***Iowa vs Maryland doesn't belong in the Big 10 Conference thread***

I’m as big of a CJF guy as there is but I thought he had a bad night last night. The scary thing is he looked like he had tired legs and was a step slow, so I hope that’s not the case on Sunday too. The B1G season is a grind, and especially this week for Iowa.

His shooting was probably bound to come back down to earth a little bit, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by that. He’s been so good that 3/8 from 3 seems like an off shooting night (granted one was in essence garbage time). He did miss a bunch of those mid range pull-ups he typically makes.
Maryland dedicated their best, quick, lengthy players to keep tight on him. If you force CJF to try to drive rather than shoot, you have him out of his strength. And with the bigs on the bench with fouls, it got even tighter for CJF.
 
I didn't read through it all but I thought Connor played well, he made some SWEET passes last night that led to some easy points. So while he didn't have many points he still made a big impact on the scoring.

To your other comment, no, I'm not gonna blame the officials at all especially when some of it was self inflicted (Kreiner's T was one that comes to mind). I credit Maryland for getting Garza into foul trouble and taking Iowa out of it's offensive flow. The main thing I'm critical with Iowa's play was all the 2nd and 3rd chances Iowa kept giving up on the defensive boards, a few times I saw our guys just standing around. Otherwise I thought Iowa played decent, had a few more shots went down they may have pulled off the upset.
The big concern with zone is giving up offensive boards. We have been pretty good at securing them thus far this year but that’s something that could still be an issue. The problem again stems from the fact that Iowa can’t play man to man defense against the majority of P5 teams.
 
As far as being lucky we didnt lose by 15+ goes. First off, it doesn't matter if you lose by 10 or 15+. Secondly, we weren't lucky, we are good. The deck was stacked against us with being on the road against a good team with some home cooking and out best player on the bench with foul trouble. We had a rough night shooting, especially open 3s by our two best shooters. They got a lot of good bounces on rebounds like we did when they played us in Carver. All of that and we stayed close enough to play the "what if" game.

I agree about our defense being frustrating how easy it breaks down at the end of the shot clock. But other than that, and a handful of other breakdowns that all teams have, we played pretty good defense. Our guards close good and recover quickly. It's kinda fun to watch. The shot clock became a factor a lot last night for them. Our teams lately have rarely made teams work for shots. I think that's a sign of good defense when the shot clock is run out so often. I'd say it was a combination of really good defense for most of the game, but still too many mental lapses here and there.
 
I’m as big of a CJF guy as there is but I thought he had a bad night last night. The scary thing is he looked like he had tired legs and was a step slow, so I hope that’s not the case on Sunday too. The B1G season is a grind, and especially this week for Iowa.

His shooting was probably bound to come back down to earth a little bit, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by that. He’s been so good that 3/8 from 3 seems like an off shooting night (granted one was in essence garbage time). He did miss a bunch of those mid range pull-ups he typically makes.

Funny you say CJ looked slow. I thought just the opposite. He closes out so fast and then when the player tries to go around him as he's closing out, he adjusts quick and shuts that down too. I was really impressed with his quickness last night to the point where I mentioned it to friends in a group text.
 
Who's "we" when you say we dont notice when we get calls? I know I'm not included in "we" cause I notice. I sure didn't notice us getting calls against Wisconsin tho.

The first 2 calls were on Garza (or the ball handler on the moving screen) but the last 2 were a joke. Until the game was in hand and they started calling everything on Maryland, all of their calls were meaningless calls that didn't hurt them. Nothing under the rim where we get to shoot free throws. Those games drive me nuts. It's either completely random or they know the art of throwing in fouls to "even it out" without hurting the team. Either way, the foul calls on us were killers that awarded points while the fouls on them weren't
One of the biggest momentum plays in the 2H of the Wisconsin game Toussaint got away with ripping Reuvers arm away and then went coast to coast where there was a block / charge which was a block IMO however they gave Joe T continuation which you typically don’t get in college. You can go go 3:43 of this video and watch it.


As far as the end of the game last night I remember a post entry to Garza where he had a smaller guy on him who mugged him on the catch. No call. Garza then turned and tried to lay it in and got swatted by Smith. Just one play as an example.

Again I have no issue with you feeling the refs hurt us. There were certainly bad calls (as there are in every game). That’s just not how I saw it which is okay.
 
The big concern with zone is giving up offensive boards. We have been pretty good at securing them thus far this year but that’s something that could still be an issue. The problem again stems from the fact that Iowa can’t play man to man defense against the majority of P5 teams.

I know we played zone last night to protect Garza, but other than that, I'm not sure why we play it so much. We have players that can play man now. I think Joe T, CJ, Wieskamp, and Garza are all perfectly fine at man defense. Connor might have a small issue at the 4, but I don't think it's too bad at all. That's 4 good defenders and an average one at worst.
 
