WindsorHawk
Well-Known Member
Agree. And to do this we have to win our 8 non Quad 1 games and 2 of the 11 Quad 1 games...4 are at home.
Iowa ranked #25 in AP Poll
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NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
I don’t think it much matters which games we win or lose at this point as long as we get the wins. For instance if we lose a Q2 game as you say, that likely means we pick up a Q1 win along the way, again assuming we get enough wins. In recent years it seems the committee has been big on the who have you beaten and less on importance on borderline losses. At this point our net and strength of schedule are plenty strong.
WindsorHawk
Well-Known Member
I agree. My intention was to point out that getting to 19 is hardly an impossible journey requiring multiple upsets. I’m guessing we will be favored in at least 10 of our remaining games.
I would agree that Connor needs to score more if our offense was having trouble getting good shots without him shooting. I just don't think that has been or will be the case. Pass the ball around until you can get the ball down to Garza or can get a wide open 3. I do think he should shoot wide open 3s tho.
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
I gotcha. That’s an interesting perspective for sure and it appears somewhat “manageable”.
Personally I don’t use the NET ranking for anything other than NCAA discussion. I don’t use it to compare teams. I don’t say before the game we are playing so and so they are 44 in the NET. I would think you would have much better luck using KenPom or an efficiency metric to compare two teams. That’s typically where the Vegas lines come from adjusted for home court. NET can be swayed by a variety of different things as we’ve mentioned. After the games it’s nice to see how the game measured up in terms of a NET resume’. Just my two cents on it, not saying I’m right either.
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
Offense certainly hasn’t been our issue to date, but the point is on certain nights in tight games it could be. If you’re playing 30+ minutes a night you need to be somewhat of a threat. Remember teams can get a better scout on us as they go which has happened many times in our Fran fades. That is what happened to the Uthoff Jok team.
If I’m scouting Iowa right now I’m telling Toussaint’s guy and McCaffery’s guy to pinch down and double on Garza. I’m telling Fredrick’s guy and Wieskamp’s guy to not help off of them and run them off the 3pt line. That strategy would put this current Iowa team in a bind and force both McCaffery and Toussaint to have to step up.
I like Connor to keep shooting the open 3 and then occasionally that mid range pull up when the play breaks down. He’s also posted smaller guards at times. If he can just throw in 8-10 on most nights I think we will be in good shape. Can he do that I don’t know.
It's getting tougher to criticize ole Fran these days all of a sudden. Granted that could change as fast as the weather but to just think about what we had coming into the year with all the question marks. Then the Depaul game and how we've looked at times to be where they are now. No JBo no Nunge, No PM for the year (I'm just going to call it on PM being shut down even if he comes back I doubt he'll have much of an impact) It's insanity to think this group would sniff the rankings. Yet road wins in Syracuse and ISU and neutral site against TT & Cinci ETC and with all the other chaos going on in college hoops here we are. I'll remain cautiously optimistic on how we go down the stretch with the BIG season really getting going but even if we start stumbling I think Frans done a great job. Hats off to the guy so far. Now it's not a job well done yet by any means long ways to go but who'd have thought we'd even be here?
I don't think that's at all what happened to Uthoff's team. Izzo is one of the best coaches in the league and we rolled him at his place the second time around. What happened that year is a combination of a few things.
One is our schedule was tough down the stretch. Another is that team had a lot of trouble closing close games. Playing good teams leads to playing close games. We lost those close games. Another was we got ranked really high and when you're ranked really high, you get teams best effort. I don't think we were good enough to overcome teams best effort. I also think that team played at really close to it's ceiling for a few weeks to earn that lofty ranking that they couldn't defend. Lastly, Uthoff in particular played out of his mind for over half the year. That was also unsustainable. He finally dropped down to his normal paying ability (which was still damn good) and that was the difference.
Honestly you could probably throw everything else I typed out and just go with that one. If 1st team All American Uthoff could have showed up for a few more weeks, we win the conference and are probably a 1 or 2 seed in the tourney. It was amazing that that Uthoff showed up for as long as he did tho.
But back to my point, I think coaches in this league are too good to have to personally see them once to know how to beat them. They have video available of every game they want to see.
I also think that Garza, Wieskamp, CJ, and Connor are too good at offense to let that strategy hamper them. That is way too easy of a strategy to figure out for coaches to not already be doing it every time if it were that simple.
When I say Connor is good on offense, I obviously don't mean scoring. He runs the offense so smooth that when he's out there he finds ways to get our top scorers scoring opportunities. Speaking of which, does anyone remember a play in the ISU game where Connor was bringing the ball up the court and he called Bohannon over to take the ball from him, then proceeded to haul ass straight down underneath the hoop to post up his defender and get an easy score and 1? I'm telling you, that dude knows what he's doing.
When I say Connor is good on offense, I obviously don't mean scoring. He runs the offense so smooth that when he's out there he finds ways to get our top scorers scoring opportunities. Speaking of which, does anyone remember a play in the ISU game where Connor was bringing the ball up the court and he called Bohannon over to take the ball from him, then proceeded to haul ass straight down underneath the hoop to post up his defender and get an easy score and 1? I'm telling you, that dude knows what he's doing.
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
First off we played Michigan State twice within the first 4 games of B1G play. They were dealing with injuries.
