Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Alarm? Iowa Hawkeyes Falter BADLY—Bennett Stirtz Scoreless 1st Half, Minnesota UPSET Shakes Hawks

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Iowa Hawkeyes suffer a costly setback as Minnesota secures a 72-67 win, raising tough questions about Iowa’s tournament resume and team chemistry. Trent Condon breaks down Iowa’s sluggish start, Bennett Stirtz’s missed opportunities, and why a lack of quality road wins could haunt the Hawkeyes in March. Does the team’s negative in-game mindset threaten to derail their season?On the football front, Iowa lands James Madison offensive lineman Trent Wilson from the transfer portal, boosting depth with a promising multi-year contributor. Discussion turns to the Hawkeyes’ remaining needs—especially at wide receiver, defensive line, and running back—with names like LJ Phillips and Eli Conan to watch. Plus, hear why Illinois’ visit to Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday is a must-win for Iowa’s NCAA hopes and how Trent Condon sees the upcoming schedule shaping the Hawkeyes’ destiny.Follow Trent Condon on X: https://twitter.com/trentcondonLISTEN TO THE PODCAST: APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-hawkeyes-daily-podcast-on-iowa-hawkeyes-football/id1441592240SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/0GTyz5ygevcGXdTF6QSoEoYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LockedOnHawkeyesEverydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Rocket MoneyLet Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at http://RocketMoney.com/LOCKEDONGametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.RugietIf you’ve been thinking about taking the next step, now’s the time.Head to https://Rugiet.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE to get 15% off your order for a limited time.Rugiet Ready. Feel present. Feel confident. Feel ready. FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Portal Kirk hits again as Iowa football lands another commitment out of the transfer portal and Iowa hoops, a brutal loss against Minnesota that could linger come March. You are Locked on Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Hey, welcome in. I'm Trent Condon. And this is the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Lockheyes, your first listen every day.

We are your daily show on the Iowa Hawkeyes coming to you five days a week and here on the Lockdown Network. Your team every day, now number one for sports podcast. I've been covering the Hawkeyes for over 20 years on the radio, including currently on the Iowa Sports Radio Network. You can hear me each weekday from noon to two talking a lot of Hawkeyes in the world of sports with you and stations in Des Moines, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City, and the Quad Cities. Today's episode of Lockdown Hawkeyes is brought to you by Roo Giet. If you've been thinking about taking the next step, now's the time. Head to rootgiat.com slash lockdown college to get 15% off your order for a limited time. Rugi it ready, feel present, feel confident, feel ready.

Today, we are going to take a look at the transfer portal for football as Iowa has landed another commitment. We will get into an offensive line. And what is next? The other need positions left for. Iowa football, wide receiver, defensive line. We talked about a lot, but maybe a spot we haven't talked about. Running back is a little bit higher on the priority list. We'll talk about that and a potential name involved with the Hawkeyes. We'll talk about that commitment along the offensive line as Iowa gets a commitment

from the offensive alignment out of James Madison, Trent Wilson. And what a name. We'll get into that a little bit later on. But we begin today with what we saw last night in a disappointing effort up in the barn in Minnesota. as Iowa falls to the gophers, 7267, a first half where your top four leading scores on the team this season are held scoreless. You don't get a field goal out of that group.

25 made field goals in the game, just 12 assists. And it was one of those games that leaves you scratch in your head. Now, I'm not here to hit the panic button, certainly on this team at this point in time. It is a road loss against a Minnesota team, I think, better than anybody anticipated coming into the season. And Nico Medved, the new coach up there, saw him for a season at Drake. He has done a really good job at all of his stops and he's doing it once again here at Minnesota. He's going to have them compete. They're going to grind. They're going to be at minimum a solid team. And in the end, this very well could still be a quad one loss for Iowa. But we're not here to talk about

what it could be from the Minnesota perspective. We're here to talk about it from the Iowa perspective. And for Iowa, as you look through the schedule and again, potentially this being a quad one loss for Iowa, well, you can flip it the other way, and it could have been a quad one victory. And when you go through the Iowa schedule of what they have coming up here in the next week and a half, the home game on Sunday against Illinois that I think gains even more importance after what happened against Minnesota and the loss that they took to the gophers, you need to get that one because then it's a road trip to Indiana. Iowa goes to both Purdue and Indiana the following week and with it, an opportunity where suddenly this team goes from ranked 19th in the

