Official Hawks Finally Play on Real TV Game Thread

I watched a recording of the game when I got home later in the evening.

*77 points to South Dakota? Seriously?? At home???

*I know their coach said this is the most athletic team South Dakota has had since he has been there, but come on man.

*Of course I have to be fair we played without our best post player.

*They did look out of rhythm out there but it is just game three.

Iowa does have some shooters out there.

Let’s hope in about five more games from now they start looking more in rhythm with each other. The crowd looked pretty dead on TV.
IMO, that was about as good of performance as you're going to see from an Iowa team, and frankly, it's more impressive to me since most of the starters played less than 25 minutes and we were without arguably our best player.

5 players in double figures, made 13 3's shooting 42%, and Kingsbury, Mulvey and J Koch all saw significant minutes in the 2nd half. Going to be hard to be in a much better rhythm than that but you'll likely see better production when our starters are playing 30+ a game and Fran isn't clearing out his bench in the 2nd halves.
 
They definitely have a different look with Freeman out and Sandfort in foul trouble not shooting a ton. Dix is legit that kid is just automatic. I'm sure he has the green light from Fran and boy howdy I hope he keeps firing away and playing aggressive. He's everything we hoped CJ Fredrick was gonna be. He's just got a more consistent smooth stroke. Paytons is a unique shot where he flips his wrist and follow through to the right side kinda. I'd say that's why it's tougher for him to be consistent even though he can get hot.
 
I watched a recording of the game when I got home later in the evening.

*77 points to South Dakota? Seriously?? At home???

*I know their coach said this is the most athletic team South Dakota has had since he has been there, but come on man.

*Of course I have to be fair we played without our best post player.

*They did look out of rhythm out there but it is just game three.

Iowa does have some shooters out there.

Let’s hope in about five more games from now they start looking more in rhythm with each other. The crowd looked pretty dead on TV.
S Dakota is a fast-paced team that'll score a lot. (They scored 93 against Southern; Iowa had 89.) That and, as usual, defense is going to be mostly optional. The Sandforts can't play D to save their skins, Owen has to be careful about foul trouble, Traore / Dembele are ok, Dix and Thelwell are pretty good defenders.

I've come to expect having to win games in the 80s / 90s from Iowa. Thing is, I think Iowa can actually do it more than not this year. Very deep production on the roster - where you can easily get double digits from your 8th / 9th guy. That alone helps when Peyton has a funky night - like last night.

Also, production seems to be more reliable. As mentioned last night - knock on wood - have yet to see the classic Iowa scoring drought. I think, just on average, you can bank on 45 points night-in / out from Peyton, Josh, Owen. I think Dembele / Traore will give you another 16 - 18. Same from the Harding / Thelwell / Pryce combo. Get Braun and Coop-Koch to add another 6-8 and you're at mid-80's every game - that's not even seeing Tadjo, yet!

Not trying to be too over-the-top. I still have them as an NIT team until I see them maintain this through December against peer + competition. Do have a feeling there's a lot deeper athleticism and scoring potential than recent years.
 
S Dakota is a fast-paced team that'll score a lot. (They scored 93 against Southern; Iowa had 89.) That and, as usual, defense is going to be mostly optional. The Sandforts can't play D to save their skins, Owen has to be careful about foul trouble, Traore / Dembele are ok, Dix and Thelwell are pretty good defenders.

I've come to expect having to win games in the 80s / 90s from Iowa. Thing is, I think Iowa can actually do it more than not this year. Very deep production on the roster - where you can easily get double digits from your 8th / 9th guy. That alone helps when Peyton has a funky night - like last night.

Also, production seems to be more reliable. As mentioned last night - knock on wood - have yet to see the classic Iowa scoring drought. I think, just on average, you can bank on 45 points night-in / out from Peyton, Josh, Owen. I think Dembele / Traore will give you another 16 - 18. Same from the Harding / Thelwell / Pryce combo. Get Braun and Coop-Koch to add another 6-8 and you're at mid-80's every game - that's not even seeing Tadjo, yet!

Not trying to be too over-the-top. I still have them as an NIT team until I see them maintain this through December against peer + competition. Do have a feeling there's a lot deeper athleticism and scoring potential than recent years.
When Iowa plays a fast paced team, you really have to take scoring total with a grain of salt. There's just too Manu possessions in games like that to keep the score low. That said, we obviously still suck on defense.
 
S Dakota is a fast-paced team that'll score a lot. (They scored 93 against Southern; Iowa had 89.) That and, as usual, defense is going to be mostly optional. The Sandforts can't play D to save their skins, Owen has to be careful about foul trouble, Traore / Dembele are ok, Dix and Thelwell are pretty good defenders.

I've come to expect having to win games in the 80s / 90s from Iowa. Thing is, I think Iowa can actually do it more than not this year. Very deep production on the roster - where you can easily get double digits from your 8th / 9th guy. That alone helps when Peyton has a funky night - like last night.

Also, production seems to be more reliable. As mentioned last night - knock on wood - have yet to see the classic Iowa scoring drought. I think, just on average, you can bank on 45 points night-in / out from Peyton, Josh, Owen. I think Dembele / Traore will give you another 16 - 18. Same from the Harding / Thelwell / Pryce combo. Get Braun and Coop-Koch to add another 6-8 and you're at mid-80's every game - that's not even seeing Tadjo, yet!

Not trying to be too over-the-top. I still have them as an NIT team until I see them maintain this through December against peer + competition. Do have a feeling there's a lot deeper athleticism and scoring potential than recent years.
Huge facts. Pryce was blown by like 5 times that I remember seeing he can't stay in front of anyone and Payton ended up fouling out. As a senior you'd like to think he could be smarter about that too. It's tougher for bigs like Owen to stay out of it sometimes just with the flow of the game and refs and whatnot. But wing guys like Payton can easily control it. If they pick up an early one do not get another one right away which he pretty much did in the 1st half. So frustrating.

Yeah scoring wise they need Sandfort, Owens, and Dix to be consistent. They need 50 plus just out of them three for sure every night. Cause the PG position will be spotty unless Thelwell gets more mins I really like him but if they keep force feeding Harding mins your guess is as good as mine how he'll do. And Dembele is a huge crapshoot along with Pryce and the bench. Traeore should play big mins and I'd play him beside Freeman instead of Dembele but that's just me.
 
IMO, that was about as good of performance as you're going to see from an Iowa team, and frankly, it's more impressive to me since most of the starters played less than 25 minutes and we were without arguably our best player.

5 players in double figures, made 13 3's shooting 42%, and Kingsbury, Mulvey and J Koch all saw significant minutes in the 2nd half. Going to be hard to be in a much better rhythm than that but you'll likely see better production when our starters are playing 30+ a game and Fran isn't clearing out his bench in the 2nd halves.

Your last sentence was what I was getting at. I expect improvement the more everyone plays.
 
When Iowa plays a fast paced team, you really have to take scoring total with a grain of salt. There's just too Manu possessions in games like that to keep the score low. That said, we obviously still suck on defense.

Lol, your last sentence made me laugh even though it’s not funny and a serious problem in Fran’s approach to basketball.

I think after all the years that Fran has been here we can agree that Fran does not put a premium on either teaching or recruiting defense. It is what cost us every March.
 
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