowa Hawkeyes. When I was actually writing for Derald Gold, I made a top 30 Iowa Hawkeye football player list of all time. They were both on that list, pretty high on that list, if I don't mind adding. And they finally made it into the NFL Hall of Fame. So awesome stuff to see that happen in

the Iowa Hawkeye community. And then some kind of not as great of notes. Just got news today. I'm recording obviously a day early, as I always do. Ezra Miller, a big-time recruit for Iowa last season on the offensive line, a guy who really wanted to be an Iowa Hawkeye. I believe he set the record for the number of times that he actually went on an unofficial visit to Iowa. He has officially retired for medical reasons from football without playing a snap for Iowa. A big loss on the offensive line, and obviously hope that everything is okay with him and his health and whatnot, and that he can get better if there's some sort of issue that is currently lingering.

But we'll cover what that means for the Iowa Hawkeyes on tomorrow's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, because that is some big news, especially with the loss of Tristan Wirfs to the NFL draft. Want to make sure we touch on how Iowa is planning on, you know, kind of getting their offensive line out of flux and back together. And that actually leaves Iowa with 86 scholarship players, which includes two commits that have not signed yet, leaving four remaining spots. A few guys still could probably leave as well.

So we'll be maybe talking about next week some guys who could possibly be a target for Iowa either in recruiting or in the graduate transfer stage. Could be some guys that Iowa could be targeting, specifically a punter from Tennessee that Iowa should be looking at as well. As we know, it worked out pretty well last year for us getting Michael Sleep Dalton from Arizona State. So lots of stuff to cover. Obviously, if you are tuning in for the first time, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And make sure to find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and give us a follow there. Stay tuned for everything that we are doing with the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast.

But now let's jump into our interview with Matthew Crawford. into our interview with Matthew Crawford. All right, I am joined here by Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United, the TBT team comprised of all four major Iowa schools, Drake, Iowa, Iowa State, and Northern Iowa. Matt, excited to have you on the show again. Obviously excited to see what is in store for year two of the Iowa United. I had an absolute blast in Wichita last year and had a great time covering the team and the squad and a close game against Wichita State's team. So I wanted to talk to you about the Iowa United this year and see kind of what's happening and what's going on. So how are you doing today, man?

I'm doing good. It's good to be back with you. Yeah, that was a lot of fun last year. We've been kind of working ever since. Really, we got back and even in the van on the way home on things for 2020. Absolutely, man. So I think the big question I think people want to know is, what is this squad going to look like coming into year two, right?

Are you still looking at doing the four-school thing, bringing in Drake, Iowa, Iowa State, and UNI? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we've been working hard on the roster. You know, that was one of the things, you know, Coach and I, you know, first of all, I can tell you that, you know, every guy we talked to from the team last year wants to return, and we've been staying in good contact with these guys.

You know, so that helps. It makes our job, you know, a lot easier going into the second year, just having that continuity. So now we're kind of in the spot where we're going to look to see, you know, how do we best use those kind of remaining spots, make us better and where do we need to get better. And that was one of the things Coach Warner and I kind of talked about quite a bit and we're on the same page, that we probably needed to get a little bit longer out front with our guards, a little bit bigger and better defensively inside

and just having a deeper connection. And, you know, that's probably something I need to do a better job in the second year is just having a quality bench coach to go to. So that's been a focus as well. So, you know, we may have a pool of, you know, 12 to 15 players this year at the end that we can kind of go to our best 10 into the tournament with. But to kind of answer your question, yeah, the core of the team, you know, Josh and Tyrus and those guys, they're all interested and want to come back.

And that's a great thing for us. Absolutely. I mean, just watching that game, you know, some of those guys played a significant amount of minutes. They were basically playing the entire game, so it would be nice to see, you know, Iowa United be able to go to the bench a little bit more. You know, against a team like Wichita State,

their bench was pretty deep, and they were able to play a bunch of different guys and bring some guys off the bench that made some big contributions. So, in addition to that, what are some other things you kind of learned going from year one to year two? What are some things you wish you could do better and are looking to do better heading into the second season?

