Back on track!
- Kudos to Joe W on this one. He's been under scrutiny on these boards but after it was clear that Garza was struggling early in the game it looked like Joe decided he better step in and right the ship, and he did a great job. Each time it looked like we really needed a bucket he came through, notably in the second half after Rutgers closed it to 6 against our bench lineup. Still struggles trying to penetrate or finish at the rim but his catch and shoot and step back jumper sure were sweet last night.
- Iowa won by outscoring Rutgers by 15 points from 3 (11/23 vs 6/28) and 12 at the FT line (16/20 vs 4/6). Note that our FT% has been pretty good lately and most of that is due to who is going to the FT line, combined with Garza shooting slightly better than normal.
- The other statistic that jumps out is Rebounding. I believe Rutgers had been dominating the boards as their coach mentioned that as a key before the game. Iowa outrebounded Rutgers 42 to 31, had 5 blocks to their 4, and had 10 turnovers to their 11 (including two odd ones by Bohannon and Joe T). We had 16 offensive rebounds to their 11 and had only 13 fouls to their 20. It would appear that we were able to match their physicality and intensity in this game and got more than our share of 50/50 balls. Nice effort by the Hawks here.
- Regarding fouls, I do think Rutgers got the short end of the stick on several of those early calls as the announcers mentioned. I don't feel too bad here as there clearly have been games where Garza hasn't gotten any help from the Refs, so hopefully we see this crew in the B10 tournament.
- Updated Kenpom has Iowa: 5/357 overall, 1 in offense, 120 in defense, 303 in Luck, and 99 in Tempo. I find the defensive ranking and luck to be notable as earlier this season I thought 70th may be the ceiling for our defense while 100 or so would be the floor. I still think we can get to 100, but any team with a 1 ranking on offense and 100 on defense is probably a Top 10-12 team not Top 5, and that's what we're seeing on the court currently, although overall we're still 5th in the country in Kenpom and probably a 3 seed in the tournament when Lunardi updates today. The recent slide in defensive efficiency being part of the reason for losses, but playing in such a competitive league that luck statistic is a real phenomenon in close games. Coaching is a factor, but so is whether an individual player makes a shot or does what they've been coached to do at the right time in the right situation, or foul trouble.
- The defensive rankings of the teams we finish our schedule with: Wisconsin 7, Michigan 9, MSU 35, PSU 53, OSU 64. (Illinois was 12, Rutgers 19, Indiana 21).
- Joe T continues to struggle - not just his odd turnover, but we had a 3 on 2 break that he turned into a 2 on 2 break because he attacked the middle of the lane rather than coming in from the left side to allow the rim runner the middle lane (Murray). In the end Murray got the tip bucket, but it was just odd to cut in front of your own teammate like that on the break - perhaps because he didn't want to attack left handed? I was confused there. He still seems like he hurts the flow of our offense when he's in there. I'm still hopeful we can get it figured out for him and us.
- Keegan was great, again. His activity blocking shots and rebounding is worth it's weight in gold. He also covers space in the zone so well and you can tell the difference when our longer, quicker team was out there that we closed out to shooters in rotation a lot better and challenged inside shots a lot better. He is sneaky good at perimeter steals as well. He has a good first step and gains initially advantage off the drive, but doesn't know how to capitalize on it yet. Next year when he is stronger he will either (A) turn the corner and finish or (B) reverse spin and pin the guy and finish with an interior hook or perhaps a short fade away. He doesn't have those yet, but he will.
- Patrick made some big buckets last night too - the long 3 and the runner in the lane were very nice. Shooting a runner going left horizontally across the lane and then flipping it in right handed with one hand over Ron Harper Jr. is some tough stuff. He got shoved out like a school girl on some rebounds where he just isn't big enough to compete a few times, but he's always ready to ball.
- Bohannon was very steady last night and played a smart game. That turnover off his shoe was almost funny because for as much as he dribbles you would think it would happen more often. Even funnier that Rutgers dribbled it off their own foot shortly thereafter. I told my daughter to watch how Bohannon protects the ball against a longer more athletic defender by "crabbing" or rotating his hip towards the defender to move the ball further away and to put the off hand in position to ward off any attempts to reach. He can still advance the ball this way and see his teammates, and he can simply reverse pivot if an attempt is made, but he very seldom allows defenders to tip the ball away off the dribble despite their length and physical advantages. Too many of our girls in AAU are directly facing the opponent essentially inviting attempts to tip the ball.
- I like more about Perkins each time I see him. His activity level and ability to do a lot of things remind me a lot of the guard version of Keegan. Maybe not elite at any one thing, but a stat stuffer in many different categories and a competitor. Will still need shooters around him in the long run to keep spacing, but he made some rebounds last night that I thought were Keegan only to find out it was him.
- I like Ulis a lot too, but you could see last night he got sped up by the pressure defense and twice tried to drive on his guy whereas Bohannon would be fine with getting into the offense. Once Ulis almost turned it over but was able to reverse out of it, the second time he got to the rim and the refs decided that a freshman was not going to get a foul call if he was dumb enough to challenge the big guy underneath. In both cases I think Fran probably just wanted him to get us into the offense. Learning curve, no problem.
- Nunge was solid - couple of big baskets, a nice block, some rebounds, a few good post defenses.
- CJF had some good passes late but I thought the announcers made it seem like he was the reason we won this game, and he wasn't. They had prepared some content on CJF because they knew he was a storyline, and they just used those assists as a reason to use their materials. I do believe CJF is a bigger factor in our losing streak than maybe others realized until recently, but he was a shadow of himself last night overall. Hoping he can get back to 100% as that's very important.
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