Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - BONUS EPISODE: Trent Joined By Todd Brommelkamp on Iowa Hoops

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

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The timing on this is worse. And I think because it brings up a lot of memories of other coaching ten years and not just Fran McCaffrey, but a bad loss about three or four weeks before you start to get into postseason play. So I understand the doom and gloom here. You know, there's no way to sugarcoat it. It was a bad loss. They should have been, especially the way that they played on the West Coast when they were on the road. They should have been able to go in there and beat a team that they were superior to.

And so I understand that there's going to be a little bit of angst today among Hawkeye fans. But I was actually, I was eating dinner last night. And there's proof of this. You can look at this online. But I went out for Chinese last night during the game. I was watching the game on my phone. And after my meal was over, my fortune said after defeat comes regrowth. So for those of you looking for an omen out there.

Yeah, it was a bad loss. And the team that played last night in an Iowa jersey doesn't look like one that's going to be able to make much noise in the postseason. But again, I think it's about a matter of perspective for me. And going back to the beginning of the season, I think it would have been crazy to expect this team to be where they've at, be what they've accomplished so far this year. And so for me, this is a role that I am not used to playing on. the radio. But I'm going to be the cautiously optimistic person here and just hope that everybody has a bad night and that was Iowa's bad night and that this is not the start of something that we have unfortunately seen before with Iowa men's basketball in mid-February.

The Fran Fade, it was, and I know there were plenty on the beat that did not believe it was real. There was a long, long run of awfulness there. And Aaron White, his senior year, he was about the only one that could pull him out of that muck and the mire that seemed to happen. and almost on a yearly basis with Iowa basketball. And though that turned around a little bit so we know eventually how that all turned out. Todd, one other thing to me, it's Bennett Sturts, and he was so good. And yet late in the basketball game after Maryland got in foul trouble, they stopped going to the rim.

They were settling. And it wasn't just him. Cooper Koch had open shots. He's got to make those shots. You go out there, he doesn't have a rebound. I know he's improved him immensely on the defensive end of the floor, but you're a shooter. You got to make shots. And he wasn't able to do that.

And there was nobody else that was able to help out. We see Bennett Sturts go out there. 13 of 21. His other teammates combined for 12 made field goals. He made 13. Everybody else only finished with 12. That is a path to losing. It can't all be on Bennett Sturts.

And there were so many times, even after I would took the lead after Hassan hit those back-to-back three pointers, it was just who's going to bail us out? We'll just get the ball to Bennett and we'll settle. And they settled way too much offensively. Yeah, and that's not going to be a recipe for success in the post-season. because everybody in the country knows who Bennett Sturts is. And if you're able to bottle him up and shut him down, this is a team that's going to need some other guys to step up.

And I think it was Mike Halas that noted last night. You could take any combination of four Iowa players and add their point total together and not get where Sturts was last night in the box score. That's not a recipe for success. You've got to find a little bit of balance. And I did think that they did get a little bit of. little tentative there down the stretch maybe doubted, doubted themselves a little bit. I don't think that's probably the right way to phrase it, but there just wasn't that,

that killer instinct that you kind of need to win road games on the Big Ten. I'm not talking about going into East Lansing or West Lafayette. You can talk about empty arenas and everything, but it's still tough to play on the road in the Big Ten. And that's why I was so encouraged after seeing what they did on that West Coast swing. And I thought, well, they'll go to Maryland and, you know, it's not going to be that much of a problem. But they just had an all-around awful night last night. And I'd be curious to hear what Ben McCollum has to say with the benefit of almost 24 hours hindsight now, going back and looking and seeing some of the video, just exactly what he thought the problem was.

Listen to him with Dolf after the game. He was audibly upset. Couldn't see visually. but hearing him, he was not pleased. He was not pleased with the effort. He used a couple of timeouts after some defensive breakdowns. I don't believe that that was the scout in the game plan, the way they played out. It was execution.

And we'll bring back a Kirk Ferrancism there. It's about execution, right? And the execution I thought last night on both ends of the floor was really poor. Let's get out to the phone lines right now. You can join us as well here on Miller and Connan on the Iowa Sports Radio Network. Phone number 515-25-284-9-6-6-1-8-4-KX-0 is where you can join us here, today. Jim's on the line with us. We'll hope everything works out and Todd's able to heal as well. Jim, go ahead. You're on Miller and Condon.

