Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - #24 Maryland comes to Carver | Iowa's defensive struggles are a cause for concern | TJ Hockenson continues to climb draft boards

Episode Date: February 19, 2019

The #24 ranked Maryland Terrapins are coming to Carver tonight to take on our #21 ranked Iowa Hawkeyes. How do each team's dynamic duo of big men match up with each other, and what are some issues that could derail Maryland as they travel on the road? On segment #2 we shift our focus to Iowa's defense and how unique it is that the Hawks are having as much as success they are having in spite of their defense. We wrap up the show by covering the football team and Iowa's recent signing of Zach VanValkenburg in addition to former tight end TJ Hockenson's continual rise up NFL draft boards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast featuring your Iowa Hawkeyes. I'm your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at DearOldGold.com, where you can find analysis pieces on all things black and yellow. I have an awesome episode coming at you this Tuesday morning. I am in a different location. I'm currently in a hotel, so if the sound is a little bit off, that's kind of why it's a little windy here in New Orleans. So you might be hearing that coming in the background but regardless we're going to power through and give you a fantastic episode today on segment number one we're going to cover tonight's game Iowa versus Maryland talking about what to expect in that matchup huge game between number 21 Iowa and number 24 Maryland that has big 10 implications so make sure you're tuning in for that coming up

in just a few moments on segment number two we're going to be talking about Iowa's poorest defense and how big of an anomaly that defense is and that team is with how bad their defense is in terms of the top 25 and whatnot. So stay tuned for that on segment number two. And then finally on segment number three, we're going to be dedicating that segment to football, talking about an incoming grad transfer that is going to improve the defensive line of the Iowa Hawkeyes. And we're going to be dedicating that segment to football, talking about an incoming grad transfer that is going to improve the defensive line of the Iowa Hawkeyes. And we're going to be talking about TJ Hawkinson and how he's rising up in the draft world. Before we jump in though,

make sure you are subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at and make sure that you know that if you have a smart speaker at home, it's really easy to listen to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. All you need to do is tell Siri, Google, or Alexa to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. It's that easy to listen to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast any single day, anytime you want to. So let's jump right into it on segment number one, Iowa versus Maryland tonight.

And like I said, that has huge implications for the Big Ten. Coming into this game, Maryland is 19-7. They also are 10-4 in the conference. So if you're keeping track at home, the Hawks have 21s, they are 20-5, and they are 9-5 in the conference. Meaning right now, Maryland is one spot ahead of Iowa. When you look at the Big Ten standings, Maryland is in fourth, Iowa is in fifth, and it's really important that fourth spot allows a team to have a double bye in the Big Ten Conference. So if Iowa can win this game, it will give them an opportunity to really take over that fourth spot and control their own destiny throughout the rest of the season and potentially give them that double buy, meaning they have a little bit of an easier slate to the Big Ten Conference Championship game, another big indicator of how solid this team is.

And winning that conference championship game could propel them even higher in seeds, which will give them an opportunity to maybe go to Des Moines, something we talked about before. But right now, it's not looking very likely that Iowa is going to be playing in front of a home court crowd in Des Moines simply just due to logistics and where a lot of the top-ranked teams currently are situated in the nation. But winning the Big Ten Conference Tournament, finishing strong this season, could give them an opportunity, at least put them in the running for being in Des Moines, depending on what seed they get. So obviously any win is a big win. All wins matter at this point, but that could be even bigger for them.

Maryland entered this game, though. They are a pretty well-rounded team offensively and defensively. Currently, according to Ken Palm, they're in the top 20s offensively and defensively. But their defense is really kind of what stands out to me. Very strong team overall. And really, they're led by a couple, you know, a couple guys, a pre-old players, Anthony Cowan Jr. He is their point guard. He's leading the team and scoring with 15.8 points per game. And he's dishing out 4.5 assists per game.

