Last night was painful, awful, terrible, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet as it appears some might. I’m not saying people are wrong to either this could go south like two years ago just as easy as it could turn around.
Anyway early season losses do happen in college basketball. We don’t know for sure how good or not good Depaul will be. I personally think they are going to be pretty solid team and go dancing this year. I also mentioned early in the day that playing 3 games compared to Iowa’s 1 was an advantage for them, which I still believe was true.
5 of our top 11 guys who played either hadn’t played much more than a game at this level either ever, or for Nunge and Pemsl basically since 2017. That doesn’t include Bohannon who is clearly playing at something less than 100%. Depaul on the other hand had quite a bit of experience in their rotation including the 3 games played to Iowa’s 1.
So what gives me reason for optimism:
-Garza and Wieskamp played about as bad as they could. Potentially the worst game of Wieskamp’s career at Iowa. We know they can and will play better. They should both be all conference type players.
-I’m pretty high on CJF at this point. I think he’s a quality SG for us. I think compared to Moss he will be an upgrade in terms of ball handling and setting up others (we haven’t seen a ton of that just yet though). He will take some lumps just like any freshman.
-There is no way in my mind Nunge can be as bad as he’s played thus far. As I mentioned elsewhere the sample size is still small (only 25 minutes played in two games). He had some decent performances as a freshman and he didn’t just crack the starting lineup for no apparent reason. If for some reason he can’t get it figured out I think Kriener and Pemsl can be average players at that spot. They’ve got enough experience.
-Perimeter defense / team footspeed. This was the big one from last night. In my estimation if Jbo gets shut down this will improve by default. I think Toussaint, Evelyn, and Frederick can all be average defenders with at least a chance in terms of footspeed. Overall we are going to always be a slower team with Nunge, Kriener, and Pemsl playing the 4, but I don’t think it will be as bad as we saw last night if Toussaint and Evelyn get more minutes going forward.
What say you?
