Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Big weekend in Iowa athletics! | Hawks going to the Super Bowl | 2020 Senior Bowl breakdown

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

It was a great weekend in Iowa athletics, and we break it all down right here on the show including the men's win over Michigan Friday evening. We wrap up the show with a breakdown of the 2020 Senior Bowl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off right away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!

Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeyes. What a weekend in Iowa Hawkeye Athletics.

It was a fantastic weekend. Man, let me tell you, I am pumped to talk about it. We are the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, a part of the Locked On Sports Network. And as always, I'm your host, Andrew Wade. And like I said, what a weekend in Iowa Hawkeye athletics. Let's jump into it. Let's talk all about it. Basically, throughout the weekend, it was just success all over the board in multiple sports for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Starting with the men's basketball team,

a team that really didn't have a ton of expectations coming into the season, and at this point has put the conference on notice. They are doing fantastic despite playing with a pretty limited bench, and they took down ranked Michigan at home at Carver, and I thought they played pretty darn well, so we're going to talk about that on today's show. Also, women's basketball, two big wins this weekend over Big Ten foes. Not exactly the best teams, Minnesota and Wisconsin, but good teams nonetheless. We're going to also be doing a Senior Bowl preview as I am actually on my way down to Mobile as I record

this podcast to cover Michael Ojemudia and just the Senior Bowl in general. So we're going to be talking about that a little bit on today's show. Men's wrestling took down Nebraska 26-6, a top 10 ranked Nebraska team. Took them down like they were basically nothing. They have Ohio State on January 24th. Then also the playoffs, right? So the AFC and NFC Championship games were yesterday, and we have a couple hawkeyes who are now going to the super bowl so love to see that love to see the representation i don't know if

you also knew this as well but um the iowa hawkeyes had the most players in the nfc and afc championship game so just another testament to the development of iowa in the program and how great they do of bringing guys up to speed and getting them available and ready to play in the NFL. A couple guys I want to talk about specifically, some players on both sides. We have Anthony Hitchens and Ben Neiman on the Kansas City Chiefs that are going to be going to the Super Bowl, both linebackers. And then on the San Francisco 49ers side, we have C.J. Bethard. Sorry, excuse me, C.J. Bethard. I always mess that up. C.J. Bethard.

We have George Kittle, obviously, who's going to be a big factor in the Super Bowl and a guy who is going to get a lot of media attention going into the Super Bowl. And then we also have Ross Reynolds, a guy who was on the practice squad for most of the season. So fantastic. Congratulations to those guys. Really excited about the opportunity to see some Iowa Hawkeyes in the Super Bowl. I know a lot of people probably listening to this do like the Chiefs. I will be rooting for the 49ers as I am a Broncos fan, but it doesn't really matter at this point. I digress a bit.

And then finally, the last piece of news I wanted to make sure I covered on the rundown is that James Butler, former Iowa running back, has signed to play with the XFL Houston Roughnecks. So excited to see him back in professional football. He obviously spent some time with the Raiders last season, didn't get much of an opportunity to play in the regular season as he wasn't really on the 53-man roster. So awesome stuff for him. We'll be keeping track of that as well. Some other Iowa Hawkeyes in the XFL, specifically Chuck Long, who is going to be coaching in

the XFL for the St. Louis team. So we'll be covering that right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. But we had just spent almost four minutes going through the rundown, and I want to make sure that we get into some of the actual topics at hand. The first one I wanted to cover is the men's basketball team. And let me just start off by saying Luka Garza is a stud and Connor McCaffrey has been the breakout player for the Iowa Hawkeyes this year. I think when Jordan Bohannon went down, people were really kind of concerned, right?

Because at that point guard position, you had Connor McCaffrey, who really struggled shooting the ball last year. And then you also had Joe Toussaint, who people didn't know what to expect, right? People knew that he's athletic. People knew that we obviously recruited him. He was a big time player out of New York and probably shouldn't have been just a lower three star, but we weren't sure what to do. We also had Bakari Evelyn, who people were kind of questioning of. He transferred from Valparaiso, didn't really have an outstanding career in college basketball leading up to Iowa. So what makes him so special to bring on the team? But we're starting to see that Frank McCaffrey has done a great job of assembling a backup plan for Jordan Bohannon.

