Northside Hawk
Well-Known Member
The overall unselfishness, setting up shooters, feeding the post, seeing the floor in transition, I like what I see. We are going to be hard to guard.
We Are An Oustanding Passing Team
- Thread starter Northside Hawk
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hawkeyesgonewild
Well-Known Member
I hate to say it I'm worried about their defense and rebounding. Offense they are doing a good job finding the open man. I really like the guys coming of the bench. I hope we have a 9 man rotation.
Northside Hawk
Well-Known Member
I was more excited about Nunge than anyone else tonight, for reasons I pointed out in the game thread.
His pent up desire to play could alone drive him to a nice year.
BigD
Well-Known Member
The defense is a serious issue that is going to come back and bite us in the azz once we start playing top twenty teams. It is Frans cryptonite and we all know it.
VTHawk
Well-Known Member
Because they have played only 3 crappy teams?
Iowa is a very good if not great team this year. Lets see how great they are when they play North Carolina, Iowa State and Gonzaga. That is when the rubber fully hits the road.
This is the most exciting Iowa basketball team we have had since being ranked preseason number 7 in the 1988-1989 season. A team that had very high expectations and unfortunately underachieved.
Northside Hawk
Well-Known Member
Heck, The Sporting News had Iowa as their preseason number 1, with BJ Armstrong and Herky on the cover. A lot of things happened to that team. Injuries, underachieving, Hunter Rawlings, a faulty clock operator in Minneapolis, inability to win close conference games, uninspiring coaching, a loaded conference, etc. (Purdue’s Gene Keady suffered a similar season and responded by bouncing four players, then winning the conference the next year)
As for Tne Sporting News, baby boomers and early Gen X'ers may remember when it was baseball gospel. It came out once a week and showed box scores of all the previous week's games, beat style coverage on every team, and a comprehensive look at the minor leagues. It came out in newspaper form rather than magazine and for my money blew away Sports Illustrated. The office manager where my dad worked would have her husband send me all his back issues. For a voracious reader like me it was absolute Nirvana!
BigD
Well-Known Member
If they can come together defensively and stop the easy drives to the basket then this possibly could be our first final four team since Ronnie Lester.
I think Nunge will be big help once he has a little more experience with the defensive rotation and shutting things down by helping our guards when they get beat protecting the lanes. If they can do this the anything less than an elite eight would be disappointing. If they don’t pickup up things they will be fortunate to make a sweet sixteen. You have to play at least some level of an accountable defense.
Maybe I will be surprised and when we play the Big Boys we will buckle down on defense. It would be shame to see this team go by the wayside because of poor defensive execution.
I think Nunge will be big help once he has a little more experience with the defensive rotation and shutting things down by helping our guards when they get beat protecting the lanes. If they can do this the anything less than an elite eight would be disappointing. If they don’t pickup up things they will be fortunate to make a sweet sixteen. You have to play at least some level of an accountable defense.
Maybe I will be surprised and when we play the Big Boys we will buckle down on defense. It would be shame to see this team go by the wayside because of poor defensive execution.
BigD
Well-Known Member
The good news is that we haven’t even began to gel on offense yet. We saw a glimpse of it last night as we seemed sluggish in the second half then suddenly but briefly we had a sample spurt of what I am talking about. BOOM and we suddenly came out of the funk and we exploded on them. It was brief but it was awesome. When it happens, and it will, we will see 120 point nights.
dahlhawk
Well-Known Member
The combination for Joe T and Patrick really was a treat to watch, that 5 minute stretch was the best transition I seen by an Iowa team for a long time. Iowa has the horses to play transition if the right players are on the court.
BigD
Well-Known Member
Can you imagine if they all got hot at the same time? For most of a game? It’s possible because they all are very capable shooters. Even if they miss Garza and Nunge are under the basket.
Hillcrest1981
Well-Known Member
I'm excited for the UNC game, we seem to have their number and i don't think we'll have too much trouble with ISU this year. But if we beat Gonzaga we'll go to number one and even with losses after that we'll stay in the top 5 or top 10 with a good season. Do we want Gonzaga to beat Baylor tomorrow?
VTHawk
Well-Known Member
That would be a resounding yes.
WindsorHawk
Well-Known Member
We have a lot of guys 3 or 4 years removed from high school. Men > Boys.
VTHawk
Well-Known Member
I remember that Sporting News cover quite well because I had one! I could not believe it at the time that they preseason ranked us at #1. The thin bench and the injuries to Bullard and Ingram hurts us and I wonder what the season would have been if healthy. Ingram would have made a big difference because he was another inside player to hit the boards. Suspending Ray Thompson for the NCAA's put the nail in the coffin. If healthy and with Thompson they would have beat N.C. State and went on to play Georgetown in the sweet 16 and who knows how deep they could have gone.
I remember Purdue was a really good team. So was Illinois, Michigan (obviously), Ohio State and Indiana. We had some bad losses that year in conference games. Blown out at Indiana and Michigan. We had a near 20 point lead at Illinois only to get blown out by them. But the double overtime home game against Michigan was one of the worse losses that year.
It didn't help that Moses and Garner didn't contribute much. At least Lookingbill and Jepsen were serviceable and played pretty good defense.
The win at North Carolina that year was such a highlight. I think N. Carolina was ranked #6 and we were #9 and it was nationally televised on a Saturday afternoon, which back then was a bigger deal then it is today.
I did get a kick out of Dick Vitale telling everyone that Bobby Knight said B.J. Armstrong was the best point guard in the nation at the Indiana game.
We really were a good team but could have been great without the injuries. The early season win at North Carolina was proof we were good and could hang with the nations best teams.
What or who was Hunter Rawlings?
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Northside Hawk
Well-Known Member
Rawlings was University president in the late eighties/early nineties. He wanted to take Prop 48, which bad a bad idea in the first place, and take it a step further by making freshmen ineligible for competition. He then all but lost his mind by threatening to do it unilaterally at Iowa. It would have been competitive suicide, not to mention recruiting suicide. Hayden Fry about hit the roof and threatened to resign.
