6 SPORTS

Sports PAGE 6 | Iowa State Daily | Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Editor Nate Sandell | sports@iowastatedaily.com | 515.294.3148

Basketball players, coaches revel in teams’ new practice complex

By Chris CuellarDaily Staff Writer

Opening late last week, Cyclone basketball players and coaches are acclimating to their setup as the new Iowa State Basketball Practice Facil-ity in West Ames is still filled with that new court smell.

The $8 million facility brings the men’s and women’s team under one roof for practice, weight training and relaxation while the coaching staff can enjoy the office amenities upstairs.

“I would venture to say it ex-ceeded our expectations,” said men’s head coach Greg McDermott. “You don’t know when you see the shell of a building what the finished product is going to be. Obviously we’ve seen it on paper for quite some time now, but to have it finished in the classy way that it is, we couldn’t have asked for more.”

The main entrance separates the women’s side on the left and the men’s to the right, but from there, the nearly identical halves fill their space with touches that both women’s coach Bill Fennelly and McDermott feel will im-mediately improve their programs.

“Especially for our guys that have

been here for a couple years, having to bounce from State Gym to Forker for workouts, to Lied Rec for weight training and to another part of cam-pus for treatment, now they can do that all under one roof,” McDermott said.

“Just their day-to-day life has got-ten so much better, because every-thing is here for them.”

The lower level boasts Wetter Court for the men’s team and Hun-ziker Court for the women’s team, and each side has an adjoining lounge with a kitchenette, recreation and study space and five wide leather chairs with cup holders and lighting control that are seated in front of a 65-inch flat screen television, complete with Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 and DirecTV connections.

The facility holds 33 televisions and projectors total, with the larg-est coming in the team film/theater room. A 120-inch screen takes the picture from a projector, overhang-ing 21 leather seats engraved with the Iowa State logo that swivel and pivot.

The locker rooms are custom de-signed, with 17 players’ lockers occu-pying the space, with adjoined show-ers and bathrooms.

The new weight and training room sits down the hall. With free weights, machines and medicine balls, the Cy-

The Play: Running Back DrawThe Sequence: Iowa State 27, Kent State 710:10 left in third quarter, 1st and 10Alexander Robinson had al-ready run more than 10 yards twice on the drive, lined up with four wide receivers.

The left side of the line moves its blocks to the

left, while right tackle Scott Haughton moves his block to the right, creating a hole for running back Robinson to move through.

Robinson takes the handoff from quarterback Austen Arnaud before

reading the hole his line has provided him and the second level of the defense.

As the blocks move down-

field, Robinson moves through the hole virtually untouched, moving easily into the line-backers and secondary.

Robinson isn’t slowed until he collides with both

safeties near the goal line, but they could not bring him down until after he hit pay dirt for his second score of the year.

5. Robinson tore through the Golden Flashes’ defense for 143 yards and this

touchdown.

Football

1. Florida (55) 3–0 2. Texas (2) 3–0 3. Alabama (3) 3–0 4. Mississippi 2–0 5. Penn State 3–0 6. California 3–0 7. LSU 3–0 8. Boise State 3–0 9. Miami (Fla.) 2–0 10. Oklahoma 2–1 11. Virginia Tech 2–1 12. USC 2–1 13. Ohio State 2–1 14. Cincinnati 3–0 15. TCU 2–0 16. Oklahoma State 2–1 17. Houston 2–0 18. Florida State 2–1 19. Brigham Young 2–1 20. Kansas 3–0 21. Georgia 2–1 22. North Carolina 3–0 23. Michigan 3–1 24. Washington 2–1 25. Nebraska 2–1

AP Top 25 Poll

Volleyball

1. Penn State 12–0 2. Texas 7–0 3. Washington 10–0 4. Hawaii 9–2 5. Florida 6–1 6. Nebraska 9–2 7. Oregon 10–0 8. Michigan 12–1 9. Minnesota 9–3 10. Stanford 7–3 11. Iowa State 9–2 12. California 7–3 13. Southern California 11–1 14. UCLA 10–3 15. Illinois 8–1 16. Michigan State 12–0 17. Kentucky 11–1 18. Florida State 9–1 19. Arizona 11–0 20. Wichita State 11–1 21. UC Irvine 10–2 22. San Diego 7–3 23. Saint Louis 7–5 24. Baylor 12–1 25. Long Beach State 2–1

