Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - All the basketball updates! | How Iowa is doing in the B1G baseball tournament | Covering all Hawkeyes football projections to this point

Episode Date: May 24, 2019

There was a ton of news in Iowa basketball this week so we give the run down of everything that happened before covering Iowa's time in the B1G baseball tournament. Segment 3 has us wrapping up with all the football news this week.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are listening to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering the Iowa Hawkeyes for the Locked On Sports Network, hosted by Andrew Wade, editor at dearoldgold.com. Welcome to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I am your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at dearoldgold.com, fansited's Iowa Hawkeye website, and we are back with a Friday morning episode for you today. Unlike the last couple days, we are not doing any interviews. There's just a ton of stuff that we need to cover, and I haven't had a chance to talk about it this entire week, so I wanted to give you a special episode this Friday morning to talk about all the news that's

happening in Iowa Hawkeye sports and athletics. As you probably know, this past week, if you have been tuning in, we've been providing you some great interviews. We talked to Nick McGlynn, a Drake Bulldog or a former Drake Bulldog, who is going to be playing on the Iowa interviews. We talked to Nick McGlynn, a Drake Bulldog or a former Drake Bulldog, who is going to be playing on the Iowa United. We talked to him about his pro career and what he's planning on doing. Also how excited he is for the Iowa United opportunity. We also talked to former Iowa quarterback and Big Ten Player of the Year, Drew Tate. We released those interviews on a Wednesday morning and yesterday morning. So make sure to tune into those if you did not get an opportunity to. I really enjoyed that conversation with him. He's a funny guy, gave a lot of really good

insight to what it was like playing for the Iowa Hawkeyes and also what it was like making that transition from Iowa to CFL. I feel like he's done a lot of introspective, like thinking into what he kind of did in his earlier years versus what he's doing now. And I really enjoyed getting that kind of aspect from him. So make sure to tune into that as well. We've had some great interviews on the show as of late, if you haven't noticed, if you are tuning in for the first time. We've had Matt Tybee, former UW-Milwaukee basketball player, and Iowa United forward.

We had Nicholas Bayer, obviously the do-it-all forward for the Iowa Hawkeyes this past season. We have four-star quarterback recruit Deuce Hogan, who is going to be joining the Iowa Hawkeyes in the class of 2020. And we had Iowa's first tight end commit of the class of 2020, Elijah Yelverton. And finally, we had former number four overall draft pick Marcus Fizer, among other players who have been tuning in and joining the show. We have some great interviews coming up as well. We have Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi is going to be joining the show later on next week.

We also had an interview with Jeff Horner. We're going to be talking to him, and we're going to be releasing that interview later on in the next couple weeks as well. So lots of great stuff coming right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Today's show is brought to you in part by Hotels.com. Do not hate like your friend's trip. Book your own with Hotels.com and get rewarded basically everywhere. Hotels.com. Be there. Do that. Get rewarded. And believe me, you know what I'm talking about, right? When you're on Instagram, you're scrolling through Instagram, you see that your best friend's

over in Aruba and has a fantastic hotel view. You're a little bit jealous. You like the picture, but you're a little bit jealous. That's what hate liking is. All right. Don't do it. Just go to Hotels.com and book your own trip to Aruba. All right. So on today's show, like I said, no, no interviews for today. We're just gonna be talking about all the news that's been happening in Iowa Hawkeye nation. On the first segment of today's show, we're going to be talking about basketball on segment number two. We're going to be talking about baseball and on segment number three, we're going to be talking about football. Before we jump into that, though, make sure to grab the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Subscribe, like, and review wherever you downloaded this podcast at,

whether that is the brand new podcasting app Himalaya or Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And when you get in your car, make sure to tell your smart device to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. in your car, make sure to tell your smart device to play podcast locked on Hawkeyes. Also, we have a fantastic giveaway coming up for our hundredth episode, which will be airing later next week. We are going to be doing a giveaway of a signed Kavante Martin Manley picture. All you need to do to enter into this contest is to go to our Twitter account, locked on Iowa and retweet our pinned tweet. It should say something along the lines of, our 100th episode is coming up.

