Please come off the ledge...

PCHawk said:
It's not that hard to string together some losses to teams you were a 55/45 favorite in.
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True. But I suspect you have more 55/45 games than I do. So I likely have 2 or 3 fewer losses strung together...making it highly unlikely more than 2 teams can pass us in the standings.
 
WindsorHawk said:
True. But I suspect you have more 55/45 games than I do. So I likely have 2 or 3 fewer losses strung together...making it highly unlikely more than 2 teams can pass us in the standings.
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I dont think I have us higher than 60% to win any games or lower than 40% to win any games. It's hard for me to pick anything other than 10/10 or 11/9. I will say that I think 12 wins is more likely than 8 wins. But not by much.
 
NikeHawk21 said:
I get your logic, but that could completely change if Iowa loses to Minny on Sunday.

The schedule is what it is but you can’t look past certain things. Our 5 game win streak included 2 road wins over bottom tier teams, and 3 home wins over middle to bottom tier teams.

Now we have a different stretch of games. Can we beat a middle tier team like Minny or Indy on the road? Can we beat a top tier team like Michigan or Maryland at home?

Lot of games left, and while I’m on not on any ledge persay right now I am just hoping Iowa can get to 10 wins in this league.
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I think there's a point built into your statement regarding the 5 game win streak....yes, they are mid to bottom level team wins but they are wins and in the past, those have been losses or stretches where we go 2-3 or 3-2. They are doing what we want them to which is to beat the teams they are "supposed to."
 
hawkeye23 said:
I think there's a point built into your statement regarding the 5 game win streak....yes, they are mid to bottom level team wins but they are wins and in the past, those have been losses or stretches where we go 2-3 or 3-2. They are doing what we want them to which is to beat the teams they are "supposed to."
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I agree with that.

The question is can we beat a top 50 level team on the road? We haven’t done that yet, although we haven’t had many realistic opportunities. It’s a complete unknown, which makes Sunday so intriguing.
 
hawkeye23 said:
I think there's a point built into your statement regarding the 5 game win streak....yes, they are mid to bottom level team wins but they are wins and in the past, those have been losses or stretches where we go 2-3 or 3-2. They are doing what we want them to which is to beat the teams they are "supposed to."
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Agreed...4 losses all to Top 10 Kenpom teams.
 
It was difficult to maintain the intensity of the first half and the start of the second half with a team that is undoubtedly one of the top five teams in the country. They are a serious, legitimate Final Four team loaded with 4/5 star players. At one point in the game, we had 4 players from Iowa and Tyler Cook in the game for a significant amount of time.....

Their freshman class has 5 four star players.....

There is no disgrace to lose to the Spartans. They beat Number 13 Maryland by 14. We lost by 15, and are stlll going to finish in the top half of the conference......

The number of shots that rolled off the rim were many. Those shots go in as they normally do and the score would have been closer, not necessarily a win but certainly, a closer game than they would have been comfortable with, wiping the smug smiles off their faces.....

Winston won the game for them when we had an 8 point lead at 14:44 in the second half. He had 2 threes and an assist to McQuaid to give them the lead, 53-50. It went downhill from there.....

I was proud of the Hawks giving the Spartans all they could handle in first half. That was a sold effort and perhaps the best D they have played this season, on a par with the second half D the 2015/16 team played at Purdue when they came from behind to win at one of the most difficult arenas in the country.....

This team is very good and will put this one behind them and move on, hopefully playing as well as they have during the five-game winning streak when they beat ranked Nebraska and Ohio State quite nicely.....

:cool:
 
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dirtwrap said:
We have a really good team. We do so many things well and we are a mismatch for a lot of teams. We had a really good gameplan last night as well; pound the ball inside to Cook and Garza, get their front line in foul trouble and control the game. We did that really well for most of the game, however, they either didn't foul, we scored, or we missed really makeable shots. Tyler especially had a lot of good looks that just didn't go down.

Where we lost is that we just don't have anyone on our team that can create their own shot and take control when things either start to go awry or its at the end of the shot clock. And they do with Winston. If he doesn't play well last night and doesn't hit those very timely threes, we could have gone up 15-20 and had the chance to blow them out.

So relax, we got beat. MSU is not a good matchup for us, however, like every team in college basketball (including Duke who has both the #1 and #2 picks in the upcoming draft on their team and still lost twice (could you imagine if that was Iowa?)), has matchup deficiencies. Also, there aren't very many point guards out there like Winston. We are still a very good team, and with the right draw and the right matchup, we can do special things.
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Quite nicely done.....
 
Missed the second half, which seems to be lucky for me. Can't have an opinion on that, but the first half was very competitive. We ran good sets. Missed some close shots. Michigan State is an elite team as others have said.

I really think Iowa will respond well at Minnesota after this. They seem to have a little edge to them this year.

I'm just glad that a loss can get people back on the forums to get excited again. It was dead around here with all that winning.
 