Bruno Fernando, he is doing some of that dirty work on the glass. He's bringing in 10.6 boards per game and he's scoring 14.5 points per game and he's shooting it at 66%, which is a league leading percentage for the Big Ten. I believe the boards are second in the Big Ten. So he's doing some work there down low. And then to kind of round out their top trio of players is five-star power forward Jalen Smith. And he's currently averaging 11.8 points per game and 6.8 rebounds per game. That being said, though, so those two guys,

Fernando and Smith, are really going to be the two key players to watch out for, mostly because they're going to be matching up with Tyler Cook and Lufi Garza, and Garza's really struggled as of late to stay off of the bench. He's been getting in a lot of foul trouble, and he understands that's important. Fran McCaffrey has talked about Garza knows he needs to be smarter on the defense side of the floor and not making super fouls and being in the right position to make

sure the fouls are not called on him. And that'll be really huge. You know, obviously we talked about their defense is pretty strong for Maryland. Cook and Garza are going to be kind of the main components here. And that's going to be the big matchup. How does Garza handle Fernando? And how does Cook handle Jalen Smith you know very similar type of players in terms of of size and athleticism I mean as far as Cowan goes you know though he you know he might be scoring

15.8 points 15.8 points per game but he's only shooting 39 percent from the field so Jordan Mohan isn't exactly a strong defender but but some combination of him, Isaiah Moss, and Joe Weiskamp should be able to handle him pretty easily. I mean, let him chuck up 14 shots a game or whatever it is and miss most of them. I'm totally fine with that. You let him try to burn you and you stop the duo of Fernando and Smith. Like I said, though, defensively, the Terrapins are a strong team. They're allowing just 64.6 points per game. That's 29th in the nation.

According to Ken Palm, their defensive adjusted efficiency margin is 21st overall. But, I mean, let's be honest here. Iowa's been able to score on pretty much any defense, so that doesn't concern me as much. What would be concerning is if Maryland has some of the other attributes that have typically made the Hawks struggle. I mean, look at Rutgers. They're pretty solid at forcing turnovers. me as much. What would be concerning is if Maryland has some of the other attributes that have typically made the Hawks struggle. I mean, look at Rutgers. They're pretty solid at forcing turnovers. They have a lot of size, some experience there. Maryland is not like that, though.

Their top six players are comprised of a junior, two sophomores, and three freshmen. They're one of the least experienced teams in the most, sorry in the going on the road to Carver is never easy especially for a team like that and then we're over you know they their defense I will say this there it seems like they kind of switch it up a lot similar to Frank McCaffrey moving from zone to man and man to zone but they don't force hardly any turnover so if Iowa can improve on some of those mental mistakes they made in the Rutgers game and not make some of the sloppy passes, some of those lazy passes, it should be a pretty easy game for them to at least move the ball around and get themselves into a good scoring position. And then finally, you know, Rutgers, one thing I will say is, you know, out of all the teams

Iowa's faced, foul trouble has always been something that has been brought to the forefront. And that's because Iowa was able to get teams into foul trouble. They put a lot of pressure by attacking the basket. But a lot of those teams' coaches don't really do anything with those fouls. So unless you get those players fouled out, it ultimately doesn't matter. Well, you look at how Iowa plays. Once Garza gets two fouls in the first five minutes, he's sitting on the bench until the second half. And that's how Maryland is. Mark Turgeon, that's kind of how he plays his players. He wants to, if they get a couple fouls, he's sitting them on the bench. They're very similar to Iowa in that sense that they're not as likely to play players with two fouls. So that'll be even a bigger thing to watch

for as the Hawks take on Maryland tonight. And you can find that game on the Big Ten Network. It tips off at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time. H to ESPN, the Hawks have a 62% chance of winning, while Kempom gives Iowa a 55% chance. Again, this game is huge. It gives Iowa another marquee win, a Quadrant 1 win. It also is huge for Big Ten Conference implications. This will give Iowa control of their own destiny to at least get that double buy in the Big Ten Conference Tournament. So make sure you're tuning into that game tonight at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time,

and we'll give you a full breakdown on tomorrow morning's Wednesday show. That'll do it for segment number one. On segment number two, just a reminder, we're going to be talking about Iowa's defense and how that really is kind of an aberration in terms of their season so far this season. So make sure you're tuning in to segment number two after a few messages from our sponsors. All right, we are back with segment number two. Just a reminder that on segment number three, we're going to be talking about Iowa football,

talking about a grad transfer who's going to be improving that defensive line, and also talking about T.J. Hawkinson and kind of what he brings to the table in terms of the NFL draft and how far he is rising up draft boards as of right now. And you probably heard the air conditioning step on. Again, apologies. I'm in a hotel room. There's not a lot I can do about some of that background noise. So, again, apologies on that.

