"Competition makes me better,’’ Cotlar said. "It makes me work harder.’’

Cotlar, who just turned 50, is a central player in the hot radio sports-talk struggle for listeners in the Des Moines market. Since Dec. 3, he’s teamed with Jim Walden on the 4-to-7 p.m. show on KXNO.

Sports talk is an ever-changing thing, and the landscape underwent more movement this week when Deace, who had been fired by KJJC, began his afternoon gig on KXTK.

Deace, 28, had good ratings at KJJC and has been heavily promoted by KXTK.

But Cotlar isn’t running scared.

"I know I’ve proven myself,’’ he said. "Obviously, Deace is someone who has a following of sorts. I don’t want this to sound derogatory toward him at all, but I’ve gone against strong competition in major markets before, and I hardly think I’m going to be afraid of Steve Deace.

"I don’t worry about it. I do my own thing.’’

Besides, Cotlar said he has numbers to prove that his show and KXNO are making progress.

"As far as radio ratings trends are concerned, KXNO went up in general listenership in the November-December-January period, and we were the only sports-talk station to show an improvement,’’ he said.

"In the audience of people 25-to-54 years of age, we went up from .8 to 1.1. That means percentage points of the audience--and you should realize that sports-talk has a narrow audience, especially when it’s divided among three stations in this market.’’

In the ratings trend period Cotlar was referring to, Deace was still working for KJJC.

Cotlar is a veteran of Des Moines radio, but left to do talk shows in Las Vegas, Chicago and St. Louis before coming back home.

"I was shocked when I heard that Des Moines had three sports-talk stations,’’ he said.

So are more than a few other people, and some question whether all three will be able to stay in business.

"There’s a lot of potential here,’’ Cotlar said. "It’s a real intelligent area, and people have a lot to say. And people care about more than sports.’’

Cotlar said he is already doing more than sports on his afternoon show.

"I’m not going to sit and talk about football recruiting in the middle of April,’’ he said. "We’ve already started doing other things. We have a segment called ‘What’s Your Beef?’ on Wednesday nights, where people can give their complaints about anything.’’

He said KXNO is also including segments on movies and other forms of entertainment.

The amazing thing was that 10,511 fans bought tickets to see the hapless team finish its 19-16 season with a 63-61 loss to LSU in the NIT—a tournament for losers.

Either hand it to the fans for being loyal or wonder about their intelligence. A guy I know said he wouldn’t walk across the street to buy a $19 ticket to watch the Hawkeyes play in the NIT, but plenty of others came from further away than across the street to see Luke and Reggie’s swan song.

At least Iowa’s athletic department powers-that-be didn’t try to bilk the public the way Minnesota’s did. Minnesota charged $29 for tickets to its first-round game against New Mexico. A gathering of 4,097 showed up for the game—and, to show what a sorry show the NIT is, Minnesota is also expected to be awarded a second-round game at home next week.

But back to Iowa.

This was a season that saw fans and non-fans openly question whether Steve Alford could coach. He went from "Boy Wonder" to "How Can We Get Rid of This Guy?" in a hurry. He wore all those fancy suits and had his hair brushed and sprayed in just the right GQ way, then looked bewildered all night while being outcoached by everyone from Jim O’Brien to Jerry Dunn.

In the case of Penn State’s Dunn, that takes some doing.

After the Hawkeyes went 5-11 in the Big Ten’s regular season, a few fans got excited when they did well early in the postseason tournament. But a 17-point loss to Ohio State in the title game brought the situation back to reality.

"By winning three straight games in the tournament, Alford exposed what a horsecrap coaching job he did in January and February,’’ an eastern Iowa man familiar with Hawkeye athletics said in an e-mail to me.

By the way, he used a much stronger word than "horsecrap’’ to describe the coaching job Alford did.

"Alford is 8-2 in the tournament and 18-30 in regular-season Big Ten games,’’ the man continued. "Go figure.’’

A reader from outside the state, who has been keeping a close watch on the Hawkeyes for a number of years, says, "Here’s the real point, I think: If one wants to blame Alford for the team’s problems (and why not?), look at two factors:

"1. Pierre Pierce. He apparently scored about 40 points a game in suburban Chicago, probably on dunks because he can’t shoot. He also is not a point guard and probably never will be. Why Alford started him all season is a mystery, unless some sort of recruiting promise was involved.

"Chauncey Leslie and (even) Brody Boyd were more effective running the team when I was watching them. Iowa finished the deal at the Big Ten tourney last season because they had a good point guard, and Dean Oliver put them on his shoulders and carried them to the title—an underrated feat by an underrated Hawkeye, plus, Pierce was a freshman this season. Why let an underclassman undermine a season that was supposed to ride on the shoulders of two all-Big Ten seniors?

"Which brings us to….

"2. Evans. He did not improve between seasons; was exactly the same player, and teams figured out how to defend him. He’s a ferocious rebounder, but shoots as if he’s wearing oven mits (remember Alvin Robinson?) He has two post moves: Spin left, spin right. Why didn’t he improve? Evans may not have been receptive to tutoring, but ultimately his failures are those of Iowa’s staff (same criticism stands for the handling of Jared Reiner, who probably would be averaging about 18 points and 10 rebounds at, say, Ball State).

"Incidentally, my guess is these two problems led to the bad-attitude syndrome that set in after about three Big Ten losses. Frankly, I think it’s to Alford’s credit (though mostly Recker’s) that Iowa played so well in the Big Ten tournament. Alford clearly can coach (see: Southwest Missouri State vs. Wisconsin in 1999), but his people skills may still be developing.’’

Alive in Clive, not his real name, thinks Iowa should have "thrown the doors open’’ at Carver-Hawkeye Arena after it became evident there wouldn’t be a capacity crowd at the LSU game.

He also thinks Georgetown’s coach wasn’t right in turning down his team’s invitation to the NIT.

"I believe the kids play round ball because they enjoy part of it,’’ Alive in Clive said. "Just because the NIT is like kissing your sister doesn’t mean the team would not enjoy a game against a worthy opponent.’’

Paul Anger, the Register’s new editor, comes in for his share of criticism, too.

Anger wrote his first column in the paper last Sunday, and it turned out to be generally a sophomoric effort. He tried his best to make Iowans like him, writing about how nice it was that geese were flying over the state one day when he was driving around.

The trouble was, Anger didn’t write anything about how he planned to improve the paper—and we all know there’s plenty of room for improvement.

A reader from rural Iowa sent this e-mail: "I agree that Anger’s column was a piece of crap. He is trying too hard to make Iowans love him. Hey, we know Iowa has some shortcomings, but it used to have a paper that covered the entire state, and we were all proud of that.’’

By the way, the e-mailer didn’t actually use the word "crap.’’ His word was much more graphic

Good news: There were a couple of locally-written movie reviews in Friday’s paper. At least Roger Ebert and the other syndicated critics didn’t have the movie section all to themselves. Hey, that’s progress.