I think it's just kind of what we talked about. It's just us and maybe some of the guys that were due to this tournament understanding how physical this is uh how physical that tournament is how raucous these environments are going to be uh i mean these are uh you were you were there that you're you won't find an ncaa tournament game uh any better uh as far as the fans the fans of which last day were great they were engaged the and the play was a high level i mean you got i mean all these so the physicality i think um was something that we probably needed to experience so going into the year two a lot of these guys were their first year are gonna be used to it um so i you know i

think from that aspect and and, you know, we kind of talked about this off air, but I think if we have Peter Jock in that game, we win the game. He would have been that big of a difference. But I think it's going with what we kind of believe in, and that's having a lot of shooters getting out of transition, running, and spotting up and knocking down threes um and that's that's what we're going to keep looking to do and keep improving on

but i think as far as what we learned i think it's just that that level up of intensity that hey these guys are pros everybody's here on a one and done nobody wants to waste their time so everybody's playing all out the entire game. You can't simulate that. So I would say that's probably the biggest thing. Hopefully our guys learn and we can make adjustments based on that. Absolutely. I mean, speaking from my personal experience, that was something I did not expect.

I did not expect the level of intensity, the fan engagement, the excitement in the game. It was one of the better sporting events I've ever been to. Maybe it was just my expectations weren't super high, whatever it may be. But it was an absolute blast and I had a fun time down in Wichita. I think that leads me into my next question. The Wichita State fans, they were in it. They made that environment just incredible and crazy um what can we do or what can like what what are we going to see from the Iowa United uh to try to engage fans a little bit um you know a little bit more coming into year two obviously year one was a lot about getting that message out right we're creating this

team we're doing this big thing with the tbt um what what are you looking to do in year two to get you know more fan engagement and maybe fill the seats a little bit more a little bit more blue yeah so let me kind of take this kind of a i guess bigger level kind of what we did when we got back um you know i'll back up all the way here and then we'll kind of get to that so um you know not long after we got back from wichita you know i'll back up all the way here and then we'll kind of get to that so um you know not long after we got back from wichita you know one of the first things i did and this kind of goes to the team aspect as well like i gave everybody from our players to our coaches to you know everybody that helped you know a guy that got a phone number for us of a player and you know just call them to tell them thank you um you know

i i use this analogy a little bit but you know i it's it's like you're throwing a party and you want the cool kids to show up well the cool kids kind of want to know who's coming first and so i have you know all these great people believe in me and the staff and what we want to do this first year and commit uh you know, met the world to me. So, you know, just appreciate them giving their time and effort was a big thing. And I continue to do that, and I think that's an important thing. So, you know, we kind of looked at it, and I looked at it in three terms. You know, how do we prove our staff and our roster?

And we talked about the roster a minute ago, and we talked about staff here in a little bit. You know, how do we structurally staff and our roster? And we talked about the roster a minute ago, and we talked about staff here in a little bit. How do we structurally, maybe behind the scenes, get a little bit better? And then the third thing, kind of what you're talking about, is how do we engage the fans a little bit more? And the feedback we got was the fans really enjoyed getting to know these guys kind of during the marketing week and the kind of meet and greet. And it's like i've said from

the beginning i think everyone in any sport you care more about teams when you feel like you know them better yep uh so you know we'll continue that this spring um as well as the hype videos uh you know we talked about structure you know that was another big thing is you know hey lightsmith media wants to help out with those hype videos that were phenomenal last year um you know the iowa state kids want to help out uh doing some of the marketing the graphics like we had last year um so it's just kind of keeping the fans engaged you know from spring into summer and no other team in the tournament does this um they don't market the players on and off the floor the way we do. And that's important to me and the guys, just to be able to do that.

