The remainder of the season looks bright

[mazda1]

I hate we play MSU next given their loss.

That said Moss stepped up, hopefully Peter is back to Peter, and most teams we see the rest of the way won't have the quickness of the Minnesota bigs. Baer has been wearing down a bit, but he's set the standard. Uhl is coming on. I think we can be very dangerous the rest of the way.

We are learning and we are loaded with freshman. Kriener is feeling the pressure in my view. Fran was correct to go after bigs and I look foward to the growth these guys will bring next year. We are starting to play with effort the entire game. We are not totally there, but light years from the beginning of the season.

 

[unoHawkeye]

You're absolutely right. If this game hadn't ended the way it had (or if we would have lost legitimately in regulation) I would be thrilled, since I predicted a loss before the game. The young guys + Jok showed great resiliency in a tough environment that we haven't shown on the road before. This game could easily have gone the route of @Purdue or @Northwestern, but we stuck around, made our run, and got back into the game.

The best part was that everybody on our team made critical plays tonight. Jok, Bohannon, Ellingson, Uhl had a nice feed, putback, and free throws, Williams played great defense on the last play in the first overtime, Moss was big, Pemsl was solid offensively, Wagner had a nice and-one, Baer with the and-one in regulation, Cook had a nice and-one.

The defense was also greatly improved, I thought, especially given the quickness of Mason and Minnesota's other guards. That's a tough team to slow down, and I thought we did a fantastic job of it. Future is bright. Tough loss at the hands of the refs though.

 

[SDHawkDoc]

Of course a tough loss. I have to say, though, another very entertaining game from my perspective just as a fan of basketball.

 

[Eternal Return]

I'm less optimistic. I mean, I'm optimistic about the quality of play down the stretch, but the three road games Iowa has left are at MSU, at Maryland, and at Wisconsin. Those are three damn tough home teams. Add in the refs and I don't see a single win there. Iowa will have to win out at home to go 9-9. That's twice Iowa's gotten screwed by refs on the road in the B10 this year. I predict 1 more screw job by refs and two losses to superior and veteran competition at home. But I like the future for next year. This is going to be a fun team and it looks like Moss might be able to step into Jok's role next year. Maybe not that dynamic or that consistent, but certainly a weapon along with everyone else getting a year of offseason conditioning and coaching. Future looks bright.

 

[vgshwk]

I hate we play MSU next given their loss.

That said Moss stepped up, hopefully Peter is back to Peter, and most teams we see the rest of the way won't have the quickness of the Minnesota bigs. Baer has been wearing down a bit, but he's set the standard. Uhl is coming on. I think we can be very dangerous the rest of the way.

We are learning and we are loaded with freshman. Kriener is feeling the pressure in my view. Fran was correct to go after bigs and I look foward to the growth these guys will bring next year. We are starting to play with effort the entire game. We are not totally there, but light years from the beginning of the season.

If they would've played better in the first half they win. Got to play a complete game.

 

[Ihawkhoops]

Bright spots for sure, but Fran has to find a guy who wants to defend and rebound. We win by 10 if we don't get destroyed on the glass. I lost track of how many times MN got 2-3 chances or scored after 3 guys played volleyball at the rim. You can't be small down low and slow on the perimeter. Baer needs to post up and stop jacking up 3's. He has not shot the ball well all season and is not a factor on the glass when he is taking 3's.

Nice job to Uhl. I have been extremely disappointed in him all season, but the last couple games he is playing with more intensity and making a few shots. Puzzling why Fran parked Moss most of the second half and both OT's. Agree it was a poorly officiated game. The ref has to get in position to read lips if necessary in that situation. Missing the TO and Murphy's foot was out of bounds was BS.

 

[Suterman]

The rest of the season looks bright as long as you understand it does not include an NCAA bid and maybe not an NIT bid. A moral victory does nothing.

 

[EastIowaHawk]

Tough game to lose, but the young Hawkeyes really hung in there and mostly played well in a difficult environment. Minny was much more athletic than Iowa and they blocked--what? a dozen of our shots? That's why Pemsl played so much; every other big was getting the ball stuffed; Cook was blocked several times. Kids did play their hearts out. My biggest criticism was that Fran played too many guys. In a tough game like this, he should use nine, maybe ten players. Not a dozen.

 

[TampaHawkfan]

The rest of the season looks bright as long as you understand it does not include an NCAA bid and maybe not an NIT bid. A moral victory does nothing.

That's pretty much the camp I'm in. I liked the fight this team showed and all, but in the end, it's still an L. We've seen this movie before.

Look, I expected a rebuilding year and that games like this would happen, but I guess it would far easier to stomach if we haven't seen so many classic meltdowns in years where Iowa is really doing great - like Top 10-15 in January (or Top 5 last year) just to see it all go down the drain the last month of the season. Or, Northwestern State.

It'd be easier to be optimistic about the future if I haven't been burned so many times in the past (basically since Alford was hired, up through present day).

 

[bravehawks1]

That's pretty much the camp I'm in. I liked the fight this team showed and all, but in the end, it's still an L. We've seen this movie before.

Look, I expected a rebuilding year and that games like this would happen, but I guess it would far easier to stomach if we haven't seen so many classic meltdowns in years where Iowa is really doing great - like Top 10-15 in January (or Top 5 last year) just to see it all go down the drain the last month of the season. Or, Northwestern State.

It'd be easier to be optimistic about the future if I haven't been burned so many times in the past (basically since Alford was hired, up through present day).