It's tough to record while on the road, but we will get through it and power through it today. So like I want to talk to you about, Iowa's defense is really an interesting aberration for their season. You know, Iowa just secured their 20th win of the season, their 21st in the nation in terms of the AP poll. And this is coming off a season where they went 14-19. Their defense was atrocious last year.

One of the worst in the nation. They were ranked in the 300s in terms of points allowed and their offense was pretty solid last year but their defense really held them back. And so coming into this year, we knew that their defense had to improve for Iowa to be successful. What's weird is that their defense has improved, right?

So last year, they were 317th in the nation in points allowed per game. They're now 223rd, and they're allowing 5.6 fewer points per game. So solid. There's improvement there, but still not good. According to Ken Palm, you know, last year, their Iowa basketball squad was not very solid. This year, they are 120th in the nation in terms of defensive adjusted efficiency so again improvement but not great but how does that match up with the top 25 as we take a look

at some of those numbers you're going to start to see that Iowa it doesn't make sense why the Hawks are there the teams that are in the top 25 typically are strong offensively and defensively, or at least not as bad defensively as the Hawks are. So looking at some of that information, when you look at the top 25, for example, only two teams above Iowa in the top 25 are allowing more points per game, and that is UNC at 73.3 and LSU at 73.5. Outside of those teams, only two other teams in the top 18, or the top 20, sorry, but the other 18 teams outside of UNC and LSU rank outside of the top 100.

So there are two teams that are worse than Iowa, two teams that are in the top, or sorry, outside of the top 100, and the rest of the team, so 16 teams, are within the top 100 in terms of points allowed per game meanwhile Iowa is sitting at you know 223rd in the nation so you can see just from points a game points per game that's kind of a big deal where Iowa is not exactly a strong team in that sense looking at Ken Palm though paints an even even worse picture. Iowa currently is 120. Here's the thing. First of all, points per game is not everything,

but also advanced analytics isn't either. But putting those two together can kind of give you a better picture. According to Ken Palm, Iowa basketball team is 120th in the nation in terms of defensive and just efficiency margin. Only five teams in the top 25 rank outside the top 34 teams. That's Purdue, Villanova, LSU, Tennessee, and Marquette. Villanova is the worst of the bunch. They rank 75th. That's still 45 spots higher than Iowa's ranking. So you can begin to see kind of that picture that we're painting here that Iowa's defense has improved significantly. Don't get me wrong. I

mean, Frank McCaffrey is instilled in his team a better approach to defense. They are playing tougher defense. And their defense is kind of coming alive. It's a tough scheme mixing up zone, man, man, zone, that kind of thing. And as we saw last year, they struggled with that. So this year they've done a lot better. Don't get me wrong. This isn't a hate on Iowa's defense day.

But what I find interesting is how bad their defense is compared to all the teams that are in the top 25. And as the Hawks get into March Madness, they're really going to need that defense to be locked down. We've seen them do that at times. Their defensive attack can be very strong. But there's always, always something that goes wrong in a game where they just lack some sort of defensive focus. I mean, look at Illinois, for example. For most of that game, Iowa was kicking their butts all over the table, all over the court. And still, for about five minutes of that game, Iowa's defense kind of let down and Illinois went on a scoring barrage.

