Jeff Horner Bringing Team Back to Iowa

Former Hawkeye Point Guard Coaching Truman State in Exhibition

Truman State men's basketball coach Jeff Horner. (Photo: TrumanBulldogs.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Jeff Horner was in the seventh grade when he received his first letter from Iowa basketball Coach Tom Davis.

Davis wrote, “Hey, we’re going to keep an eye on you.”

By the time Horner committed to the Hawkeyes, as a freshman at Mason City High School, Steve Alford had replaced Davis as the Iowa coach.

“I spent my entire life wanting to be a Hawkeye,” Horner said. “And then being able to live my dream out and play there, and give my blood, sweat and tears for four years, that was obviously one of the biggest parts of my life.”

The game he played with grace and poise under pressure is now Horner’s profession. He’s in his fifth season as the head coach at Truman State, a Division II program. The Bulldogs have won at least 20 games and qualified for the NCAA Tournament three straight seasons.

Past and present will collide on Monday when Truman State plays Iowa in a 7 p.m. exhibition game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“I’ve asked Fran (McCaffery) for a couple of years now to play them,” Horner said of the Iowa coach. “This year I hit him up again, hoping we could figure something out, and he was like, “Oh, sure, we’ll play.’ With us having a ton of Iowa kids, it will be cool for them to go into Carver and play as well.”

Horner, Iowa’s Mr. Basketball in 2002 as a senior at Mason City High School, has 10 Iowans on his 20-man roster. He plans to start five Iowans on Monday - Hunter Strait, a 6-2 senior guard from Ankeny Centennial; Dyan Peeters, a 6-8 junior forward from Davenport Assumption; Trey Shearer, a 6-0 sophomore guard from Montezuma; Elijah Hazelkamp, a 6-5 junior guard/forward from Bishop Heelan in Sioux City; and Keaton Mitchell, a 6-8 junior forward from Wapello.

“They’ve put the time in our program, and I just think that’s the right thing to do,” Horner said.

Horner will get a good read on his team in a hurry. Two days after playing Iowa, the Bulldogs play another exhibition at Purdue. Horner’s got eight new faces on his roster, and he’ll be trying to fill some unexpected losses. Three players entered the transfer portal after last season and signed with Missouri Valley Conference programs.

Cade McKnight, a 6-9 graduate forward from Grinnell, and Masen Miller, a 6-2 sophomore guard from Iowa City Regina, are now at Indiana State. Eric Northweather, a 6-10 sophomore forward from Jefferson City, Mo., is at Drake.

McKnight was the player of the year in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. Miller averaged 14.1 points a game, and Northweather 9.5 points.

“The transfer portal is something at the Division II level that is going to hurt you more than help you,” Horner said. “We lost three guys to MVC schools. Maybe that speaks volumes to the way we were able to help guys get better.”

Horner, a point guard, scored 1,502 points for Iowa from 2003 to 2006. He had the school’s career assist record of 612 until Jordan Bohannon came along.

Iowa started four Iowans in Horner’s senior season. He was joined by Greg Brunner of Charles City, Adam Haluska and Carroll and Mike Henderson of Waterloo East.

That 2005-06 team finished 25-9, including a 17-0 record at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. That included victories over four rated teams - No. 13 Indiana, No. 16 Ohio State, No. 21 Michigan and No. 16 Michigan State.

“Carver-Hawkeye is a special place when it’s going,” Horner said. “I still remember playing Michigan State my senior year, and it was crazy. We had gone to East Lansing earlier in the year and they took it to us (85-55). They never seemed to miss a shot when we played there.”

The Spartans’ Shannon Brown flexed at one point in the game. It was a moment the Hawkeyes didn’t forget, a moment that motivated them. Iowa won the rematch, 66-54.

“Doug Thomas flexed after a dunk,” Horner recalled. “That was a memorable moment. Carver was just awesome that day.”

That Iowa team won the Big Ten Tournament to head into the NCAA Tournament with momentum. It was the last time the Hawkeyes had won it all until last season’s team pulled it off.

And both those teams got upset in the first round of the NCAAs.

Iowa squandered a 17-point lead with 8 minutes to play and lost to Northwestern State in 2006, 64-63, on Jermaine Wallace’s fall away 3-pointer from the left corner. When the Hawkeyes lost to Richmond in last season’s first round, 67-63, Horner felt like it was 2006 all over again.

“I think about that every year when the NCAA Tournament comes around,” Horner said. “That loss has always been hard for me to stomach. You feel like you let the fans down. That’s just the way I’ve always looked at it. The fans deserved for us to be a winner and move on. Unfortunately the ball just didn’t fall right. Literally, I guess you could say. Hard for the fans, even harder for the players. Life’s lessons, I guess. It definitely helped me moving forward in life.”

Horner has been back to Carver-Hawkeye Arena to watch a handful of games when he had a rare break in his coaching schedule. He was also back during the 2016-17 season for a game when he was an assistant coach at North Dakota. He returns this time as a head coach looking to find answers as he tries to mold his fifth Truman State team into a winner again.

The noise of games past, when he raced up and down the court in uniform No. 2, still rings in his ears.

“Hopefully we get a good crowd, and our guys are able to experience some of that,” Horner said.