Todd Lickliter worked magic in his six seasons as the coach at Butler, taking the mid-major to a pair of Sweet 16 appearances and cracking the top 10 last season.

Lickliter will have to be even more of a magician in his first season at Iowa if the Hawkeyes are to be competitive in the Big Ten. Lickliter replaces Steve Alford, who left to take the coaching job at New Mexico while under fire from Hawkeyes fans, and inherits just one of the top four scorers from a team that did make the postseason last year after going 17-14.

The top returnee is 6-1 junior point guard Tony Freeman, who scored 7.5 points and dished out 3.7 assists a game a season ago. He will be counted on heavily to not only run the offense but provide leadership to an inexperienced team.

Both starting forwards return but neither 6-8 junior Cyrus Tate nor 6-10 senior Kurt Looby have shown much scoring punch during their college careers. Tate averaged 4.2 points and 4.4 rebounds last season while Looby's numbers were 3.8 and 4.6.

Lickliter will count on two veterans to take on more significant roles as 7-0 senior center Seth Gorney and 6-6 senior guard Jason Johnson move into the starting lineup. Gorney averaged 5.3 points and 3.8 rebounds last season and Johnson's averages were 5.4 and 2.3.

Iowa lost Adam Haluska and his 20.5 scoring average to the New Orleans Hornets in the second round of the NBA draft and it is hard to tell who might pick up some of that slack, though Gorney seems to be the best bet.

Tyler Smith would have been in line to be the Hawkeyes' main threat after being a third-team All-Big Ten selection as a freshman last season when he scored 14 points a game. However, Smith transferred to Tennessee to be closer to his father, who eventually died of lung cancer.

J.R. Angle, a 6-7 junior swingman, will provide minutes off the bench but averaged just 1.7 points last winter.

Perhaps one of three key newcomers can provide scoring punch. David Palmer, a 6-9 sophomore forward, sat out last season after transferring from Seton Hall while the top freshmen are 6-6 swingman Jake Kelly from Carmel, Ind., and 6-7 forward Jarryd Cole from Winnetonka High School in Kansas City, Mo. Kelly averaged 13.7 points as a high school senior and Cole averaged 19.1 points, 13.7 rebounds and 5.2 blocked shots.

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