Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Can Iowa take down Michigan State on the road for the third time in three decades?

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Iowa faces a daunting task of doing something they've done just twice since the early '90s. What does Iowa need to do to win and where are the weaknesses on this Michigan State team. All covered here in our full preview of tonight's matchup. 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 podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network.

As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and I'm excited to be here with you on a Tuesday morning. I am pre-recording this late Monday morning because I am traveling later tonight. Will not be able to get a podcast out to you if I don't pre-record this. So I am missing some of the news about where Iowa men and women's basketball teams are ranking when the AP poll comes out. But today's episode is going to be entirely devoted to covering the Iowa vs. Michigan State game. Potentially a little bit shorter of an episode, but I wanted to make sure I gave you a preview of what is expected in tonight's matchup for this game. So, thank you all for tuning in.

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You would not regret it, I promise you. So let's jump into it, though. Again, this Iowa-Michigan State game, this is a huge game for Iowa, especially with what has happened over the last couple days with Maryland losing, with Penn State losing. Iowa has a realistic chance at getting that number one overall seed in the Big Ten tournament, winning the Big Ten Conference in the regular season for the first time in quite some time. It would be a huge, huge, huge, huge thing for Iowa to be able to come back through all the adversity and be able to do that.

And the fact they're even in that position is absolutely huge for the Hawks and it's something that we talked a lot about on yesterday's show. That being said, they have a very tough test. Although this is not the same Michigan State team that Iowa has seen in the past or even like last year where they just crushed Iowa in both their games this is a good Michigan State team however Iowa is going to the Breslin Center and that is a place where they have historically just crapped the bed when you look at it Iowa is 3-18 versus Michigan State in their last 21 games dating back to 2007. When you look at it from a perspective of if they've actually won at the Breslin Center,

they have won twice in the last three decades at the Breslin Center. That once was in 2016, that really good Iowa team that got real hot in the middle of January with Jared Uthoff. And then the other time was back in 1992. The last time they even kept it within 10 points was 2009 when they lost 70-63. So the point of this all is that this is not going to be an easy game. I know history doesn't always tell us a lot, but we've seen teams historically struggle at Purdue. Iowa has historically struggled at Purdue.

The places where they historically struggle just seems to have a little bit more of an emphasis on it. And there's reasons for it. It's not always just the teams, right? It's not always just Iowa struggles. It's the fact that Michigan State typically has a good team. They have a good atmosphere. Those kind of things do play a factor into that.

And as we've seen in the Big Ten, road games are never easy for that road team. That visiting team always has a struggle there. When you look at it from the Big Ten standings, I believe 10 or 11 teams have better than 500 records at home. So that just speaks volumes to how tough this conference is, especially on the road. Iowa has done a fantastic job of protecting their own home court, but they aren't as good on the road.

We've seen them struggle. We saw them struggle against Purdue. And so even against Minnesota, they did not have a very good offensive game, but they managed to pull that game out. So going against Michigan State is not going to be an easy matchup for them, as we all know. Again, this is a doable game, but not an easy game. So let's talk a little bit about kind of what Michigan State is bringing to the table.

And as I said, I am pre-recording this. As of right now, Michigan State is 8th in Ken Palm, 17th best offense, 14th best defense. But they've really struggled as of late. They started off hot. They started off highly ranked. They've dropped four of their last six and six of their last 11. They fell to Maryland at home and Penn State at home. Both would have been great opportunities for them to beat those teams

now that Iowa gets Michigan State again. They also lost on the road to Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Purdue. So no team to really hang your hat on. They didn't lose to Nebraska like Iowa did. Those are all pretty solid teams. Purdue, especially at home, can get really hot. As we saw against Iowa, they hit a season-high three-pointer, and they beat Iowa. So that's something that could happen. Against Michigan State, they did the same thing. They did really well from behind the arc, and they ended up

beating Michigan State. But the point of this is, Michigan State is coming into this game with a little bit of a down stretch. They need to win these games, especially if they want an opportunity to contend for a Big Ten title for the regular season. So they also have a lot riding on this game. But this isn't your same Michigan State team. They lost a lot of starters from last season. I believe they lost three starters from last year's team, and Joshua Langford has been out the entire year with recurring ankle and foot injuries, and he is a baller. He's a guy who can really go off and change the tide of a game. Really, their big two people right now are Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman, the guard and the front court guy, the center four. He's really

