Do these players have the makeup to finish strong?

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uihawk82

Well-Known Member
As someone pointed out the hawks remaining opponents are behind them or even in the standings except one or two. Will this team take charge or will they play 'down' to their opponents. They of course need to play as a team but so far in the Big I see:

Aaron White is going to be there most times, hustling and fighting hard
Woody is playing steady and I liked his early offensive aggressiveness against kaminsky which he needs to keep up.
Uhtoff is becoming a little yo-yoish on offense and needs to get tougher there, drive more and get fouls as I think teams are sitting on his jump shot but he still boards well and plays pretty smart defense

Jok needs to start shooting better/steadier or his defense will be a net minus. I would really like to see him slash to the bucket more to keep guys from getting in his chest and Jok is explosive off the dribble.

Except for first half at Purdue Gesell is playing well, he is at least aggressive, shooting pretty well, plays good Dee, and his 2nd half at Purdue was great. Hope is shoulder is ok.

Gabe O is always playing tough, fast, really good bball and not worried about him. Would love to have 5 gabes.

Clemmons needs to be ordered to drive and dish more because he is stagnating the offense.

I dont know, these last games it might be better to not give Josh O a lot of minutes. Could Uhl be better and longer filling in at the 2 and 3 spots.

And finally this team needs to retighten the defense and blocking out. They can rebound but it helps to block out. Their positioning and help defense was not that great yesterday.

Are we going to see a finish like last year, sort of so so finish , or a 7-2 type finish?
 
uihawk82 said:
Which players you worried about and why?
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I'm worried about the team as a whole and the coaching. The wheels already appear to be falling off. No one is consistently hitting shots (as usual). We struggle as a team to get open looks. We struggle to defend the 3 (as usual). We don't have a true point guard that can create shots for others. We collapse down the stretch. We make head scratching decisions. For instance, towards the end of the Wisconsin game Gessel could have taken a couple of open 3's, but instead decided to drive into the lane and ended up turning the ball over multiple times. When you're down 10 with a minute to go you don't pass up an open 3!! Oglesby shouldn't see more than 5 minutes a game. Dickerson should absolutely be getting those other minutes. Maybe he'll actually make his shots and create some plays with his speed. This team just has too many deficits to put it together down the stretch. I will go on record saying they won't win more than 4 more games during conference play.
 
I don't know.

Worse, I don't think they know the answer to this question.
 
Stanzi said:
I'm worried about the team as a whole and the coaching. The wheels already appear to be falling off. No one is consistently hitting shots (as usual). We struggle as a team to get open looks. We struggle to defend the 3 (as usual). We don't have a true point guard that can create shots for others. We collapse down the stretch. We make head scratching decisions. For instance, towards the end of the Wisconsin game Gessel could have taken a couple of open 3's, but instead decided to drive into the lane and ended up turning the ball over multiple times. When you're down 10 with a minute to go you don't pass up an open 3!! Oglesby shouldn't see more than 5 minutes a game. Dickerson should absolutely be getting those other minutes. Maybe he'll actually make his shots and create some plays with his speed. This team just has too many deficits to put it together down the stretch. I will go on record saying they won't win more than 4 more games during conference play.
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First, we shot better than we have all year in that first half. Second, Gesell was injured during the last game and passed up on some shots because of it. No one had Iowa winning these last 3 anyways. The wheels have not fallen off yet. Iowa still is in good position to make the dance. And with our résumé it will be tough to screw it up.
 
Honest answer: I really don't know, but I hope so. This team has some elements that could give most Big Ten teams (not named Wisconsin :) ) fits on any given night. But we're also missing some elements that could cause us to lay an egg against just about anybody on any given night.

I think the answer to the mental toughness question posed by the OP will be THE key deciding factor between squeaking into the tourney, or a trip back to the NIT.
 
528646 said:
Honest answer: I really don't know, but I hope so. This team has some elements that could give most Big Ten teams (not named Wisconsin :) ) fits on any given night. But we're also missing some elements that could cause us to lay an egg against just about anybody on any given night.

I think the answer to the mental toughness question posed by the OP will be THE key deciding factor between squeaking into the tourney, or a trip back to the NIT.
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Pretty much sums it up. Impossible to predict based on what we've seen so far. If our guard play improves that would help greatly, but I wouldn't bet on it. Was hoping to see more trey and less Anthony and Josh, but apparently Fran sees something no one else does.
 
Without a 3 point shooting threat, I'd say they don't. Once a team playing iowa gets a large lead (10+) they are done. You have to be able to make threes to come back.

Iowa will struggle in every road game left. I could see them losing 4-5 more.
 
I dont know, but I do know the schedule will give them a chance. Iowa could play better, but this is a ******* gauntlet theyre going through right now. Theyre 4-4 in the conference and I would have taken that all day at this stage of the Big 10 season before the year started when looking at the sched.
 
