page_title: Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball
section_title: Early years (1901–1922)
hierarchical_section_title: Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball / History / Early years (1901–1922)
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Ed Rule (University of Iowa basketball coach)
context_page_description: The Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball team represents the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, as a member of the Big Ten Conference and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Coach Fran McCaffery is the current head coach, and has been at Iowa since 2010.
  The Hawkeyes have played in 26 NCAA Tournaments, eight NIT Tournaments, won eight Big Ten regular-season conference championships and won the Big Ten tournament twice. Iowa has played in the Final Four on three occasions, reaching the semifinals in 1955 and 1980 and playing in the championship game against the University of San Francisco in 1956.
  Iowa basketball was widely successful in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s with a program resurgence under Lute Olson and the tenures of George Raveling and Tom Davis. Under Olson, the Hawkeyes won their last Big Ten regular season championship and went to the 1980 Final Four.
  They currently play in 15,400-seat Carver-Hawkeye Arena, along with Iowa women's basketball, wrestling, and volleyball teams.
  Prior to playing in Carver-Hawkeye Arena, which opened in 1983, the Hawkeyes played in the Iowa Armory and the Iowa Field House, which is still used today by the school's gymnastics teams.
context_section_description: The roots of Iowa basketball lie in 1901, when Ed Rule coached the Hawkeyes to a 10–2 record in their very first season of varsity basketball. Earlier, when the sport was evolving and still in a club format, Iowa played the University of Chicago club in the first five-on-five college game on January 18, 1896. Rule coached the Hawkeyes in four non-consecutive seasons (1901–02, 03–04, 05–07), leading Iowa to a 37–15 record under his watch. Even today, Rule's winning percentage stands as the best among head coaches in Iowa basketball history.
  Aside from Rule's tenure, the Hawkeyes were coached by: Fred Bailey (1902–1903), John Chalmers (1904–1905), John Griffith (1907–1910), Walter Stewart (1910–1912), Floyd Thomas (1912–1913), Maury Kent (1913–1918), Edwin Bannick (1918–1919), and James Ashmore (1919-1922). In the era of multiple sport coaches, Chalmers (24–8), Griffin (2-4), Kent (assistant) and Ahsmore (assistant) also were Coaches of Iowa Hawkeyes football. Kent pitched briefly for the Brooklyn Dodgers and coached the Iowa Hawkeyes baseball team (42-26), as did Chalmers (24-6), Stewart (16-12), Ashmore (23–20) and Griffith (9-6). From 1902–1923, the best Iowa basketball finished in conference play was fifth on three separate occasions. Iowa began play in the Western Conference (1902–1917) which evolved and changed its name to the Big Ten Conference beginning in 1917–1918.
caption: Coach Ed Rule, 1907
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