Only a 6 point loss on the road to a top 10 team

Way early in the game, when Woodbury was fouled and should've made the basket with the potential to complete the 3-point play, Dakich said that these 2 points may be big later in the game.

It was.
 
Winning on the road is tough.

Iowa played extremely poorly and still almost beat a top 10 team in a tough place to win.

Sure I'd have loved to steal the win, but this team showed no quit and hung tough against a team with some really good players.

I'm not worried going foward.
 
STILLBUSTER said:
Think of this - If Hawks make 2 more 3's, they'd still only have shot 29% from behind the arc. If they make 1 more free throw, they'd still only have shot 67% from the line. In other words, if they merely play below average to bad -- which these numbers are -- they STILL WIN!!

Instead, they played really crappy and lost a B14 roadie to a legit top-15 team who really needed the win when the officiating was non-existent, then inconsistent (Maryland made 16 free throws; Hawks attempted 15.)

I expected the loss but, as others have said, was disappointed to see such out-of-character, oh so familair things.
- Terrible defense, especially perimeter. (If Terps shoot their 3-pt avg, Iowa loses by 15.)
- So easily rattled out of the game plan.
- Maryland wanting it more and out-toughing Iowa for it.
- Fran's robotic, automated substitutions, that tend to devolve into hap-hazard, knee-jerk rotations and combos, rather than recognizing and sticking with who's performing this particular game.
Evident with Clemmons (consistent, solid production of offense and best perimeter defender) vs. Mikey (continuous poor decision-making at crucial times and just not clutch at the line) but Wagner deserved some time in the 2nd when Uhl was getting discouraged and needed to protect Woody.

I still believe this team will flush it and persevere rather than press it and falter. The B14 title and a deep run in the dance are there for the taking. It is ultimatum time for Mikey, though, and Clemmons needs to run the offense.
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Please can we lay off Gesell? He playe hard as always and was not the reason we lost the game. Clemmons will not be running the team, Gesell will.
 
We should be fine. We missed 3 easy point blank layups and lost by 6 on the road to a team that hasn't lost a B1G home game, yet. It was a sloppy game on both sides, but we competed through an off night.
 
We've lost 4 games with 6 being the largest margin twice. No one in the country wants to draw us in the NCAA Tournament. We're usually ahead late in the game but when we aren't we're only a couple made baskets from making it very uncomfortable.
 
I agree with the sentiment of several posters. Losing to a top 10 team on the road by 6 when no one on the Hawks can hit a three shows how solid of a team Iowa is. The Hawks and Uhtoff had an off night and still had a chance to win. I'm hopeful Iowa comes out against JNW and destroys them allowing Fleming and Williams to get 10+ minutes of playing time.
 
No shame in this loss. Losing on the road to them isn't the worst thing ever. MD is pretty good. It's just frustrating that Iowa was just a few missed free throws and turnovers away from having won that game. Close games have all the what ifs in the world to go back and think about. But when our PGs miss free throws and front ends of 1&1s it's demoralizing. If Woody can improve like he has why can't MG and Clemmons make 75 to 80% of their free throws? I literally have no faith in MG shooting free throws especially in the clutch. He does ok in the middle of games but last 4 mins of a close game... Not so much
 
Hawkfnntn said:
No shame in this loss. Losing on the road to them isn't the worst thing ever. MD is pretty good. It's just frustrating that Iowa was just a few missed free throws and turnovers away from having won that game. Close games have all the what ifs in the world to go back and think about. But when our PGs miss free throws and front ends of 1&1s it's demoralizing. If Woody can improve like he has why can't MG and Clemmons make 75 to 80% of their free throws? I literally have no faith in MG shooting free throws especially in the clutch. He does ok in the middle of games but last 4 mins of a close game... Not so much
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Iowa's RPI remained the same (9) on ESPN after last night's game. Apparently Lunardi will still have us as a 1 seed (MD will be up to a 2), and we're still tied for 1st in the conference. Not a bad loss at all (though a win obviously would've been huge). Definitely is not the end of the world.. Just bounce back and take care of business these next few games heading into the game @Indiana.

Woody's improvement at the line (last night aside) has been remarkable. Yeah, it's a bit of a mystery why Gesell & Clemmons struggle at the line so much. Clemmons can shoot the 3, but struggles at the line.. Sometimes I think FT's are a weird mental thing.

I noticed on Clemmons, year by year:
Freshman: 73%
Soph: 61%
Junior: 75%
Senior: 61%

Not sure about the number of attempts per season, but he has this every-other-year thing going on.
 
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