Rebraca hasn't showed the same offensive prowess against D1 teams that he did at N Dakota. Not even close, not even against preseason patsies. Not sure why. But he has underperformed.
Observations Heading into B1G
- Thread starter BirdistheWord
- Start date
Been disappointed in what Rebraka has brought. Not knocking the guy because he plays hard but he isn't the answer for us in conference play.
Fran should've let Kris play through his mistakes during our cupcake schedule because Kris is one of the very few on the team that can keep up athletically with the conference. Instead he gets yanked and soon Fran will realize that we aren't finishing top half without Kris getting a lot of minutes.
Put me in the uhlis, perkins, Kr, Ke, Peyton lineup fan. JT and Pmac getting the majority of reserve minutes. Sprinkle in JBo and Mulvey/Josh for the remaining minutes. Rebounding is going to continue killing us until Fran figures out to play the best guys the most minutes.
Fran should've let Kris play through his mistakes during our cupcake schedule because Kris is one of the very few on the team that can keep up athletically with the conference. Instead he gets yanked and soon Fran will realize that we aren't finishing top half without Kris getting a lot of minutes.
Put me in the uhlis, perkins, Kr, Ke, Peyton lineup fan. JT and Pmac getting the majority of reserve minutes. Sprinkle in JBo and Mulvey/Josh for the remaining minutes. Rebounding is going to continue killing us until Fran figures out to play the best guys the most minutes.
Yeah, I had not looked closely at F.R.'s stats until now, not great, not terrible. At this point he is a big body to try and slow down opposing teams Center. He needs to focus on rebounding (which we desperately need) and garbage buckets. Keegan will draw even more attention in B1G play so there should be some opportunities. One silver lining is given he only plays 20 min per game it does open up more playing time for younger players.
Rebraca isn't a bad player but he's a 4 who's forte is scoring.
Turns out we already have two of those guys.
Hes not scoring because Keegan does everything he does, in the same areas but better.
He makes no sense with the players Fran already had.
Fran needed to go find an athletic big whos skill set consisted of rebounding, defending and dunking, the kind every other big ten team has 3 or 4 of.
Turns out we already have two of those guys.
Hes not scoring because Keegan does everything he does, in the same areas but better.
He makes no sense with the players Fran already had.
Fran needed to go find an athletic big whos skill set consisted of rebounding, defending and dunking, the kind every other big ten team has 3 or 4 of.
Joe, Ulis, Perkins, and Keegan need to play together a majority of the minutes and whomever else is playing well can get the other minutes.
JBo needs to sit, period.
JBo needs to sit, period.
After going to the Western Illinois game the other night I was surprised by how poor the Hawks are on fundamentals. Weak-side rebounding, blocking out, not helping out in the lane on defense....it was just Basketball 101. They don't have the bodies to bang it out in the B1G so they need to get better at the fundamentals fast, or it is going to be a long year. I know that I am stating the obvious, but I can't believe that D1 athletes could be so bad at this, at times it looked like a Fieldhouse pick-up game. This is all on Fran.
That wasn't a typical game. It was probably the sloppiest game that Iowa has played this year. The games against B1G opponents are more typical IMHO. They skated through this game. I hate it because they develop bad habits this way, again IMHO. I think that the coaching staff needs to keep them better focused. Lazy playing and coaching.
Typical across the board. Take a look at Wisconsin the other night, just skidded past a lower-tier team. Hard to get up for games that are guaranteed wins.
Michigan just got beat by UCF by 14 points.....I think it was on their home floor but not sure.
fran's philosophy of defense is get the ball out of the net fast so we can run
I truly think this is it. Take a look at Ja Morant, a budding NBA star. With him on the court, the Grizz are the WORST defensive team in the NBA. Without him, they're second BEST. And yup, they went on a winning streak without him. Sometimes it can be one black hole.
The Grizz are also 10-2 when Morant doesn't play. Though that may have more to do with how good Desmond Bane has become.
If we had Michigan State's B1G schedule. we would probably be 2-0 in league and the tone on this board would be totally different.
WIU’s game plan was pretty clear. High ball screen and then isolate their big on the guard in the post. I thought the Iowa guards were doing a decent job considering the mismatch most of the time, but Iowa eventually started showing a double on their big.
I thought WIU took several difficult shots and made several. I also thought WIU took a lot of 15’-20’ shots (esp #5 the Wapello kid). I’m of thinking that you give them those shots all day long, provided that you can rebound. That seemed to be 50/50 or 60/40. WIU shooting 5-30 from 3pt range helped quite a bit.
The game was never really in doubt. The closest it got to after WIU’s run was 13 (I believe). Fran got a TO, regrouped, and made a few subs defensively. Iowa went back to controlling the game. I was content for Iowa finishing out with a solid win and covered the spread for a game the computer (Odds Sharks) had WIU winning by four. WIU is a pretty good team. They have a solid guard (huge in cbb) and a couple of serviceable bigs (one being from Pleasant Valley who is at least 24 years old).