On the very optimistic side, Iowa has a lot of chances left to become battle tested and grow up further. IF they can win some of these road tests against the middle to upper middle Big Ten teams....that could be a huge boost come BTT time. Also, get a chance to feel good about themselves with some good wins at home against either Michigan or Maryland.

I think bottom line though, it is going to take some decent luck to make it any farther than the Round of 32 for this team. And, I think the natives are going to get real restless if Fran does not get this team at least that far. They downright maybe sharping the knives if no Selection Sunday. Barta will not do anything, but that will be the feeling all off season.
 
I think we match up pretty well with everyone on the rest of our schedule. Not that we will win them all, but if we stay healthy, follow the game plan, and play with poise, we should be in every game.

I am seeing a lot of improvement with our perimeter defense, and that is a very good sign for this team. We were able to sustain that level for about 70% of the game last night, and while that isn't ideal it is certainly enough to win games at this stage in the season and hopefully we can keep getting better. I also really like the Garza/Cook lineup, because they put a tremendous amount of pressure on the interior of the defense.

The one thing I would like to see, and call me crazy, is to start utilizing Cook more at the end of the shot clock. JBo and Wieskamp are not quick enough to hold the ball and create something from the top of the key, but are great catch and shoot weapons. If our original set breaks down, I think we should pull Cook out of the block, get him the ball and let him either facilitate or take his defender to the basket. He is our quickest and most athletic playmaker by far, and I think his handles are better than we think. Especially with the lineup of Cook/Garza/JBo/Wiesy and take your pick between Moss and Baer (whoever is playing better), because Cook will beat his guy off the dribble and open the lane up for a lot of good things, or let them collapse and him have 3 shooters around him.
 
What a bunch of crack smokin' kool-aid drinkers supporting a mediocre team with a bad game coach. He can't find a point guard plays his son who sucks....Dolph was right. Fire Fran.
 
Build straw men often? MSU has won 21 straight B1G games, they're good. Last night's loss wasn't the end of the world...and I've yet to see anybody say it was. If we lose the next 3... it'll be a different story.
 
NikeHawk21 said:
Indiana, Minnesota, OSU, UW, Neb are all tourney level teams, Iowa has not proven they can beat a tourney level team on the road.

If Iowa wins Sunday I’ll feel pretty good about where we are at, if they lose, it completely changes the narrative you are selling.
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Indiana? Really? Why" Minnesota, really, why? OSU, really, why? UW no. nebbie, no. Same as Iowa, they still have to prove they are tourney level teams.
 
Motigerhawk said:
Iowa is a damn good Mid Major team. Put us in Siennas conference and we win 30 games.

I do like the team. But we are not elite athletes.

If this team had a Ulis type PG, we would be an elite 8 team.
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You have been nominated for dumbest post of the year. Makes no sense.
 
Hawk90 said:
What a bunch of crack smokin' kool-aid drinkers supporting a mediocre team with a bad game coach. He can't find a point guard plays his son who sucks....Dolph was right. Fire Fran.
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Boy. This is a new twist on Iowa's basketball team. Thanks for the brilliant, unique analysis!
 
If you are on the ledge because we lost to MSU, I can’t image where you will be when we finish the next 3 games and we went 0-4 or 1-3 in those games (MSU, Minny, Michigan, and Indy).
 
deanvogs said:
If you are on the ledge because we lost to MSU, I can’t image where you will be when we finish the next 3 games and we went 0-4 or 1-3 in those games (MSU, Minny, Michigan, and Indy).
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Point well taken. Even though the Indy game looks a lot more winnable now than it did a month ago.
 
I am not on the ledge at all. It was just frustrating to watch because Iowa missed so many easy shots and had a bunch of open looks and couldn't hit anything. Imo, MSU didn't clamp down on them, they simply missed. MSU is a good team and they took advantage of those missed opportunities.
 
dirtwrap said:
We have a really good team. We do so many things well and we are a mismatch for a lot of teams. We had a really good gameplan last night as well; pound the ball inside to Cook and Garza, get their front line in foul trouble and control the game. We did that really well for most of the game, however, they either didn't foul, we scored, or we missed really makeable shots. Tyler especially had a lot of good looks that just didn't go down.

Where we lost is that we just don't have anyone on our team that can create their own shot and take control when things either start to go awry or its at the end of the shot clock. And they do with Winston. If he doesn't play well last night and doesn't hit those very timely threes, we could have gone up 15-20 and had the chance to blow them out.

So relax, we got beat. MSU is not a good matchup for us, however, like every team in college basketball (including Duke who has both the #1 and #2 picks in the upcoming draft on their team and still lost twice (could you imagine if that was Iowa?)), has matchup deficiencies. Also, there aren't very many point guards out there like Winston. We are still a very good team, and with the right draw and the right matchup, we can do special things.
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I'd prefer if the hater-fans jumped instead of backed away.

And I'll disagree about the adjectives you put in front of "good". I think we have a good team. Not a very or really good team. Although they have played a couple of games of some very or really good team defense and in those games have looked like a very or really good team.
 
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