more of a forward, but he plays that center position for Michigan State. Those are really the two guys that Iowa needs to worry about. Coming up, though, after the quick break, we're going to talk a little bit more about Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman and where Michigan State struggles at and how Iowa might be able to exploit that. So that will be coming up in just a few short seconds. Just a few short seconds. So like I said, coming up on this second part of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast,

wanted to cover a few of the key guys that Iowa needs to be worried about and kind of what Iowa needs to do to kind of win this game. And as I said, Cassius Winston is the leader of this team. I really thought he was going to go pro last year. Decided to come back. 6'1", 185-pound guard who's averaging 18.3 points per game, 2.4 rebounds per game, and 5.7 assists per game. If it wasn't for Luka Garza being an absolute beast, this guy could be one of the front runners for the Big Ten player of the year. He's almost assuredly going to be first team all Big Ten though. And then Xavier Tillman, 6'8", 245-pound forward,

who's averaging 13.6 points per game, 10.3 rebounds per game, and 3 assists. A guy who has been efficient, not necessarily super effective, but very efficient against Iowa in the past, but also didn't play a ton of minutes. This year, he is kind of the key guy down low, and he's going to have to have a battle against Luka Garza. He's given up 20 pounds and 3 inches to Luka Garza though. So how does that matchup work?

Is Xavier Tillman quick enough to handle Luka Garza's effective and sneaky, sneakily deceptive athleticism? As we've seen throughout the season, that answer is pretty much no. No team has really been able to handle Luka Garza. And even in the past couple games, we've seen teams really allow Luka Garza to do his thing. They are not trying to stop him as much as they have in the past. They've really focused on stopping Joe Wieskamp. And that is a big reason why CJ Frederick's return could be huge. Because with Frederick being out, teams have been saying basically Joe Wieskamp's

their main perimeter threat. He's the main guy that can shoot the ball from three. Make sure he does not shoot that ball. Allow Luka Garza to do his thing, but if Wieskamp doesn't get going, they don't have a lot of other shooters. And although it's been relatively effective, we saw against Minnesota, Iowa had quite possibly one of their worst offensive performances in quite some time. And I think I went into some discussion on how historically low scoring of a game that was for Iowa to win on a podcast a week ago. But regardless, that is huge for what they could be doing. Luka Garza is going to get his, but we need Joe Wieskamp to get his as well.

And that really comes down to, will CJ Frederick be there? It sounds like Frank McCaffrey is playing the long game, and I can't blame the guy. Obviously, you would love to, even a 90% CJ Frederick against a Michigan state team because Frederick is possibly Iowa's best perimeter defender and also one of their best shooters, if not their best shooter from deep. He's a guy who makes a huge impact as a three and D kind of guy on this team. Um, but you really need to look at it from a long-term perspective. You need C.J. Frederick for the Big Ten tournament. You need him for the NCAA tournament.

Winning against Michigan State would be great, but the ultimate goal is not necessarily to win a Big Ten title. The goal is to advance far in the NCAA tournament. The goal is not necessarily just to beat Michigan State. The goal is to advance far. So what can you do to make sure you advance far? And with Frederick dealing and battling with injuries throughout the year, especially with the stress fracture in his foot and then having the

ankle injury, you want to make sure this kid is going to be ready to go and able to play when the games get really important here starting in a few weeks. That being said, it sounds like if he is 100% able to go, he's going to go. I know the last game against Ohio State, there was talk about him being a game time decision. They ultimately decided to not go with him playing and Iowa did a great job in that game, was very good offensively. Sounds like he has made significant improvement from that time, but they still want to make sure that he is 100% ready to go because the worst case scenario is that he goes, he has a decent game, but then gets hurt again and is out for an even longer period of time. That being said, like I said, if he's available,

that allows the floor to be stretched out. Teams cannot key on Joe Wieskamp, and Luka Garza can still do his thing. That's huge for the Iowa offense. In Wieskamp's last two games without C.J. Frederick there, he is 1 of 7 from the field and 1 of 6 from 3-point, which is 14% and 17% respectively for just 2 points and a win over Minnesota. Against Ohio State, when everyone was doing pretty well offensively, he was 4 of 12 from

the field and 3 of 6 from 3-point, making 13 points in that win. And again, with Frederick being able to be there, if Frederick is able to be there, that allows Ryan Creener to come off the bench and provide a safety valve in case Garza gets in foul trouble. When Frederick is not there, Kreener is that starting forward. And if both those guys get hurt, sorry, get into foul trouble, you're limited with the amount of people you can bring off the bench. That's why we're seeing a lot more Riley Till in the past couple games.

