Big Man Handling The Rock

One of the Hawkeyes’ biggest problems this season is their amazing ability to turn over the ball.  The other teams know this and have found ways to exploit this weakness to their advantage especially when they happen to have a full court press in their playbook.  I remember reading about one of the players on the other team (Minnesota I think) saying that his coach said if they applied pressure against the Hawkeyes that they would cause turnovers.  Dirty cheaters.

Some teams resort to trickery when face with a full court press.  They hand the ball to a really fast guy who can dribble the ball really well and send the rest of the team down the court while that good dribbler zigs and zags through the defense.

Iowa may not have one of those really fast, good dribblers on the team this year but they do have Seth Gorney.  He is so tall they don’t even list his height for fear that it might be a violation of an NCAA rule.  He’s rumored to be 7 feet tall and 245 pounds.  He makes his coaches, teammates and opponents nervous when dribbling around the basket.  It just isn’t very pretty.

So, Iowa has Seth Gorney trail behind the guys trying to break the press and act as a release valve.  When they get trapped, they lob the ball back to him and he swings it to the other side of the court.  In the few minutes of games that I have seen this year, it hasn’t worked nearly as poorly as it should.  He seems to catch and pass the ball with reasonable confidence and the Hawkeyes seem to get the ball past half court relatively well.

The other advantage is that when there is yet another turnover, Iowa already has a 7 footer back to guard against the ensuing fast break.

For those of you able to watch the game (and not constantly falling victim to the Comcast - Big 10 pissing constest), are most of the turnovers happening while being full court pressed and just not having a way to break it, or while in the half court, or does the team just excel in turning the ball over in any situation this year?

A late rally is not the same thing as a competitive game

Justin Johnson provided tons of excitement last night hitting a bunch of 3 pointers in the last 2 minutes of the Iowa - Indiana game. That’s some major cajones and some big fun for the fans that stuck around.

But the reality is that if he doesn’t get abnormally hot at the end of the game then Indiana just continues to pull away and walks out of Iowa with a relatively easy double digit victory. I don’t think anybody in the Iowa program really believes that launching desperation 3s at the end of a game actually makes them a legitimately competitive team yet.

Johnson described his last 3 pointer which banked in from near half court like this:

I looked at the (basket) and threw up a prayer.

Still, furious rallies are fun to watch and I am thrilled that the team was able to keep their composure and stay as close as they were with 2 minutes to go. I just wouldn’t be predicting post season expectations based on a hot 2 minutes against a good team.

Hopefully, Jake Kelly can recover quickly. The most up to date information that I saw said that he would probably not play in the Wisconsin game on Saturday. Does anybody have any updates on how long it looks like the Hawkeyes will be down another player.

Basketball Troubles

The Hawkeyes are not a very good basketball team right now but nobody should really be worried because every coach deserves a couple years to turn the program around.

That said, there is a trend I am noticing that is just driving me crazy.  During the first half of the Drake - Iowa basketball game, Iowa has committed 11 fouls to just 4 four the Bulldogs.  Iowa has shot ZERO free throws compared to 10 for the Bulldogs.

Not getting to the free throw line is embarrassing.  Teams that play aggressive offense are bound to get to the stripe a few times a half.  It seems that Iowa must just be happy they managed to get the ball across half court and then don’t really have a plan to attack the basket afterward.  Hopefully that will come as they get more comfortable with the new system.

But for the Bulldogs, a full court aggressive defense type of team to have only 4 fouls and not allowed their opponent to shoot any free throws is insane.  I wish I could explain how Drake managed that but thanks to the Big Ten Network and Comcast I can only keep track of the game on Yahoo! Sports Game Channel.

The good news is that Iowa is only 1 point down if you don’t factor in the free throws.  Considering Drake is a pretty good squad, that’s not too embarrassing.  The bad news is that they do count those free throws so Iowa has their work cut out for them in the second half.

Go Hawks!

A couple things we learned about the basketball team

The Hawkeyes have been merrily rolling along accumulating wins that might help them get into the post season and help build some confidence but is there anything we can actually learn from playing against these opponents?

Last night, I think we learned a couple things.