Hey, guys. I got a question for Todd here after my first comment. I kind of predicted that last night. They look sluggish against Northwestern, and it's an excuse, but traveling west coast, being gone for six days, coming back to the Midwest, I've been getting on a plane. They just looked like they were, and you called it, Cooper Cots, you got to make those shot. He had open looks. And for Todd, I got a, hopefully you can hear me. Yeah, I got you, Jim. Toyota?

Yeah, I remember Jim from Kyoto? Yes, yes. Football season? Yeah, I'm a guy. Oh, great. I'll eat my hat. Oh, great to hear from you, Jim, and glad you're still out there listening. I think they went in seven games that year.

So you were. They did. Okay. Have a good show, guys. Thanks, Jim, for the phone call. Jim checking in with us, 284, 5, 9, 6.6. So, yeah, look at that. Some of your old listeners pop it in here, Todd. Like to hear that as well.

Yeah, that was the, I'll eat my circus sports hat if I would go 6 and 6 this year. And that was, what, three years ago or something like that? And they, three or four years ago. And, yeah, I almost wound up looking up recipes for hats and eating them. But yeah, the travel thing is something that, you know, yeah, it's an excuse, but I think it's also there's some validity to it because that's, that's quite a schedule for anybody to keep up, you know, across country, you know, West Coast, back to the Midwest and East Coast. And now that we've got these conferences without borders, you know, it's going to see, you're seeing stuff like this all the time more often than not. but eventually we'll all get used to this pan-American Big Ten. I got a theory to run by you.

This one just popped in my head. So let's see if there's maybe any validity to it. You go through and outside of the Indiana game, that six-game winning streak. The Rutgers game, Rutgers is bad. You're at home, you barely beat Rutgers. You barely beat USC, a team that is okay. That was at home.

Oregon is terrible. And certainly without Biddle, we've seen that that is not a very good team. he's come back and they pushed Purdue in their first matchup when he was back out there. Washington played poorly for a half. Came back an incredible second half. Northwestern, a lethargic win against a Northwestern team. That's not very good, regardless of the lead they had last night against Michigan. And now this one, the wins cure everything.

I completely get that. A win is a win and all those different adages that we throw out there. However, when you dive a little bit deeper into that six game winning streak outside of the Indiana game, they really didn't play that well. and it was aided with just who they played. Suddenly when we look at what's coming up, Purdue Saturday, Tuesday against Nebraska, next Sunday, then a week from Sunday, you're on the road at Wisconsin. Suddenly, well, it's a loss.

It's tough against Maryland. That thing turns into a four-game losing streak. Panic buttons are going to be hit everywhere here. Maybe just maybe that six-game winning streak wasn't quite as good as we thought at the time. But for a while, I was going to have to ask you what Iowa sport we were talking about there because it sounded like you were describing football. You know, we always hear from people, when they beat the teams that they're supposed to beat,

and they lose to the teams that they shouldn't, and then they kick one that they should definitely win. You've got me more than a little nervous now that you lay out that upcoming scenario, and I'm not going to lie, and boy, it's going to get ugly if they drop three or four games in a row, especially given the PTSD of past Iowa basketball teams. I'm not given up on this team yet, And I still think there was something there and winning those games.

You know, reaching down and finding something on a night where maybe you weren't shooting that well or weren't playing that well, they still managed to win those games. So I want to give them as much credit as I can for the teams that they beat during that streak. And again, hopefully the Maryland loss last night was just an aberrition, a little blip on the radar. But things are going to get down to the nitty gritty here with that next four games, as you said. And this is sort of the time of year where tournament teams are tested, right? Like if this is going to be an NCAA tournament team, then they're going to need to show it and prove it here against NCAA tournament competition. Two of their two worst games defensively have come here recently, the Washington game and what we saw last night.

In fact, the defensive efficiency number last night was their worst of the season. And that combines obviously the opponent that you're playing, as we mentioned, not a very good Maryland offense. And yet they put 77 up on the board. It was also not a game where Maryland just shot lights out, that they were just incredible from behind the arc and you kind of throw your hands up in the air and say, what can you do? Charles Bugs wasn't walking through that door. It was in UC Riverside hitting 27 three-pointers or whatever it was against Dr. Tom's team back in the late 80s.

