IOWA CITY, Iowa – Prior to meeting with the media Monday morning, Iowa baseball coach Rich Heller was the guest on the Hawk Fanatic radio show and podcast.

Heller was pressed for time with a press conference scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Monday, but he still give us about 20 minutes to talk about the surging Iowa baseball team, which ended the regular season this past weekend with a three-game sweep of Indiana, highlighted by a record-breaking 30-16 come-from-behind win in the first game on Thursday.

Iowa finished the regular season 33-17 overall and tied for second in the Big Ten with Rutgers at 17-7.

The Hawkeyes are the No. 3 seed in the Big Ten Tournament and will face sixth-seed Penn State in the first round on Wednesday at 9 a.m. in Omaha, Nebraska.

Iowa and Penn State did not face each other during the regular season.

The game will be televised by the Big Ten Network.

Heller also talked about his hope that the start of the college baseball season would be pushed back at least one month to allow the teams from the Midwest and northern states to play in better weather conditions. Heller has been advocating for this change for two decades.

We appreciate coach Heller being our guest despite his busy schedule Monday morning.

And as a bonus, former Iowa offensive coordinator Don Patterson also called into the show and shared with us his analytics from this past weekend’s PGA Championship.

And, of course, we also talked a little bit about college football.

Don will be back again this fall to talk about Hawkeye football on each Monday during the season.