Hawkeyes Come Together in Much-Needed Win

Very nice article, Robb.

Defense was vastly different tonight.

The offence clicked, and Garza is fulfilling his promise.

One thing that stands out is only 11 turnovers.

Nebraska is going to be a tough win, and I will be surprised if we escape with a victory.

This was a feelgood one for Hawk fans.

:cool:
 
Now that the team is playing well I can see 2 potential routes to the NCAA tournament.

If the next the men’s basketball team wins all of the remaining 9 games that would likely put them on the bubble at 20-11. A few of those 9 wins would be over high rpi teams. One or two wins in the big 10 tournament would get them in for sure.

The next route would be to win the ncaa tournament. A strong finish to the regular season could help out as it could move Iowa to the 10th seed or better. That would reduce the tournament wins needed from 5 to 4.

This team has a lot of talent, and they are capable of it if they continue to play well.
 
This is what the team has needed all year. Play the top 8 guys, that is it. Nunge played for 2 minutes, so in essence we played 8 guys.
 
This is what the team has needed all year. Play the top 8 guys, that is it. Nunge played for 2 minutes, so in essence we played 8 guys.

Guard play: Moss had success early which improved his energy on both ends....the Badgers didn’t have quickness at guard to really harass J. Bo much. This is not going to be the norm going forward (opposition having slower guards).

I do think that our guys played harder and closed out better on the perimeter. I don’t think Fran put in a special drill for that which is why coaching college kids can be exasperating. The inconsistency is hard to explain.
 
Now that the team is playing well I can see 2 potential routes to the NCAA tournament.

If the next the men’s basketball team wins all of the remaining 9 games that would likely put them on the bubble at 20-11. A few of those 9 wins would be over high rpi teams. One or two wins in the big 10 tournament would get them in for sure.

The next route would be to win the ncaa tournament. A strong finish to the regular season could help out as it could move Iowa to the 10th seed or better. That would reduce the tournament wins needed from 5 to 4.

This team has a lot of talent, and they are capable of it if they continue to play well.
You realize wisconsin is awful, right?
 
Nunge made a nice offensive play & scored a bucket. Then, did a hard closeout on a non-shooter, got blown by and gave up a 3-point play --- bench for the rest of the night. A mental mistake compounded by a physical mistake. I would've liked to have seen him get more minutes in the 2nd half, but perhaps not following the scouting report/gameplan is an on-going problem with him & he won't play until he shows he can follow them.
 
This is what the team has needed all year. Play the top 8 guys, that is it. Nunge played for 2 minutes, so in essence we played 8 guys.
We’ve been saying that all year, but Fran just couldn’t see it. The funny thing is that it really came by default with Kriener and Ellingson both out due to injury. You know if they were available Fran would have played them.

The other thing rotation wise that I thought Fran screwed up again was still too many minutes with Wagner/Nunge at the 3. Garza, Cook, and Pemsl, combined for 81 minutes so they took all the 4/5 minutes. That means that Nunge and Wagner’s 16 minutes were spent at the 3, and from what I recall the offense looked pretty stagnant at those times. Wagner’s defense was apparent last night but I would like to see more of those 3 minutes go to Dailey and maybe a few less minutes for Pemsl at the 4 (I know Pemsl had a decent game) in order to get Wagner some time out there. That’s really more of his natural spot. It’s a small thing but can really make a difference in a close game.

Overall it was a nice win. Good to see that as we’ve been saying there is some talent here when these guys want to play hard and lock in defensively.
 
Nunge made a nice offensive play & scored a bucket. Then, did a hard closeout on a non-shooter, got blown by and gave up a 3-point play --- bench for the rest of the night. A mental mistake compounded by a physical mistake. I would've liked to have seen him get more minutes in the 2nd half, but perhaps not following the scouting report/gameplan is an on-going problem with him & he won't play until he shows he can follow them.

I think Nunge just isn't ready yet for B1G play, both physically and mentally and that is his biggest problem. He will be good down the line, but really doesn't deserve much playing time right now.
 
Now that the team is playing well I can see 2 potential routes to the NCAA tournament.

If the next the men’s basketball team wins all of the remaining 9 games that would likely put them on the bubble at 20-11. A few of those 9 wins would be over high rpi teams. One or two wins in the big 10 tournament would get them in for sure.

The next route would be to win the ncaa tournament. A strong finish to the regular season could help out as it could move Iowa to the 10th seed or better. That would reduce the tournament wins needed from 5 to 4.

This team has a lot of talent, and they are capable of it if they continue to play well.

Lmao man.

I think you mean they would have to win the B1G tournament. Well, there might be a 1% chance of that happening so we're saying there's a chance.
 
Nunge made a nice offensive play & scored a bucket. Then, did a hard closeout on a non-shooter, got blown by and gave up a 3-point play --- bench for the rest of the night. A mental mistake compounded by a physical mistake. I would've liked to have seen him get more minutes in the 2nd half, but perhaps not following the scouting report/gameplan is an on-going problem with him & he won't play until he shows he can follow them.
I was yelling at the TV on that one. Why the heck was he guarding Iverson out there?

But again as many of us have recognized Fran continues to play him out of his natural position. Honestly if he’s a 3 I’d rather see those minutes go to Dailey, although I don’t think Fran realizes he can play Dailey at the 3 either. But back to Nunge, ever since Fran moved him back to the 3, it seems like he’s thinking out there much more than he’s playing, and the results haven’t been pretty.
 
Wisconsin sort of exposed why Iowa struggles. They had one player who really couldn't keep up due to various injuries including one mentioned by the announcers. Wisky isn't an awful team. They were last night. If Fran could get a decent pt guard, things could look much different next year. Badger D was always trying to cover and couldn't. Their offense was playing mostly a man down.

Still, the Hawks looked pretty good. Nice to see.
 
The Hawkeyes played with more energy. It helped that they didn't dig themselves in a first-half hole. The run at the end of the first half getting it back to 9 at the break was huge.

We'll see Saturday. Nebraska is better than Wisconsin and Illinois and is tough in its building. I just want to keep seeing some progress. It's a rebuilding year. Time to build for next year.
 
The Hawkeyes played with more energy. It helped that they didn't dig themselves in a first-half hole. The run at the end of the first half getting it back to 9 at the break was huge.

We'll see Saturday. Nebraska is better than Wisconsin and Illinois and is tough in its building. I just want to keep seeing some progress. It's a rebuilding year. Time to build for next year.

Wait I was sold on last year being a rebuilding year.
 
Wait I was sold on last year being a rebuilding year.

These things don't happen in a vacuum. Iowa was one of the first four out of the tournament last year with the league's leading scorer, who was the program's fourth first-team all B1G player in a row. It fell short.

This year hasn't worked out for various reasons, not the least of which is losing two backup PGs. It's still a very young team.

Please don't drag this down into another bag on the program thread. You have plenty of other threads on this board to continue that.
 
Wagner played solid D on Happ and moved his feet well and stayed in position. Now he just needs to get some confidence going on offense.
 

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