First, if the team doesn’t pay attention, one guy on the other team can really put up some points.  Ed Tyson  scored 32 points including 7 of 10 from the 3 point line.  To put that in perspective, the Hawkeyes next opponent is Bradley.  Ed Tyson scored just 11 points against Bradley just two nights before lighting up the Hawkeyes.  In his other two games he has scored 20 each.  He clearly can score some points, but still 32?

The team defense is still pretty solid.  Other than the 32 points that he scored, MD Eastern Shore only scored 16 points.  Only one other player on their team scored more than 1 field goal.  That’s pretty decent defense.  I’m willing to let a guy get 30+ points a game if the final score is still going to be less than 50.

Freshman point guards are brutal.  Peterson has been playing pretty well so far this year.  I was watching the live box score on Yahoo! Sports for a few minutes to end the half and start the 2nd.  I saw Peterson’s name show up a few times in quick succession and started to get excited.  Then I realized that he had just committed 3 fouls in less than 2 minutes.  With his 1 foul in the first half, it was time for Peterson to spend some time sitting next to the coaches.

The Hawkeyes are still susceptible to the long scoring droughts.  I had hoped that getting rid of Alford would have taken care of our 5 minute plus scoring droughts but the Hawkeyes didn’t score a point for at least 6 minutes into this game.

I don’t think anybody is really expecting too much out of the Hawkeyes this season and we have to be prepared for a lot of unexpected moments of bad play as people learn the new system.  I’m sure Lickliter will be able to put together plenty of game tape of things the players need to practice after these first four games.

Still being 4-0 against weak teams is better than losing some of those games.

College Basketball Gets Rolling

I haven’t been able to see the Iowa basketball team on TV yet but I did follow most of the Northern Colorado game on the internet.

What do we know about the Hawkeyes after two games against not so good teams? Probably nothing besides the fact that they can beat bad teams. Which is a start.

So far though, the defense seems to be showing up ready to play. The highest scorer for the other team in either game was 11 points. That is pretty good solid all around covering everybody defense. We’ll see if it holds up against teams with some big name players.

The highest fouls earned by any Hawkeye in those two games is 3. Nobody has been in foul trouble yet this year which means the defense is coming from playing good position, team defense.

On offense they are shooting just under .500 as a team and have had a different 20 point or more scorer in each game. That’s good news. If the team isn’t going to score very many points, they need to be able to have a few different guys that can score on any given night otherwise teams will just shut down whoever emerges as the main scorer.

The schedule is pretty favorable for a couple more games which will hopefully give the team some confidence and understanding of what every body’s role is going to be before the road game at Bradley (who just beat ISU) and the home game against Wake Forest.

I’m really looking forward to getting into Big 10 season and getting a chance to watch the Hawkeyes. I was definitely among the group ready for a coaching change. I’m really looking forward to seeing the new style with my own eyes.

Home Sweet Home

The Hawkeyes are doing their best to introduce Lickliter to the Iowa faithful during the preconference basketball schedule.

The Hawkeyes play in a two game tournament at South Padre, so that would be neutral field. Other than that, they will not be leaving the state until the Big Ten gets started in January. Of those games in Iowa, only two are on the road (Northern Iowa and Iowa State).

The good news is that the Hawkeyes should have plenty of wins by the time they open the Big Ten at home against Indiana. The early wins should help build confidence and team unity.

The bad news is that the first out of state road games are at Wisconsin on January 5th followed by at Ohio State on January 9th. When they get to that stretch of games, they will probably wish they had scheduled a couple real road games to get used to the noise and get some experience playing on the road.

Hawkeyes as a 3 point shooting team

It sounds like Lickliter is going to turn the Hawkeyes into a 3 point shooting type of team. Butler had a history of making quite a few 3 pointers a game and it seems like he is focusing on getting some sharp shooters on the team as quickly as possible.

One of the things I hated about the Hawkeyes when Alford was coaching is how often they shot 3 pointers. But, I’m still pretty excited about Lickliter.