country. Metrics have them a top 15 team to suddenly you're looking around and kind of wondering what's happening with this team or going back to the conversation. What's it going to take to be an NCAA tournament team instead of some of the heights we were talking about earlier. When we went through and talked about this squad and what they had accomplished to this point in the year, the metrics really like them. The net ranking, I believe was 13 going into the game yesterday against Minnesota. So very good metrics obviously on the front that the NCAA committee uses as one of their parameters for selecting tournament teams. But what do you dig into this resume a little bit deeper? You have the win against UCLA. That's a top 45 victory right

now. 45th in the net 40 UCLA. You have a neutral court win against old miss. All right. There's an SEC team. The problem, they're 99th in the net right now. The win in that championship game against Grand Canyon, they're 115th. These are not quality resume building wins. And on top of just having nice victories, and I think Iowa will get certainly a handful of them at home throughout the course of this season, but you also have to have the ability to show

if you're going to be up there, be a top six seat in the NCAA tournament, you have to show that you can beat quality opponents on the road. And some of the games are incredibly difficult, but you go through the rest of the schedule, there aren't a ton of those opportunities that look winnable on that front that are going to be good. Yes, Iowa could go to state college late in the season and they can beat Penn State. That's not going to be a quality road victory for them.

They can go on the road and find a way to win out in the Pacific Northwest when they go out to Oregon and Washington. But neither of those right now would look like a quality victory. A road win against Maryland. That's another one on the schedule on the road. really Wisconsin, and that's pretty middling right now, this was an opportunity to have at minimum a road victory and perhaps a very solid road victory by the end of the season. Alas, it didn't happen.

How we got here, Bennett Sturt struggled in this one, no illness is going around the team. Joey Matnone didn't even make the trip with the squad, and he was not alone dealing with the illness. You saw a team that looked just that, lethargic. And maybe the biggest indictment of this game, is not what we saw offensively, though, 12 assists on 25 made field goals. That's not the way we've certainly been used to seeing Ben McCullum's team play

here at Iowa here in the first half season of basketball. But it was on the defensive event. This is not a very good offensive Minnesota team. And their ability to get open shots, ability to get to the rim at different times, it was just overall one of those that was frankly ugly. Iowa are the easiest shot in the game, the layup, right? They struggle to that component too. It was a different type of game and certainly a frustrating one from an Iowa perspective.

When you go through, they're 10 to 20 in layup attempts. They finish under one point per possession, 0.95 points per possession in this one. They battled back, give them credit, and we've seen that happen now, a myriad of different times from this Iowa team. They're not going to quit. And then the final possession. Three great looks at the rim, all from three to tie the game, and he can't knock him down. first one from Sturts rattles out

Hassan got a great look on the right wing rattled out and then at the horn to tie the game another opportunity how about Manuel getting those keeping those plays alive a lot of credit to him and Bennett Sturts you're all-American

can't knock down an open three leaves it short off the front rim game over and Minnesota celebrates something was off it could be the illness But that was not the Iowa basketball team. Look, it's one thing to go in and have a team to shoot lights out and beat you that way. I know some people will point to the whistles.

It's life on the road and conference play. I can't go there. Did I would get the easiest whistle? Probably not. Basketball. Not going to complain about that. There will be opportunities to complain about the officials. I'm not going to use this opportunity to do just that.

They weren't good enough. And when you're outplayed for what? 34 minutes in a football game, you kind of get what's coming to you. And that was certainly the case here. Had that run, middle of the first half, got back, got the lead, played well for a while. But again, a terrible start to the second half. They're just ugly all around.

There were some bright spots. Maybe the brightest spot was Kail Combs, who still at times leaves me a little frustrated, some of the turnovers that he has, but probably his best game in a Hawkeye uniform, starts in the second half, got going a little bit. And we definitely saw that. But Banks had a corner three. That was it out of him. No points for Manwa.

Cooper Couch played well. Boy, I really like Cooper's game the way that that continues to evolve. We saw Isaiah Howard once again doing Isaiah Howard things, hustle, play defense, scrappy, tough, rugged. Got to knock down some shots, though, from the outside. And then Brendan Hassan gets a little bit of more run here. I want to see it. And certainly in games where Fulgaris didn't have it. We saw that right away.