You know, we will have another team meet and greet somewhere in Des Moines that week leading up to the tournament. You know, it's a terrific way to meet all these guys and coaches and kind of a layback way to catch up with them. Uptown Garage Brew brewing in Ankeny. It was fantastic last year. I highly recommend you visit their brewery if you haven't already. The players have a good time.

So I think that's a big thing, how we kind of engage the fans a little bit to get them more involved. Definitely. And one of the things you mentioned was structurally changing a few things but also returning some of the key contributors. And I think let's maybe talk about the coaching staff first. It sounded like just based off the feedback I just got in the last 10 minutes that Jeff Horner is planning on coming back as a head coach.

Does that sound about accurate? Yeah. Him and Austin McBeth, who were great last year, I could not have asked for two better guys. They were in it. They're still in it. You know, Coach is dealing with a little bit of a health issue, you know, in the past, you know, six months or so.

And, you know, even then he's sending me texts and going over stuff. So he's an animal, man. So I try to leave him alone during the season. He's having a great time down at Truman, and he's got a guy down there that can really go. And so, you know, who knows? We may take a look at him as well joining us. So, yeah, as far as staff um those guys will be back

hopefully uh vick miller from iowa state uh he normally accompanies us on these things uh didn't join us there in italy this last year but having that trainer there um to kind of help these guys is a big thing i mean these guys are all pros um they're machines they really are um so we gotta we gotta get uh vick back um and i i think he enjoys doing this so that'd be a big deal um you know and as far as everybody else uh one of the things i wanted to do and i've kind of been in touch with him and the out of state fans will like this um is i really wanted to bring um marcus pfizer back into it um you know marcus Marcus has a wealth of knowledge, former NBA player,

just a really bright basketball mind. And so I've been in touch with him about coming back and working with our men leading up to the tournament. And that's something that'd be just invaluable to guys like Nick McGlynn and Bear and Tybee. So that's something we're kind of working on now he's got a he's got a son uh playing in high school he's going to be pretty

busy this summer really good player as well um so he's kind of checking schedules right now for the summer um to see if he can make that work and get back and you know he'd like to bring his boy back and uh kind of show him iowa state and you know State and kind of have a nice bonding moment with him as well. So nothing official yet, but that's one of the things I'd really like to do is get Marcus back in it. Yeah, I mean when I talked to Marcus and had him on the podcast, one of the things that really resonated with me was how passionate he was about not only Iowa State University and the basketball team,

but the state of Iowa. Like he, I mean, for being a guy who's not from Iowa, he really loved that state. And I mean, being a guy from Iowa, not a lot of people love Iowa if they're not from there, right? Like, and so, I mean, that was something that really set out to me is how much he cared about the state and the people that are in that state. So I think that would be a really cool move to have him come back. Yeah, yeah, and it would be great to have him back as well. He's a very bright guy, and I think he loves to teach, he loves to coach, and I think being able to kind of give back to those younger guys that are just neck you know, Nick, you know, Nick and the two next to just start their careers. But, you know, guys like Tybee and, you know, those other, you know, kind of wings and big

men would find a lot of value just hanging around him, just how to be a pro would be great for him. So, and again, it's about making this valuable to our players. You know, we want to win. We always want to win. But we want to have something to where these guys go, you know what, we didn't win, but man, Marcus told me something that I can take with me, you know, last year, it was Tyrus. Tyrus is talking, you know, Tyrus talks anyway,

but you know, give it just pouring information into Glenn and Bear, I'm sure it was beneficial to those guys. So that's kind of an aspect of all this too, is that, you know, beyond the basketball, they gain something they can take with them their entire career. Yeah, I mean, you can definitely tell with Tyrus and even Josh Young to an extent, there's a lot of veteran leadership with those two guys, having been there and experienced that.

