3-2-1: Time to panic?
Lisa Bluder had good reason to smile this week.
Tom Kakert • HawkeyeReport
@hawkeyereport
This week in 3-2-1, is it time to panic about Iowa basketball and the Hawkeye football offense? We dive into that hot topic and we also discusses men's and women's basketball recruiting and Phil Parker getting some well deserved recognition.
THREE THINGS WE LEARNED
BLUDER’S BIG TIME GET
Recruiting can take you to a lot of crazy places. This summer as head coach Lisa Bluder and associate head coach Jan Jensen were in hot pursuit of one of the top players in the country and ended up spending a couple of valuable days in late July in Thailand.
The reason the Iowa coaches were there was for one reason, Des Moines Dowling standout guard Caitlin Clark. She was selected to be part of the USA Basketball U19 team playing in the FIBA World Cup, so with the Hawkeyes trying to close to the deal, they followed Clark to Thailand.
There’s a good reason why the Iowa coaches went halfway around the world to continue their recruitment of Clark, she’s one of the top high school prospects in the country. ESPN.com ranks Clark as the 4th best prospect in the nation. Last season the 2020 point guard averaged 32.5 points, 7 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2.2 steals per game. Clark picked the Hawkeyes over her two other finalists, Iowa State and Notre Dame.
It’s really hard to understate just how significant this commitment was for Bluder and her program. Clark is obviously the biggest recruiting get for her during her Iowa tenure and it gives her a program leader who can take the ball on day one and lead the program for the next four years.
FRAN GETS HIS MAN
You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. That’s probably the feeling that many Iowa men’s basketball fans felt this week.
On Monday, in-state four star big man Xavier Foster chose Iowa State over Iowa and panic set in.
On Wednesday those frowns were turned upside down when 6-foot-11 and 255 pound Josh Ogundale announced that he was verbally committed to the Hawkeyes. With offers from Cincinnati, Rutgers, Providence, and Rhode Island, Ogundele somewhat took away the talking point that every signee in Iowa’s 2020 class didn’t have bigger conference offers. It also filled a huge need for Iowa moving forward because once Ryan Kriener completes his senior season, the Hawkeyes needed depth up front.
Ogundele is an intriguing prospect. He is originally from England and came to the United States a few years ago to improve as a basketball player. In the past two years at Worchester Academy, Ogundele got in better shape and developed his post-up game as a scorer. His most interesting skill set is the lefty is very comfortable stepping out past the three point line shooting the basketball. While not an above the rim player, Ogundele is very good at using his body to score around the basket.
Iowa now has a five man recruiting class in 2020 and they are officially done for the fall signing period. Ogundele joins point guard Ahron Ulis, shooting guard Tony Perkins, and twin wing forwards Kris Murray and Keegan Murray. While the class won’t be highly rated among the Big Ten schools, McCaffery filled a lot of needs and I suspect he might add at least one more player in the spring.
PARKER NOMINATED FOR THE BROYLES AWARD
Phil Parker isn’t the type of coach that goes out seeking attention.
He simply loves coaching football and helping his players improve on and off the field. If there’s one thing that we have learned in the past 21 years, Parker is also really good at his job. After serving as Iowa’s defensive backs coach from 1999-2011, he was elevated to defensive coordinator in 2012, following in the footsteps of his mentor Norm Parker (no relation).
You could always count on Norm Parker putting together a strong defense during his time as Iowa’s defensive coordinator and Phil Parker hasn’t missed a beat. This year he might be doing his best coaching job with a group that isn’t all that deep and is young in a few places. Yet, Iowa is allowing just 11.7 points per game, which is fourth in the country.
During his tenure at Iowa, Parker has coached 14 players who have been drafted to the NFL. 11 Iowa players have earned first team All Big Ten honors and three of the last four years the Big Ten’s top defensive back came from Iowa.
This week the Broyles Award, which is given annually to the top assistant coach in the country, announced their initial list of nominees and Parker is on there. It’s well deserved that Parker is on the list not just for what he has accomplished this season, but for his entire career.
Plenty of focus this week on Brian Ferentz and his offense.
