I saw posts of us being the #2 seed, book it, and how much fun this team is to watch. Saw posts of both Murrays to the NBA. I thought many were getting way out front on some of these issues. We have not played anyone, with Virginia being average, for our seven wins. I liked our fight at Purdue short Keegan and, other than rebounding, we played a pretty good Illinois team tough. The ISU game was a major bump in the road due to continued rebounding woes. Shooting can be off some nights and not making shots can make you look bad. We don't turn the ball over much and play much better defense than in years past. Rebounding is a much easier fix than other things that can go wrong. I still think this team will be fun to watch.
Agreed. This team is neither terrible nor are they coming anywhere close to the top of the conference. What has happened the last 2 weeks should not be surprising at all. Playing 2-3 cupcakes would have been preferred to playing 6 terrible teams.
Win over Virginia will probably look worse as years go on, but who knows. Still a win on the road where the team won at the end. Good result.
Loss at Purdue - playing without Keegan Murray a tremendous effort. Just came up short.
Illinois - Hawks played okay considering that Murray was not healthy. Yes, rebounding needs to get better but to an extent the team is what it is. Short on talent in the post.
ISU - Cyclones had not won last 4 or 5 times? They were terrible last year and waiting for Iowa. Bohannon and his cute memes with his shoes, you think that teams don't remember that? Similar to how Monte Morris and ISU were talking before playing Iowa in 2018 about what celebrations they had planned for when they win. The outcome was not surprising in the least given Murray not being healthy.
There are still things to sort out with this team. Once Keegan is fully healthy it will fix a lot, but Fran needs to determine what he's going to do with playing time. Perkins, Kr. Murray and Keegan Murray have proven themselves to be the best players on the team. Will playing time reflect that? It is also disturbing that TJ Otz has his team giving more commitment on defense in 6 months on the job than Fran has ever at Iowa. Iowa just doesn't commit to defense, no matter what Fran and the players say. Playing time is not given or taken away because of it.
This team has a lot of room for improvement, there is a lot of growth there yet for both Murrays, Perkins, Toussaint, Ulis, PMac and Sandfordt and to some extent Ogundele. But how does Fran give those guys room to grow while continuing to play Bohannon and Connor a lot of minutes? I don't see how that works out.
