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Rothstein Not A Believer

Herklejerk

All-Conference
Jul 10, 2022
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That's ok, Jon. Just keep watching.

Two takeaways for me:

1) The B1G is is as down as it has been for a long, long, time. There simply are no "clearly better than the rest" teams;
2) Iowa is a better team than both IU and PU (predicted 1 and 2 in the B1G).

I'm telling you, man. I love the way this season is shaping up. With our schedule, we are serious contenders to win at least a share of the regular season league title. I really believe that.

'22-'23 Iowa = '21-'22 Wisconsin ...a surprise to everyone but the players and coaching staff.
 
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That's ok, Jon. Just keep watching.

Two takeaways for me:

1) The B1G is is as down as it has been for a long, long, time. There simply are no "clearly better than the rest" teams;
2) Iowa is a better team than both IU and PU (predicted 1 and 2 in the B1G).

I'm telling you, man. I love the way this season is shaping up. With our schedule, we are serious contenders to win at least a share of the regular season league title. I really believe that.

'22-'23 Iowa = '21-'22 Wisconsin ...a surprise to everyone but the players and coaching staff.

In Kempom, last year the B1G was the 3rd best league (behind B12 and SEC). They were 1st or 2nd the previous 3 years. They were 5th in 2018. It hasn't been a long, long time since the B1G has been down. At least 1 current Iowa player played in a league that was 5th best.


I think Iowa will be better than most are predicting. I also understand why they are being predicted there, and most admit there isn't going to be a big difference between 9th and 3rd.
 
Iowa was picked 9th in the preseason last year as well if I remember correctly.
 

That's ok, Jon. Just keep watching.

Two takeaways for me:

1) The B1G is is as down as it has been for a long, long, time. There simply are no "clearly better than the rest" teams;
2) Iowa is a better team than both IU and PU (predicted 1 and 2 in the B1G).

I'm telling you, man. I love the way this season is shaping up. With our schedule, we are serious contenders to win at least a share of the regular season league title. I really believe that.

'22-'23 Iowa = '21-'22 Wisconsin ...a surprise to everyone but the players and coaching staff.

Iowa isn't on this list
 
I wouldn't say Jon is not a believer. Jon wrote about the B1G on Aug 8. The B1G is such a toss up to him that he has Iowa projected to finish 9th and also calls Iowa a sleeper team.

Jon also has an interesting projected starting 5 for IOWA. Note that Payton has stated that he is practicing the 2, 3 and 4. I think Ulis/Bowen & Tony start as the 1 & 2, however, with Payton coming off the bench.

Jon's Aug 8 B1G Power Rankings:

1. Indiana
2. Purdue
3. Michigan
4. Ohio State
5. Michigan State
6. Illinois
7. Wisconsin
8. Rutgers
9. Iowa

Jon's Projected Starting 5 for IOWA:
G
Tony Perkins
G Peyton Sandfort
F Patrick McCaffery
F Kris Murray
C Filip Rebraca

Projected Bench: Connor McCaffery, Josh Ogundele, Ahron Ulis, Riley Mulvey, Luc Laketa, Carter Kingsbury, Dasonte Bowen, Josh Dix

Key Losses: Keegan Murray, Jordan Bohannon

Key Newcomers: Dasonte Bowen, Josh Dix

......................................................................

10. Maryland
11. Northwestern
12. Penn State
13. Minnesota
14. Nebraska


Preseason All-Big Ten First Team
Kris Murray, Iowa
Cliff Omoruyi, Rutgers
Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
Hunter Dickinson, Michigan
Zach Edey, Purdue

Big Ten Co-Preseason Player of the Year
Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
Hunter Dickinson, Michigan

Big Ten Preseason Sleeper
Iowa



The FULL Story:
 
If Kris is first team all B1G and Iowa stays healthy, the Hawks will be better than 9th. Depth on the interior and experience at PG are concerns, but most teams in the B1G are going to rely on newcomers.
 
It's reasonable to see the B1G being down. There don't appear to be any great teams in the league. Most are bunched close together and have a lot of unknowns going into the season.
 
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That's ok, Jon. Just keep watching.