Stanzi said:
I'm worried about the team as a whole and the coaching. The wheels already appear to be falling off. No one is consistently hitting shots (as usual). We struggle as a team to get open looks. We struggle to defend the 3 (as usual). We don't have a true point guard that can create shots for others. We collapse down the stretch. We make head scratching decisions. For instance, towards the end of the Wisconsin game Gessel could have taken a couple of open 3's, but instead decided to drive into the lane and ended up turning the ball over multiple times. When you're down 10 with a minute to go you don't pass up an open 3!! Oglesby shouldn't see more than 5 minutes a game. Dickerson should absolutely be getting those other minutes. Maybe he'll actually make his shots and create some plays with his speed. This team just has too many deficits to put it together down the stretch. I will go on record saying they won't win more than 4 more games during conference play.
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I'm sort of the opposite of this. I had reasonable expectations going in. I would have taken 4-4 at this point before B1G play started. I don't think losing to Wisconsin with 3 key players playing with injuries means the wheels are falling off.

Actually I think they are playing better than they did through most of the non-conference schedule. I'm not worried about the coaching. I don't think this team wins 12 B1G games, but I think there is a decent shot they make the tourney. Just win one (or both) of the next two games and they stay on track.
 
Well, the last part of the schedule sets up pretty nicely, so if they struggle down the stretch, then I guess we'll have our answer.

I suspect they will play fine and not totally collapse - but will they play well enough to make the NCAA Tournament? That, I don't know.
 
HawkeyeHypnosis said:
First, we shot better than we have all year in that first half. Second, Gesell was injured during the last game and passed up on some shots because of it. No one had Iowa winning these last 3 anyways. The wheels have not fallen off yet. Iowa still is in good position to make the dance. And with our résumé it will be tough to screw it up.
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The Purdue game was a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but I expected both losses to Wisconsin (although not by 32 & 11). I'm really hoping for at least one win in these next two games, or both.. I haven't written off the MD game as an automatic loss. Michigan is very beatable.
 
Stanzi said:
I'm worried about the team as a whole and the coaching. The wheels already appear to be falling off. No one is consistently hitting shots (as usual). We struggle as a team to get open looks. We struggle to defend the 3 (as usual). We don't have a true point guard that can create shots for others. We collapse down the stretch. We make head scratching decisions. For instance, towards the end of the Wisconsin game Gessel could have taken a couple of open 3's, but instead decided to drive into the lane and ended up turning the ball over multiple times. When you're down 10 with a minute to go you don't pass up an open 3!! Oglesby shouldn't see more than 5 minutes a game. Dickerson should absolutely be getting those other minutes. Maybe he'll actually make his shots and create some plays with his speed. This team just has too many deficits to put it together down the stretch. I will go on record saying they won't win more than 4 more games during conference play.
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I pretty much agree with your post, but the defects you mentioned are problems this team has had all year long. I'm not sure if that means that the wheels are coming off so much as it is that this team still just "is what it is" and got exposed twice by a Top 10 (maybe Top 5) opponent, and lost another close tough road game without their leading scorer most of the game.

Besides, this team, with all it's defects, started 4-1 in conference play against a tougher slate than they have the rest of the way (after these next 2 games, that is). What I'm saying is that I think they'll win more than 4 more games the rest of the way, barring a total meltdown. I'm just hoping the team will keep it together and not fold like they did last year.
 
Stanzi said:
I'm worried about the team as a whole and the coaching. The wheels already appear to be falling off. No one is consistently hitting shots (as usual). We struggle as a team to get open looks. We struggle to defend the 3 (as usual). We don't have a true point guard that can create shots for others. We collapse down the stretch. We make head scratching decisions. For instance, towards the end of the Wisconsin game Gessel could have taken a couple of open 3's, but instead decided to drive into the lane and ended up turning the ball over multiple times. When you're down 10 with a minute to go you don't pass up an open 3!! Oglesby shouldn't see more than 5 minutes a game. Dickerson should absolutely be getting those other minutes. Maybe he'll actually make his shots and create some plays with his speed. This team just has too many deficits to put it together down the stretch. I will go on record saying they won't win more than 4 more games during conference play.
Click to expand...

Mike could not shoot from three on Saturday due to an elbow injury. If we keep playing our game we should win 7 out of these last 10......
 
Stanzi said:
I'm worried about the team as a whole and the coaching. The wheels already appear to be falling off. No one is consistently hitting shots (as usual). We struggle as a team to get open looks. We struggle to defend the 3 (as usual). We don't have a true point guard that can create shots for others. We collapse down the stretch. We make head scratching decisions. For instance, towards the end of the Wisconsin game Gessel could have taken a couple of open 3's, but instead decided to drive into the lane and ended up turning the ball over multiple times. When you're down 10 with a minute to go you don't pass up an open 3!! Oglesby shouldn't see more than 5 minutes a game. Dickerson should absolutely be getting those other minutes. Maybe he'll actually make his shots and create some plays with his speed. This team just has too many deficits to put it together down the stretch. I will go on record saying they won't win more than 4 more games during conference play.
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I think you start Dickerson and start out playing FAST out of the gate to change it up a bit. At this point, they really need to mix things up play with the tempo ect... Dickerson needs to play more eventhough he may be alittle out of his league, they are a much faster team with him in.
 
MG isn't that good at shooting 3s anyway... But I'm glad they didn't come out and make it public he couldn't even take long Js. Can you imagine how Wisky would have defended off him if they knew that? If you have a PG that is not a shooting threat what the heck is he doing on the floor at all? Dickerson shoulda played a lot more then not at all in that case...
 
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