Mel had a pretty solid first season and he got some recognition with the all-freshman team and then being invited to the 19U team tryouts.
Basabe looks frustrated more than anything and frustration can be made out to being disinterested. There is a fine line there, but the fact that he continues to start takes it to frustration, rather than disinterest.
The reaction here is amazing, people were talking Mel up like he was going to be one of the Top 5 Hawkeyes of all-time. That was never going to happen. Mel was a three-star kid for a reason, the one thing that the services talked about with him was his high-energy. Frustration leads to low energy on the court.
The biggest problem with Mel is that he doesn't have any true low-post moves, his court vision is poor and he is limited dribbling the ball. Other teams can easily force the ball out of his hands, just the thought of a double team is enough.
That said, when Mel has posted up this season and has gotten good position, he doesn't get the ball, which leads to a lot of frustration. There have been many times that he has had very good position on the inside and all Iowa's guards have to do is throw the ball at the rim and an easy bucket. The one thing that Iowa does extremely poorly is get a good angle to pass the ball inside. This was the case last year as well, Cartwright let the BIG in conference assists, but it was off of dribble penetration, not by throwing the ball inside.
The fact that Iowa is probably the poorest team at passing the ball inside has hurt Mel, along with his own issues. McCabe is different because he is more versatile of a player, so we can't compare the two, they are totally different and we should know that.
I don't know what is going on in Mel's head, but all the success he had last year is not happening this year. He doesn't get the ball off dribble pentration, but he is in foul trouble a lot as well.
There are many factors into his non-success of this season, but he hasn't expanded his game and he isn't getting the ball in the same positions as he was last year. This is a different team this year and he didn't change with it, this is a disaster of a season for him, lets see how he comes back next year. If he would have had this type of season last year nobody would have questioned him, but the unreal expectations of him becoming something he isn't were just funny. He has to get better in his overall game.