If you retweet this, you'll be entered in to get a Gavante Martin Manley autographed picture. All right, so make sure to do that, and you'll be entered into the drawing. We'll be doing the drawing probably in two weeks, the first week of June. I want to give you all an opportunity to do that, so make sure to do that as well. All right, let's jump right into it, though. With basketball news, lots of stuff going on this week. Jordan Bohannon might be out for the 2019-2020 season, and that was a huge hit. I think up until this point, we've been kind of thinking, all right, we can survive that. We can survive

that. Everyone knew Tyler Cook was leaving, but there's a lot of, you know, a lot of depth in that front court. Jack Nunn just coming back. You know, Ryan Creener is going to be back as a senior. We still have Luka Garza. Cordell Pemzel, he's going to be there as well. We're also bringing in Patrick McCaffrey. So lots of depth there on the front court. Then we saw that Isaiah Moss was transferring. And that was a little bit stinging.

I think we could have probably saw the writing on the wall. He was the fourth option for the Hawks. Probably wanted to be a number one option. And so he is leaving the Iowa Hawkeyes but we thought maybe CJ Frederick could probably fill that in that's totally fine we're still good then we get the news that Jordan Bohannon is not going to be playing next season and when I say not there's still a chance he comes back but it sounds like he's very much preparing for the worst case scenario which is he would not be playing in the 2019-2020 season.

He'd be redshirting next year and coming back for a fifth year. So what that means for the Hawks is that they could potentially be playing next season without three of their starters and four of their top six players, a team that was projected to potentially go to the Sweet 16 or the Elite Eight, be a top team in the NCAA tournament and the NCAA kind of atmosphere, may be kind of rebuilding next year on the fly. So there's a lot of good players that are coming in, though. We have Joe Toussaint and Patrick McCaffrey. We're going to basically need the young guys to step up next year if the Hawks want to win a lot of games, and that'll be a tough ask.

But fortunately, I think if anyone's up to doing it, it's the Iowa Hawkeyes with Fran McCaffrey. They're still bringing back Joe Wieskamp and Luka Garza, and that kind of gets me to the point that Joe Wieskamp is returning. This is something that we expected to happen, but you just never know until you know. So it's nice to see Joe Wieskamp is returning back to the Iowa Hawkeyes, and they're going to need to rely on him big time.

So I'm looking forward to a big- kind of rise from Joey's camp from that number three option to potentially the number one option. He did that in high school. He had to carry his team to the state tournament. So I'm really excited to see kind of what he brings to the table. Luka Garza will have another year under him. And we really saw Luka Garza emerge last year in the Iowa Hawkeye offense. I like to see a little bit more growth defensively, and I'd like to see him be a little bit more consistent, but either way, that was pretty impressive. So really excited to see, you know, kind of how they do well over the course of, you know, the next, you know, season, especially missing Jordan Bohannon. And other news

for the Iowa Hawkeyes basketball team, there was some good news coming out of today, or excuse me, yesterday. Jamari Sibley, a four-star power forward recruit out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, did just release his top 10 teams, and the Iowa Hawkeyes were on that. Sibley is 6'8",

200 pounds, and can shoot the three, can run the floor, and is athletic enough to play pretty solid defense down low. So big time to see Iowa on that list. Lots of targets for the Hawks. If this all comes together, they could be putting together a monumental class of 2020. One that rivals that original class that Fran McCaffrey really brought in with Mike Cassell, Adam Woodbury, and those type of guys.

So really excited to see kind of what comes out of that. But we are in the top 10, so that's exciting news as well. And some kind of down note, Megan Gustafson was cut. And that is complete bull crap. I'm pissed about it. I hope you all are pissed about it. It's kind of stupid. They barely gave her a freaking shot.

They played three preseason games. Gustafson played in two of those. And one of those games, she only played four minutes before they cut her. They basically said they had a lot of post players and they wanted more experience. To me, that's a garbage excuse. And here's why. The Dallas Wings are not going to be good this year. They're missing their two top players. One they traded away. One Skyler Diggins-Smith, who's going to be out with a pregnancy. They're not going to be good this year. Why the hell would you not let someone like Megan Gustafson grow?