Two takeaways for me:

1) The B1G is is as down as it has been for a long, long, time. There simply are no "clearly better than the rest" teams;
2) Iowa is a better team than both IU and PU (predicted 1 and 2 in the B1G).

I'm telling you, man. I love the way this season is shaping up. With our schedule, we are serious contenders to win at least a share of the regular season league title. I really believe that.

'22-'23 Iowa = '21-'22 Wisconsin ...a surprise to everyone but the players and coaching staff.
Last season it wasn't until the 8th of September when the Big Ten schedule came out. Do you have advance knowledge of Iowa's schedule or are you just going off the home and home and single game BIG teams because when you play the games effects the season just as much as who you play.
 
Last season it wasn't until the 8th of September when the Big Ten schedule came out. Do you have advance knowledge of Iowa's schedule or are you just going off the home and home and single game BIG teams because when you play the games effects the season just as much as who you play.
Home and home.
 
If Kris is first team all B1G and Iowa stays healthy, the Hawks will be better than 9th. Depth on the interior and experience at PG are concerns, but most teams in the B1G are going to rely on newcomers.
I don’t think that Iowa necessarily needs a First Team All Big Ten player, though do believe Kris will be capable. Hawks are going to have four guys who are all capable of double digit scoring averages in Kris, Pat, Tony, and Payton, with a guy in Rebraca who could easily average 7-8. Gonna be a really balanced scoring attack, and I’m pumped for it
 
I don’t think that Iowa necessarily needs a First Team All Big Ten player, though do believe Kris will be capable. Hawks are going to have four guys who are all capable of double digit scoring averages in Kris, Pat, Tony, and Payton, with a guy in Rebraca who could easily average 7-8. Gonna be a really balanced scoring attack, and I’m pumped for it
Agree. I was just pointing out how little Rothstein's predictions make sense.
 
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Agree. I was just pointing out how little Rothstein's predictions make sense.
Yeah I don’t put too much stock into what Rothstein says. He’s mostly good for one liners like “Iowa Hawkeyes, the family business!” Or “Omaha, somewhere in middle America!” on Twitter
 
Illinois fans are mad at Rothstein, also. Thinks he is severely underestimating the Illini. Not sure myself. Loaded with talent but a lot of new pieces.
 
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B1G is much less predictable than usual this year. You could almost put the top 9-10 in a hat and draw them out, and do as well as the "experts".
 
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Illinois fans are mad at Rothstein, also. Thinks he is severely underestimating the Illini. Not sure myself. Loaded with talent but a lot of new pieces.
Both Illinois and Ohio State are indeed loaded with talent. Problem is, it's mostly young and unproven, and relying on freshmen guards is usually a recipe for major disappointment in the B1G.

He missed badly on Iowa, imo -- experience, depth, scoring everywhere, and the best defense we've had in awhile.

We'll see...
 
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If you're a college hoops fan, I highly recommend Three Man Weave podcast. They're maybe the only podcast out there that also knows mid and low major teams and can give insights on those leagues. They recently have been releasing their consensus Top 40 and have Iowa at #34. Their discussion on the podcast was very favorable and they all agreed that they were likely too low, but they just want to wait and see what the point guard situation looks like. Said that Iowa should be better defensively and that the only offensive concern is shooting outside of Sandfort. Another quote, "I think Kris Murray is somehow still underrated as a player, and he's a consensus top-20 player in most publications. I wouldn't be surprised if his numbers were 90% of what Keegan produced."

Other Big Ten teams:
#16 Illinois
#24 Michigan
#25 Indiana
#28 Purdue
#31 Michigan St. (said they were likely too high on them)
#33 Ohio St
#34 Iowa
 
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Both Illinois and Ohio State are indeed loaded with talent. Problem is, it's mostly young and unproven, and relying on freshmen guards is usually a recipe for major disappointment in the B1G.

He missed badly on Iowa, imo -- experience, depth, scoring everywhere, and the best defense we've had in awhile.

We'll see...


Not sure about this being the best defensive team we've had in a while.

* Will we even be better than last year's team defensively without Keegan? I hope we will, but I am skeptical. After the 2022 Kansas/North Carolina Championship game, Iowa finished with the #4 offense & the #80 defense in the nation. No team has made the Final Four in the last 11 years with a defense ranked worse than 70th in the nation.

