Official 2020 Big Ten Champs vs. What The Hell Is A DePaul Thread

The next decent team will be showing up early and often, ready or not. We have Syracuse, Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Cincinnati in the non con alone.

While I like a competitive non con because it can build a tournament resume it can also spit you out if you're not ready. We're weren't prepared for DePaul's (moderate) speed and athleticism because we don't practice against it.

Last night looked like Rutgers on senior day. It was freaking DePaul. Whst will Texas Tech or Maryland or Michigan State do to us if we weren't ready for DePaul. I'm not buying the "hot shooting night" excuse. We were dominated in every phase of the game.
I think part of it was the hot shooting early made Iowa have to extend their defense farther out than we would have liked and exposed are lack of speed. It also gave DePaul a ton of confidence and put Iowa on their heels playing tight.
 
I think part of it was the hot shooting early made Iowa have to extend their defense farther out than we would have liked and exposed are lack of speed. It also gave DePaul a ton of confidence and put Iowa on their heels playing tight.
DePaul certainly did that. A couple players who need to be big for us turned into wallflowers after they struggled early. And things snowballed quickly after that. Fran said as such in his post game presser.

While your right about the hot early shooting extending us, the simple fact is DePaul was also getting a lot of easy baskets in transition as well as moving the ball well in the halfcourt

Give DePaul credit for smelling blood in the water and crushing our will early. But shame on a couple of our guys for folding their tents early.
 
The next decent team will be showing up early and often, ready or not. We have Syracuse, Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Cincinnati in the non con alone.

While I like a competitive non con because it can build a tournament resume it can also spit you out if you're not ready. We're weren't prepared for DePaul's (moderate) speed and athleticism because we don't practice against it.

Last night looked like Rutgers on senior day. It was freaking DePaul. Whst will Texas Tech or Maryland or Michigan State do to us if we weren't ready for DePaul. I'm not buying the "hot shooting night" excuse. We were dominated in every phase of the game.
DePaul did shoot almost 62% from the field. One could argue they were hot or you could say Hawks played no defense. Could be a bit of both. I still want to give this team a chance. It's early, but I'm leaning towards a problem we have with team speed, quickness and that we know only is fixed with different players. With this current roster we have to play clean, hit 3s, probably zone,and throw presses out there to create turnovers. We can't get into track meets with this team. One more thought....JBo just doesn't look like he's ready for this season yet with that hip surgery.
 
DePaul did shoot almost 62% from the field. One could argue they were hot or you could say Hawks played no defense. Could be a bit of both. I still want to give this team a chance. It's early, but I'm leaning towards a problem we have with team speed, quickness and that we know only is fixed with different players. With this current roster we have to play clean, hit 3s, probably zone,and throw presses out there to create turnovers. We can't get into track meets with this team. One more thought....JBo just doesn't look like he's ready for this season yet with that hip surgery.
Bingo on all points. And the sooner they can move on from JBo the better. Joe T playing like he did in the second half last night would help expedite that decision.
 
Joe Wieskamp was non existent. I obviously see the writing on the wall for Connor now, but if we're just being honest, he played better then Garza or Joe W last night IMO. He may be the ultimate problem, but at least he has his head in the game and is giving effort and hustle. Both Joe W and Garza were so overwhelmed it was laughable. Neither were strong with the ball. None of our guys had their heads in the game. Dribbling off their foot? Depaul might end up being great, but letting a team drop 93 on you at home.....well, we've just seen it before. I don't feel like I am at all rushing to judgement at this point.
 
I hope Iowa does show this was a fluke. I will freely admit that I run super hot/cold on basketball. Also teams in BB just have dips, sometime they just throw a stinker out there, or have a 3 game lull, etc. I was at last years Bryant game and I didn't think Iowa wouldn't win a B1G game last year after that performance.

Now I don't think that is what this was last night, I think Iowa just are what they are (a bad, slow basketball team). Yet I'm hoping I'm wrong.

What we saw can't all be explained away by a bad night for us. We have to hope DePaul is actually pretty darn good this year.
 
Bingo on all points. And the sooner they can move on from JBo the better. Joe T playing like he did in the second half last night would help expedite that decision.

Yep. it would be interesting to have Joe T take JBo's spot in the rotation and let Jordan sit out a game to see how everything works.
 
The thing to remember is we didn't get much slower than we were last year and we still made the tournament. I still think CJ is an upgrade over Moss on both ends of the court. That means the only down position is the 4, which looks like a big drop off right now.
 