Tate's age was good again, but Brendan Housson, when he's out there, he certainly doesn't look out of place. I know, he's not a good defender. I get it. He is not a good defender, and that's okay because he can do other things for you offensively. And there were times he got a hand on the ball

at a couple other plays defensively where he wasn't brutal. Look, he's going to be hunting. When he is on the floor, the other team is going to hunt him on the defensive end of the floor. But you negate that with what you can do offensively, his shooting, what he can do, need to get more, minutes, I believe, for Brennan Hossin. Bounce back. Get the win against Illinois. We'll talk about that a little bit more later in the

week. Let's talk transfer portal. Let's get into football as we continue here. Locked on Hawkeyes, Iowa with another commitment, this one on the offensive line. And what are the biggest positions of need for Iowa football as they have five commitments now? We'll talk about that as we continue, Locked on Hawkeyes. The Wild Card Round is here, and Fandual is officially in playoff mode. Every game day during the NFL playoffs, Fandul is giving customers even more ways to get in on the action. Right now, every NFL playoff game day, Fandual users get a profit boost pack waiting for them inside the app.

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and grab your profit boost pack every NFL game day coming up. That's Vandall.com. Welcome back to Lockdown Hawkeyes. I'm Trent Connan. Thanks for being with us and making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day, your daily Iowa Hawkeye podcast. And a big thank you to our everydayers out there

with us each and every day. As we continue, time to talk some football and in the transfer portal for the Hawkeyes, the latest in commitment on the offensive line from a name that not just helps for now, maybe helps in the future. Trent Wilson has made his commitment to Iowa out of James Madison. Now, a lot of people believed when he entered the transfer portal that he was going to be following his coach out to UCLA,

and that was going to ultimately be the destination for him. Not the case. Now, you look at it. He has three years of eligibility remaining. He's going to help certainly on the depth. And this is something we've talked about on the past here on the program about these offensive line guys. Rusty Feth came in. He was able to help. help out as a dept piece. But we've seen a couple other guys that have come into the offensive line, the latest price George this season. And those one-year rentals haven't been the most fruitful for Iowa and certainly along

the offensive line. Iowa has certain expectations. Iowa has a belief of guys on what they need to do and understanding the system and everything that goes along with it where it's not just as simple as showing up, being more talented and you're ready to go. There's more that goes into it certainly being an Iowa football player. I think you're seeing that play out, certainly in this fashion and what's happening on that front with the offensive lines. So you get a guy that has three years of eligibility, played a lot as a freshman at James Madison,

obviously a team that was in the college football playoffs. So that's at least something at minimum, the opportunity to get Wilson out there and definitely help out. He played 382 snaps this past season, both guard positions for the Dukes. He's going to be in there vying for playing time inside. Kate Peeper returns as a starter. We saw a ton of Leighton Jones this year. Michael Mislinski, who played a lot, had a lot of injuries early in his career. Maybe he's solidified himself.

We'll see what they're going to do at the center spot between Piper and Ms. Linsky, who's going to get the starting knot in there? You got young guys, Lucas Allgaier, definitely a one to keep an eye on. And though he might be a future tackle, I think here early in his career, and this will be his red sharp freshman season coming up. He has a potential to be fighting for some playing time inside. But a good depth piece here, a guy with a lot of eligibility in front of him. He's also got a younger brother, though I believe committed to Oklahoma if memory serves, regardless.

Big prospect coming forward. Possibility, maybe you can flip them. And this day and age, you never know. So that is the latest on the portal front for Iowa football and what they have, definitely there. What to jump into this. And some of the other names that are out there in the portal that they continue to look at. Depth on the defensive line, we talked about that along with wide receiver. Definitely a couple of big ones.

I'll find it interesting. They got their first target that comes from the power conference structure, and that is from Illinois, as they are looking at Eli Conan, who potentially is going to be coming in later this week for a visit. It's been a bunch of FCS guys and some mid-major guys that at this point, Iowa has been targeting. This is the first name that has emerged out there that comes from the power conference structure. Definitely one to keep an eye on, certainly something that would make sense.

from an Iowa perspective. Also looking at another edge rusher with Lance Ingold from Northern Illinois. That's another name to keep a look at. What to go this direction too? Safety with what we talked about yesterday, Koen-enteringer making his decision to enter the portal. Iowa needs more safeties. And though they already got a commitment from the Villanova transfer in Hawkins,

they're still looking for more at that spot. A couple names to know, Chris Bracey from Memphis. Remember his brother, Reggie Bracey. who is at Iowa, finished up his career at Troy. He is potentially going to make a visit to Iowa out of Memphis and another one from James Madison, maybe a connection there with Trent Wilson. At minimum, there are teammates right in Tyler Brown. Same thing that we probably talked about when we first brought up Wilson.