* IIRC, the 2016 team with Clemmons, Gesell, Woodbury & Uthoff was Fran's best defensive team.


And, does Iowa really have depth, as you claim?

* Just look at the 5 position, where our starter is undersized and we have Riley and maybe Josh hopefully backing him up.

* We only have 11 on scholarship (2 scholarships went unfilled), so I would not call this a deep Iowa team at all.


I count 8 legitimate rotational players and 3 question marks. Not exactly deep, IMO.


I think we should be pretty comfortable with the starting 5.

Ulis or Bowen
Perkins
PMac
Kris
Filip

Those available off the Bench:

Ulis or Bowen
Connor
Payton

3 question marks on the Bench

Josh Dix -- will he be ready/healthy?
Riley -- we really need him; what can he give us?
Josh Ogundele -- how many minutes can he give us?
 
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Rothstein is a meme (shrugs)

It's a bit simplistic to look at things like this, but Kris Murray is the highest projected B1G NBA prospect going into this year. I was curious to see where the team with the highest NBA pick finished in the B1G in the same season. I used where they finished in kenpom and went back to 2002 (as far as kenpom extends).

1st - 10 times
2nd - 2 times
3rd - 5 times
4th - 1 time
5th - 1 time
9th - 1 time
11th - 1 time

So the historic probabilities are

10/21 are the top team
17/21 are top 3
19/21 are top 5

And I think it makes sense that having the best prospect matters in the B1G. In other conferences, they recruit one and dones and those guys don't always translate the best in their one season to the college game. The B1G doesn't get a lot of those guys. So the best prospects tend to be experienced multi-year guys or be surrounded by other multi-year guys (like Kris). There's a good chance that Iowa will start 5 upperclassmen for their opener.
 
Not to put too much on JBo's head, who gave it his all, but we surely will be better on defense at PG.

true, when looking at the PG postion.

however, we were really good on D (and rebounding) when Keegan & Kris were in there.

I would love to end this upcoming season better than #80 in the nation defensively (which was last year's team's end of season rank).
 
Iowa has a better chance to be improved defensively with swapping Bohannon's minutes for virtually anyone else on that end. It remains to be seen if they will actually play better individual AND team defense overall. Cautiously optimistic it will actually happen this season.
 
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Iowa has a better chance to be improved defensively with swapping Bohannon's minutes for virtually anyone else on that end. It remains to be seen if they will actually play better individual AND team defense overall. Cautiously optimistic it will actually happen this season.
Good stuff….JBO was a tremendous offensive player both individually and as a team player. So I think that this next team will be better defensively….but I think it has to be quite a bit better to offset the offensive loss from the PG position both as that individual scorer and in running the offense and distributing the ball.

I’m guessing that this team will look different then what we’re used to the last 6 years by quite a bit.
 
Good stuff….JBO was a tremendous offensive player both individually and as a team player. So I think that this next team will be better defensively….but I think it has to be quite a bit better to offset the offensive loss from the PG position both as that individual scorer and in running the offense and distributing the ball.

I’m guessing that this team will look different then what we’re used to the last 6 years by quite a bit.
We will miss JBo's shooting, not just the shot making, but way it forced defenses to focus on not leaving him open. Beyond Sandfort, outside shooting is a question mark for this season.

I think JBo actually played better defense last year than he had the couple of prior years, probably because he was healthier, but he was smaller and a little slower than most other PGs. No doubt we should be improved defensively at that position. Hopefully, that translates into better team defense, although we also lost our best defender in Keegan.
 
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We will miss JBo's shooting, not just the shot making, but way it forced defenses to focus on not leaving him open. Beyond Sandfort, outside shooting is a question mark for this season.

I think JBo actually played better defense last year than he had the couple of prior years, probably because he was healthier, but he was smaller and a little slower than most other PGs. No doubt we should be improved defensively at that position. Hopefully, that translates into better team defense, although we also lost our best defender in Keegan.
I agree that JBO was actually quite a bit better defensively this last year....he actually played some pretty good defense at times, made some good defensive plays.
 
People blame McCaffery for the defense, but I've always thought that defense was about 20% scheme and 80% wannabe on the player's part.
 
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