The thing to remember is we didn't get much slower than we were last year and we still made the tournament. I still think CJ is an upgrade over Moss on both ends of the court. That means the only down position is the 4, which looks like a big drop off right now.
That and the bench losing Baer. Jbo looks like a shell of himself as well.
 
Joe Wieskamp was non existent. I obviously see the writing on the wall for Connor now, but if we're just being honest, he played better then Garza or Joe W last night IMO. He may be the ultimate problem, but at least he has his head in the game and is giving effort and hustle. Both Joe W and Garza were so overwhelmed it was laughable. Neither were strong with the ball. None of our guys had their heads in the game. Dribbling off their foot? Depaul might end up being great, but letting a team drop 93 on you at home.....well, we've just seen it before. I don't feel like I am at all rushing to judgement at this point.
I’m pretty confident that Garza and Wieskamp will bounce back. But it goes to show you what can happen when you move a spot up on the scouting report as the top dog without a guy like Cook. I was a little disappointed with Wieskamp’s defense, I thought he was a little better on that end than what we saw last night and he seemed slow.

I appreciate that Connor plays hard and sticks his nose in there, but that’s not going to get it done on an every night basis in the grind that is college basketball. You have to have the talent. Even if he’s a respectable outside shooter I still don’t feel he is a B1G quality PG. He’s kind of a tweener in the sense that yes he can make some good passes, but he doesn’t have the ability to defend opponents point guards. His defensive position would be defending the 3 spot.

It’s not only Connor either we have so many cross matchups on D it’s hard to overcome if we are all locked in, and we weren’t even close to that last night.
 
I’m pretty confident that Garza and Wieskamp will bounce back. But it goes to show you what can happen when you move a spot up on the scouting report as the top dog without a guy like Cook. I was a little disappointed with Wieskamp’s defense, I thought he was a little better on that end than what we saw last night and he seemed slow.

I appreciate that Connor plays hard and sticks his nose in there, but that’s not going to get it done on an every night basis in the grind that is college basketball. You have to have the talent. Even if he’s a respectable outside shooter I still don’t feel he is a B1G quality PG. He’s kind of a tweener in the sense that yes he can make some good passes, but he doesn’t have the ability to defend opponents point guards. His defensive position would be defending the 3 spot.

It’s not only Connor either we have so many cross matchups on D it’s hard to overcome if we are all locked in, and we weren’t even close to that last night.

"locked in" is a great way to say it. Fran's teams do have a "locked in" mode. You see it early in games. They seem to rise to occasion. Ya saw it at MSG last season early on. Fran's teams also have a "deer in the head lights" look as well unfortunately. It seemed like our guys just didn't even have their heads in the game. Bad passes. Bad dribbling. Bad angles. Bad bad bad. I agree, Connor just being tough and a heady player isn't good enough....my only point in saying anything is that he was actually one of the better players at least LAST night...He had his head in the game. He didn't have the "deer in the headlights" mode but he was about the only one. Which ultimately says something about things over all.
 
I appreciate that Connor plays hard and sticks his nose in there, but that’s not going to get it done on an every night basis in the grind that is college basketball. You have to have the talent. Even if he’s a respectable outside shooter I still don’t feel he is a B1G quality PG. He’s kind of a tweener in the sense that yes he can make some good passes, but he doesn’t have the ability to defend opponents point guards. His defensive position would be defending the 3 spot.
With Connor I think sometimes how a full court one on one game with Mike Gesell would look.

Gesell wasn't an All-American by any stretch, but the difference is stark as hell when you hypothetically pair up two PGs that you've spent hours actually watching. Gesell would eat Connor alive in all aspects of the game, most notably quickness and driving the ball, and saying that really tells you how far we've regressed.
 
The thing to remember is we didn't get much slower than we were last year and we still made the tournament. I still think CJ is an upgrade over Moss on both ends of the court. That means the only down position is the 4, which looks like a big drop off right now.

What are you talking about? We lost the only player we even had on our roster that could match some of their athleticism. Cook got a very, very, very bad wrap by Hawkeye fans, and it really pissed me for a couple reasons. 1) because the kid didn't deserve that crap. 2) Because I couldn't believe that people were really that stupid and couldn't see what Cook did for the team. When you are the absolutely only person on the entire team that can complete athletically with the opposition, yeah you are gonna look how Cook did from time to time. It wasn't Cook's fault non of his teammates were athletic enough to give him some help.
 