TWO QUESTIONS
SHOULD WE BE PUSHING THE PANIC BUTTON ON IOWA BASKETBALL?
It certainly was a jarring experience at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Monday night when DePaul came to Iowa City as part of the Gavitt Games and essentially run the Hawkeyes out of their own gym in the first give minutes of the game.
DePaul jumped Iowa out of the gate. It was 10-0 before Fran McCaffery could call a timeout. Iowa finally got in the board four minutes into the game on a Luka Garza layup and it was 16-2. The lead eventually grew to 19-2 before the Hawkeyes started to mount any sort of offense. Even then, it was lost cause with the Blue Demons scoring at will on their way to a 53-30 lead at the break. 53 points. Yikes.
Games like this are going to happen and in this case, DePaul is certainly better than most of the experts predicted before the season. This was Iowa’s first challenging game of the year and it looked like it. Players like Luka Garza and Joe Wieskamp were probably the third and fourth guys on opponents scouting reports last year. Now they are first and second and the focus of opposing teams. C.J. Fredrick, who actually played pretty well in the second half, was playing in his first tough game and Jack Nunge looked like he was still rusty coming off his redshirt year.
What we don’t know at this point is if it was a perfect storm or the new normal for Iowa basketball this season. I lean towards the perfect storm at this point, but the coming weeks will tell us a whole lot about how big of a warning this was for the 2019-20 Iowa basketball season.
I don’t think Iowa is as bad as they looked on Monday night, but it’s fair to wonder if perhaps some of us need to adjust our season outlook moving forward. KenPom.com has Iowa winning their next three games by 14 to 15 points, so that will be a good gauge in the short term. But, the real tests will come starting at Thanksgiving with the games in Las Vegas and then a trip to Syracuse, followed by a pair of Big Ten games, a trip to Iowa State, and wrapping up just before Christmas with a game in Chicago against Cincinnati.
IS IT TIME TO HIT THE PANIC BUTTON ON IOWA’S OFFENSE?
Of course we are talking football here and the short answer is no.
Iowa’s offense hasn’t been consistent and that’s about as fair of an assessment as you can make nine games into the season. Early on in the year, particularly against lesser competition, the Hawkeyes looked a lot like the team that averaged 31.2 points per game in 2018. In the first four games of the year, Iowa scored 15 touchdowns.
I think what we fail to do is simply say Iowa has struggled against some really good defensive teams this year, which honestly should be expected. The Hawkeyes three losses have come at the hands of defenses that are ranked in the top 11 in the country this season. Penn State is ranked 5th and Iowa hit their season average of 12 points. Wisconsin is allowing 12.6 points per game and Iowa scored 22. Michigan is ranked 11th, allowing 17 points per game and Iowa scored 3 points.
If you are scoring at home, that one over the number, one at the number, and one below the number.
Now, that’s not to say there aren’t problems. While I think most fans are thrilled with the season Keith Duncan has had converting 22 field goals, no one is thrill that Iowa has had to settle for those field goals. Far too many drives this season have died either in the red zone or just outside of it that have resulted in field goals instead of touchdowns. In fact, in the last five games, Iowa has scored a grand total of seven touchdowns.
What is really interesting is that Iowa leads the Big Ten in red zone scoring percentage at 97%. The Hawkeyes have put up points in 28 of their 29 trips to the red zone this season. 17 of those 29 trips resulted in touchdowns.
If you dive deeper into those numbers, the 29 trips to the red zone is 4th lowest among Big Ten schools and only Northwestern and Rutgers have scored fewer touchdowns. No surprise, Iowa has made the most field goals.
My feeling is that what Iowa really needs to do is become sharper in the red zone and figure out a way to turn field goals into touchdowns. In the case of this season, I think they really miss T.J. Hockenson and Noah Fant in the passing game. Last year that duo caught 11 touchdown passes in the red zone and Iowa simply hasn’t found anything resembling a replacement for that they could do.
ONE PREDICTION
The hot streak for Tyrone Tracy continues this week. He has caught a touchdown pass in each of the last two games. This week he gets another one against Minnesota.