I don't see a strong end to the season personally. I think the team will continue to fight, we will see good things and development, but consider these factors: 1) remaining road games at MSU, Wisc and Maryland 2) even home games against Ind, ILL and PSU are nothing easy 3) we have lots of freshman who are playing more games than they are used to (there may already be some freshman who are hitting the wall) 4) Fran's teams do not have a strong track record in the last 8-10 games of the season and 5)playing defense continues to be the major weakness that has not been corrected. Can this team surprise and win at least the three home games, yes, but they must do it defensively for that to happen IMO

 

[TampaHawkfan]

I don't see a strong end to the season personally. I think the team will continue to fight, we will see good things and development, but consider these factors: 1) remaining road games at MSU, Wisc and Maryland 2) even home games against Ind, ILL and PSU are nothing easy 3) we have lots of freshman who are playing more games than they are used to (there may already be some freshman who are hitting the wall) 4) Fran's teams do not have a strong track record in the last 8-10 games of the season and 5)playing defense continues to be the major weakness that has not been corrected. Can this team surprise and win at least the three home games, yes, but they must do it defensively for that to happen IMO

Agreed. I see maybe 3 more wins (the home games) but probably nothing else on the road. We'll see about the BTT and NIT (assuming Iowa ends up there), but the BTT has been a black mark on Fran's tenure.. I'd like to see a good showing this year.

But looking to next year and beyond.. Sure, it does look promising, but doesn't it always? Given the way the past 15+ years of Iowa hoops has gone, I hesitate to get too excited anymore. I've been burned too often (like basically every time allow myself to fully buy in).

 

[mazda1]

I wasn't in the this is an NCAA team camp at the start of the year so I have been looking for growth and development. I tend to agree that our record won't be awe inspiring as the rest of the league season plays out. To me to be able to expect that we will belong on the floor with Wisconsin and Maryland is a bright future with our youth.

The development of kids and Jok getting healthy gives us a punchers shot in any contest. I wasn't sure we'd have that until the last 4 games we've played. We haven't hit a wall yet, which I expected, and we're starting to learn what kind of effort it takes every night in league play.

I submit that if we'd made one more ft in regulation this board would be pretty optomistic going into this stretch. I don't expect shock and awe going down the stretch, but we should have some good games to enjoy.

 

[HoustonHawkeye]

3 tough road games, but both MSU and MD play lots of freshmen also. MSU game will be tough because they they got spanked by scUM, they have one day extra preparation, and we played a double OT late game. They could be battling emotionally with the beat down they took, so anything is possible. I think the MD game is probably a better opportunity.

 

[EpenesaEpenesa]

As tough as it is, put it in the rear view. Take care of the ball a little better and this team can do some damage down the stretch.

 

[Steve Waite]

I had this team going 10-8 from the beginning and they are right on schedule.
I have stated that I thought this team would get taken to the woodshed a couple of times, but that I wouldn't want to play them in march.
These young guns fought their asses off last night. they beat Minnesota, but didn't beat the refs.
Considering we're the 8th youngest team in division 1 and Fran has them playing really good basketball. I think this is his best coaching job that he has done since he's been at Iowa.
The dance is probably not going to happen, but I sure as hell won't want to play us come big tournament time.

Iowa basketball future is bright!

 

[bravehawks1]

I am going to respectfully disagree that we beat MN but not the refs. If we would have played any defense in the first half or rebounded or had good coaching in the end game, then we beat MN and the questionable calls and missed FT are moot. But since we did neither for the majority of the game, we lost to MN. It was very similar to the ILL game but last night MN decided to play like total crap for about 4 minutes and forget all about how they handled the press in the other 36 minutes of regulation. The positive about this team is despite Fran, this team continues to bounce back and sometimes that bounce back is even within games and maybe that is young guys who just have the energy to just keep going. As long as that happens, then we should be in the remaining games at a minimum. I am hopeful the NW type games are in the rear view mirror

 

[kcgolfer]

The future is bright, but, it would be brighter if this team would learn to box out and rebound. Too much standing around and watching. Very frustrated with our bigs and rebounding. Cook, Pemsl, and Wagner need to work on freethrows too.

 

[bravehawks1]

The future is bright, but, it would be brighter if this team would learn to box out and rebound. Too much standing around and watching. Very frustrated with our bigs and rebounding. Cook, Pemsl, and Wagner need to work on freethrows too.

Rebounding is frustrating. Pemsl is getting this some of the time where he finds a man and then releases to the ball. Baer gets this too, but others wait for the ball to come to them and if they have not made contact with the opponent, they are screwed. My HS coach always said rebounding was desire!!! Desire to get the ball is lacking for the most part

 

[Hawksfor3]

I think that this year was a learning experience for the Hawks. We all knew it would be, and we all expected painful moments and losses. That's how it is when you are young and trying to learn and grow as a player. I believe that the young guys will be much better next season.

The ending to the Minnesota game was pitiful, yes, but as bad as the officiating was, that's done. Finished. The effort was there (to paraphrase Fran).

To win at Michigan St., Maryland, and Wisconsin, especially after a loss the likes of Minnesota winning in double-OT, might not be attainable. I wish it was. I expect that Iowa will continue to learn, grow, and play as a unit the rest of this year.

I hope Pete will be fine with his back issues and will be successful in the Pros.

We still have games to play, so let's hang on and see what happens. Heck, even Richard Pitino said that Iowa has terrific offensive players and will be a really good team down the road. Imagine that.

 

[bravehawks1]

What did you expect Pitino to say? "Man, I don't understand why that game was so close. Most of those Iowa players are D3 at best" No, coaches always speak nice of the other team.