I also, you know, I will say this. Cordell Pemzel has come along, and he's played really well. You even saw in the last game him yelling, I'm back. He's playing with more confidence. He's doing a really good job of being effective in his limited minutes. So at least we have him to kind of rely on if we need to. But having Kreener being on the bench and coming in at that second unit, I think is really good for Iowa and can be really effective.

But if Frederick's not there, then Kreener is going to have to be a starter. And again, that kind of limits the amount of bench that you have and the amount of players that are going to have an opportunity to play. That bench gets a lot shorter. Players can get a little bit more tired. That kind of thing starts happening when you are losing a guy like CJ Frederick from that starting lineup. Coming up, though, in just a few short seconds, we're going to talk a little bit more about the keys to this game, what Michigan State can do, and then what I ultimately think is going to happen.

We are back with segment number three of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, the final segment of today's episode of the show. And like I said, we're going to finish up by continuing our conversation about the Iowa-Michigan State game. And as I said, I want to talk about the keys of the game and a few other pieces of information that I think are really important to discuss. And again, as we talked about with CJ Frederick and his return, I think another key question that Iowa needs to figure out is which Joe Toussaint will play in this game.

We've seen him be really effective. He's a very tenacious defender, very active defender, is one of the few guys on the team that can really drive and create a lot of things off the dribble and get guys to compress on him and kick it out to one of the guys who can pop a three. But we've also seen him play a little bit reckless, and that's why we've seen a lot more of Bakari Evelyn play in the last couple games. They're basically averaging about the same amount of minutes.

But in this game, what's going to be really key is can he hang with Winston? We need a big game from Joe Toussaint against Cassius Winston. If he can slow him down, that to me is the biggest key to the game. This team, as Cassius Winston goes, the Michigan State Spartans go. And so they really need to be able to slow him down. I think that's a huge, huge, huge key to this game for Iowa to win. Cassius Winston is a shooter.

He's a guy who is going to take a lot of shots, and you want to make sure you're limiting the effectiveness of that. If you're looking at it, in the last, you know, and during Michigan State's kind of tough stretch they've struggled in, in the loss to Maryland, 5 of 13, in the loss to Illinois, 3 of 6. They were able to shut them down and not, actually, excuse me, that was a win over Illinois. And they lost to Michigan, 5 of 18, shooting just 27%. And they lost to Penn State, 8 of 21,

not the worst performance. A loss to Wisconsin, 9 of 19, much better performance there, but still a loss. And they lost to Purdue earlier, 4 of 13. And they lost to Duke, 4 of 14. And they lost to Virginia earlier, 4 of 13. And a loss to Duke, 4 of 14. And a loss to Virginia Tech, 2 of 8. So, as you can see, there's really just two games in all of Michigan State's losses where Cassius Winston had a good game.

And the other wins, he's shooting 500, 500, 500, 57%, 42%, 47%. So when he goes, this Michigan State team goes. And that's why we need Joe Toussaint to play very, very good defense. I expect Fran McCaffrey to mix it up quite a bit. Based on the matchups, I could see if Joe Toussaint's having a good game, I could see them moving a little bit to man throughout the game to put a little bit more pressure on Winston. But where Iowa kind

of struggles is, especially because when Iowa started with his own defense, they kind of struggle if a team can hold on to the balls a while and take their time and be patient, they will create open three-point shots. And this is a team that you do not want to allow to create open three-point shots. So I think I will expect Fran McCaffrey to be switching up the defenses quite a bit, as we see him do quite often. When I look at it from this team perspective, they have quite a few guys who can shoot the three-point well. Four players, Winston, Aaron Henry, Gabe Brown, and Kyle Ahrens, all shooting over 35% from three on more than two attempts. So those are guys you want to be watching out for. We've

