CPHAWK82
Well-Known Member
I found this post on a Tennessee forum. Thought he painted a very unbias view as an outsider looking in.
I have to be honest. I detest this matchup. I have no idea where Iowa went wrong, but their losing streak might be somewhat misleading. Here's their recent losses: -Wisconsin at home, by 5. Wisconsin is a very, very good team, so that's not a bad loss. -road losses to Minnesota and Indiana, both decent teams. Both ranked better by pomeroy than, for instance, Vandy, or Texas A&M, or Missouri. -Michigan State on the road. Also a very, very good team. Not a bad loss. -Then came the let-down: a home loss to Illinois. Now, Illinois isn't awful, but Iowa should have been able to take them at home. -Then the real head-scratcher: tournament loss to Northwestern. From the look of things, Northwestern went red-hot, hitting nearly 50% from the arc, while Iowa went cold. They couldn't even make a layup, if the box score says what it looks like it says. So to summarize, their losing streak contains one really bad loss (in the conference tournament, to an undermanned opponent who shot the lights out) and one medium-bad loss. I'm not sure it's fair to say they're in a free-fall. How do they match up with us? Pretty well, I think. When the SEC started, you could just glance at an opponent's stat sheet and nearly guarantee Stokes was going to have his way with them. It seemed like opponent after opponent had no height, didn't guard anyone in the paint, and didn't box out. You just knew Stokes was unguardable against those teams. Iowa looks like the opposite. They have a 7'1" center, backed up by a 6'10" center. Both of them block shots and rebound. Both shoot FT's pretty well too, for whatever that's worth. They also start two other big dudes. Aaron White is 6'9" and appears to be their wing/forward/slasher type. His offensive rating of 123 is better than anyone's on our team. This is mostly because of his stupidly high 2-point percentage of 64%. (what's the deal here...is he just ridiculously good? Anyone seen him play? Is he NBA stuff?) Their power forward is smaller than White on paper. Melsahn Basabe is 6'7" and the best defensive rebounder on their team. He also has a strong offensive rating and shoots the 2 well, but he's not in White's league. Basabe is backed up by Jarrod Uthoff, who is 6'9" and has the second-best defensive rebounding rate on the team. So, they're prodigiously tall. They have four guys playing significant minutes who are taller than any of our regulars. Judging by offensive ratings and shooting percentages, their tall guys have skill. Judging by rebounding numbers, they have athleticism. It's a tough matchup just for that, I think. Their PG is Mike Gesell. He doesn't use a lot of possessions, which is smart because he's pretty bad at shooting from every distance. His 3-point, FT, and 2-point percentages are all poor for a PG. He's only averaging about 24 minutes a game, which is kinda weird for a PG. Their shooting guard is 6'6" Roy Devyn Marble. He appears to be their go-to guy. When Gesell goes out (which is often), Marble slides into the PG position. He shoots a lot of threes, but only makes 36%. He shoots even more 2's, of which he only makes about 46%. It's baffling why Marble is shooting so many more shots than their big guys. He's way less effective. He leads the team in minutes and possessions used. They play two other perimeter guys off the bench. McCabe is a 6'7" wing/SF who also shoots kind of a lot for the amount of time he plays, and also doesn't hit many. Oglesby is a 6'5" 2-guard who shoots quite well, but quite rarely. It's like the team is conspiring to feed the bad shooters and freeze out the good ones. So their bigs are offensively scary: Olaseni, Uthoff, Basabe, and especially Aaron White put up incredibly efficient offensive numbers. Marble puts up a lot of shots with less efficiency (but he's OK, not awful). Everyone else is mostly a role player. They also hit the offensive glass well, especially Olaseni. He's a better offensive rebounder than either Stokes or Maymon, and both of those guys are top-20 nationally (Olaseni is #5). There are bright spots, though. For one, their bigs play really weird minutes. Every box score seems to have at least one starter playing less than 15 minutes--sometimes less than 10. That's probably because their two centers are comically prone to fouling. Their PF's are far less prone to fouling, though, and they also don't play a ton of minutes. All the forwards average under 20 minutes per game. (I'm not counting Aaron White, who is more of a wing) By contrast, Maymon is playing about 28 minutes a game, and Stokes over 30. Our bigs stay on the floor. The other positive is that their defensive rebounding numbers seem less good than their offensive rebounding numbers. I think their plan is to let the centers block shots willy-nilly (often committing fouls in the process), and letting the PF do all the dirty work of rebounding. But we have two guys who are top 20 nationally at offensive rebounding rate, and they don't come off the floor much. I think that's a problem for Iowa's scheme. Now, Aaron White does drop into the paint and rebound on the defensive end. But he doesn't rebound as well as a true big, in my opinion. And their centers don't do much rebounding at all. Here are the questions: 1. Can we get both centers in foul trouble, or will their length and shot-blocking frustrate Stokes? 2. Can we exploit the fact that their centers don't rebound? One of our bigs will be wrestling with a PF who is a good rebounder; the other will have a major weight advantage over Aaron White. We need that matchup to go our way (and I think it will). 3. Can Jordan drive, get the center to commit, and then dish? That's mostly not his game, but I think we need it to be. It's hard to shoot over a 7-footer, but if Jordan can draw the 7-footer to him, then Stokes will have an advantage over whoever is left to guard him. Interesting matchup. I'd feel better if we had a better track record against good teams, but I think we do have the talent to hang with these guys and maybe beat them. |
