**OFFICIAL HAWKS FORCED TO GO TO NEW JERSEY GAME THREAD**

[STILLBUSTER]

I am with you. I think the smaller rotation thing is overplayed. Everything you just stated is a 1000% accurate. The only thing I would add is last year Iowa allowed their opponents to shoot 37.6% from 3. This year that number is around 32%, which is huge. You go from 307th in the country to like 46th.

Might be counter intuitive but this is the direct result of going primarily zone (you're welcome, Fran!).

Iowa is NOT athletic but they are long. Where they routinely get destroyed in man - chasing, hedging, over-helping - the zone sets keep the ball in front of them, gives them more court awareness and more reaction time to compensate for their lack of athleticism.

Focusing on one "style" of defense - that still offers multiple options - has allowed the guys to excel at it. This breeds understanding, which breeds more disciplined position. As a result, three noticeable improvements I see on defense
1) Virutually no hedges (although, Garza has been tending to get skittish and undisciplined, lately - drifting up and out as the ball rotates to the wings);
2) Much more effective recovery to challenge shots from the wings down to the corners;
3) The top of zone is very active and aggressive. The guards are harassing teams to pass to the wings and corners. They are also anticipating screens better - moving to avoid and deny penetration (which leads to zone-busting kick-outs.)

Finally, you can't ignore the "luck" factor. Opponents don't seem to be hitting the daggers as much as they seem to have in the past. I'd be interested to see if overall outside shooting % is down throughout basketball but it might just be a case of that team on that night against Iowa. I still think some of it is, most teams aren't comfortable / used to playing against zone. Some of it is purely the strategical odds of zone (keep the ball further from the basket). Some of it is Iowa creating it's own "luck" with it's more intense effort and varying zone sets.

The success is fun but it's also been a pleasure to watch higher quality, more disciplined ball from the Hawks.

 

[proudhawkfan21]

I'm well aware of the discrepancy, but this is the best run since Recker went back to back in the Big Ten Tourney. I'm gonna enjoy it. Listening to Rutgers coach post game. Coach complaining about getting no breaks, Hell bouncing in a 3 that was well short doesn't count as a "break". How about not getting called for 3 seconds the entire night? Believe me, Rutgers got as many breaks as Iowa did, the refs. just didn't hand them the game this is to their credit.

Oh, hey now, lets not talk about the officiating or you might be called out about how fair it was and how Iowa got a lot of good calls in spite of being on the road.

 

[ssckelley]

Oh, hey now, lets not talk about the officiating or you might be called out about how fair it was and how Iowa got a lot of good calls in spite of being on the road.

The refs did take away 2 points from Rutgers on that goal tending call.

 

[proudhawkfan21]

The refs did take away 2 points from Rutgers on that goal tending call.

I dont blame refs for winning or losing games. My thoughts on the officiating yesterday is that they didnt call it tight early, so when the end of half or late in the game time rolls around and they must call hand checking or body checking or mugging, fans are going to be upset or expect that defense to continue unchecked (Rutgers fans). They set the tone for an overly physical game and the emphasis this year was supposed to be more hands off the body defense. Granted, Iowa doesnt do as well in games where tight, physical man defense is allowed. We arent athletic enough.

 

[Northside Hawk]

i still struggle with why moss doesn't play at the end of games.

Something else that occurred to me.

I'd have to go back and check our timeout situation, but we had enough time to throw it into the half court, call time out immediately, and then inbound it from there. We probably still would have had around 2.5 seconds which would have been plenty of time to get the shot off.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it worked out. But I hope we don't have to resort to a corner bank shot for a win ever again.

Most important. We are now tied with Wisconsin for fifth, one half game behind Maryland for fourth. Guess who's coming to town? We may also have sole possession of fifth place before we play Maryland, but asking Illinois to win at the Kohl is a pretty tall order.

 

[PCHawk]

I am with you. I think the smaller rotation thing is overplayed. Everything you just stated is a 1000% accurate. The only thing I would add is last year Iowa allowed their opponents to shoot 37.6% from 3. This year that number is around 32%, which is huge. You go from 307th in the country to like 46th.

I contribute a lot of that to Wieskamp. Having one more really good defender who is really long has helped a ton. As the rest of the team even improved on defense? Probably a very small amount, but not much.

 

[PCHawk]

The refs did take away 2 points from Rutgers on that goal tending call.

Which is further proof that they sucked, just like we said.

 

[PCHawk]

Here's the way I see it. The refs decided to call the type of game where they let you get away with overly physical play. When they call it that way, it gives iowa a huge disadvantage because that's not their game at all. Choosing to consistently not call fouls is ridiculous

 

[Stanzi]

The refs did take away 2 points from Rutgers on that goal tending call.

It looked like goal tending live though. Only on the replay could you see a sliver of light between the rim and ball. I don't really consider that a blatant miss by the refs since there's no way to catch that live and it's not reviewable.

 

[ssckelley]

Something else that occurred to me.

I'd have to go back and check our timeout situation, but we had enough time to throw it into the half court, call time out immediately, and then inbound it from there. We probably still would have had around 2.5 seconds which would have been plenty of time to get the shot off.

Iowa had called their last timeout after Rutgers bounced that 3 pointer in. So the players would have had to of done that on their own.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Iowa had called their last timeout after Rutgers bounced that 3 pointer in. So the players would have had to of done that on their own.

OK, good to know. We certainly didn't need any Chris Webber time outs.

 

[PCHawk]

It looked like goal tending live though. Only on the replay could you see a sliver of light between the rim and ball. I don't really consider that a blatant miss by the refs since there's no way to catch that live and it's not reviewable.

My first thought was oh shit I hope they cant review that. My second thought was Kentucky a week ago.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Lost in all the noise from last night's ending is the fact the Joe Toussaint was to attend the game.

Are there any reports on tweets from Joe or his reaction?

I got a feeling he left happy with the decision he made.

 

[thedukeofearl]

It looked like goal tending live though. Only on the replay could you see a sliver of light between the rim and ball. I don't really consider that a blatant miss by the refs since there's no way to catch that live and it's not reviewable.

It also looked like his hand was on the ball before the sliver of light

 

[PlatypusMessiah]

For the most part, Iowa is winning close games this year. They haven't always done that in the past. I guess that's lucky? Over and over?

I believe that part of having consistent luck is having the skill to put you into a position for luck to find you. There is a real difference between Bohannon’s 3 against Northwestern and Wescamp’s banking threes froM the corner off a tipped pass. The later is luck.