Rooting for SDSU, which is an awfully good team for a 13 seed.
Richmond and then Providence
- Thread starter perryhawk
- Start date
And you damn well better have some in this Tournament or you'll find yourself preparing for next year.
Yep. I certainly hope our Team is taking Richmond a lot more seriously than our fans are. It's almost like people have never seen Iowa play in an NCAA Tournament before.....
If I were a gambling man, I'd stay way far away from this one. But if I had to bet, I'd take the Jackrabbits over Providence.
To be fair, 2 months ago or so none of us thought this team had any interest in playing defense.
Yep, that’s dated the 13th…Sunday. He changed it on the 13th. I believe it was Saturday that they showed his projected brackets with only 7 B10 teams when pretty much everyone else had 9.I don't think that's correct.
Men's Bracketology: Bid stealers leave out Pitt, Virginia, Seton Hall, Indiana State
Most years thewww.espn.com
Yes they are. They piled up a ton of close wins against bad teams (and some good ones too), along with some really lopsided losses. As nuts as it sounds, Iowa's only double digit loss this year was to Iowa State. Providence lost by 18 to Virginia, 30+ to Marquette, and 17 to Creighton. They have only 5 losses all year playing in a good league, so they are capable. But the advanced analytics sites don't like them much, they are 49 in Pomeroy and 45 in Torvik's ratings.
South Dakota State is really hard to figure out. Won a ton of games, but piled up their recent win streak against a run of bad teams. Lost by double digits to Alabama, Missouri State and Idaho. I don't know if there were extenuating circumstances in the Idaho game, as Idaho was terrible, going 9-22 in the Big Sky. But if the only Iowa game you saw all year was Iowa State, you wouldn't think Iowa was very good either.
On the ESPN website there is a video of Lunardi predicting SDS will send Iowa home. They do shoot the ball well and their guards are big. They play nine guys, and average 86.7 points a game, so I doubt we will be able to wear them down. We all know that stats aren't even from one conference to another, so as the great philosopher, Jim Bouton, once said, "Tell your statistics to shut up!"
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Interesting......it seems like when it comes to outscoring other teams I feel pretty confident in the Hawks. This looks like that type of game. That said, anything can happen and in this tournament you either win or go home so it's always anxious for me until the final horn sounds and we have the win in hand.
I mean.....Iowa-Kansas in the NCAA Tournament has kind of been a pipe dream matchup in the back of many people's minds, and then you have it in Chicago where both have a massive alumni base and it's gonna be better than a Bulls playoff game in the MJ era.
But yes............our opponents need to cooperate and let us get there first.
That's why I recommended having Lunardi's finger nails clipped with a chainsaw...........
As for SDSU, ball movement, especially off the dribble drive and 3 pt chucking. That's their formula.
A small sample of what we'll see can be found in our Semies game against Indiana where they'd aggressively drive and at the last second kick it out to the opposite corner and then that guy would immediately reverse it to the next guy who would then immediately swing it to the next man thinking their unselfishness netted them a wide open three................................except Iowa never moved, or didn't have to rotate much at all because they were waiting for Indiana to shoot the layup and all those extra passes ended up being unnecessary/wasted and more than half the time, especially in the 1st half, Iowa players, and probably everyone in the stands, were just like, "Wtf are you doing? Just shoot the damn ball already......."
That's pretty much what we'll be seeing from SDSU if we play them.
South Dakota State is the benefactor of playing their conference tournament on essentially a home court every year. It's more surprising when they don't win than when they do. The summit league is also comprised of 5 really bad teams, 4 mediocre teams, and one decent squad. Could they beat Iowa if both win their first game? Sure, it's March. But from what I've seen of this Iowa team I have no reason to believe that will happen unless the entire team goes ice cold and they inexplicably play some early season terrible zone defense for no good reason.
I heard this same exact argument last week before the BTT. They're not going to make it to Saturday. When I asked people why they were so sure, instead of referencing anything about this year's team they said Fran's history says they won't. This is Fran's best team ever with Fran's best player ever. Last year's team was flawed in that they really only had 2 players that could be depended on to score and the defense was full of holes. This team has 5 players that can and have gone for 20 this year and they can be extremely disruptive defensively. Maybe they do get bounced early, but I'll be really surprised if this team doesn't make the Sweet 16. After that it's house money and Iowa has shown that they have the tools to play with anyone.
Not overly concerned with Richmond, but I don’t want it to be a close game at the end because they are very experienced. I don’t think it will be though. Iowa over Spiders by 15.
My concern playing SDSU is we don’t cover the 3 well enough and they hit like 65% from 3. That’s likely only way they win but I’ve seen us leave too many shooters hit from deep against the Hawks. Providence we grind out and win by 10-12
My concern playing SDSU is we don’t cover the 3 well enough and they hit like 65% from 3. That’s likely only way they win but I’ve seen us leave too many shooters hit from deep against the Hawks. Providence we grind out and win by 10-12
That’s what I have seen , which is why I believe we go to next weekend minimum . After that anything can happy . I’ve got us playing Arizona in the final 4. . Not expecting a victory but as I said anything I’d possible. Still I can look ahead I’m a fan. Hawkeyes can’t. They need to stay in the moment.
The Hawks will have to beat themselves to lose in the first two rounds here. That's certainly possible, but not likely. They just beat Purdue and Indiana/Rutgers teams that had been playing well. Hard to imagine a scenario where they would have trouble with any of these three teams.
You were saying? I've seen this show before, that was my whole point in my previous post you replied to and clearly I was correct. Unfortunately.
Shoot like shit, go home. They did and they are, it is that simple.
Not proud of it I assure you, but I am a realist, and Iowa proved once again no matter how much momentum they may have, they can choke with the best of them in NCAA Basketball Tournament.
Let a shit team hang around, this is what happens. The very first Iowa possession with 2 easy shots missed showed how this day would go and it never got better.
So what's the opposite of a 3 point buzz saw and we still lose? JK - couldn't resist!
Spiders are getting squished. While this makes us look bad, I'm somewhat satisfied.
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