Did you not see what she did in college? Coming from Port Wing, Wisconsin, all the way to the Iowa Hawkeyes, being National Player of the Year. I think you've got to give her a chance, as opposed to going with the experienced players, even though your team isn't going to be that strong. And also, they didn't really even give her a fair shake. She played two preseason games and games with the team for less than two weeks before they decided to cut her so I'm a little pissed off about it I hope you all are as well and I think that was just a bad business move they alienated an entire fan base Iowa Hawkeyes

Iowa fans in general the state of Iowa was all rooting for Megan Gustafson to succeed and they really just kind of crapped all over the state. So I'm going to kind of not watch the WNBA until Gustafson does get another chance. Hopefully she does get another chance. Otherwise, she'll need to go overseas to get her chance and play professional basketball. But I'll keep you all posted right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And then finally, the last little update for the Iowa basketball team. The Hawks hired Billy Taylor as an assistant coach. for the Iowa basketball team.

The Hawks hired Billy Taylor as an assistant coach. Billy Taylor played, no, not played, excuse me. He coached with Fran McCaffrey at Notre Dame. He also coached them at UNC Greensboro before kind of embarking on his own head coaching kind of tenure. So it's nice to see Fran bringing in a familiar face, someone that he can trust. I believe that's kind of what he was going for.

I thought there'd be some other guys that he might be interested in, but it all works out pretty well. I think Billy Taylor is going to bring that experience to the bench that he has had, that head coaching experience. He knows what it's like to be recruiting. He does have familiarity with Iowa as being a former director of basketball ops at Iowa a couple years ago. So I think overall, it's not a bad hire. I would have liked to see someone like Dean Oliver or Jeff Horner get hired, but I'll take what we can get. So I think overall, it's not a bad hire. I would have liked to see someone like Dean Oliver or Jeff Horner get hired, but I'll take what we can get. And I think that is a solid move on Fran's part. Billy had this to say when he was joining the Iowa Hawkeyes. He said,

I am humbled and honored to rejoin Coach McCaffrey's staff at the University of Iowa. I look forward to serving and mentoring the student athletes in our program. I'm eager to tell prospective student athletes about the amazing opportunities at the University of Iowa. So I do think he's going to be a really good reflection and representation of what the Iowa Hawkeyes stand for. Again, I would have just liked to see a former player who was in the coaching ranks join the program, but I'm still excited about it.

It'll be nice that Coach McCaffrey finally has his bench filled now and he can get back to doing the big things and securing that 2020 class and maybe finding a graduate transfer on the market to bring into the team since they do have a few scholarships open. But that'll do it for segment number one, talking about basketball and all the news and tidbits that kind of came up over the last week. Just a quick reminder that on segment number two, we're going to be talking about the baseball team and kind of what they need to do over the next couple days to make it to the NCAA tournament. So stay tuned for that after a few messages from our sponsors.

All right, we are back with segment number two covering the Iowa baseball team. They are currently playing in the Big Ten baseball tournament. And just a quick heads up that I am recording this on Thursday evening, so the Hawks do play technically tonight. They're going to be playing at 9 p.m. against No. 5 seeded Nebraska. I will not be able to give you that result on this podcast, but I will be mentioning it on the Twitter account and the Facebook account tomorrow and LockedOnIowa on Twitter and LockedOnHawkeyes on Facebook. So just tune into there to get any update you need for that,

and I'll be covering that on the podcast on Monday morning. But the Hawks did beat No. 1 seeded seeded Indiana yesterday which a huge game for them they needed to win that game was obviously the toughest game on their schedule because it is the number one seed and Indiana did actually lose today so Indiana is out of the tournament but Iowa used a big time seventh inning to get ahead and keep that lead as they beat Indiana 4-2 yesterday. Big win again for the Hawks as they kind of struggled down the stretch. They actually had projected to beat in the NCAA tournament potentially as an at-large bid, but then they dropped their last five games against Michigan State and Maryland

to kind of limp into the Big Ten tournament, barely making the tournament as the last seed in the tournament. So now they're trying to do some damage, and we've seen them do really well against some of the good teams in the Big Ten. So it is very plausible that they could make a run here and make the NCAA tournament, and that's a team you do not want to mess with. So No. 8 seeded Iowa is taking on No. 5 seeded Nebraska tonight at 9 p.m. You're obviously listening to this in the morning, so they've already played that game again.

If they win that game, they're going to be playing on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. You're obviously listening to this in the morning, so they've already played that game again. If they win that game, they're going to be playing on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. So again, you want to keep that in mind. If they do lose that game, they're going to be playing Minnesota tomorrow evening at 7.30 p.m. So that's all located on the Big Ten Network channel. You can find that, you know, you can either get it from your cable provider. You can also subscribe to the Big Ten Network channel and maybe use that as an app on your phone. I've done that before for watching some of the women's basketball games. So you can do that either way and find those games if you are wanting to watch the Iowa baseball team.