What are you talking about? We lost the only player we even had on our roster that could match some of their athleticism. Cook got a very, very, very bad wrap by Hawkeye fans, and it really pissed me for a couple reasons. 1) because the kid didn't deserve that crap. 2) Because I couldn't believe that people were really that stupid and couldn't see what Cook did for the team. When you are the absolutely only person on the entire team that can complete athletically with the opposition, yeah you are gonna look how Cook did from time to time. It wasn't Cook's fault non of his teammates were athletic enough to give him some help.
Cook definitely took some unwarranted criticism but your’e also well over exaggerating the truth. He had his shortcomings that’s for certain, if you couldn’t see those I would say stick to football for sure.

Here is the stat line Cook compiled in the NCAA Tournament.
8 PPG / 3.5 RPG / 2 TOPG
23.8% FG% / 54% FT%

In the biggest moments of the year he was significantly outplayed by Garza, Wieskamp, and Bohannon. He had the most talent of that group, and that’s why he got a lot of heat I think.
 
Cook definitely took some unwarranted criticism but your’e also well over exaggerating the truth. He had his shortcomings that’s for certain, if you couldn’t see those I would say stick to football for sure.

Here is the stat line Cook compiled in the NCAA Tournament.
8 PPG / 3.5 RPG / 2 TOPG
23.8% FG% / 54% FT%

In the biggest moments of the year he was significantly outplayed by Garza, Wieskamp, and Bohannon. He had the most talent of that group, and that’s why he got a lot of heat I think.

Just wait and see how much Wieskamp, Garza and Jordan struggle this year at times. Teams will be able to focus on them and take them away much like they did last year vs Cook. After watching last nights game I'm extremely worried about Joe this year. He isn't a guy who will force things, and he isn't good at creating his own shot. Something will have to give, because Joe needs to be good for this team to even be average. If he doesn't force the issue (like Cook had to) at times this team is dead in the water.
 
Just wait and see how much Wieskamp, Garza and Jordan struggle this year at times. Teams will be able to focus on them and take them away much like they did last year vs Cook. After watching last nights game I'm extremely worried about Joe this year. He isn't a guy who will force things, and he isn't good at creating his own shot. Something will have to give, because Joe needs to be good for this team to even be average. If he doesn't force the issue (like Cook had to) at times this team is dead in the water.
I mentioned in another thread that there will be some pains for Wieskamp and Garza now that they’ve moved up the scouting report. My biggest concern for Joe is I hoped he would be able to set up others, but at this point I don’t know he offers much as a passer.

On to your Cook think you’re making it sound Ike he was getting double teamed every play. He drew attention but you’re way over stating it. Again he had his own shortcoming, which were some of the worst hands I’ve ever seen and I think most would agree his b-ball IQ was lacking. He was still a very quality player and I certainly wished we had him.
 
I mentioned in another thread that there will be some pains for Wieskamp and Garza now that they’ve moved up the scouting report. My biggest concern for Joe is I hoped he would be able to set up others, but at this point I don’t know he offers much as a passer.

On to your Cook think you’re making it sound Ike he was getting double teamed every play. He drew attention but you’re way over stating it. Again he had his own shortcoming, which were some of the worst hands I’ve ever seen and I think most would agree his b-ball IQ was lacking. He was still a very quality player and I certainly wished we had him.

All players have things they need to work on, including Cook. I never said he was perfect, and I never said he got double teamed a ton. You don't have to get doubled teams to be the focus of the opponents defense.
 
All players have things they need to work on, including Cook. I never said he was perfect, and I never said he got double teamed a ton. You don't have to get doubled teams to be the focus of the opponents defense.
The thing is PC was saying we aren’t that worse athletically this year than last.

We lost:
Cook, Moss, and Baer

We gained:
Toussaint, Fredrick, McCaffery, and Nunge

I’d hardly say that drop off in terms of athleticism is that steep.
 
The thing is PC was saying we aren’t that worse athletically this year than last.

We lost:
Cook, Moss, and Baer

We gained:
Toussaint, Fredrick, McCaffery, and Nunge

I’d hardly say that drop off in terms of athleticism is that steep.

We are obviously worse athletically this year than last.

We are basically what we were last year without Cook. That is a big step back athletically, but I guess that is all in the eye of the beholder.
 
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