That was frustrating. We didn't deserve it. I'd like to say that the foul trouble was the difference but that didn't account for their PG going off for 31 or whatever he got. He wanted to make up for his last game against us and he did. Against our zone he was able to get where he wanted to most of the time.
It also didn't account for our shooting only 36%. JW, CJF and Garza didn't shoot very well at all. That alone is a recipe for it to be a tough game for us. If we aren't out rebounding them and getting 2nd opportunities and forcing a bunch of TOs we can't overcome nights like that. Plus MD made an absolute boat load of FTs. Gotta tip your cap when teams take advantage of that.
 
As far as being lucky we didnt lose by 15+ goes. First off, it doesn't matter if you lose by 10 or 15+. Secondly, we weren't lucky, we are good. The deck was stacked against us with being on the road against a good team with some home cooking and out best player on the bench with foul trouble. We had a rough night shooting, especially open 3s by our two best shooters. They got a lot of good bounces on rebounds like we did when they played us in Carver. All of that and we stayed close enough to play the "what if" game.

I agree about our defense being frustrating how easy it breaks down at the end of the shot clock. But other than that, and a handful of other breakdowns that all teams have, we played pretty good defense. Our guards close good and recover quickly. It's kinda fun to watch. The shot clock became a factor a lot last night for them. Our teams lately have rarely made teams work for shots. I think that's a sign of good defense when the shot clock is run out so often. I'd say it was a combination of really good defense for most of the game, but still too many mental lapses here and there.
I agree with a lot of what you said here. I’m not trying to say it was all doom and gloom I feel good about Iowa’s team I just don’t think they played very well last night. To your point it’s a credit to Iowa that we can hang in there when not playing that well with a good team on the road. I took some positives from the game but just didn’t think we were good enough last night.

The only difference again just IMO but I think Maryland tried slowing it down moreso than Iowa made them slow it down. Turgeon said at halftime his team was playing too fast and he wanted them to slow it down. They knew with Cowan they could pretty much get what they wanted when they wanted.

I believe going into the game yesterday Iowa was like 73rd is KenPom adjusted defense and we fell to 80th. To me that makes sense given that I thought we were pretty poor on that end.
 
I'm critical of Kriener getting the T. I'm critical of all the missed wide open 3s. I'm critical of the second chance points (even tho a lot of those were unlucky bounces. I'm critical of some of the fouls on Garza. I'm critical of CJ getting bumped out of bounds in a huge moment. I'm extremely critical of anticipation fouls on one end (like the one after the no look pass where the ref clearly got so impressed with the pass he just had to make it an and 1) and letting our players get mauled under the basket on the other end. But my biggest gripe of them all is how they didn't let Maryland breathe on us the second the game was out of reach. Three times we got shooting fouls at the end of the game when there was minimal contact. That shit made it blatantly obvious that the officials knew exactly what they did. I don't know if it was intentional or if they just got caught up in pleasing the crowd, but they knew.

Gotta imagine the 2nd chance points are minimized if our leading rebounder who's been playing 37 minutes a game was out there more.
 
The big concern with zone is giving up offensive boards. We have been pretty good at securing them thus far this year but that’s something that could still be an issue. The problem again stems from the fact that Iowa can’t play man to man defense against the majority of P5 teams.
Yes, three point shots that are missed bounce very high and long and it is difficult to gather them in, even with boxing out. Lots of luck in that. Iowa didn't have it last night.
 
Gotta imagine the 2nd chance points are minimized if our leading rebounder who's been playing 37 minutes a game was out there more.

And even when he was in there, his aggressiveness on both the offensive and defensive boards was limited because of the foul trouble.

I really thought we got hosed last night. They called some real ticky tack stuff on Garza, yet when he would get the ball down low, he'd be getting mugged and they let it go. That limits our entire offense.
 
I'm critical of Kriener getting the T. I'm critical of all the missed wide open 3s. I'm critical of the second chance points (even tho a lot of those were unlucky bounces. I'm critical of some of the fouls on Garza. I'm critical of CJ getting bumped out of bounds in a huge moment. I'm extremely critical of anticipation fouls on one end (like the one after the no look pass where the ref clearly got so impressed with the pass he just had to make it an and 1) and letting our players get mauled under the basket on the other end. But my biggest gripe of them all is how they didn't let Maryland breathe on us the second the game was out of reach. Three times we got shooting fouls at the end of the game when there was minimal contact. That shit made it blatantly obvious that the officials knew exactly what they did. I don't know if it was intentional or if they just got caught up in pleasing the crowd, but they knew.
Officials were less than hoped for. T on Garza vs Wisconsin and Kriener vs Maryland, CAN'T happen. Loser moves.
 