Likelihood is that Tyler Brown, the safety out of James Madison, going to follow the coaching staff out to UCLA. However, they got Wilson. Let's see if they could get one more. And finally, one more on the portal. And that is the runnyback spot. Though Iowa lost Jazzy on Patterson, T.J. Washington, both those guys departing from the Iowa football program. They come back this season and he feels pretty good with what they have.

Kamari Bolton, you're hoping for a healthy senior season for him and his final go-around next year. Definitely showed plenty this year. I want to see that extra gear out of him and think there can be more going forward out of him. Xavier Williams saw those spurts and that big body guy. They've got to catch the ball in the goal line against Vanderbilt, but that aside, good solid running back. What we saw to Nathan McNeil, the freshman, and still what they have coming with Dean,

who moved over from defense. He helped out a running back on scout team. A lot of good reports coming in from him, a true freshman, Brevin Dahl, who's still fighting to stay healthy out there, but we know about the speed that Dahl certainly has in that aspect. They got some dudes out there. Braden Jackson, son, watched him play up at Ankeny Centennial,

called a couple of his games when he was in high school and was just shocked that he was going to Iowa as a walk-on. This is a guy that I think had a lot of scholarship opportunities or at least should have had scholarship opportunities that were out there. That is Iowa's gain, certainly, to get that guy as a walk-on. The depth is there, but they're looking at another running back, and that is L.J. Phillips, who comes in from South Dakota. And Phillips' really productive season, is he a guy that they think could come in and start right away, different type of back? Can he compliment Moulton and the rest of that crew? Just wanted to keep an eye on, though, on that front. Running back, not a place that I thought was going to be big,

but definitely a conversation piece. We continue locked on Hawkeyes. Want to go back to basketball. Mention the importance of Illinois. That's coming up on Sunday, 11 o'clock tip off on Carver Hawkeye Arena. Bennett Sturts had a quote, the preseason All-American for the Hawkeyes that left me scratching my head. We'll talk about that when we come back.

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Try to kind of back with you one final time here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. thank you to our everydayers out there with us each and every day on your daily Iowa Hawkeye podcast. And if you're interested, we have the everydayer club available for you. You can get locked on Hawkeyes ad free, plus our members only Discord access and a whole lot more. Head to lockdown hawkeyes dot supercast.com to join the club.

So I mentioned Bennett Sturtz had this quote after the game as he was talking to the media that was up in Minneapolis for this one. And after the loss, as I would go, goes to 0 and 3, this from Chad Leis to Cow of the Des Moines Register. Quote, we just get so negative around each other when we're down, especially in road environments. We got to learn to stay positive even when things go wrong. That is a head scratcher. Could that be frustration after a loss, maybe? But when you hear something like that, we get so negative around each other, that sounds like,

some alarm bells to me. As we talked about at the top, it's not time to hit the panic button. It's not time to freak out that we're not going to lose our minds. However, that's just one to file away. That's one that you put in the back pocket and say, hmm, there's something else going on here? We'll see.

Illinois, Iowa, a one-point underdog, according to the projected number from Ken Palm, Ken Pomeroy, and his analytic site. Yesterday before the Minnesota game, Iowa was a wonderful. point favorite in this one. So switched a little bit, flipped a little bit, but still, that is going to be a coin flip game. You get the win against the Illinois, definitely cures a lot of the ills that we saw in that tough loss to Minnesota last night. We'll be back with you tomorrow. We got Todd Bromelcamp's going to stop by, get his perspective on everything.

Speaking of Iowa basketball, we got a little something extra also coming your way on Friday's program. Looking forward with an opportunity to talk with Iowa assistant coach, Bryston Williams. he's going to join us on the Friday podcast. We got you covered on your daily Iowa Hawkeye podcast here, Locked on Hawkeyes. Once again, opportunity for you to jump aboard with us on Locked on Hawkeyes. You can follow me on Twitter at Trent Condon. He can also find the show account on Twitter at Lockedon, Iowa,

and our Everyday Club, an opportunity for you, ad-free episodes of this program, chance for you to support what we're doing here each and every day. You can get it ad-free, the Discord access, a lot of fun over there, A lot of great conversation and staying away from some of the negativity that's out there on social media. You can jump aboard with that at lockdown hawkeyes.supercast.com is where you can go and jump aboard with our everydayer club. We'll be back with you tomorrow looking forward to it.

Looking forward to talking more Hawkeyes with you. Until then, go Hawks.