That'll do it, though. We're going to cover that a lot next week, depending on how the Hawks do. But we're going to jump into a few football topics after a few messages from our sponsors. do, but we're going to jump into a few football topics after a few messages from our sponsors. We are back with segment number three, covering all the football talk that is going on right now. Just a quick reminder that I do appreciate you listening to the show, but it would really

mean a lot to me if you would go like review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that is on the brand new podcasting app, Himalaya, or Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Also, if you are getting in your car, you can listen to this podcast by just telling your smart device to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. It's that easy to listen to the most recent episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

And like I said, we want to touch on a lot of football stuff on segment number three. First thing we're going to talk about is Jalen Suggs if you have not heard of the name Jalen Suggs make sure to check that out I actually am posting an article on dearoldgold.com talking about Jalen Suggs and kind of the rarity of his situation he's a four-star dual threat quarterback who holds an offer from Iowa he's also a five-star point guard who holds an offer from Iowa. So this kid is getting recruited very heavily for basketball, a top 10 prospect in the nation in basketball, a top 300 prospect in the nation in football, and he's located pretty close to Iowa in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It would be a huge gift for him to get him into Iowa City. Iowa's kind of on his radar.

They're one of the few teams that has given him an offer in both basketball and football. He hasn't said whether or not he wants to play just basketball or try to do both, but if he does do both, Iowa makes the most sense. The only other teams that I've had offers out to him for both basketball and football is Georgia, Iowa State, and Minnesota. Georgia's basketball team blows. Minnesota's kind of up and down in both sports right now. Iowa State's weirdly enough the best option out of those three, but I still think Iowa's consistency and longevity and the fact

that Matt Campbell's kind of teasing with the NFL, kind of don't know if he's going to leave or not. That to me would give Iowa the edge in that regard, but hopefully Iowa can land him. That'd be a huge grab for the football team and the basketball team. That would give Fran McCaffrey a dynamic point guard that he's been missing to run his offense. So we'll let you know how that all goes out.

Obviously it's going to be taking a little bit of time. He's probably going to hold off on his recruiting for another three, four, five months before he actually makes a decision. But we'll obviously keep you posted right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. There's also been some other updates kind of coming out, some ranking type of stuff. You know, the Big Ten West standings has been a popular subject for a lot of media outlets. And one of the things I've been noticing is that some people are predicting Nebraska to finish first. And I think that's complete horse crap.

They're getting that because Scott Frost did a really good job of turning around that program, you know, down at UCF. But I just don't buy it. They have Adrian Martinez. He's a great player. Their defense is still pretty lackadaisical, and I just don't see that turnaround happening. I do expect them to maybe go 7-5, 8-4, but I don't think Nebraska is going to be contending for first place in the Big Ten West next year. Another thing I saw as well is that Iowa was predicted to finish sixth in one of the media outlets, kind of Big Ten West rankings.

And that is, you shouldn't even listen to that media outlet. I'm not even going to give them the time of day and say their name because it was just complete garbage. They had them predicted to finish behind everyone but Illinois. Are you not watching Iowa football? I know they may not be a 12-0 team next year. I do think they have the option or the possibility to be a 12-0 team, but they're not going to be 6-6 next year. It's just not going to happen. They have too much talent to be 6-6. That defense is going to be stocked and reloaded next year with A.J. Epinesa

kind of manning that front seven. Obviously, the linebackers who have a lot of experience now, and you have a great secondary depth with four corners getting experience last year. I know people weren't very happy with Riley Moss, but I think he could be pretty good. He wasn't that bad, and especially being a two-star walk-on, give the guy a break. He's going to improve a lot in his second year on the Iowa football team. And kind of going into the best defense piece, you know, A.J. Epinesa is really leading that team, and there's been some predictions that Iowa may have one of the top defenses in the nation again, and it's kind of tough to imagine considering they they're losing six starters you're losing Imani Hooker and Jake Travas you're losing Anthony Nelson and Parker Hesse excuse me