And knowing Josh back in the Drake days, I mean, he's always kind of been like that, a guy who wants to take people under his wing and teach whenever he gets an opportunity to. And I think someday he has a really bright future as a coach potentially. He does. And, you know, that was one of the other things last year that was great. You know, we talk about the things they last year that was great you know we talk

about the things they do off the floor you know besides the tournament we're playing it will be a scrimmage drake just he took the time to bring the whole team in and and talk to them and and motivate them and and um you know that's with all these guys tyrus and josh i mean that's just that's just who they are i mean that's they're as real of people as you can find. And they love to help out. Marcus is no different. It would be great to have with these guys. And I can certainly attest to the real thing.

They are great guys to talk to and have on the show. I think they are. Yeah, really enjoyed that. Well, one of the things, we talked about this kind of on our wrap-up show last year after the TBT tournament had concluded. There was some talk about potentially getting Des Moines involved in the TBT and bringing that atmosphere that we saw at Wichita to Des Moines. I wanted to get a sense from you, what does that kind of look like, whether that's this year or in the coming years to maybe get a you know get i said you know before i could even get to the uh catch des moines folks they were already all over it um so i'll say this ryan uh vote over catch des moines is this guy is on top of it uh every time i've had a question where i think you know hey let me ask

ryan about this he's already covered it um so yeah as Des Moines, we're kind of in the final stage of submitting our bid. We just had to wait on kind of some of the financial stuff from Drake. But, yeah, the folks over at Catch Des Moines have been unbelievable. As have, you know, as I've led Director Harden over at Drake and his staff. You can't believe what goes into bidding for a national tournament like this it's uh quite the process um but drake is uh you know drake's renovating the naf center so our bid would actually be for 2021 not this coming summer all right um but i feel like we're we're in a good spot um it's pretty early but you know roster wise um you know we're already considering this possibility when we

reach out to certain guys so um you know guys like uh you know melvin edge who will most likely be in the olympics this year anyway um he has some interest and so it'll obviously be important if we do land a region uh that we have the absolute max roster we could possibly put together but i like the inroads we're making now. So we're recruiting almost a little bit for next year already to kind of fill spots. But that's kind of where things are at. We're in a good spot, and I feel like there's some interest on the part of TBT,

but the competition is going to be pretty tough. there's some interest on on the part of dbt but the competition is going to be pretty tough um you know there's you know there's midwest is already pretty heavy with wichita um a couple other reasons that'll pop up this year so uh hopefully we can show that you know we'll put together a good good uh event and i have no doubt we'll be back at the nap center definitely i mean um being a drake graduate i think the nap center is a fantastic arena And I have no doubt we'll be back at the Knapp Center. Definitely. I mean, being a Drake graduate, I think the Knapp Center is a fantastic arena. It was unfortunate that during my time, Drake wasn't exactly the best basketball team. But the Knapp Center would be a perfect place, and especially after some of the renovations. I mean, they're making some really impressive improvements to the Knapp Center and just the Drake campus in general.

And I think it would be a pretty cool experience for the community around there. Yeah, no, I agree. I think it'd be great. And, you know, they've got some great experience putting on events like this. So it's just a matter of whether TBT kind of likes what we put together. But we've been kind of going back and forth with them for a little bit now. So like I said, we feel like we're in a good position, but you never know. Absolutely. And so just another quick question for you. I know putting this on is a lot of work.

I know a little bit about kind of what you do behind the scenes. And it obviously takes a lot of work, takes a lot of people. There's a lot of involvement from many different parties, right? One of the things that we kind of ran into, or that I saw you kind of run into last year with the team is as, you know, as a Peter jock drops out, right? How do you start replacing those types of players? And there's some interesting rules with the TBT, right? About how to add players and whatnot. So I'm just curious from your standpoint, what are, what are some of the thoughts, like, what are some of your thoughts on going into TBT year two, understanding some of those roster construction rules, and you need to have another $1,000 to be able to add a player

and that kind of thing. Yeah. So just to kind of go over this with folks that may not be aware, so on a normal college basketball team, you're going to roster, you know, 15 guys, but you're playing 30-plus games a year. Okay, well, this is a short tournament. You don't roster that many.