And that required Fran McCaffrey to call a timeout. He shouldn't have to call a timeout to berate his team about their lack of defensive energy. You know, as a veteran team like Iowa has, they should just bring it every single time. So it'll be interesting to see if they can do that consistently in March during the Big Ten Conference Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, which is neither here nor there. But you know, their offense obviously can carry them a long ways, but their defense can come alive. offense obviously can carry them a long ways, but their defense can come alive. This team could be dangerous in March. And I really truly think that as teams are looking at some of their potential opponents in March, one of the ones they have to be scared about is Iowa. If their defense is solid and their offense is led by five different guys who can score at will anytime, that's a scary

team to face. And especially a team like Iowa that has three guys shooting over 40% three-pointers, that's not a team you want to mess around with in March. So it'll be interesting to see, again, just pointing out kind of the aberration that Iowa is in terms of the top 25. But we'll obviously keep more track of that or keep track of that more as we get further into the season. We have a couple games left. Want to see how their defensive energy is over the last couple games of this season

and see if they can bring it consistently night in and night out as we close out the Big Ten conference schedule. That'll do it for segment number two. Just a reminder that on segment number three, we're going to be talking about football, talking about TJ Hawkinson and the new graduate transfer that is coming in to bolster that defensive line. So stay tuned for that on segment number three. We are back with segment number three. And as I've been teasing, we're here to talk about a little bit of football. So the first thing I want to talk about is TJ Hawkinson.

As we've talked about, if you haven't listened to some of our podcasts a couple weeks ago with Nick Kendall from 24-7 Sports, we talked a lot about the NFL draft and what Iowa Hawkeyes will be available in the NFL draft and kind of what their draft stock is. One of the things we've talked about was TJ Hawkinson. And up until this point, a lot of people have him projected at the end of the first round or the beginning of the second. I mean, he's not as athletic as Noah Fant. That's a given. But he's a better blocker. So where can he kind of fall in the NFL draft? We also talked about last week just some of the mock drafts that have him.

One for Matt Miller, the lead draft analyst from Bleacher Report, has him going 32nd overall in the NFL draft. Another one from NFL Mocs, Sarah Bettinger, has him going in the middle of the first round. So where can we ultimately see him fall has been a really big question. It kind of depends on how he tests at the combine. I mean, if he comes out and has a blazing 40, which I don't think is going to happen, but if he runs a 4-5-40, I mean, his draft stock's going to continue to climb. That being said, though, what I found very interesting was another NFL draft analyst, a guy who covers the lockdown NFL draft here on the Lockdown Sports Network, John Ledyard, put out his top five from his big board. He's working on his kind of his big board from now, recompiling it. He does this about every

couple of weeks or so. And the last one he put out had TJ Hawkinson at 35th overall. He just teased, though, his top five of his big board. And number four on that list was TJ Hawkinson. And I've heard a lot about from Ledger about how much he likes watching TJ Hawkinson play. You know, his blocking is fantastic. Obviously, he's a little bit less athletic than Noah Fant. But if you listen to Lockdown NFL Draft, you know that John Ledger loves TJ Hawkinson as a tight end prospect. He's written a couple articles about him as a tight end prospect and him comparing himself

or comparing, uh, Hawkinson to some of the other previous tight end prospects, um, in the previous classes that have been kind of the, the elite prospects. So make sure you're checking out those articles on the draft network.com and John Ledger. Like I said, big, big fan of his work. Check out the lockdown NFL draft podcast with him and Trevor Sikama. You'll, we will not miss it. Especially if you love hearing about how awesome some of the Iowa Hawkeyes

are going to be. They're still coming around on Monty hooker and Anthony Nelson, but hopefully the NFL combine can improve that. Obviously they love Noah fan, but we've been hyping Noah fan for almost two years now. So it's, it's kind of one of those things where it's died off a little bit, similar to Ed Oliver. But make sure you're tuning in to the Locked On NFL Draft.

You'll get more information about some of your Iowa Hawkeyes. And I'll obviously be able to relay some of that information that I find on some of those sources to you all on this podcast, just to keep you in the know as we prepare for the NFL Draft. as we prepare for the NFL draft. The other piece of news for football, though, is that the Hawks have landed a huge graduate transfer in Zach Van Valkenburg. And I may have butchered that. That's totally fine.