And so you're seeing Connor McCaffrey play some of his best basketball, doing a really great job of distributing the ball and getting involved in the game. I mean, in this game, for example, he literally shot two balls, scored zero points, but brought down 13 rebounds and had five assists in the steal. And just his court presence has been great and outstanding. And the fact that he is shooting pretty well this season really makes life a lot easier for the Hawks. Right now, let me see what he is shooting. 36% from the field, but 34% from three. So he's keeping teams honest, whereas last year when he got the ball,

teams really sagged off because they really weren't worried about his three-point shot. And 34% isn't amazing, but it at least does keep defenses honest and allows Iowa to play and kind of execute their offense a little better when they have point guards and guards who have to stick up on Connor McCaffrey. And then his size is obviously a huge advantage. If he's playing that point position, he's 6'5". A lot of point guards in the Big Ten are going to be under 6'2". Definitely gives him a size advantage that allows him to take advantage of that on the boards. Again, Luka Garza, another fantastic performance. 10 of 18 for 33 points.

Only 7 rebounds, but nevertheless, got the points in there. Shot really well. Also hit 2 of 3 three-pointers, and those were huge. And then C.J. Frederick, oh man, thankfully he is back. He was a huge missing piece, a 3-and-D kind of guy that Iowa needs to have in their lineup to be effective. Went 6-of-9 from the field, 3-of-5 from three-pointers for 21 points. Also brought down four rebounds and three assists.

Another great game. Joe Toussaint didn't play a ton of minutes, only 13, and we saw Ryan Creener really have a lot of effectiveness in this game. And I really liked when they went to that lineup with Connor McCaffrey at the point. You had Frederick at the two, Weisskamp at the three, Creener at the four, and Garz at the five. I thought that was their most effective lineup. And obviously Fran did too, as that was kind of the lineup that played the most together. And Creener has been really great coming off the bench. And I think Fran has been really great doing a good job of adapting throughout the game

and understanding game flow, right? So Joe has been starting the game, but depending on how the game goes in the first couple minutes, he kind of makes a decision and goes with it about who he wants to be in that game, who he wants to be playing the majority of the minutes. And in this game, it made sense to have Kreener in there. Michigan has a little bit of height down low outside of just John Teske, but even Brandon Johns Jr. is kind of a bigger guy at 6'8", and a pretty effective player.

He didn't play so well against Iowa on Friday night, but has had some pretty big performances in the past couple games in the absence of Lvers. So great to see Kreener put on a good performance. 14 points, 3 assists and 2 rebounds. Also hit one of his 3-3's. So again, keeping that defense honest. More to come on this though. I want to make sure I wrap up with a little bit more talk on the Iowa men's basketball team. We're going to be covering that in just a few seconds. So stay tuned after a few messages from our sponsors.

I just had a few more things I wanted to cover with the men's basketball team here in segment number two of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Most notably, Joe Wieskamp is clearly a fantastic player. You can tell there's a ton of talent there. We saw it in Muscatine. He put on just hell of performances every single night, brought his team to the state playoffs and all that stuff. But Wieskamp needs to start showing up in some of these games.

And we expected him to show up the last two games didn't really do it against Northwestern which was okay because they didn't really need him against Northwestern but he needs to start showing up in some of these games and playing a little bit better basketball he's getting his points but he's not exactly getting them in a way that is most conducive to the success of the team and that's I think where I'm really struggling with right now. I love watching Joe Wieskamp. He's clearly a great player, but we really need him to step up in some of these games. 1 of 6 from the field against Michigan.

He did go 3 of 5 from threes. And I'm not saying Wieskamp had a bad performance by any means, but over the last four games, had a bad performance by any means, but over the last four games, he has went 1 of 10, 5 of 9, 0 of 3, 3 of 5 from 3, and 9 of 13, 4 of 7, 2 of 5, and 1 of 6 from 2 points. So, just, I mean, he's obviously doing well this season, right? He's shooting 50% from 2 points. He's shooting almost 40% from 3, but in the last four games, hasn't been the best performance. I know the Big Ten is a very tough conference to play in, but I would love to see him step up just a little bit more in, you know, the rest of the Big Ten schedule. And we're going to really need him

too if we want to win some more games. We're getting a lot of production out of a lot of other guys, but it would be awesome to see him step up a little bit from a shooting perspective. He obviously has the talent to do so. He's, I would say, the best natural player on the team, even with Luke Garza there. I just need to see him put up and put a little bit more production on the board. I think that'll really help the Iowa Hawkeyes down the stretch as well. I do want to transition into the women's basketball team though. Two huge wins for the women's basketball team. You know, beating Minnesota after being down by a few and later in that game and then beating Wisconsin as well. I've said it multiple times, but Lisa Bluter

is a fantastic coach and she is just absolutely crushing it this season in the absence of Megan Gustafson. And you know what, going forward, I'm not going this season in the absence of Megan Gustafson. And you know what? Going forward, I'm not going to talk about the absence of Megan Gustafson. What I hate is when a team loses a player, and all they talk about is that player despite the team having success, and that's literally what I've been doing on this show. And so I'm going to stop doing that, simply because it's no longer fair to the women's basketball team