you're losing Matt Nelson and Sam Brinks but what I've been trying to preach to people is that the ceiling of this team is so much higher defensively the floor may not be as high you get a lot of consistent players hard workers but there's a lot more talent overall on this team. So if they can mesh together, if Kayvon Merriweather plays strong safety or free safety, excuse me, well, if that, you know, front seven can mesh together, if they can figure out the linebacker problem and get the right guys in there and we can stay healthy, I think this defense could definitely be a top five defense in the nation. Also, another interesting note, I saw the Iowa Hawkeyes were ranked 10th by Pro Football Focus. That's a little bit rich for my liking. I don't necessarily agree with them being

ranked 10th, but I do agree that Iowa deserves to be ranked going into the season. They're returning a three-year starter, or sorry, excuse me, a two-year starter, soon to be a three-year starter at quarterback Nate Stanley, a guy who a lot of draft analysts are pretty excited about. He has that build. He has a lot of those natural NFL talented pieces. He just needs to put it all together and really fix some of the mental aspects of his game. So people are really excited about him. He's returning.

This wide receiver core could actually be better than last year. We're missing two starting tight ends, but the wide receiver core could be better. We're returning some great offensive linemen. The running game hopefully will be improved as Brian Ferencz wants to see. He wants to see them get a 4.5 yard per carry average next year, which would be a lot better than last season. So they can do all that. I think the offense could be good. I think the defense could be great, meaning this team could really be a top 10 team if all things work out together. But as you know, Iowa Hawkeye football is predicated on winning those close games. As we saw last year, they did not win those close games. If they can win those close games this year, if they can get off to a hot start

beating Michigan and Iowa State on the road, I think this team could be a sleeper for the college football playoffs. So interesting stuff nonetheless. The last thing I want to cover on today's show is that Deuce Hogan, he's been a guest on this show. He made some interesting comments basically saying he's going to make Ohio State's defensive coordinator rip his hair out. Some people took that negatively. And I want to say this.

I've talked to Deuce Hogan. I had a great conversation with him. If you did not listen to it, make sure to check it out on our previous shows. It was probably about a month and a half ago if you're looking for it. He's a great kid. He's confident, yeah, but he's not over the top. I do think maybe he shouldn't have said that, but he's a smart kid, very well-behaved kid, a kid who's going to be doing great, I feel like, as an Iowa Hawkeye.

He's had a few things. He's a 17-year-old. Probably shouldn't have said those things, but at the same time, give the kid a freaking break. He's been doing a ton of recruiting for the Hawks. I think he's going to be a great asset to the program. And I'm really excited to see him and his work ethic show up on Iowa City and kick butt. So the kid does think things out very well. So I'm sure he's already thought about that response before, which kind of makes it a little bit worse. But at the same time, having talked to the kid, knowing him for a little bit, he is a good kid. And I want you all to give him a break if you can and support him as

well. He's been doing a lot of great stuff for the Iowa Hawkeyes. But that'll do it for our show today. I hope you appreciated this Friday morning episode. We typically don't give you Friday morning episodes, so I wanted to make sure I got something out since there was so many things to cover on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Just a quick reminder that it really helps me out if you go and like, subscribe, and review this podcast wherever you downloaded that app,

whether that is the new Himalaya podcast app or Apple podcast, Google podcast, and Spotify. And just a quick reminder that if you get in your car and you want to listen to something, maybe you don't want to listen to music, you can actually just listen to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast by telling your smart device to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. And a quick reminder that today's show is brought to you in part by Hotels.com.

Thank you to them for sponsoring the show. We couldn't be doing this without them. But Hotels.com is great. You know, as a friend, you've seen your friends post awesome pictures of their vacations, whether they're going to Turks and Caicos or the Virgin Islands, and you like that picture, but really you're a little bit jealous, okay? Don't hate like your friends' trips. When you see them go somewhere, book your own freaking trip on Hotels.com and get rewarded basically everywhere.

Hotels.com, be there, do that, get rewarded. Also, last housekeeping item, make sure to follow us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. Make sure to retweet that pinned tweet on my Twitter account, LockedOnIowa, so you can enter in our 100th episode giveaway of a Kevontae Martin Manley autographed picture. If you have been following, you know that we are supporting the Iowa United as well. Make sure to go to TheTournament.com and support the Iowa United because that's how they're going to get into the tournament and we're going to be able to see that great collection of former players of the big schools in Iowa come together and play for the $2 million winner take all jackpot.

Again, I appreciate you tuning into the show today. I appreciate all the love and support of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Have a great Friday, and have a great weekend, Hawkeye Nation. And go Hawks! guitar solo you