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Rebraca is clearly undersized for where he is forced to play. With transfers, like recruits, resulting from mutual consent, it was likely the best option Fran had.
One thing that is different this year vs last, is we can surround JBo with great defenders and top end athletes, which does seem to help (hide?) his defensive and athletic weaknesses.
I like lineups such as:
JT, JBo, Keegan, PMac and Kris
Ulis, Perkins, JBo, Keegan and Kris
I totally get why he left, but Nunge could have stayed and made the 2nd All Big Ten team.
Yes....this .......schedules matter. Of course, troll is going to troll no matter what the outcome is and it's noticeable but when I look at the stats, we lead the conference in scoring and are third in margin of victory.....wth? I guess they can score some more or play better defense to be the best team in the conference in margin of victory but teams we play matter and the ball bounces funny too......I tell you what, I am very pleased we are looking down at margin of victory and not up ....don't ya think?
Not only that but did ya figure we are beating many teams so soundly beating the piss out of them, scoring at will that Fran allows everyone on the bench to get some PT otherwise that margin of victory would be the best in the conference if we played say just 8 or 10 players.
Did ya think we were going to win every game? I didn't know what to think going into the season but again, very pleased to date and with Keegan and few others not playing and playing through injuries....
As Fran said in his post game about WIU, they were a good team and I agree....
Margin
Scoring Margin
Index Team G Offense Defense Margin
1 Purdue 13 87.2 66.0 21.2
2 Northwestern 10 79.0 60.8 18.2
3 Iowa 13 87.9 70.2 17.8
4 Illinois 12 81.2 65.6 15.6
5 Indiana 12 77.2 61.7 15.5
6 Michigan State 13 75.8 65.3 10.5
7 Minnesota 11 72.0 63.1 8.9
8 Ohio State 10 75.7 67.5 8.2
9 Wisconsin 12 70.3 63.2 7.2
10 Michigan 12 73.3 66.2 7.1
11 Maryland 12 70.3 65.8 4.5
12 Penn State 10 67.3 65.9 1.4
13 Rutgers 11 67.1 66.9 0.2
14 Nebraska 13 75.0 76.4 -1.4
If you play a really bad schedule, then margin of victory doesn't really mean much. Western Illinois supposedly was a 120 ranked team, so that was not a bad team, but the would be a bottom feeder in every P5 conference.
The stats that matter on Iowa in B1G conference play and we shall see how they end up.
I'm happy where we are going into the big ten season. I wasn't sure of how good we would be this year, but I've been pleasantly surprised with how much progress Keegan has made since last year. I knew he was good but I didn't expect he would be starting out this good even against the easy part of our schedule. Patrick is better than I expected. Truth be told I just wasn't impressed last year. Joe has always played to the level of the competition he is playing against, but he needs steady minutes, for confidence if nothing else. Ulis and Perkins have been really good and are getting better steadily. Kris is really productive, he just needs more playing time. Peyton surprised me, he's better than I expected.
I'd love to see Joe and Ahron playing together more, and between Joe Ahron and Tony, 2 should be on the floor at all times. I like our four forwards, but if someone is not going after rebounds bring in the Josh, he's played good in the minutes he has had.
I'm way more confident in this team going into the big ten season, than I was at the start of the regular season.
I'd love to see Joe and Ahron playing together more, and between Joe Ahron and Tony, 2 should be on the floor at all times. I like our four forwards, but if someone is not going after rebounds bring in the Josh, he's played good in the minutes he has had.
I'm way more confident in this team going into the big ten season, than I was at the start of the regular season.
Very correct. There are dozens of guys like this just waiting for Fran to call. Maybe a few guys on here could do some cold calling to get a couple of these guys lined up for next year???
I doubt that, Fran tried to get bigs like Liam Robbins in the portal and ended up only able to get rebraca.
Hmm.... at ND they ran the offense thru him so he had touches.
Iowa is running offense thru Keegan.... so there are few touches for Filip. It is no surprise his offensive numbers are not there. He's learning to try to find his place in the offense and that's been his struggle. When he gets post touches he's been pretty productive.
I looked at his numbers and, except for FTs, he is doing pretty well. IMHO he just isn't aggressive enough on offense to draw doubles away from Keegan. I was hoping for more, maybe it'll come.
With the sheer amount of transfers available I just have a hard time believing that.
The good transfers are in high demand. It's more likely Iowa is able to get an overlooked high school player that ends up being good (Murray twins) than an established, really good transfer player. Good transfer players create even more demand from the really good programs. Isaiah Moss, an okay player at Iowa, went to Kansas. It doesn't mean it's impossible, but just saying go get a transfer is easier said than done.