AVCA Coaches’ Poll

Facilities

Equipped to train the best

Ron Smith, director of basketball operations, gives a tour of the new basketball practice facility Monday. The facility accommodates both the men’s and women’s teams and provides 24-hour access for both players and coaches. Photo: Rashah McChesney/Iowa State Daily

Monitors allow coaches to record games taking place in the practice facilities. Photo: Rashah McChesney/Iowa State Daily

29,000 ■ square feetLocated three miles from ■

campus in West Ames24-hour access ■ for players33 televisions ■ included within the facilityTeam lounge areas with ■ 65-inch televisionsTraining center for each team ■

that includes four taping stations, two whirlpools, two televisions and five treatment tablesCustom-designed locker ■ rooms for both teams

Fully equipped ■ weight roomsCoaches offices on the ■

second floor with televisions connected to the XOS video editing systemTwo editing ■ rooms include four DirectTV HD/DVR satel-lite boxes A ■ balcony is included on the second floor overlooking each courtA ■ theater room on the sec-ond floor includes a 120-inch projection screen with 21 leather seats

Iowa State Basketball Practice Facility information:

By Chris CuellarDaily Staff Writer

With three games down and just 60 days of scheduled football left to play, the Cyclone football team and its coach Paul Rhoads are starting another week of preparation for their 6 p.m. Saturday game against the visiting Army Black Knights.

Sitting at 2–1 following a 34–14 win that was underwhelming in the second half against a depleted Kent State, the Cyclones were pleased to come back to Ames with the victory, but the coaching staff is already pre-paring for the Black Knights and their unique schemes on both sides of the ball.

“They will be as disciplined as any football team we’ll play all year, they will be as physi-cal as we’ll play all year,” Rhoads said. “There will be no quit to them. If this thing goes five overtimes, they will be just as fast in the fifth overtime as they were in the first series of the game.”

The Cyclones and Army have been similar on exterior statistics this season, with Army scoring 23.3 points per game and allowing 22, opposing Iowa State’s 23.7 per game for and 22 against. A deeper look shows Army gain-ing nearly 81 percent of its yardage on the ground, completing only 15 passes through three games. By comparison, the Cyclones are averaging more than 15 completions per game.

Cyclone Standouts — During his weekly press conference on Monday, Rhoads commented on the play of Alexander Robin-son and Jake Williams. Robinson has rushed for 100 yards in back-to-back weeks, while Williams has seemingly come out of nowhere to be an impact player for a group of receivers searching for a rallying point.

Robinson could be the first Iowa State running back to hit 100 yards in three con-secutive games if he accomplishes the feat against Army. He credits his offensive line and the spread system for most of his success.

“It’s simply my O-line. They’re doing a tre-mendous job up front, and anytime they get holes like they’ve given us, you just try to do what you can,” Robinson said.

Football

Cyclones strive for winning record

Editor’s note:The following is a part of a season-long feature breaking down key plays from Saturday’s game.

see FACILITY on PAGE 7

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Images: Courtesy/EA Sports’ NCAA Football 2010

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By Dave CampbellAP Sports Writer

MINNEAPOLIS — The NFL said Mon-day it will not swap sites for this season’s Packers-Vikings games in case the baseball playoffs get in the way at the Metrodome.

Green Bay plays at Minnesota Oct. 5, pitting Brett Favre against his old team in front of a national TV audience.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Twins trail Detroit by three games in the American League Central with 13 games left to play. If the two teams finish tied for first place, the Twins will host a tiebreaker game if they beat the Tigers in the overall season series. Minnesota leads 9–5, with four games re-maining in Detroit next week.

The Twins and White Sox needed a 163rd game to decide the division last year, a game that was played in Chicago. Major League Baseball typically schedules tie-breaker games for the Monday right after the regular season because playoff series begin that week.

NFL spokesman Dan Masonson said the Packers-Vikings game next month will not be moved, however. Green Bay later hosts Minnesota on Nov. 1.

“There is no swap under consider-ation,” Masonson said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “We are closely monitor-ing the situation.”

Potential conflicts like this aren’t new for the Twins, who have shared the Metro-dome with the Vikings since 1982 and will move to their own ballpark next spring.

“It would certainly be a fitting way to end our time in the Metrodome,” Twins president Dave St. Peter said of the poten-tial hassle.

Until this fall, the University of Min-nesota also played football at the dome, forcing the Twins into many 11 a.m. game times over the years. In 2004, a game was halted in the 11th inning because crews needed time to convert the field for foot-ball later that night.

NFL

Packers-Vikings site swap plan rejected by league

see FOOTBALL on PAGE 7