what do we really lose when gatens (and other seniors) leave?

F

Foval21

Well-Known Member
after the last 2 games i have really been thinking about this as it has made me rethink how i look at matt. i think he has been great over a terrible time in iowa bball. and yet i didnt think he had those 2 games in him (never saw the same ability that haluska showed). yet i cant seem to get over the fact that i really think all we lose is a senior leader. yes what he did was remarkable and if we have any chance of a tourney it is matt who must carry us, but looking at the seniors and only 2 are true contributors. i will look at each individually to highlight what i think.

1) bc - bryce has struggled this yr and he is a defensive liability. but still we think devyn has been servicable. yet in basically 300 less minutes bryce has just as many assists as devyn. he is our only true pg, but we are bringing in 2 of them and one is an upgrade in scoring (possibly assists and turnovers too) - gesell and the other is known for defense but also seems servicable offensively.

2) gatens - he is a senior leader and leading scorer and best defender. yet every guard we are bringing in is quicker and 2 are known as good defenders. dev and josh are longer and ingram looks like he could be just as physical. also dev and aw seem to be learning leadership from matt (though replacing that will still be difficult). dev also seems to have ice in his veins like matt and will soon learn to hit the big shot more consistently. with that being said matt hasnt been the most consistent scorer for iowa in his tenure. if he were more consistent he would be averaging 20 pts instead of 16.

3) the other srs - nonfactors and not hard to replace and upgrade.

points is a good place to start - bc and gatens combine for like 25 pts a game on average (that may be high estimate) which means 5 pts per incoming frosh makes up for the loss. assists - like i said bc is the true pg with just as many as dev in 300 less minutes, clemmons and gesell can pick that up together and allow dev to be on the wing. defense actually i think is a wash because eventhough gatens is our top guy bryce is nonexistent. therefore a downgrade at 1 guard (though length will be better with josh and dev on the wings) our pg defense will easily be a huge upgrade with the added quickness. the leadership is something you cant guage until they are on the floor without matt. aw and dev seem to be the guys but we will see. add in aaron with 10 or 15 lbs of muscle to really bang at the 4 spot as he is already a match up nightmare and 2 true centers next yr and i dont see how the team will be less even with the loss of the great matt gatens.

yeah we wont have a guy who can take over a game like matt has (unless dev, aw, or josh or someone else emerges like that) but teams wont be able to focus on 1 guy either. i could easily see 5+ guys averaging 10+ pts mix in some 5-9 pt guys and that is 75-80 pts easy. if we can play better team defense i can easily see 20+ regular season wins and a seed worth talking about in the ncaa tourney. the start to the future is now but next yr still looks a whole lot better. fran has the team on the right track if we can get rid of the bad losses because the great wins are fun.
 
Relax, you are thinking way too much. Enjoy this season for what it is and think about next season when it gets here.
 
EddyP said:
Relax, you are thinking way too much. Enjoy this season for what it is and think about next season when it gets here.
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I don't blame him for being excited about a year in which we will be challenging for the Big Ten title.
 
i am thinking about how great matt is doing and yet next year we will be better while losing one of the best hawks in my lifetime. and we are not bringing in anyone to truely replace what matt gives us. instead absorbing it into many bodies and having a very well balanced team that will be hard to match up with.
 
Post too long. Me no read.
Except for #2. Devyn Marble "serviceable"?:eek:
The guy is flat out killin it this entire season.
 
bcl20 said:
I don't blame him for being excited about a year in which we will be challenging for the Big Ten title.
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Just enjoy this season and let it play out is all I am saying. Next year who the **** knows. It is fun to watch.
 
1hawkeye1 said:
Post too long. Me no read.Except for #2. Devyn Marble "serviceable"?:eek:The guy is flat out killin it this entire season.
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read closer, i said he was serviceable as a pg. yet in 300 more minutes than bryce this yr he has only a handful more assists. this indicates he isnt a pg and needs to be on the wing as this offense needs a true pg to really be at its best.
 
Foval21 said:
read closer, i said he was serviceable as a pg. yet in 300 more minutes than bryce this yr he has only a handful more assists. this indicates he isnt a pg and needs to be on the wing as this offense needs a true pg to really be at its best.
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I feel like we do better when Marble is playing the point for us this year. Bryce may be better at passing/getting assists, but Marble brings an entirely different threat. They have two different styles at the position and bring different things to the table and I don't think I would say that BC's style is anymore effective than Marble's style when it comes to this offense (this year).

And this isn't a knock on BC, as I believe he is a talented pg that has the ability/talent to pass the ball quite well, but I'm not sure it makes our offense operate that much better than when Marble is playing pg.

The only comparison I can really think of on this would be the Lakers.

I think the offense is more of a threat when Kobe brings the ball down the court than it is when Derek Fisher brings the ball down the court. Derek is obviously nowhere near Kobe when it comes to being a scoring threat and really can only rely on passing and distributing the ball to the scorers.

I think Marble plays better when he is bringing the ball down the court. I'm not too familiar with his ability to move off the ball and create shots by using screens (like Gatens does so well).

Being a run and gun team... I don't think the title of who is playing PG is overly important as long as you are controlling the tempo of the game and pushing the ball up the court. It will definitely be helpful next year to have multiple people on the court at the same time that are capable of playing PG and comfortable with taking the ball down the court.