So the way they had it set up last year was you could roster as many people as you want, but anybody past the ninth player costs you $1,000. So once you submitted your roster a good month in advance of when you played, that's your roster. So if I went into it with, I said, well, I'm going to go in with nine guys. Okay, great. Well, if anybody drops out in that month, if you want to replace them, it still costs you $1,000.

So once that deadline hit that this is your roster, that you were pretty much locked in. So once Pete went down, we kind of got in a spot where it was hard to fill that. We grabbed a couple guys, and we spent the money on it, and that's fine. But I think one thing, to Kiki's credit, they do a good job of listening to the general managers, because they know this is hard. And again, when we cover something else, none of us get paid for this. I tell my wife, I go, this is the stupidest venture I've ever done.

I'm putting in a ridiculous amount of hours to do this. I'm probably, you know, not right now going to get paid for it unless we win, you know, the tournament, which is really hard, obviously. But it's a lot of fun, I kid. But yeah, none of us get paid for this. So one of the things they do do a good job of is listen to us over. I was going with this. And they see that, you know, hey, it's hard. You've got a very fine margin of error with that.

If you have anybody drop out, it's, you know, okay, now you're the eight man bench that's not very much okay um so i think they're gonna move a little bit differently this year where they have your your player pool is gonna be a little bit bigger and then come tournament time you you have to drop it down to it's almost like a like a kind of a uh i don't know a good analogy like olympic rosters like i know when you watch almost like yeah yeah almost like you know you kind of cut down so where you know you maybe have 15 guys i mean you're 15 guys a month i don't think i'm making this up i don't

know if this is exactly how it's done but then once the tournament comes in a week or two out if you have injuries you can take them up and now who's going to be your final nine or ten guys you're going to have. And that way you've got the pool. If something happens, you've still got a player pool you can kind of grab from and not have to

get the tournament money. So yeah, that's kind of how that works, and hopefully that helps out all of us general managers for this coming year as far as managing our own roster. Like I said, and that's something I probably needed to do a better job of, is just having – I should have had that player pool anyway last year.

So, you know, we don't have to, at the end, you know, God bless him, but call it Matt Gates from, you know, don't have to at the end you know god bless him but call it matt gates from uh you know working in the drink office but you know what i'm glad he did it i hope i think he had a good time doing it you know you know you don't get that many opportunities to do something like that environment what you i don't think my guess a little bit. So I'm glad he came on board, and he was fun to have around as well. Yeah, I mean, having Matt Gaten there kind of reminds me of the scene in Space Jam, Bill Murray coming, and that was kind of like the – that's kind of how I think of the Matt Gaten situation.

Matt will be excited that you compared it to Bill Murray's physique, I'm sure. Yeah, hopefully he doesn't hear this. Yeah, no, that is funny, though. I mean, it's interesting and awesome that I think TBT is at least listening to the issues that general managers are having, especially because, as you said, you're not making any money doing this, and they're not making it exactly easy when they have the roster construction a little similar to that.

So nice to see some of the changes being made. And obviously it sounds like you're taking the experience you had in year one and finding ways to improve it going into year two. And I guess my last question for you is what are your expectations heading into year two? I mean, do you have any goals at this point? Last year I think it was really just let's get the word out. Let's try to win some games, have some fun, and learn some things.

