STORY: Iowa Basketball Squeezes Orange in ACC-B1G Challenge

Great win, Iowa has now defeated 2 NCAA tournament teams be double digits. They are building a very strong tournament resume.
 
It is still plenty early to make any conference predictions but things are starting to shake out. It looks like Maryland, Ohio State, and Michigan have compelling cases for winning the regular season championship. Michigan State does not have the it factor after watching them last night. Indiana looks very improved from last season. Wisconsin maybe dropping out of the top four this year.

Iowa has improved after the DePaul game and to be 6 and 2 at this point given the injuries and working in new players is good. Iowa probably a 10 to 11 win conference record.
 
That's a heck of a win for a shorthanded team at a very difficult place to play so I don't want to take away from that but this Syracuse team doesn't look good so other than the name on the jersey, I don't know that it will be a quality win at end of year.
 
I really don’t care if Syracuse sucks. When we looked at our non conference slate before the season it looked like we were going to accumulate a lot of losses. I think between ISU, DePaul, SDSU, TTU, and Cincinnati that’s at least 4, potentially 5 tournament teams we will have played. Not to mention a 20 game B1G schedule.

Our strength of schedule is not going to be an issue this year, it’s going to be whether or not we can get enough wins (~19)
 
It's neat to see how this team is developing an identity. Maybe it doesn't fully develop and there will be nights when the opponent's talent is too great.

But this team, at least so far, plays smart, tough basketball. It stuck with the game plan last night and definitely was the stronger squad mentally.

I'm intrigued.
 
KenPom must have liked our road win last night. We jumped ten spots up to 38 in the country. We also jumped to #6 in offensive efficiency, which is kind of funny becuase I thought we had a poor shooting night and were without CJF.
 
If we had said that we would be 6-2 at this point and we knew we had lost Nunge for the season, Jbo wasn't quite right, Joe W would get off to a cold start, CJF and Pemsl would miss time due to injury .... no one would have believed it. Let's not forget that Iowa was actually taking it to San Diego State and had what? A 15 point lead at some spots in the game before Luka got into foul trouble?

Luka is playing at a 1st team All B1G level, heck he might be playing at an All American level at this point - I dunno that anyone saw this big of improvement from him.
 
InGoodCo said:
If we had said that we would be 6-2 at this point and we knew we had lost Nunge for the season, Jbo wasn't quite right, Joe W would get off to a cold start, CJF and Pemsl would miss time due to injury .... no one would have believed it. Let's not forget that Iowa was actually taking it to San Diego State and had what? A 15 point lead at some spots in the game before Luka got into foul trouble?

Luka is playing at a 1st team All B1G level, heck he might be playing at an All American level at this point - I dunno that anyone saw this big of improvement from him.
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Garza has been amazing, but it’s going to get tougher with the quality bigs the B1G has this year. He will still be a stud, I only mean to say that keeping up this level of production is unlikely. But I still think we will see improved play from Wieskamp, who was pretty solid last night despite not having his best shooting performance.
 
InGoodCo said:
If we had said that we would be 6-2 at this point and we knew we had lost Nunge for the season, Jbo wasn't quite right, Joe W would get off to a cold start, CJF and Pemsl would miss time due to injury .... no one would have believed it. Let's not forget that Iowa was actually taking it to San Diego State and had what? A 15 point lead at some spots in the game before Luka got into foul trouble?

Luka is playing at a 1st team All B1G level, heck he might be playing at an All American level at this point - I dunno that anyone saw this big of improvement from him.
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100%. Iowa is looking better than I ever thought they would.

I don't know what the ceiling is for Fran on this program, but it honestly appears like the floor is pretty high at this point which is a real testament to him.
 
Damn I just read that Bohannon isn't even practicing anymore. I don't see any way he plays the whole year if he can't even practice.
 
PCHawk said:
Damn I just read that Bohannon isn't even practicing anymore. I don't see any way he plays the whole year if he can't even practice.
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That would be a major blow this season if he does RS...which he probably should IMO. But looking ahead to next year I could see a top 4 conference finish with a healthy Bohannon, Nunge, hopefully Patrick and 5 incoming recruits.
 
WindsorHawk said:
That would be a major blow this season if he does RS...which he probably should IMO. But looking ahead to next year I could see a top 4 conference finish with a healthy Bohannon, Nunge, hopefully Patrick and 5 incoming recruits.
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Yea next year could be really good. I could also see a scenario where we win our next 3 games, look really good doing it, and Bohannon decides we might be in the midst of a special season he doesn't want to miss.
 
If Bohannon plays 3 more games and shuts it down, he could very well end up the all time Big 10 leader in made 3s.
 
PCHawk said:
Damn I just read that Bohannon isn't even practicing anymore. I don't see any way he plays the whole year if he can't even practice.
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Where did you read that and what was the context? Did he not practice at all before the Vegas tourney? I doubt that he came out and put up 20 points first game. If he didn’t practice since then I’m not concerned as much because Iowa probably only had one practice. They probably will only have one this week too.
 
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