NCAA Tournament - Glass Half Full Thread

MelroseHawkins

Well-Known Member
In looking at Iowa's losses, although there are a couple duds with Penn St and Illinois, Iowa really hasn't had a blow out loss on their record. They all year have pretty much been in every game. The first half of the season they had a double-digit average win range, I think 11 points. Of Iowa's 10 losses, only 3 came from teams not in the NCAA tournament.

In addition, Iowa's average losses in the 10 games have come at 4.7 pts. So, it might be an uphill battle but they have shown they are usually in each game. On Iowa!
 
For some odd reason, I have Iowa making the Elite 8, damn, am I on drugs or something??......1980, Iowa started at Greensborough, NC, and made that nice run to the F4, I just gotta feeling......It'd be nice to win some of those by 4.7 pts...., and so it starts on Friday...
 
I think they beat temple pretty easily but I'm not sure about nova. I think iowa can keep it close against them.

I'm optimistic....very very cautiously optimistic. I don't want to think what a loss to temple would do to the fan base.
 
I was deleting old games off the DVR and decided to watch the Dayton game from earlier in the year to see how we looked early in the year. It was a pretty big difference.

Jones drilled 2 3's and shot a couple other deep shots. Man could he have stretched the defense this year. Ellingson made 3 of 4 3's in the 2nd half. Including a clutch one late in the game. Gesell fueled a comeback late and was shooting with confidence. If he still shot with that confidence we would have won the Big 10.

Dayton didn't score for 5 or 6 minutes late while we came back. But as soon as we took the lead, they scored on 4 or 5 straight possessions. Everything they threw up went in at the end. We didn't just give that game away like we gave them away at the end.

Also I noticed with 2 minutes left in the game, Jok and Uthoff weren't even in the game. What a difference from what we look like now.
 
I think they beat temple pretty easily but I'm not sure about nova. I think iowa can keep it close against them.

I'm optimistic....very very cautiously optimistic. I don't want to think what a loss to temple would do to the fan base.

I have no idea how good Villanova is. They have no quality wins out of conference. And I don't know if their conference is really all that good. The NCAA Tournament usually provides some answers.
 
The good news in our little pod is that there is no super talented team like a Kentucky or a team that poises a huge mismatch problem like Gonzaga last year. You could make the argument we have the two best individual players.

Villanova is dealing with some injury problems, specifically their big man Ochefu who is like their Woodbury in that he's their one true center.

The worst thing about the draw honestly is we needed to play somebody who doesn't know us very well. Fran Dunphy and Jay Wright are probably aware of how Fran and his teams like to play. The players got to be ready for physical play.
 
It's Amazing how great we can look at times, then how bad we can look at other times.

With this team, it all comes down to Gesell's play and how we are shooting.

If he plays well, teams have to focus on him, that opens up Jok and Uthoff.

If he stinks it up, teams can key more on Jok and Uthoff, then brick city usually ensues.
 
For some odd reason, I have Iowa making the Elite 8, damn, am I on drugs or something??

if you have to ask then the answer is pretty clear you've taken a combo of likely crack (explains the elite 8) and roofies (memory loss).
 
My apologies if this had been previously mentioned and I heard it from someone else first, but I think the best thing for this team is to get out of B1G and on to other teams who haven't seen us.
 
My apologies if this had been previously mentioned and I heard it from someone else first, but I think the best thing for this team is to get out of B1G and on to other teams who haven't seen us.
Getting away from Big Ten officiating will be what's best for the Hawks. Finding the refs that will call "impending the driver" and call all the bodying done against Jok and Jarod would do wonders for this team. If they call the fouls that the refs were calling during the first half of the season the Hawks could do well.
 
Getting away from Big Ten officiating will be what's best for the Hawks. Finding the refs that will call "impending the driver" and call all the bodying done against Jok and Jarod would do wonders for this team. If they call the fouls that the refs were calling during the first half of the season the Hawks could do well.

But that could require us to hit more clutch free throws, especially down the stretch . Those haven't exactly been gimmies for this squad with the exception of someone I dare not mention who can't seem to miss.
 
But that could require us to hit more clutch free throws, especially down the stretch . Those haven't exactly been gimmies for this squad with the exception of someone I dare not mention who can't seem to miss.

If we get foul calls like we should, maybe we will be up so much at the end that we won't need to make clutch free throws.
 
But that could require us to hit more clutch free throws, especially down the stretch . Those haven't exactly been gimmies for this squad with the exception of someone I dare not mention who can't seem to miss.

If they call the game the way it's supposed to be called and was called earlier this season there will be no need for clutch free throws. We will win by double digits like we were before the physical play was allowed...IMO.
 
Officials have a tendency to swallow their whistles during the tournament. You know supposedly "let'em play". Iowa will not get any help from the officiating.
 
Officials have a tendency to swallow their whistles during the tournament. You know supposedly "let'em play". Iowa will not get any help from the officiating.

Especially if it goes down to the wire......So, the Hawks better get a huge lead and hold on....
 
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