But what about year two? Yeah, I think this year, how do we improve that roster? Kind of like what we talked about. Obviously, getting wins. We want to get back in the W column. So, you know, I wanted to touch on a little something so i think the emphasis that we put on kind of the structure in our in our organization um and kind of that appreciation just taking care of the guys the best we can

is important and so continuing that um is important um you know most organized teams in the tournament uh were one of the most followed teams on twitter after a year and you know actually we were one of only two first round games that were featured on espn in impromptu time at last so you know now when we message guys the second year um or club guys we a little bit of credibility that call a little bit cheaper than they would have maybe last year and hopefully guys that maybe play for other tv teams tv teams that have iowa ties you know take notice and say you know man coach honor for real but take care of me um you know so we're you know we're we're talking you know uh aaron white um you know we're we're kind of getting a hold of some of those guys that you know play on other teams that you know hey you know come back time come back and play for

i've denied um so um you know that that's important so that you know it's not just basketball that they want to market it on and off the floor and you know it's going to be beneficial working with you know guys like uh head coach and know coach pfizer if he comes over the knowledge he has so i think in the second year it's really just kind of building off kind of those things and then now how do we add a little bit more talent uh to our roster you know and i'll tell you this right now we We talk about Peter Jockelon. He's probably a number one target for this year. I'm messaging this guy all the time.

Coach is messaging him all the time. We really, really want Pete on the roster because he gives us a dynamic that we exactly need. We need him to be a little bit longer up front, and he's a dead-eye shooter to join tyrus and josh out there and then being able to have time even there for the guys out be able to pull out and shoot threes because you remember these are not nba threes if you notice they're college threes and when we played you know when we walked in there we saw that you know tyrus is like that's the layup

so uh but i'd say that's probably the biggest thing is kind of just building off structurally and organization-wise what we did and then now let's not look at the talent of the roster because now we've got that credibility that hey, these guys are for real. It's not some

flat-by-night operation. This is a pretty organized group. That's the big thing. And getting that win. We've got to get back at them. Absolutely. I just quickly looked up Peter Jock's stats right now.

He's actually shooting 42.5% from three right now. It definitely would be a nice addition to the roster. And at 6'5", 6'6", he definitely adds that length that you talked about on that wing. It would be awesome to see a former Iowa Hawkeye, especially a guy of Peter Jock's stature on the team as well. Yeah, and, you know, like we talked about, I mean, just to kind of give you an idea, you know, when we got back, one of the other things we did was we have –

I put it kind of in an Excel spreadsheet but i think we're up to oh gosh i don't know 70 75 names of guys we've contacted or tried to get um that that we've kind of worked to try to fill out those rosters so you know we have a couple new faces uh that are interested uh you know dionte garrett, former Cyclone Deontay Garrett, wants to come back. He poured his Achilles a couple years ago, not quite two years ago. So,

we feel pretty good about that. And again, that's getting a little bit longer out front. He's a big guard. Not physically muscular, but he's a 5'6". He's a big point guard yeah uh you know so getting guys like him and pete out front just getting that length a little bit i think will help us um then to kind of touch on the northern isle front a little bit because you know again we needed

i felt bad that we we just weren't able to do that um eric coleman uh is is available and interested in playing um he's another guy that I've messaged him quite a bit going, hey, just making sure you're still interested, you're still in the game. He's like, yes, yes, yes. I'm still interested and I still want to play. He had a team thing last year that he couldn't do in one of his leagues. It just didn't work out. But, you know, we're still talking with Seth To total um seeing where he's at uh i know he's

coaching up there uh they they went overseas uh this past year so he wasn't able to play but this year they're they're not um so um like i said we there's no shortage of of working on these guys believe me we're trying to put the best roster we can and you know like i tell people i go anybody you can think of we've thought of and we've we've all i don't i don't give up these but there's there's guys playing and they're seniors playing in some some pretty remote leagues that are from iowa that we've contacted just to kind of follow and see you know hey what do you know just kind of see what they're doing see how they're progressing you know you know see if that's something you know we want to look into um so yeah we've we've gotten we've uh the reach is quite a bit and kind of with that just to kind of touch on another thing some of the support staff we've got there are unbelievable still marcus is you know uh you know i called all of them um the other day in our message and i said hey one of the things uh coach harmer and i

talked about too was there is a possibility and so don't these fans out there don't be surprised by this because other teams have done this too don't be surprised if we add a quote-unquote grad transfer. If we have somebody that's an elite player, ex-MDA, ex-whatever that we'd be crazy not to take, we're probably going to take them. So that's one thing I've kind of reached out to some of these guys that are getting old. You can't believe how the reach some of these guys have. So we'll see if some of that pans out,

see if we can't throw that out there and find some guys. But, yeah, we're always working to put together the best roster we possibly can. I love it, man. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing this roster kind of shape up and seeing those media cards put out and the hype videos. That will be really exciting. And I think obviously the following that you already have is only going to continue to grow.

