Tennesse fan scouts Iowa

That guy can scout pretty well. Very well. The reason no one can figure out why iowa has collapsed is because it doesn't show up on the stat sheet.

It's in the locker room, and no amount of X's & O's will straighten it out. Hawks are doomed.
 
haven't seen much of Tenn this year, but if we find our legs and our ability to get up and down the floor and get the transition offense going will they be able to keep up?
 
CPHAWK82 said:
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.
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Biggest problem Iowa has is they can't defend dribble penetration and their help defense is slow to help. Once teams figure that out iowa can't stop them. It is why iowa struggles late in games and it is why teams beat iowa later in the season when they played them the second time. It is why their defense has been so porous later in the season.

Just an outsider's view that has watched a lot of their games
 
DodgerHawki said:
Of course it's always good to make more shots. But Iowa's offense (outside of the Illinois and Northwestern games) has performed at levels close to what it was before. It is the defense that has fallen off the edge of the cliff. Iowa went from having a Top 30 defense (in terms of defensive efficiency) a few weeks ago to 125th in the country today. That is hard to do.

Here the shooting comparisons the last 6 games:

Minnesota
Iowa: 21-39 on 2's, 10-25 on 3's. Minnesota made 30-49 shots (61%), 11-19 3's (58%). The offense was plenty good enough in this game. The defense was an embarrassment.

Indiana
Iowa, 34-69 FG's, 4-19 3's. Indiana shot 30-58 FG's, 6-15 3's. Another very bad defensive performance. Indiana had the 132nd best offense this year in terms of efficiency. In other words, they weren't very good on offense.

Iowa vs. Purdue
Iowa: 28-57 FG's, 6-18 3's. Purdue made 26-60 FG's, 5-16 3's. The only semblance of passable defense, and Iowa won the game.

MSU
Iowa: 28-60 FG's, 7-20 3's. MSU: 28-48 FG's, 10-17 3's. It's impossible to beat the Spartans giving up 10-17 from the 3-point line. Losing to MSU in East Lansing isn't bad. Another in the string of bad defensive games though.

Illinois
Iowa: Made 24-54 FG's, 6-17 3's. Illinois made 25-54 FG's, 7-19 3's. A truly putrid defensive effort against the 181st ranked offense in terms of efficiency. Illinois is terrible on offense and Iowa made them look above average.

Northwestern
Iowa: 20-62 FG's, 6-24 3's. Northwestern: 23-44 FG's, 11-23 3's.
A total team collapse. Northwestern is the 312th best offensive efficiency team in the country, and it made over 50% from the field and 11 3's against Iowa. This was bad, bad, bad.

The last two games Iowa could have won with better shooting, but the defense is to a point now where it's so atrocious that Iowa has to play impossibly well on offense to compensate. Allowing those offensive numbers to Illinois and Northwestern is truly awful.
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And iowa's offense is better when scoring transitiion points which can't be had when the other team is scoring
 
1hawkeye1 said:
That guy can scout pretty well. Very well. The reason no one can figure out why iowa has collapsed is because it doesn't show up on the stat sheet.

It's in the locker room, and no amount of X's & O's will straighten it out. Hawks are doomed.
Click to expand...

It does seem what the Jeff Horner tweet last week was alluding to.
 
tazclone said:
Biggest problem Iowa has is they can't defend dribble penetration and their help defense is slow to help. Once teams figure that out iowa can't stop them. It is why iowa struggles late in games and it is why teams beat iowa later in the season when they played them the second time. It is why their defense has been so porous later in the season.

Just an outsider's view that has watched a lot of their games
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Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Iowa State Cyclones - Play by Play - December 13, 2013 - ESPN

Linked is the play by play from iowa vs ISU. Look in the second half at all the layups and assists. Illinois and NW would hold the ball, dribble penetrate then kick out to open shooters
 
trj said:
It does seem what the Jeff Horner tweet last week was alluding to.
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i hope the iowa coaches realize that isn't the problem and have worked on help defense all week. Otherwise it will be more of the same. Tight game in the first half but once Tennessee realizes they can dribble penetrate they will pull away
 
Don't get the RDM backlash. I have watched enough basketball to know when a cat is "trying to get his" and that is not the case with Marble. He is not a volume shooter jackin up shots trying to get into the flow of the game....For the most part I do not have a problem with his shot selection.
 
Aaron is reluctant to shoot away from the basket, he has hit a few threes in the last games though.....

When he develops a mid-range jump shot and is not hesitant to shoot, he will be even more dangerous. Doesn't need to be standing around the three point line. He can score close to the basket.....

I believe our transition game will be effective once again against Tennessee and UMass....
 
trj said:
Don't get the RDM backlash. I have watched enough basketball to know when a cat is "trying to get his" and that is not the case with Marble. He is not a volume shooter jackin up shots trying to get into the flow of the game....For the most part I do not have a problem with his shot selection.
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I think he passes up shots that he would normally make in the past few games.....
 
jacknicholson said:
Aaron is reluctant to shoot away from the basket, he has hit a few threes in the last games though.....

When he develops a mid-range jump shot and is not hesitant to shoot, he will be even more dangerous. Doesn't need to be standing around the three point line. He can score close to the basket.....

I believe our transition game will be effective once again against Tennessee and UMass....
Click to expand...


No defense= no transition game. You can't run effectively when teams make shots
 
hawkdrummer1 said:
i noticed this line... finally somebody who agrees with me.


"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."
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Your theory is reliant on the fact that the other guys efficiency will remain the same if their number of shots increase.

I don't beleive that to be the case.
 
ibahawkeye said:
Your theory is reliant on the fact that the other guys efficiency will remain the same if their number of shots increase.

I don't beleive that to be the case.
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I don't think it will remain as high. However, I think it will be higher than Dev's efficiency rate. If the net result is a gain then we're more efficient and score more points.

At the end of the day I don't know if it really matters. If we rediscover our defense we will be playing Duke on Sunday IMO. We'll score enough. The problem is keeping the other team from scoring.
 
WindsorHawk said:
No...based on the times I've watched them.
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These big Tennessee guys get tired in a fast-paced game, right? If Iowa can push it, those wide bodies may start making a lot of fouls or be late by one step on defense in the second half as they wear down.
 
glidinghawk said:
These big Tennessee guys get tired in a fast-paced game, right? If Iowa can push it, those wide bodies may start making a lot of fouls or be late by one step on defense in the second half as they wear down.
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Right. I think we will have at least 5 dunks in this game if we're going to win. It's hard for teams to really understand how quickly White, Basabe and Olaseni in particular get down the court. The B1G teams know because they see us so much. Getting out of conference is going to very good for our transition.
 
I said this in another thread but based on what I've read about Tenn is that they like to hit the offensive boards... which means we need a big game out of Woody and Basabe to secure the board and outlet and let guys like Olaseni and White need to beat their big men down the floor for transition opportunities.

This game could be just what we need to get Whitey back on track.
 
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