Lisa Bluder had good reason to smile this week.
Tom Kakert • HawkeyeReport
@hawkeyereport
This week in 3-2-1, is it time to panic about Iowa basketball and the Hawkeye football offense? We dive into that hot topic and we also discusses men's and women's basketball recruiting and Phil Parker getting some well deserved recognition.
THREE THINGS WE LEARNED
BLUDER’S BIG TIME GET
Recruiting can take you to a lot of crazy places. This summer as head coach Lisa Bluder and associate head coach Jan Jensen were in hot pursuit of one of the top players in the country and ended up spending a couple of valuable days in late July in Thailand.
The reason the Iowa coaches were there was for one reason, Des Moines Dowling standout guard Caitlin Clark. She was selected to be part of the USA Basketball U19 team playing in the FIBA World Cup, so with the Hawkeyes trying to close to the deal, they followed Clark to Thailand.
There’s a good reason why the Iowa coaches went halfway around the world to continue their recruitment of Clark, she’s one of the top high school prospects in the country. ESPN.com ranks Clark as the 4th best prospect in the nation. Last season the 2020 point guard averaged 32.5 points, 7 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2.2 steals per game. Clark picked the Hawkeyes over her two other finalists, Iowa State and Notre Dame.
It’s really hard to understate just how significant this commitment was for Bluder and her program. Clark is obviously the biggest recruiting get for her during her Iowa tenure and it gives her a program leader who can take the ball on day one and lead the program for the next four years.
FRAN GETS HIS MAN
You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. That’s probably the feeling that many Iowa men’s basketball fans felt this week.
On Monday, in-state four star big man Xavier Foster chose Iowa State over Iowa and panic set in.
On Wednesday those frowns were turned upside down when 6-foot-11 and 255 pound Josh Ogundale announced that he was verbally committed to the Hawkeyes. With offers from Cincinnati, Rutgers, Providence, and Rhode Island, Ogundele somewhat took away the talking point that every signee in Iowa’s 2020 class didn’t have bigger conference offers. It also filled a huge need for Iowa moving forward because once Ryan Kriener completes his senior season, the Hawkeyes needed depth up front.
Ogundele is an intriguing prospect. He is originally from England and came to the United States a few years ago to improve as a basketball player. In the past two years at Worchester Academy, Ogundele got in better shape and developed his post-up game as a scorer. His most interesting skill set is the lefty is very comfortable stepping out past the three point line shooting the basketball. While not an above the rim player, Ogundele is very good at using his body to score around the basket.
Iowa now has a five man recruiting class in 2020 and they are officially done for the fall signing period. Ogundele joins point guard Ahron Ulis, shooting guard Tony Perkins, and twin wing forwards Kris Murray and Keegan Murray. While the class won’t be highly rated among the Big Ten schools, McCaffery filled a lot of needs and I suspect he might add at least one more player in the spring.
PARKER NOMINATED FOR THE BROYLES AWARD
Phil Parker isn’t the type of coach that goes out seeking attention.
He simply loves coaching football and helping his players improve on and off the field. If there’s one thing that we have learned in the past 21 years, Parker is also really good at his job. After serving as Iowa’s defensive backs coach from 1999-2011, he was elevated to defensive coordinator in 2012, following in the footsteps of his mentor Norm Parker (no relation).
You could always count on Norm Parker putting together a strong defense during his time as Iowa’s defensive coordinator and Phil Parker hasn’t missed a beat. This year he might be doing his best coaching job with a group that isn’t all that deep and is young in a few places. Yet, Iowa is allowing just 11.7 points per game, which is fourth in the country.
During his tenure at Iowa, Parker has coached 14 players who have been drafted to the NFL. 11 Iowa players have earned first team All Big Ten honors and three of the last four years the Big Ten’s top defensive back came from Iowa.
This week the Broyles Award, which is given annually to the top assistant coach in the country, announced their initial list of nominees and Parker is on there. It’s well deserved that Parker is on the list not just for what he has accomplished this season, but for his entire career.
Plenty of focus this week on Brian Ferentz and his offense.
