Iowa's Bench

NikeHawk21

Well-Known Member
Taking a look at the box score last night our bench scored 9 points in 72 minutes of game action. In general bench production declines on the road but we still need more production than that.

Obviously Baer is doing a great job and I really don't think he needs to change anything about how he plays. If you look at the makeup of our bench now that Cook is back in the starting lineup they are all defensive minded players outside of Ellingson, who struggles to create for himself.

Anybody know the status of Dale Jones? I think when he returns he should replace Dom Uhl in the rotation and play about 10-15 minutes a night. As they say you can never have enough shooters, and now that Uhl has given up on his outside shot we really need someone to pick it up.
 
I would also add that I'm fine with Ellingson playing ~10min a game as the backup PG and cutting Williams from the rotation. The great part about that is it just means more minutes for Baer, Moss, and even probably Wagner, as Baer has been playing minutes at the 4.
 
Really disappointed with Uhl's regression. He seemed to be on the verge of being a very solid B1G player last year. Wonder what happened?
 
Really disappointed with Uhl's regression. He seemed to be on the verge of being a very solid B1G player last year. Wonder what happened?

He lost confidence in his outside shot. He's never been a great post guy. Defenders sag off of him now because they don't respect his outside shot and he can't dribble around them anymore. He still tries to drive and ends up in traffic. That's the root of the problem IMO.
 
Lack of bench scoring is a recurring problematic theme with Iowa (and a lot of other teams too). Fran can't have four starters sitting at the same time -- three is even troublesome.

Those stretches of three and four starters sitting should be very small and only a couple of minutes. But it's the grinding season so the bench is going to have to see it up if they can't fill it up
 
Really disappointed with Uhl's regression. He seemed to be on the verge of being a very solid B1G player last year. Wonder what happened?
Well, what do I know? Fantastic game today. Really good.

We have Jok obviously. We have an up and coming PG. Baer is a baller, plain and simple.

With that said, Uhl, Cook, Pemsl and Wagner, one of them, has to step up every night (could be a different one each night for example) in order for us to succeed this year. It was Uhl's turn tonight.
 
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Uhl at least for the last few games, seems to have been struggling with the cold/flu...tough to perform with that...and the rise of Pemsl is also a challenge to the psyche.

Hope he improves. He can be a great asset.
 
I think The Diesel said on his latest podcast that Iowa has one of the most productive benches in the B1G. I don't know where they track that kinda info to confirm.
 
Uhl is confident on the D, so un-confident on his offense. Something breaks in his brain when time to launch a shot whether contested inside or uncontested outside, and it causes him to miss nearly every time. If anyone could benefit from a psychologist, it would be him. If he got past this he would be a starter, and a good scoring one. We already know he has the D.
 

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