So excited to see that. Matt, I really appreciate your time. Is there anything else you wanted to bring up on today's show? No, I think that's it. Again, we just appreciate everybody that supports us and follows us on Twitter. We try to keep everything positive and really Iowa-based and Iowa-related. I'm kind of touching on that. Today's kind of a rough day in the media world with everything that happened with the folks over kxno but i wanted to uh you know extend my thoughts i guess to to those folks good folks over there that uh i heart radio kind of uh took out at the knees a little bit but

yeah guys like chris williams and ross peterson were were great when we brought uh nicholas bear and tyrus mcgee over and just as friendly as can be made it really easy to talk with them and they had a great time with the banter of Iowa and Iowa State but you know I appreciate guys like you that are doing local

podcasts and keeping things local and promoting all good things Iowa is a great thing and something that we need. So hopefully those guys bounce back and get somewhere that appreciates them. But, yeah, I think that's it. I just appreciate you guys helping us out and promoting us and getting us out there again.

But we try to keep everything positive and keep everything iowa related we we celebrate all the iowa state northern iowa drake stuff on our twitter account um you know we don't get in all the nonsense you know on twitter it's pretty easy to get into the nonsense. It's super easy. It's super easy, but we really try to pump out the hate. Northern Iowa won. Drake won tonight. This happened. We always try to keep it positive and all about the four Iowa schools.

Certainly follow us there at Iowa TVT. That's the best thing. You can find out information on things coming up. Yeah, that'd be great. Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you again. I appreciate your time, and I'm looking forward to seeing the development of Iowa United in year two

and looking forward to talking to you again and having you back on the show later on. All right. Thanks, Andrew. I appreciate it. No problem. Talk to you later, Matt. All right. Bye. All right, and that'll conclude our interview with Matthew Crawford. Again, a big shout-out to him.

Really appreciate all the time that he spends not just talking to me about this team but putting this team together. Believe me when I tell you, it was a ton of fun to watch them down in Wichita. I'm really excited for the opportunity to watch them again and to cover them right here on the podcast. And like I've said before, this is a Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, but when it comes to a team like that, a team that is comprised of all the schools in Iowa, if anyone's been listening to me at all, they know I'm a homer for the state.

Obviously, I'm going to root for Iowa first and foremost. I'm going to root for Drake secondly because I went there. And then you and I and Iowa State somewhere in between, behind that. But when it comes to combining the players in the state, I think it's a really awesome cause and a really awesome idea that brings the state together and bring some of the most notable alumni from these basketball programs together to see them play on the same court. It was really awesome to see a Tyrus McGee playing with a Josh Young, playing with a Nicholas Bayer, playing with a Matt Tybee. So just some really cool stuff that he is putting together. And in year two, I see an even bigger jump,

you know, winning a game potentially in the TBT and maybe making a little bit of a bigger splash than, you know, last year's tournament where they were just, you know, getting the team together. So lots of fun stuff coming for the TBT and the Iowa United team and looking forward to having Matthew Crawford back on the show. If you liked this interview, if you liked the show in general, make sure to like, review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, and make sure to go follow us on

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And again, a big shout out to you all for listening to the show. I absolutely appreciate the love and support, and keep tuning in every single day during the week, because we have awesome content coming up next week, the week after, and so on and so forth, between interviews, Senior Bowl coverage, NFL Draft coverage.

We've got you covered right here on Locked on Hawkeyes. Again, have a great day, Hawkeye Nation. Go Hawks!