And even when he was in there, his aggressiveness on both the offensive and defensive boards was limited because of the foul trouble.

I really thought we got hosed last night. They called some real ticky tack stuff on Garza, yet when he would get the ball down low, he'd be getting mugged and they let it go. That limits our entire offense.
Garza's experience last night vs athletic, quick, physical defenders is a reminder of why he isn't a projected first round draft pick at this point.
 
One of the biggest momentum plays in the 2H of the Wisconsin game Toussaint got away with ripping Reuvers arm away and then went coast to coast where there was a block / charge which was a block IMO however they gave Joe T continuation which you typically don’t get in college. You can go go 3:43 of this video and watch it.


As far as the end of the game last night I remember a post entry to Garza where he had a smaller guy on him who mugged him on the catch. No call. Garza then turned and tried to lay it in and got swatted by Smith. Just one play as an example.

Again I have no issue with you feeling the refs hurt us. There were certainly bad calls (as there are in every game). That’s just not how I saw it which is okay.

There was a play last night where Connor and another guy were mugging a guy under the basket. The crowd went nuts and I was surprised they didn't call anything. There are always going to be something you can point to to try to prove the calls went both ways. I call the play you pointed out and the play I pointed out abnormalities.

The play you said probably shouldn't have been continuation (although I disagree that they don't allow it in college. Its ridiculous what they call continuation sometimes). But what's funny about that play is the very next time down the floor Wieskamp had a play that looked way more like it should have been continuation than the last one but they waved it off. I guarantee their thought process was they couldn't call two boarderline plays in a row like that. If they wouldn't have allowed the Joe T one, the Wieskamp one would have counted. Right or wrong.
 
I agree with a lot of what you said here. I’m not trying to say it was all doom and gloom I feel good about Iowa’s team I just don’t think they played very well last night. To your point it’s a credit to Iowa that we can hang in there when not playing that well with a good team on the road. I took some positives from the game but just didn’t think we were good enough last night.

The only difference again just IMO but I think Maryland tried slowing it down moreso than Iowa made them slow it down. Turgeon said at halftime his team was playing too fast and he wanted them to slow it down. They knew with Cowan they could pretty much get what they wanted when they wanted.

I believe going into the game yesterday Iowa was like 73rd is KenPom adjusted defense and we fell to 80th. To me that makes sense given that I thought we were pretty poor on that end.

I think there were more shot clock buzzer beaters in the 1st half than the 2nd but not for sure on that. We also fouled a lot on purpose at the end which hurt our defensive efficiency. I don't know who's right on the defense part, maybe somewhere in the middle. I know our rebounding killed our defensive efficiency numbers and I know our guards are way better and defense than we've seen in awhile. We are capable of locking down when we have to. Just need to do it more often. Cowen also played great. Sometimes good players make plays.
 
I know we played zone last night to protect Garza, but other than that, I'm not sure why we play it so much. We have players that can play man now. I think Joe T, CJ, Wieskamp, and Garza are all perfectly fine at man defense. Connor might have a small issue at the 4, but I don't think it's too bad at all. That's 4 good defenders and an average one at worst.
Garza is still a huge huge liability in pick and roll defense. That’s why Iowa can’t play man. It gets worse when Kriener is out there at the four from a foot speed perspective. Iowa’s best chance at this point is to play zone and hope the other team isn’t hitting outside shots.
 
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Garza's experience last night vs athletic, quick, physical defenders is a reminder of why he isn't a projected first round draft pick at this point.
21 points on 9 of 19 shooting all while playing scared of fouling is pretty decent. Also getting fouls from legal post ups twice because you physically dominated so bad that the refs felt bad for the opponent is pretty good.
 
Foul calls being even for the game has less than nothing to do with whether or not the game was called even or not.

CJ got hip-checked out-of-bounds: Iowa turnover.

JoeW got fouled on a put back rebound. Two other Iowa players didn’t rebound his miss.

Both of those happened at key points.

A much greater impact on this game is Garza and Kreiner picking up legit called stupid fouls. That’s on them, not the refs.

The refs had little impact on this game; Iowa’s bone-headed plays and poor shooting were the impacts on this game. That’s just the facts.

And they were still competitive.
 
Funny you say CJ looked slow. I thought just the opposite. He closes out so fast and then when the player tries to go around him as he's closing out, he adjusts quick and shuts that down too. I was really impressed with his quickness last night to the point where I mentioned it to friends in a group text.

I didn't think he looked slow necessarily, but tired. His shot was short a lot of times, including a couple of air ball threes.
 

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