It should be interesting to see how things go next year, but I am pretty excited. Hopefully everyone can find their role on the team and do their job well. :)
 
I think we all believe we have a point guard coming in that can give us what Bryce did this year, hopefully more. And lets not forget that Bryce has been hurt and what he gave us last year. We still push the ball best when Bryce is in the game even though we all cringe at the turnovers.

Matt will be missed. He contributes in all areas and his deep threat opens up much of our insdie game. If we don't have a pure shooter emerge teams will pack the middle and everyone will wonder why White didn't explode, Woodbury wasn't awesome, and why Mel went back into a funk.

Marble has the ability to defend the wings very well IMO and his slashing and mid-range game can be very effective. The key will be having a point that can allow him to play away from the ball. He becomes the go to guy when the clock is running out.

We have some battles for minutes now and it will really competitive next year. Lets hope the wings and the guards are all shooting 500 threes a day in the off season and someone really gets a stroke going.
 
Comparing Bryce to Dev on asst/min alone isn't really putting those assists in the right context.

Dev's asst/min is lower because of all his games on the wing. When he starts at PG and gets his 30min in, his assists are even with Bryce. His asst numbers have almost vanished when he's been out on the wing.
 
DowsHawk said:
If we don't have a pure shooter emerge teams will pack the middle and everyone will wonder why White didn't explode, Woodbury wasn't awesome, and why Mel went back into a funk.
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We already have that guy. Ogs just needs some muscle and the experience of this year under his belt. Hopefully, Gesell will give us some outside shooting as well.

But, yeah, if Dev gets a 3 stroke going, this team will be tough to defend.
 
We are losing more than you think with Gatens....besides being one of it not the best FT guys in the BIG and even country.....none of the Frosh guards are going to come in and put up the numbers and leadership he does. Sure it will be fun to watch never year but always going to miss gatens at end of games where FT are a must make.
 
It is always tough to lose a player like Gatens. He didn't really develop into the player he is until his junior/senior seasons though.

Next year, we have potentially very talented kids coming in. But the key word is potentially. I doubt all will not turn into super studs. But of the bunch, some will develop into very nice players, hopefully one or two into very very good players.

They will STILL all be freshmen though and freshmen typically do not play all that well through their entire freshmen season. What will be nice though is that Iowa will have some good players to fit the freshmen in with.

Losing Gatens will be a big blow for a period of time and until one or more of Iowa's other players take over the leadership role and become the 'go to guy.'

I would dearly love to see Gatens in a hawk uniform next year...
 
I was very critical of Matt Gaten's shooting and general lack of court presence the past 2 seasons. Turns out it was probably unfair given the coaching, physical demands, internal expectations of his role and a young, unreliable supporting cast. It's only fair to give him the props he's earned this season -- playing the best basketball of his career and the best basketball we've seen from any Hawk in several years.

He's taken his game from productive to difference maker, ala Haluska, Brunner and Evans. It's arguable he's more complete than those 3 and where some of his numbers are not eye-popping, they have certainly been timely.

All I can say is I haven't enjoyed the ascension of any single Hawkeye player more than this season. For me, you'd have to go back to Reggie (10 years ago, now?) to get the same comparison and Matt wins based on character and committment. I've found myself really wishing he had just 1 more year with this team and incoming recruits -- something I would have never dreamed I'd say just last year.

Gaten's total productivity and, especially, his timing (the maturity of his bball IQ) will definitely be missed next year. However, I don't think it will be as detrimental to the team as even Cole's was this year. No way am I saying Cole's senior season compares to Gaten's but I just feel the program and team have evolved / matured to be able to absorb the loss of Gatens a little better than it was ready for the loss of Cole.
 
I think Oglesby can put up similar numbers to what Gatens did. He is not a 30 point scorer but he can be a 10+ average scorer. If you look at Oglesby's numbers if you were to give him the same amount of minutes Gatens had when he was a freshman they practically mirror each other.
 
what we lose from a stats side is
15.5 ppg
3.8 rpg
1.9 apg
1.0 t/o ppg
.2 bpg
1.5 spg

those are stats that can be replaced by anybody,
the hard part to replace is his Senior leadership, with a senior you get those games where he carries the team in big Games, then you lose the thing that don't show up in the stats, diving for loose balls and the knowledge a kid picks up in the tricks or sneaky thing as to how to avvoid fouls, something McCabe needs to learn, then you have the learning how to draw foul calls, not to mention the calls a senior gets over a fr or so
to many people look at #'s and say how do we replace those,
White did a good job of replacing Cole #'s, but he didn't replace the senior leadership
 
the other thing that is going to be missed is gatens defense and effort. after gatens first two seasons i never thought i would call him an above average defender. he works his butt off on the defense end and has become a good defender often covering the opposing teams best perimeter player.

I would love to see the hawks somehow win out and get gatens in the NCAA tournatment. realistically I hope he at least gets a chance to play in the NIT. Just can't see this team winning both road games, I would be happy if they split the road games.
 
Foval21 said:
read closer, i said he was serviceable as a pg. yet in 300 more minutes than bryce this yr he has only a handful more assists. this indicates he isnt a pg and needs to be on the wing as this offense needs a true pg to really be at its best.
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No, it means that Marble can actually shoot, BC has struggled with his shot all season except for about three games.
 
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