Spot on Ron. As you said, not much was expected from this team, with so many players needing to step up and in different roles. We're 10-3. We've had 4 REAL tests. Won one at Virginia, played two pretty damn good games including taking #1 Purdue to the wire in a 7 point loss WITHOUT Keegan, and hanging with Illinois even though we got crushed on the glass. We've had one bad game against ISU again with Keegan not himself at all, and an ISU team much better then anticipated and now ranked 8th. Pretty happy to be 10-3 right now frankly. Now we need to address the rebounding issue no doubt. I also find it funny this summer I mentioned I wondered what we would get from Rebracca with him moving up into a different level. Many posted that because he played a good game against Minnesota or someone that he was ready for BIG play. It doesn't really appear so, at least offensively, but I think he has made some progress and we need him to continue to be more aggressive.
Too early to give up on JoeT, and I still think there is hope that he could take the next step. I just hope it isn't to hit the transfer portal after the season. Ulis has been getting at least as many minutes in the past couple of games, and they are a good combination at PG.
I understand mild disappointment in Rebraca, but anyone expecting him to be a top center was being unrealistic. I'm still glad we have both JoeT and Rebraca, and the team is better because they are here.
I understand mild disappointment in Rebraca, but anyone expecting him to be a top center was being unrealistic. I'm still glad we have both JoeT and Rebraca, and the team is better because they are here.
kinda true. It is like the old saying about losing money on each sale but trying to make it up
on volume.
Free Willie was a movie, Free Kris Murray is the sequel. He needs to play North of 30 minutes most games.
When the twins are on the court at same time, you see the chemistry on defense and offense and you don't know which is their strong hand without checking the jersey.
Yeah, Rebraca is hard to figure out, he has shown flashes of skilled plays, but otherwise has been pretty pedestrian, though we need him heading into B1G.
As for Joe T, he is a really interesting player who struggles with consistency, though has gotten better, albeit slightly. I really like for him to take the ball to the rim more as he is the quickest on the team and has improved his shooting.
Our problems in the middle aren't entirely Fran's fault. Garza could have come back and Jack Nunge could have stayed. If either of those 2 things happen, Iowa is strong in the middle. Josh Ogundele is a big presence but has not progressed fast enough. Mulvey has a good upside but should still be in high school. Rebraca is a 4 playing up a level at the 5 spot. Nostradamus could not have predicted ALL of those things happening.
I wasn’t high on Rebraca a few games back but I’m coming around. I’m disappointed he is not a 3 point threat but his post moves on offense are impressive and his rebounding is respectable. The key is if he can defend bigs in the Big like he did with Purdue. He has a place.
So far this year I’m very pleasantly surprised that Keegan is as good as he is. Sandfort is a plus, JBo is JBo, Ulis is getting better and better, Perkins has proven to be a great 6th man and Joe has been up and down. If we can get a little more rebounding out of Patrick and fewer fouls from Kris then I like our prospects.
So far this year I’m very pleasantly surprised that Keegan is as good as he is. Sandfort is a plus, JBo is JBo, Ulis is getting better and better, Perkins has proven to be a great 6th man and Joe has been up and down. If we can get a little more rebounding out of Patrick and fewer fouls from Kris then I like our prospects.
I think this is correct. Fran lost out on a couple of more traditional post-players from the transfer pool, and knew he needed someone in the 6'8" plus range with at least some experience. The player Fran really wanted was Liam Robbins, but he ended up going to Vanderbilt. All things considered, though, Rebraca has shown himself to be far more valuable than Robbins who has yet to play due to injury.
I do think had Keegan Murray not gotten off to this "all-American" start, Rebraca would likely have been counted on to score more and be more integral in offensive sets. As it is, I still would like to see Rebraca take a couple of those open 3's that have been available to him. If for no other reason, to draw out the defense on him a bit and perhaps open up the lane.
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Rebraca is exactly the definition of one an average transfer. He's been okay. He's been 57% on 2-pointers. Thought he would be more of a 3-point threat, but has taken only 3 so far. He gets fouled a lot (which is good) but he is only 16-30 from the line (not good). He just doesn't get many opportunities to score. I'm not saying that he should, the ball funnels through Keegan, who has been very efficient. Rebraca is a mobile big guy. I'm hopeful he can have a game where he hits a couple of pick and pop 3's to make a difference against a good team.
I thought he would score a bit more to this point, but he's been about what I thought he would be after seeing his highlights. Big step up from Summit League to Big 10 play. Combine that with playing with a extremely efficient, high-volume scorer (Murray) and an Iowa team that likes to get out and put up shots, and kind of explains his season.
We don't need a new assistant coach to play good defense,.. As a team we simply need to value good defensive play instead of treating it as an afterthought...
