How does a MWL beat writer spend the winter?

Well, if they are in Iowa...

They either get to cover a blowout loss by the basketball Hawkeyes to Illinois in Champaign like Steve Batterson of the Quad Cities Times.

For Iowa fans who stuck with the Hawkeyes’ Orange Bowl game on Tuesday night, it would be easy to say that they didn’t miss a thing by bypassing Iowa’s 59-42 basketball loss at Illinois.

It would be easy, but it wouldn’t be right.

It would be easy to label this just another slow start for a team that has now started slowly in its last two Big Ten games.

It would be easy, but it wouldn’t be right.

Just as the Hawkeyes have learned lessons in victory, there are lessons to be learned from Tuesday’s lopsided defeated at Champaign’s so-called House of ‘Paign.

Or, they get to go to Miami to blog and write about weather, food, and Iowa's win over Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl like Susan Denk of The Hawkeye in Burlington.

It's basically the same thing.