Mike Hlas

Google’s sneaky trick to sidestep an Iowa county’s data center zoning rules Just convince a nearby city to annex the land.

Yeah, this kind of hits home. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Starch Madness going on right now in Boise. Idaho vs. Montana for an NCAA berth and the Big Sky title.

It's my silver anniversary of being "from freakin' Iowa," courtesy of Steve Alford and Hawkeye fans who wouldn't forget I was accused of trying to run Alford out of Iowa in 2001. Six years later, I was accused of not doing anything to get rid of him.

Hlas Out of Bounds: It's my silver anniversary of being from freakin' Iowa, courtesy of a 2001 basketball press conference that turned me into Public Enemy No. 1 in the state for a little while. mikehlas.substack.com/p/its-my-sil...

Former Hawkeye Riley Mulvey is going to the NCAA tourney. His Siena team won the MAAC title game tonight, and he had 11 points, 11 rebounds and 5 blocked shots and played all 40 minutes. Siena's in NCAA for 1st time since Fran McCaffery coached there in 2010.

This is Max Velocity:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6H9...

Hlas Out of Bounds: Hawkeyes. Cyclones. Two morning men's basketball games Wednesday. Now that's March madness. mikehlas.substack.com/p/conference...

Ben Jacobson and UNI have never drifted apart in 20 years, and now they're headed back to the NCAA men's basketball tournament It's Northern Iowa's fifth NCAA trip under Jacobson, but first in 10 years. The way the Panthers played in St. Louis over the weekend was vintage Jacobson-coached Arch Madness.

Hlas Out of Bounds: UNI men's basketball has made some great memories for Panther fans in Ben Jacobson's two decades as head coach. It added another over the weekend, and is a potential headache for some big-deal team in the NCAA tourney next week. mikehlas.substack.com/p/ben-jacobs...

What a glorious weekend for UNI's men's basketball team. First team to win 4 games in the Missouri Valley tourney, off to the NCAA tourney for the 1st time in 10 years after 84-69 win over UIC today in the MVC title game. Beware to the high-major that gets the Panthers next week.

Trump: "A lot of our people were walking around without legs"

Hlas column for HawkFanatic.com: Even though it was a loss, the memories of the last home game of the season for Iowa men's basketball should be good ones. The Hawkeyes' 71-68 defeat to Big Ten-champ Michigan was fierce and fun. hawkfanatic.com/2026/03/06/h...

The corporate barons can't keep me out of the arena. I'm columnizing after the Michigan-Iowa game for HawkFanatic.com. Will the Hawkeyes provide a surprise? Will the Wolverines' rarely matched Big Ten dominance continue? If I knew that, I'd be in the Caymans, not Carver.

The subtitle to Seniors Nights in college basketball is "Hello, I must be going." The Iowa men's team will send off three seniors tonight when the Hawkeyes play Big Ten-champion Michigan. A year ago today, none had ever been on Iowa's campus.

Hlas Out of Bounds: We love you guys, fans are telling the players during college basketball Seniors Nights this week (including at Iowa tonight). Now which one are you again? mikehlas.substack.com/p/the-subtit...

My column for hawkfanatic.com on Lisa Bluder's second Big Ten women's basketball tournament as a broadcaster after 24 as Iowa's coach, and how she has worked to turn "we" into "they" when discussing the Hawkeyes. hawkfanatic.com/2026/03/03/h...

We'll workshop it.

It's ticket-punching season in sports, and the references to that must end immediately No one punches tickets anymore. And movie stars with any self-respect need not try to persuade me to change cell phone-services.

Hlas Out of Bounds: A list of minor irritations plaguing me, from Carver cones to Billy Bob Thornton, and especially talking heads who say a winning tournament team just punched its ticket. mikehlas.substack.com/p/its-ticket...

The Oklahoma City Thunder are signing Payton Sandfort to a two-way NBA contract out of their OKC Blue G League affiliate, Ross Aroyo and Mark Bartelstein of @PrioritySports tell ESPN. Sandfort joined the OKC program after being undrafted from Iowa last June.

OK, don't read anything into this other than it's a what-if question. What if you decided to liquidate all your assets and take up residence in another nation, knowing the varying difficulties of doing that in each nation that interests you? Which would you pick?

A Path to Olympic Gold, Jesse Jackson, Grinnell, ...Tuna Casserole (yay or nay?) and more

Iowa's best newspaper: iowawriters.substack.com/p/a-path-to-...

Larry David Agreed to Interview His Daughter Cazzie. She Had Other Ideas. Cazzie David's new book, "Delusions," explores the anxieties of young adulthood. Who better to interview her about it than her famously anxious dad?

Not having very many close friends bothers me. Especially since Larry David isn't one of them. www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/cazz...

is it a toilet, it’s a toilet isn’t it

the average american eats 5 hotdogs a year in their sleep

You'll sing a different tune when you need a presidential pardon. Of course, you'll have to "donate" a seven-figure amount to get it.

It's a good day for some Campbell's Soup.

Grinnell College men's basketball is still wildly different from the norm, but it's also now a champion The Pioneers take "The System" into the Midwest Conference postseason tournament this week with a shiny 20-3 record

Hlas Out of Bounds: The Grinnell men's basketball team is still routinely scoring 100+ points per game, but it's been doing a lot of something else lately: Winning. mikehlas.substack.com/p/grinnell-c...

I'm not a meterologist.

Let's not play two.

East Main Street, Newark NJ.

The winners have to play the next day. The losers get to go home.

To say that a lot of people wlll be conflicted during Tuesday's "action" is an understatement.

Corniglia. There are no Winter Olympics in this part of Italy, but something rarer than a U.S. gold medal in men's ice hockey has just occurred. Namely, a parking space has opened up.

I’m so proud of these dudes whose social media content I will never, ever check