I will say this again, right now outside of Basabe, the contributions from the upperclassmen are pretty insignificant at this point. McCabe played well at Minnesota, but still made some of the same dumb fouls he always does, the difference, he actually made a couple shots little else.
Marble, if he is injured, sit him...when he didn't play against MSU, I didn't really notice he wasn't on the floor. Give him a couple games off, if his toe feels better then see if he can go.
May can play defense at times, actually I liked him taking advantage of Coleman and going to the basket, Coleman is an athlete, but relies on it too much defensively, this match-up I would have liked to see May exploit more, but he isn't an aggressive offensive player.
When Fran got to Iowa and opened up the cupboard there weren't even crickets.
Honestly, the youth thing is just an excuse, that is it. Fran is replenishing the talent and I expect the 2014 to have some real athletes in it, but also one or two to be pretty highly ranked. Jok is going to help and so will Uthoff, if either can help solidify the bench and give Iowa scoring from that area then all is well.
When Fran brought Marble back in maybe he was hoping this would happen: Austin Hollins, Minnesota's best defender without question, would switch from Gesell to Marble. It didn't happen and the end result was a turnover. Hollins can play defense and he went to Mike after he hit a couple of shots in the 2nd half.
Blame Fran if you want, but blame him for believing in his players, look there is nothing wrong with that and regardless of what Fran/Marble say when he has to have help up and down from the bench to the floor, something is not right.
The thing with Marble is that he played well against smaller, shorter guys last season, he used his length and height against them, but like in the Purdue game he couldn't take advantage of it. With the way players flop, he can't just back a guy down either and on top of it lose sight of the rest of the floor.
Also, if anyone thinks Iowa has a "best" player in anything...they don't.
Another thing that Iowa struggles with is running a fastbreak, honestly, it is painful to watch for me. When Gesell gets in transition, if there isn't an initial look to get it out of his hands, I cringe, but a lot of the time he makes a long pass that is not on target either. Clemmons is the only player that has shown any ability to run an effective fast break because he gets in the middle of the floor right away and looks to pass early, not when he gets inside the FT line.
FT shooting when it has mattered, except for Wisconsin has just be dreadful.