Iowa - Michigan State recap

I only was able to watch the end of both halfs of the Iowa - Michigan State basketball game (about 5-6 minutes of game time for each half). That was a nice win. Any time that Henderson and Haluska go a combined 4-20 from the field and Iowa still wins against a decent team, you know it was a good team game.

I was stunned to see how confident Smith and Tate played in their first Big 10 game. Very impressive. Everybody else seems to be playing very confidently, too.

At one point the rebound margin was 11 to 22 in favor of MSU, but Iowa managed to close the rebound gap to 26-30. I’ll say it until the season is over but this Iowa team really needs to improve its rebounding. They played such great defense last night but ended up giving up 12 offensive rebounds. When you play that good of defense, you really need to get a hold of the ball off the board so you can rest up a little on offense. Playing strong defense is exhausting.

I also enjoyed watching Haluska and Neitzel nailing the free throws down the stretch. With so much bad free throw shooting in basketball these days, it is amazing to watch the top two free throw shooters in the nation go at it with the pressure of the game on their shoulders and just drill free throw after free throw. Nobody in the game missed more than 1 free throw all night.

Another stat that pleased me is the turnover to steal ratio for the Hawkeyes. 7 turnovers and 8 steals. That is going to put you in position to win a lot of games and is especially important against teams that can put pressure on the ball like MSU normally does.

Congratulations to Alford for the 300th win. Keep up the strong defense and keep the athletic recruits coming in and you might just win me over. This team looks significantly better physically than a lot of the Iowa teams over the last few years.

Is it just me, or does Smith look an awful lot like Worley’s little brother?

Tags: Iowa Hawkeyes, Michigan State Spartans, college basketball, Big 10