Combining thoughts on these two, but mostly OSU:
Nice win, Hawks!
- Against Michigan I honestly think Garza was just off underneath and would have been better starting at 20 feet and taking Dickenson off the dribble, where Garza has an advantage I think. Garza got ok shots inside (was fouled on that one shot they showed over and over as a block), but Dickenson's combination of length and familiarity made it difficult.
- Both Iowa and Michigan went after the other team's big early to get them in foul trouble. Ultimately Iowa won this battle and did a great job doing it, but lost the war. Iowa doubled on Dickenson rather than leave Garza 1 on 1, and this was more to avoid foul trouble. I didn't think Dickenson was very accurate when contested but his length gives him a great chance at his own rebound and then it's all over.
- Michigan's philosophy to make Iowa score off the dribble (we only had 4 assists) was well designed and well executed. Kudo's to our team for a great defensive first half to keep us in it, and for our guards taking the drive when it was there. Ultimately Garza's struggles and our inability to score from 2 as efficiently as we do from 3 cost us the game, and Michigan did better offensively the 2nd half. Not sure if Nunge's injury hurt us at all mentally, but Howard is showing he's a pretty darn good coach.
- We'll get another chance at Michigan, so in the next game look for Iowa perhaps to not double Dickenson as much and just try to win that battle straight up, with Garza bringing him away from the hoop more. Taking Dickenson away from the hoop also clears the lane for back doors and catch and drive, which will be there with how they are running us off the 3 point line. We hit a couple of these, but not enough. They match up well with us, but if we play them in the BTT we will beat them, if CJ is healthy.
- It was great to beat a Top 5 team on the road, and it gives Iowa a very prestigious win that should help a ton with seeding, in addition to helping us get a Top 4 BTT seed hopefully. If the Top 4 NCAA seeds include 2 Big 10 teams and Gonzaga and Baylor, our chance of meeting Gonzaga or Baylor is really high imo. If we beat Wisconsin and Nebraska, then win the BTT I think we could get to a 1 seed perhaps, depending on who we beat (Illinois and Michigan ideally. Seems like a 2 or 3 seed is in our future, however, so not bad.
- Garza was great today. Sometimes his rebounding disappears and that's when I think he's a bit tired and not feeling it. Hitting double digit rebounds today told me he was ready to go.
- One comment on Garza's hook - the one he shot today is a hook, but he isn't shooting it over his head but rather turns his body and exposes the ball a bit. This isn't an issue against OSU, but against Dickenson the defender can still get to it. If he shot more of a true hook and shot it almost over his head, then it keeps his entire should length and most of his arm between the defender and the ball and the defender will never get to it. Jabbar shot it on the move, but you can literally just fake drop step, pivot and shoot and there is nothing the defender can do. This is the shot Garza still needs if he wants to score against the length in the NBA, where Dickeson and Cockburn type players are on every bench. I do really like him shooting the baseline hook when the double team comes because if he misses long we should have 1-2 guys ready on the weak side.... just turn away from the double team and shoot it big fella!
- OSU sure runs a lot of isolation against man to man - they want to get their athletes against CJ, Connor and Wieskamp and let guys like Liddell score in close or hit those mid range shots. Not a very efficient way to score compared to Garza and 3's, actually, unless you are getting layups and fouls. Iowa did a good job contesting these for the most part, although a few "and-1's" could have been avoided.
- I've seen a few mistakes in man to man on switches where the defender tries to switch back immediately afterwords and I"m not sure why. Either a miscommunication on the switch, or just bad judgment, but CJ and Joe W did it once and left Liddell unguarded. Those are JV type mistakes. But overall our man to man is doing very well, so kudos to the players and staff. OSU is very good offensively and we held them under 30 in both halves!
- Congrats to Bohannon on his assist record - he gets attention for being such a good shooter, but he is WAY better at bringing the ball up against longer, more athletic defenders than I ever thought he would be, and he's a very willing passer. What I like about Bohannon this year is that he's accepted his role as the 3rd/4th scorer and both he and CJ just let Garza and Joe W do their work, and they really only shoot when their defender cheats on help defense or when the clock is running out. That's good players accepting their roles and doing it well imo.
- CJ still amazes me when he gets in the paint against taller, more athletic defenders and has the ability to find the shot window and isn't bothered by the block attempt. You can tell he was a volume scorer in high school because you don't learn how to do that unless you get a lot of tries at it
- Joe W has been playing the way we wanted him to for a few weeks now. When he leaves the game it clearly is harder for us to score, so I think we all breathe a bit better when our substitution pattern gets him back in!
- Connor has had his struggles this year, and against OSU he missed a few early shots that he should probably make. But I liked down the stretch when they (unintentionally?) had a clear out on the right side for him and he took it right and used his old-man savvy to come to a contrlled jump stop and lay it in with his weak hand (right). I still shake my head sometimes when we post feed Garza and he just kicks it back out to Connor without making a move ..... I can understand if it was Joe W, but Connor? Sometimes confuses me.
- Murray has been great as usual. Teams continue to underestimate his length as he gets to a lot of passes and blocks a lot of shots (I think we all know that 1st block wasn't a foul!). His 2nd block where he caught it and threw it off the player standing out of bounds was vintage Baer type basketball. My sense is that Kris is just as good defensively so I'm imaginging having 2 of those guys out there at the same time ..... yeehaw! Now he just needs to finish those close shots .... grrr! I did shout his name in vain once today, I'll be honest. But I also said it in respect far many more times than that.
- I like what Patrick is doing - early this year he was forcing some things early in the offense. Now you can see him probing the defense off the dribble but not forcing anything, so he's much more patient. His lack of weight hurts him on defense as he got bullied into the lane at least once, but his length on offense gives him some advantages and he's a good ball handler. You can tell he wants to dunk everything on the break, but sometimes with length you just need to shoot the early release underhand layup It was a nice block by the OSU player though.
- Joe T - very happy for this guy as he had a pretty good game. He still gets into weird places on the offensive end and disrupts both the defense and our offensive spacing, and always looks about 1 second from turning it over. But he had a good drive and score, got his hands on a number of passes, and had some good assists. We should try to isolate him more for the drive at times, but unfortunately when he can't get the normal layup he tries to do like windmill reverse layups or one legged fade aways and those aren't very efficient. You could tell he had good vibes today though because he went digging at the post that one time with passion - it was like a defensive heat check lol.
Nice win, Hawks!