to talk about how they're handling the absence of arguably the greatest player in Iowa basketball history because they are handling it. Bluter has adapted. This team has adapted. This team is doing great. They are now tied for first in the conference with Northwestern. They're on a six-game winning streak and the record is at 15-3 and I fully expect them to jump into the top 20 of the AP poll when that is released today. So this team is doing something well. They're doing great. And I think they're putting themselves in position to get a relatively good seat in the NCAA tournament. I mean, if they keep going on the streak, which, you know, is not really sustainable by any means, but, you know, they're bound to drop a game here or there, right? But either way, this team should be a, you know, at least a three or four seat in the

NCAA tournament at this point. They've beaten a lot of really good teams. They have Ohio State on Thursday and Michigan State on Sunday, both at Carver, where the fans really have been showing up well lately for both sides of the basketball squads, men's and women's. Specifically, the women's, though, have been great attendance, especially compared to the rest of NCAA basketball. Those should be wins.

Ohio State and Michigan State are kind of middle-of-the-road teams in the Big Ten. attendance especially compared to the rest of ncl blade basketball those should be wins ohio state michigan state are kind of middle of the road teams in the big 10 i expect those to be wins i expect iowa to be at 17 and 3 heading into the rest of the stretch of big 10 games in february so lots of great stuff coming out of the women's basketball team and again such resiliency to you know be down in both games on the road and come back for a win. Obviously having the late game heroics against Minnesota, against Wisconsin, they were down 15 at half, came back and won that game as well. So if you are not tuning in to the women's basketball team,

you are doing it wrong and you absolutely need to be. Please do so for the sake of me. So I'm not just sitting here talking about a team that you don't realize is doing so well this season. They deserve the attention and the credit for all they've done in the absence of Gustafson and Hannah Stewart and Taniya Davis. Those three were huge assets to the team last year. So they're doing a great job, and we're going to not talk about those three anymore and focus on simply what the team has accomplished this year. So make sure to check them out this week as they play Thursday and on Sunday.

Coming up, though, I want to make sure I give you kind of a preview of the Senior Bowl. So we're going to be talking about that on segment number three of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. We are back with segment number three of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And as I promised you, since I am going to be down there in Mobile this week covering the Senior Bowl, I wanted to give you kind of an update on what is expected to happen at the Senior Bowl. First, I want to start off with the Nate Stanley piece. At this point, I don't expect Nate Stanley to be at the Senior Bowl. And in listening to a few other draft analysts, they don't even

think he's the next option if they have an injury, if something happens. And it sounds like the news that Joe Burrow was not going to the Senior Bowl actually hurt Nate Stanley because instead of having eight quarterbacks on the roster, four on each team, they're going to keep probably three on each side. So we're not going to see Nate Stanley there, which leads me to my next interesting question of, was he not invited to the Shrine Bowl the nflpa bowl because they didn't want him or is he not invited because they thought he was going to be in the senior bowl and if that is the case then they say only got screwed on all three levels of not being able to go to any postseason bowl but i'm excited to see him at the combine hopefully in iowa's pro day

but this week's attention is going to be focused on senior quarterback Michael Ojemudia, who is going to be going up against some good wide receivers in the Senior Bowl this week. So excited to see him, excited to talk to him, hopefully. The big thing for this week is understanding the schedule, because it's kind of hectic. It's kind of a quick schedule. But basically, the Lions and the Bengals are going to be the coaches of the teams in the Senior Bowl this year. And as of right now, I don't believe we have the information about what side Michael Ojemudia is going to be on, North or South. My

assumption is he's going to be on the North squad, just based on the fact that Iowa is located up there. Typically, they try to put all the SEC guys in the same squad, which will on the fact that Iowa is located up there. Typically, they try to put all the SEC guys in the same squad, which will kind of make sense to be on the South squad potentially. So we'll see. Once that information gets released, I'll make sure to let you all know. Again, I don't see it on the website or anywhere else, so kind of difficult to pull that up and let you know at this point. But he is going to be going against some pretty darn good wide receivers either on his side or in the game. And one of the big things with the Senior Bowl is it's a lot of one-on-ones. It's a quick week, a lot of hustle and bustle, and a lot of one-on-one drills, which

doesn't necessarily favor the cornerback, especially because you have a wide receiver who's going to be doing a double or triple move on a long route because the quarterback has plenty of time, and it really doesn't put the cornerback in a great position. But for Michael Ojemudia, this would be a potential opportunity to see him as a riser if he can perform well in that man-to-man coverage simply because Iowa performs most often in zone coverage. So folks aren't going to see Ojemudia playing in man very often, if at all,

in an Iowa defense. I think they're going to notice that he has great length, great size. I mean, he was a guy who I thought could potentially play the cash position this year just because he has some of that build. He played linebacker in high school, so has that build potentially slot down and play either a corner or a safety or kind of that dimebacker for the Iowa defense. I'm wondering if NFL teams see that as well, if they see that size and think maybe he could play kind of as a chess piece all over the place.