The thing I have hated about Iowa shooting 3 pointers over the recent years is they never really had enough shooters to do it well. Every year it seems like we have one guy who hits quite a few but is pretty inconsistent despite ending up with a relatively good overall percentage. Then everybody else seems to have really poor percentages from beyond the arc. That isn’t a very good formula. Plus, the big guys at Iowa just haven’t been that impressive recently

I remember way too many periods of guards just dribbling or passing the ball around the arc until the shot clock got low and chucking up a 3. When the offense moved and picked and executed under Alford it was great. But there were almost always 8-10 minute stretches were the ball wouldn’t go through the hoop.

Hopefully Lickliter will get enough real shooters that can consistently run the offense to get nice, clean, open 3 point shots. It seemed to work at Butler. Hopefully he’ll be able to get the same kind of players to come to Iowa.

Alford really is gone

I can’t believe Alford accepted the New Mexico coaching job.  I guessed complete wrong on that one.

I promised that I was going to try to be more positive about the Iowa program and this is going to make it a whole bunch easier.  Like most Hawkeye fans I was ready for a change.

Now Barta really needs to lock up a good coach in the next few weeks.  Tyler Smith has to be waiting to hear the plan so he can decide whether to stick around for another year.  I would imagine that he will.  He will come into next season as the star of the team.  I don’t really think he would end up getting drafted high enough to keep happy if he left this year.  The recruits looking at the program have to be waiting for a phone call, too.

So who will the new coach be?  Tubby Smith just went to Minnesota.  That is pretty huge for the Gophers and very surprising to me.  I don’t know much about the good young coaches that might be interested but I’m watching the Southern Illinois - Kansas game and would really love for the Southern coach to come to Iowa City.  He’s got those guys playing with a ton of confidence and aggressiveness.

I hear Tom Davis is free these days, too.

Alford rumor grows but still does not mean anything

Do you ever hear something that is a rumor and know it isn’t true but kind of wish it were?

I have already said that I do not think Alford is leaving Iowa to go to New Mexico State.  But the rumor is still around.

Apparently the rumor has grown.  Since Alford is allegedly thinking about going to New Mexico State, Iowa would need somebody to replace him, right?   The theory is that Lon Kruger, the UNLV coach, could be a potential candidate.

It isn’t going to happen.  Alford isn’t going anywhere.

But, what would Kruger bring to the table.  His team had 30 wins this year.  Alford had 17.  UNLV was 4-2 against top 25 teams so it wasn’t entirely just easy opponents that led to the 30 wins.  UNLV beat Wisconsin this year and is in the Sweet 16.  Iowa didn’t and isn’t.

Kruger also has experience coaching in the Big 10…at Illinois.  He led Illinois to the second round of the NCAA tournament three times in his 4 years there.  Alford has not reached the second round once yet at Iowa.  Kruger also led Florida to the Final Four back in 1994.  He also took Kansas State to four straight NCAA appearances and on one of those years made it to the Elite Eight.

Now, as I said, none of this is going to happen and I really don’t want to pick on Alford, but sometimes you hear the rumors and start to kind of wish it would happen.

I don’t know anything about the kind of person Kruger is.  I was in the military for most of the time he was at Illinois and wasn’t watching any basketball during that time.  Does he have a reputation for being a scum bag?  If not, I may have to cross my fingers a little bit.

Alford and New Mexico rumors

I keep hearing rumors of Alford being in the mix for the New Mexico coaching job.

First off, if Alford wants to go, I’m sure Iowa will be able to find somebody equally, or even more so, qualified for the job.  Secondly, all of the rumors say that Alford is toward the top of New Mexico’s wish list.

Let me put it this way.  Winning the lottery and retiring by the end of the year is right at the top of my wish list.  I haven’t heard whether the lottery is interested in me or not.  Nobody has heard anything to indicate that Alford is interested in New Mexico.
There has been a lot a speculation for such a weak lead.  I can’t imagine Alford leaving Iowa for New Mexico without a foot kicking him out the door.  Gary Barta has already said that Alford will be around for at least one more year.  Alford is not going to walk away from the talent that looks it looks like will be on the court next year.

The New Mexico job is going to go to somebody other than Alford.

You heard it here first.