It's a long name. But as we talked about last week, Iowa has to be open to the graduate transfer portal or the graduate transfer market just because they lost a lot of guys on the defensive line. I mean, all four setters are gone. They're potentially losing Davey on Nixon. And Tyler Linderbaum was shifting over to the offensive line. So that's six guys from a position that was considered a huge strength this past season.

Now we're walking into the 2019 season, and it's considered a weakness or just a general low-depth area. And obviously with Iowa and how they build up players, you don't typically expect freshmen to come in, especially on the defensive line, and make a contribution right away. So it was really a position of need to look for on the graduate transfer market. And unlike the guys, they didn't really pick the guys that I really kind of expected. There's a couple guys from, there's one guy from Rice,

one guy from Indiana that I thought they may be interested in. They picked the kind of a more unheralded guy, Zach Van Valkenburg from Hillsdale College. That is a D2 school out of Michigan. Started to get some scholarship offers from some D1 schools after he, you know, had a fantastic redshirt sophomore season this past year. Obviously, he decided to choose Iowa, which is awesome. He comes in at 6'4", 266 pounds. Last year in Division II, he notched 70 tackles, 8.5 sacks, and 14.5 tackles for a loss. And it's not that this guy was not talented coming out of high school. He's just a little bit undersized, a little bit small. He had some interest from Air Force and Holy Cross. It sounded like he didn't really want to travel to Holy Cross.

Pretty long distance for him from home. And then Air Force, he just didn't want to be in the Air Force. So that he chose that, the path of going D2. And after three outstanding seasons, he's now ready to make that jump to D1 football. So where he's going to play at though is probably backing up A.J. Epinesa on that second string defensive end position. You know, Phil Parker likes to rotate his guys. This is still a good spot for him. He may not be starting right away. He may be in line for a starting position if A.J. Epineza leaves after this year. Either way, though, Phil

Parker likes to rotate defensive lines in and out, so there's a good chance that in his first year in Iowa, he's going to be playing 15 to 20 snaps a game. And what I really love about this move is that not only is he a strong player, but he has two years. He's immediately eligible and he has two years left of time to play, which is absolutely fantastic. So excited to see that from the new graduate transfer, Zach Van Valkenburg. Welcome to the Iowa Hawkeyes and Iowa Hawkeye Nation. Excited to have you here and excited to see you play on opening day, first Miami of Ohio. That'll do it for segment number three.

That'll kind of wrap up our show for this Tuesday morning. Make sure you're tuning in to the Iowa-Maryland game tonight on the Big Ten Network. It's going to be quite a fun game to watch. Hopefully it doesn't come down to the wire again. I don't know if I can personally handle that. The emotions and the heart palpitations just don't really work for me

when Iowa is clinging to a one-point leader or requiring a last-second three-point buzzer-beating shot to win the game. So hopefully that doesn't happen. Hopefully Iowa can just take care of business and win easily at home in Carver-Hawkeye Arena against a strong Maryland opponent.

Make sure, though, before we close out the show, make sure you are subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts at. And make sure you're following us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. We try to give you a show every single day. The last cadence has kind of been Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. If

games show up on Tuesday, like tonight, we try to get you an episode on Wednesday. That being said, if you follow us on Locked on Iowa, you're going to be able to know exactly when we have the most recent episodes coming out. You can follow us there. And if you're subscribing to our podcast, anytime we have a new episode,

it's going to be downloaded automatically to your cell phone or smart device. And then finally, if you love listening to my voice, you love my opinions, you love what I say, and I sure hope you do if you're listening to the podcast right now, you can find me on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew. I like to keep it pretty interesting there, give my opinions and talk about Hawkeyes, Broncos, and romantic comedy. So check that out on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew. And finally, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to reach out to us on LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com.

That is our email address. We love to hear from you, the fans. So let me know what your thoughts are. But that'll do it for our Tuesday morning episode. Thank you for joining us on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast here on the Locked On Sports Network. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow.