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Stories I Tell on Dates: Love and Basketball with Paul Shirley and Zach Bohannon

With March Madness in full swing, college basketball and its top players have been a hot topic of conversation.

On this hour of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks to former professional basketball player Paul Shirley about his experience playing college basketball for the Cyclones and his latest memoir The Stories I Tell on Dates.

Shirley's book draws from both his time playing professional basketball around the world and from his childhood in rural Kansas.

“We all have these certain stories that frame who we are and that we use to explain who we are really quickly," Shirley says. "The exercise in writing these memoirs was a way for me to remind people, 'Hey, I'm really more like you than you realize.'"

Later in the hour, Nebbe talks with former Wisconsin Badger Zach Bohannon, who has traveled 35,217 miles and gone to 67 Hawkeye basketball games over the last two years to watch his brother Jordan compete. They discuss watching his brother play and why Bohannon believes the NCAA should pay college athletes.

Charity Nebbe is the host of IPR's Talk of Iowa
Katherine Perkins is IPR's Program Director for News and Talk