So that'll be interesting to see kind of how he lines up at the Senior Bowl. But he's got some good wide receivers he's going to be going up against. A couple of you probably aware of Michael Pittman Jr. from USC. He's already seen a little bit of him at the Holiday Bowl. Kalijah Lipscomb out of Vanderbilt. Colin Johnson, a big, big-bodied guy out of Texas. And K.J. Hill out of Ohio State, another Big Ten guy. Ojemudia hasn't faced for a couple seasons,

but a guy that he's at least going to be relatively familiar with having played against very similar and common opponents. From a quarterback standpoint, I wouldn't be that impressed by this group outside of Justin Herbert. You have Shea Patterson, a guy that Ojemudia has seen. I'm assuming Shea's probably on Ojemudia's side, depending on how they split up the rosters. Steven Montes, another guy with a lot of traits out of Colorado, but didn't really show a lot this season. Jalen Hurts out of Oklahoma, more of an athlete than a pure passer or pure runner, not in the same level of Lamar Jackson. Just kind of a guy who has elevated his stock,

but not significantly. Justin Herbert, a potentially top five quarterback. Anthony Gordon, a guy who put up big numbers at Washington State because that's what you do under Mike Leach. And then Jordan Love, a guy who declared early, has lots of traits, not a lot of production specifically out of Utah State, kind of a Josh Allen type of player. So he's going to be going up against some decent quarterbacks, not the best quarterback group. I would have loved to see Nate Stanley there as well. They could go up against each other in practice.

So fun stuff for Michael Ojemudia. Coming into the week, though, here's kind of a breakdown of what to expect. Again, it is a very quick week for these players they don't have a ton of time and really practices are going to be from you know Monday or sorry from Tuesday to Thursday Friday is going to be an opportunity for them to kind of work with the community and show the community and give back to the community kind of what they put in so far so Monday is is kind of the press conference for the intro, right? People are like, hey, here we're at the Senior Bowl. Here's the guys, all that stuff.

Tuesday, so we're going to get that information today and hopefully have some information for you tomorrow. Tuesdays are the weigh-ins, and then we have media day with the players trying to get down there so I can meet with Ojemudia before they get into their first practice and their first team meetings. That's really where they get the playbook, and it's going to be obviously a condensed playbook. It's going to be a little bit more simmered down from what the Lions or Bengals ran in

the previous years. But they get a playbook. They got to learn that. So their heads are going to be spinning a bit. It sounds like Tuesday's practices are usually pretty rough just because you have a lot of players who haven't played together and they also don't know the scheme or the playbook. On Wednesday, more practices. On Thursday, more practices. On Thursday, more practices.

And then Friday is where they let teams kind of relax a little bit. There's a parade. There's a concert downtown in Mobile. There's also a fan experience event that allows fans to get autographs from players. So lots of fun stuff there. I'm going to, again, try to talk to Ojemudia before that, but if I can't, I'll get a hold of him at that experience event and try to get some questions answered and get that on the show for the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

And then finally on Saturday is the big game. And honestly, not a lot of scouts typically stay for the game as much. They typically leave after that week of practices and evaluations and in-person conversations. They feel like they get a lot of information there. So not a lot of people are staying for the game. I, however, am staying for the game. So can give you some updates on that as well. And I'm also going to be working with a next-gen stat company who's going to be working and analyzing each of these players throughout the week and providing some of those next level

stats that you see in NFL games and college ball games and whatnot. So hopefully be able to provide some of that information to you on Michael Ojemudia. I'm planning on meeting with them on Wednesday and discussing some of the possibilities of getting that information. So hopefully able to bring that to you. I'm likely not going to be giving you a podcast tomorrow morning as I will still be on the road, but hoping to give you some episodes Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and potentially Saturday, depending on how Friday goes with all the different events going on.

And obviously want to cover basketball and all that stuff in addition to the football talk. So lots of stuff coming right here on Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Again, I appreciate you all tuning into the show today. I forgot to tell you this, but if you do like what you heard today, and if you've listened to this before, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. It definitely helps me and I would love and appreciate

it so so much please make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that's how you can get all the most recent updates in Iowa Hawkeye Nation and with the podcast so again I appreciate you all tuning in to this episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast have a fantastic day Hawkeye Nation and go Hawks!