About the time this publishes Iowa’s (yes there is another university in the Cyclone State) women’s basketball team will be tipping off against Louisville for a chance to play in the first Final Four for any Iowa university since 1993. In that year, the Iowa women’s basketball team made it to the Final Four. This is their second Elite Eight since then. The got crushed by Satan, I mean Kim Mulkey and the Baylor Bears 85-53 in 2019.

Since 1993, the only men’s team from the state to make it to the Elite Eight was Iowa State in 2000, but we don’t talk about that Elite Eight game and the fact that they had to play a road game and still would have won the game if it wasn’t for the Blarge… the single worst call in the history of basketball.

The Iowa State women have made the Elite Eight twice. Falling to Georgia in 1999 and Stanford in 2009.

Iowa is lead by Caitlin Clark who will probably win most of the National Player of the Year Awards. She is the best player in Iowa history and she went to West Des Moines Dowling.

I bring up her high school career, because Caitlin Clark will probably go down as the greatest women’s basketball player in the history of the entire state, although that is legitimately hard to say because Iowa girls played 6 on 6 basketball until the 1990s. She might be the greatest player ever and she NEVER won a State Championship. In fact, her senior year, she didn’t even make the State Tournament.

I don’t follow high school sports much unless I know a kid or know a kid’s parent’s or that kid is going to Iowa State. For example, the highest ranked recruit in Iowa State Men’s basketball history lost in the semifinals of the State Tournament this year. The team his team lost to, then lost in the Championship Game to a team that was lead by a kid that is being recruited to Iowa State to play wide receiver and the son of one the greatest men’s basketball players in history. They are both sophomores.

It made me curious about the history of Boone County teams in the State Tournament. Madrid made the tournament for the first time ever this year and they were the first team from Boone County to make the State Tournament since 1988 and the school that made it that year doesn’t even exist any longer. At least not as a high school.

Here is the history of Boone County Schools in the Boys State Tournament:

Boone Toreadors
1919
+ Boone 16 Ames 11
+ Council Bluffs 16 Boone 9
+ Boone 9 Cedar Rapids 7 (Consolation)

1920
+ Boone 23 Council Bluffs 5
+ Boone 17 Grinnell 12
+ Boone 23 Nashua 17
+ Boone 20 Spirit Lake 15

1921
+ Boone 16 Council Bluffs 10
+ Boone 20 Charles City 9
+ Boone 28 Cedar Falls Teachers 23
+ Boone 23 LuVerne 10

1922
+ Boone 16 Columbus Junction 9 (Suck it Jorge!)
+ Boone 16 Union 13
+ Grinnell 30 Boone 14

1926
+ Cedar Rapids Washington 16 Boone 13
+ Boone 19 Webster City 16
+ Newton 23 Boone 21

1927
+ Burlington 21 Boone 18
+ Missouri Valley 18 Boone 10 (Consolation Bracket)

1931
+ Boone 27 Henderson 21
+ Boone 25 Alta 17
+ Boone 16 Des Moines Roosevelt 15
+ Boone 16 Muscatine 11

1948
+ Boone 45 Carroll 41
+ Ankeny 41 Boone 37

1963
+ Storm Lake 48 Boone 47

Boone has not been back since 1963.

Ogden Bulldogs
1952
+ Marion 72 Ogden 42

1979
+ Ackley-Geneva 56 Ogden 55

1982
+ Ogden 65 Buffalo-Center-Rake 62 (OT)
+ Central City 63 Ogden 54
+ Cardinal Stritch, Keokuk 69 Ogden 50 (Consolation)

Haven’t been back since 1982.

Boxholm Swedes also the Blue Stars

1932
+ Boxholm 21 Wellsburg 20
+ Boxholm 15 Cedar Rapids Washington 12
+ Des Moines Roosevelt 27 Boxholm 23
+ Boxholm 31 Livermore 16

Boxholm High School doesn’t exist any longer. After 1957-58 it consolidated with Pilot Mound to form Grand. Which eventually split and was absorbed by Southeast Webster and Ogden.

United Community Comets

1970
+ Tri-Center, Neola 63 United Community 62

1988
+ Wellsburg-Steamboat Rock 70 United Community 41

United Community no long exists as a high school. Until Madrid made it this year, they were the last school to make it to the Boys Basketball Tournament from Boone County. Unless you count Woodward Academy. Which I suppose is technically in Boone County but the town of Woodward is pretty much completely in Dallas County.

I’ll go over Boone County’s Girls Basketball Tournament history at a later date.

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Today seems like a good time to share some pictures from the Boone First United Methodist Church Grill-Out we had back in October. Although this is mostly just a collection of pictures of my great-niece Dahlia.

The Methodist Men did the grilling and the rest was a potluck. In case you don’t know, Methodists like our potlucks.