This was different. It was just Maryland getting to the tin, getting to the rim, time in and time out. A frustrating loss on the other side. The Iowa women needed. one. And it didn't matter the fashion. We talked about the six wins for Iowa. Well, were that good. Didn't matter how it happened. And yet after the first quarter, I take a look at the score, watch a little bit during halftime and then watch basically the fourth quarter after the Iowa men went final. And the Iowa women last night give up 31 points total in the final

three quarters after giving up 25 in the first. The game played was good. Washington can't shoot. They made him shoot from the outside. They didn't make them. Iowa gets the win and cures a little bit of the frustration, certainly on the women's side. Yeah, and again, you look at the calendar and what time of the year it is and not all wins are created equal. And that was a big win for them last night because they did need that. You had some parts of the fan base that were getting a little riled up. And I've seen a lot of talk about Jan Jensen and her abilities as a coach. And I just, you know, the time that I've been out of sports radio and sports media, it's really been refreshing.

It's allowed me to step back and take a perspective on this. And not having to pretend like every single day is the biggest day of the year and every game is the most important game. And what they did last night, you know, great night for Chit Chat, Right. Hannah Stolke with the double double. And, you know, it's not easy winning a game when you know you need to win the game. and everybody in that locker room last night knew that they needed to win that game. So there was an immense amount of pressure on them.

I don't care who the opponent was. They all knew that they needed to win that game last night. So I wouldn't necessarily say they're breathing a sigh of relief today at Carver Hawkeye Arena, but they did exactly what they needed to do last night. Absolutely. Get one in the win column. They got the weird game Monday, 11 a.m. tip off on President's Day over in Lincoln against Nebraska. That'll be a coin flip game.

me go back to when they played in Carver. Iowa pulled away late in the fourth quarter, but that was a tight basketball game throughout when Iowa was really running at that point and playing some good basketball and they struggled to get by them. You know, that's going to be difficult. If you didn't get it last night,

then you're talking about potentially a five game losing streak. And yes, people would be freaking out. Todd, you mentioned chit-chat. And her ability, she's a smallest player on the floor pretty much every time out there at five foot four. Yet her shooting ability, she just needs a little bit of room. And you give her a little bit of space.

she's going to knock it down. But with McCabe now not out there any longer, with her on the bench with the ACL tear, they need outside shooting. Stremlow shoots it a lot. She didn't last night, which is probably a good thing, but she's certainly inconsistent from back there.

We don't fear box struggles that she has. She's at 30% on the season from three, though she hit a dagger that put it away last night. You need the outside shooting. And with the bigs that you have, with Stolke and with Hayden, you need something to stretch out the defense. I think Chit-chat, not just what she does

is the point guard, but maybe coupled with what she does, just shooting the basketball from the outside, probably going to be the difference. And if this team is going to get to the second weekend, have an opportunity to host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament, I think Chit Chats going to have to probably shoot the ball at an incredibly high level throughout the course of the season.

We're talking about somebody that's shooting 48% from three. You're putting a lot on her shoulders, but it feels like Chit Chat Wright can handle it. Yeah, you know, I remember my reaction when she transferred in from Georgia Tech. I thought they were getting a pretty good player. She's exceeded my expectations for her. And I just hope that she doesn't run out of gas or there's no regression here down the stretch. Because you're absolutely right, she could be the X factor for this team.

And she's not, you know, I don't think she's a household name around the country or, you know, an amazing player by any stretch of the imagination. But I think she's sneaky good. And when she gets hot, especially like you said. said, give her a little bit of space. Allow her to get that shot off. She can win some games for this team. But as much as I enjoyed the Megan Gustafson era and the Caitlin Clark era,

there's something to be said about this post-Katlin Clark iteration of Iowa Women's Basketball, where really the focus is on the team and who's going to step up and have a big game on any given night because it's not just one player carrying the load. and I just, I don't know what the future is going to hold for this team this year as far as the postseason is concerned. But I do think on nights where you get a big scoring night from Chit Chat, right, certainly isn't going to hurt you. Todd Roblo-Camp, joining us as we.