It’s not about playing certain teams once, it’s about learning the teams tendencies. Sometimes that takes time especially with tons of moving parts early in the year. Every team has film obviously.
Iowa is down another option without Jbo and in my opinion a different team. That moves every guy up the pecking order. CJF is going to start getting more attention than he’s got, it’s just that simple. Not to mention the B1G has a lot of very good defensive teams.
It is what it is, but my point is you can’t have a guy playing 30+ minutes a game as not a true option to score. I’m not saying Connor is that but like I said if we start getting more games in the 4-6 points range I think our offense is going to start taking a step back. Again in what should be a lot of close games, every little thing matters.
I just know we have 3 scorers that are way more efficient at scoring than he is. If he starts trying to shoot more, that's less opportunities for our more efficient guys. If the day comes where teams figure out how to stop our top 3 guys (good luck) then he will hopefully be able to step up. Until that day comes, I hope he doesn't try.
Uthoff's team had two really good scorers and no one else. They had a better year than most think this team can achieve. Just so you know, I'm not hating on your point. Just a friendly debate.
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
That strategy couldn’t be used yet because we had Bohannon, who despite relatively poor numbers has to be accounted for from deep. Having the three shooters surrounding Garza is what led us up to #1 in offensive efficiency.
We now basically employ two non shooters. It’s easier to slow Garza now, probably not surprising he had a lower point output without Bohannon. That said he still had an awesome game obviously. Like I said Cmac moves from option 5 to option 4, CJF moves from 3.5 to 3. It simply gets tougher.
I don’t think teams have a perfect scout on Iowa just yet, because heck we don’t even know how our offense is going to consistently run without Jbo. Are we going to ask Joe T to drive and kick or are we going to take the ball out of his hands and say let’s pound the post to Garza and hope for kick outs? Are we going to feature more Wieskamp to create offense? Again it kind of remains to be seen.
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
Absolutely I think it’s a good discussion. I certainly prefer CJF to Clemmons as option #3. I would also agree that Connor doesn’t need to hunt shots just needs to hit the open one.
Good point about Bohannon. Our offense will obviously dip a bit now. At least our improved defense will make up for that some. The good news is you already listed 3 options on what we can do, and they're all legitimate ones. With Joe T in the game, we have a point guard who can drive (hopefully without falling), a 2 guard who can shoot, pass, handle the ball, and drive some, a 3 guard who can shoot, drive decent, pass ok, rebound good, and handle the ball ok, a 4 guard who can handle the ball great, pass great, rebound pretty good, and is extremely heady, and a center who is one of the best scoring centers in the nation. I think that's still a top 20 offense. Connor will need to score more often and more efficiently if we want to remain the best offense, but top 20 is still pretty damn good with this improved defense.
Side note. Our defense is obviously better now, I think up to the 80s. I wonder what kind of defensive numbers we would have now, from thos point on, if you could eliminate all of the previous data from the equation. Obviously if we started playing like a top 50 defense, we will never end up with top 50 in numbers because the first 10 games will skew them. What I'm asking is what kind of defense can we play like from this point on? Is top 40 too optimistic? I think that's a pretty realistic number.
BigD
Well-Known Member
I would love to see this happen as it would set us up nicely with Nunge and Bo coming back next year. Throw in the experience that our younger players are getting and next season could be one for the ages.
Just looked at the remaining schedule and the conference schedule in 18 games has a total opponent record of 146-67 to this point. They have 7 games against teams currently ranked in the polls. That could go up or down as the season unfolds. Traditionally horrible Penn State and Rutgers are combined 20-5. Remains to be seen whether either will finish with good seasons but it is safe to say neither will be the automatic W's we would like them to be. If Iowa preserves their ranking or climbs and get at least a 5 or 6 seed in the dance then they will have earned it and more.
It isn't a guarantee that the entire roster returns. We lose Kriener and Evelyn to graduation. It is possible Weiskamp and Garza take a hard look at the NBA. We also don't know how Bohannon's recovery will go with this hip surgery and whenever Nunge comes back he won't have played any meaningful minutes in close to 3 years and will be coming off knee surgery. The optimal scenario is Iowa wins 20+ and goes deep in NCAA tourney this season as there are no guarantees next season. But I agree that if Kriener and Evelyn are the only ones that Iowa loses and Bohannon and Nunge come back strong then next season's team would be Fran's best to date and would represent the best chance Iowa has had at a conference title in the last 10 years.
ssckelley
Well-Known Member
and hopefully Patrick can return healthy
There is a lot left to learn about this team. If Evelyn is hitting open shots he will open things up for our other scorers.
I am more interested in Connor abilities to play the 4 guard against much larger lineups including Penn State, Illinois, Rutgers, and Michigan St. Iowa will have to play some small ball against those big bruising teams and we cannot play small ball without Connor’s toughness inside. So far Connor has helped Iowa compensate for the loss of Jack, and an underperforming Cordell.
I am more interested in Connor abilities to play the 4 guard against much larger lineups including Penn State, Illinois, Rutgers, and Michigan St. Iowa will have to play some small ball against those big bruising teams and we cannot play small ball without Connor’s toughness inside. So far Connor has helped Iowa compensate for the loss of Jack, and an underperforming Cordell.