seen Iowa really struggle when teams can shoot the ball really well from the perimeter. Not often is Iowa getting beat down low in the paint, especially when you have a guy like Luka Garza who's down there controlling it, or Ryan Kreener, or a gritty guy like Cordell Pemzel who's willing to do whatever it takes to win the game. Looking at that, that is one of the keys to the game for me. The other key is tighten up that perimeter defense again, stopping the three-point shot from getting going. And then if CJ Frederick is available, get him going. Want to shake that rust off. Let him make a few threes. That'll create some

opportunities for Joe Wieskamp. If Frederick cannot go, we're going to need some bench presence here. We're going to need Bakari Evelyn to play some good minutes. Cordell Pemzel to be effective when he's on the court because we want the other guys to be able to rest and play balls out when they are on the court if they want to have an opportunity to beat Michigan State on their home court. All right, so the last piece of thing I really want to talk about is what is Michigan State really bringing to the table? Like I said, they have a few good shooters. Cassius Winston's a beast. From a defensive perspective, they are very good at controlling the perimeter. They're allowing just 28.7% from three.

They're a very balanced team offensively. And one of the final keys, I think, is foul trouble. They are one of the lowest ranked teams in terms of playing players with two fouls or more. So Iowa needs to attack them. They need to continue to attack them. And as I said, Joe Toussaint's going to be huge here because defensively, Michigan State does not create a lot of turnovers. They're one of the worst teams in the nation enforcing turnovers. So Joe Toussaint, like I said, played a little reckless before. Can he control the ball? I think we've seen Connor

McCaffrey do a great job of that, but Joe Toussaint adds another element to it, being able to drive into the paint. If you can force these guys to foul him or get him out of position and let Luka Garza create some opportunities and foul Luka Garza, that'll be a really huge development to watch if we can get some of their key guys in foul trouble. We saw it more last year where Iowa was really, really effective at attacking the paint and getting guys into foul trouble. Not as much this year, but that'll be a huge key to it as well.

If you can get a guy like Xavier Tillman off the court because he has two fouls, that'll be huge. Not to say Michigan State doesn't have the backups. They have seven top 100 recruits on their team, so there is a lot of talent here. But you want to get those starters off the court as much as you possibly can. And I think that's where Joe Toussaint can be a huge player in this game. Michigan State does like to slow the ball down a lot, though.

They like to force teams to take bad shots late in the clock. Iowa needs to be patient. They need to find their open looks. They need to find a good look as well and not get too aggressive when shooting that ball. So that'll be interesting to watch, which is why I also think because Michigan State does slow the possessions down quite significantly,

I do think this is going to be a lower scoring game if Iowa wants to win. If Iowa loses, I feel like it's going to be a pretty big loss. But if they do want to win this game, I think it's going to be a little bit lower scoring. We're going to need to see that Minnesota defense show up, right? The defense that they played against Minnesota, we need to see that show up against Michigan State. So, oh man, I think this might be a homer pick. I understand if you don't agree with me, but I do think Iowa has the resiliency. I think they're playing good basketball right now.

And especially if J.J. Frederick comes back, I think Iowa does win this game. I'm going to say it's going to be 72-66. I think it'll be a close game if they do win that game. And they'll have to shut down Cassius Winston. I think if they win that game, Cassius Winston has a pretty poor shooting performance. Iowa gets their first win since 2016 at the Breslin Center. So that'll be a huge development for sure. And if they do win that game, that'll put Iowa on the map and put them in a good spot to try to steal that Big Ten Conference title out from

underneath Maryland or Penn State, especially if we can see Maryland and Penn State potentially drop a game here over the next couple weeks, drop a couple games actually. So that'll do it, though, for our show today. I hope you appreciated and enjoyed the preview of the Iowa-Michigan State game. Again, we'll be giving a full breakdown of the game on tomorrow's episode of the show along with additional content probably covering a little bit more of the NFL draft and the NFL combine as that is taking place this week as well.

So thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya Podcast app. And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I hope you all have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. Let's go Hawks!