TWO QUESTIONS
SHOULD WE BE PUSHING THE PANIC BUTTON ON IOWA BASKETBALL?
It certainly was a jarring experience at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Monday night when DePaul came to Iowa City as part of the Gavitt Games and essentially run the Hawkeyes out of their own gym in the first give minutes of the game.
DePaul jumped Iowa out of the gate. It was 10-0 before Fran McCaffery could call a timeout. Iowa finally got in the board four minutes into the game on a Luka Garza layup and it was 16-2. The lead eventually grew to 19-2 before the Hawkeyes started to mount any sort of offense. Even then, it was lost cause with the Blue Demons scoring at will on their way to a 53-30 lead at the break. 53 points. Yikes.
Games like this are going to happen and in this case, DePaul is certainly better than most of the experts predicted before the season. This was Iowa’s first challenging game of the year and it looked like it. Players like Luka Garza and Joe Wieskamp were probably the third and fourth guys on opponents scouting reports last year. Now they are first and second and the focus of opposing teams. C.J. Fredrick, who actually played pretty well in the second half, was playing in his first tough game and Jack Nunge looked like he was still rusty coming off his redshirt year.
What we don’t know at this point is if it was a perfect storm or the new normal for Iowa basketball this season. I lean towards the perfect storm at this point, but the coming weeks will tell us a whole lot about how big of a warning this was for the 2019-20 Iowa basketball season.
I don’t think Iowa is as bad as they looked on Monday night, but it’s fair to wonder if perhaps some of us need to adjust our season outlook moving forward. KenPom.com has Iowa winning their next three games by 14 to 15 points, so that will be a good gauge in the short term. But, the real tests will come starting at Thanksgiving with the games in Las Vegas and then a trip to Syracuse, followed by a pair of Big Ten games, a trip to Iowa State, and wrapping up just before Christmas with a game in Chicago against Cincinnati.
IS IT TIME TO HIT THE PANIC BUTTON ON IOWA’S OFFENSE?
Of course we are talking football here and the short answer is no.
Iowa’s offense hasn’t been consistent and that’s about as fair of an assessment as you can make nine games into the season. Early on in the year, particularly against lesser competition, the Hawkeyes looked a lot like the team that averaged 31.2 points per game in 2018. In the first four games of the year, Iowa scored 15 touchdowns.
I think what we fail to do is simply say Iowa has struggled against some really good defensive teams this year, which honestly should be expected. The Hawkeyes three losses have come at the hands of defenses that are ranked in the top 11 in the country this season. Penn State is ranked 5th and Iowa hit their season average of 12 points. Wisconsin is allowing 12.6 points per game and Iowa scored 22. Michigan is ranked 11th, allowing 17 points per game and Iowa scored 3 points.
If you are scoring at home, that one over the number, one at the number, and one below the number.
Now, that’s not to say there aren’t problems. While I think most fans are thrilled with the season Keith Duncan has had converting 22 field goals, no one is thrill that Iowa has had to settle for those field goals. Far too many drives this season have died either in the red zone or just outside of it that have resulted in field goals instead of touchdowns. In fact, in the last five games, Iowa has scored a grand total of seven touchdowns.
What is really interesting is that Iowa leads the Big Ten in red zone scoring percentage at 97%. The Hawkeyes have put up points in 28 of their 29 trips to the red zone this season. 17 of those 29 trips resulted in touchdowns.
If you dive deeper into those numbers, the 29 trips to the red zone is 4th lowest among Big Ten schools and only Northwestern and Rutgers have scored fewer touchdowns. No surprise, Iowa has made the most field goals.
My feeling is that what Iowa really needs to do is become sharper in the red zone and figure out a way to turn field goals into touchdowns. In the case of this season, I think they really miss T.J. Hockenson and Noah Fant in the passing game. Last year that duo caught 11 touchdown passes in the red zone and Iowa simply hasn’t found anything resembling a replacement for that they could do.
ONE PREDICTION
The hot streak for Tyrone Tracy continues this week. He has caught a touchdown pass in each of the last two games. This week he gets another one against Minnesota.
