Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Full #14 Iowa vs #22 Wisconsin review | Tyler Cook vs Ethan Happ | Why free throws could make the difference

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

We have a fun episode today where we sit down with Tanner Nestle (@nestleisthename) from Badgerofhonor.com to talk about tomorrow night's men's basketball matchup between #14 Iowa and #22 Wisconsin. We're going to cover key matchups like Ethan Happ vs Tyler Cook and Ryan Kreuver vs Luke Garza. There will also be discussion on how to attack Happ on the defensive end of the ball, what each team needs to do to win, and ultimately predictions will be made on the final outcome.Twitter: @lockedoniowaEmail: [e-mail] Twitter: @wade_andrew Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another edition of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, the latest sports podcast on the Locked On Sports Network's growing lineup of college podcasts. I'm your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at DearOldGold.com, where you can find analysis pieces on all things black and yellow. And if you haven't had an opportunity to, please check out the last three episodes from this week. We've touched a lot on Iowa Hawkeye football, Iowa Hawkeye basketball, and we've dabbled in wrestling, women's basketball, and volleyball. So please check those out. And if you have an opportunity to, make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts at. And please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show.

We'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa, your podcast at, and please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. We'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa, and you can reach us at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com if you have any questions, comments, that sort of thing. Again, we'd love to hear from you, the listeners, so please feel free to interact with us there. On today's episode, we have a very fun episode for you. As you probably know, the number 14 men's basketball team takes on the number 22 Badgers tomorrow night. So we are incorporating a few enemies into our podcast today. We have Tanner Nessel from the Badger of Honor website, Fansided's Wisconsin Badger website, an affiliate of dear old Gold. We're having him come on to the podcast to talk a lot about Wisconsin Badger basketball,

what they bring to the table, and what that means for tomorrow's night game. So it's going to be a blast. It's going to be a little different though than most of our episodes. There's not going to be a specific segment. We're just going to be jumping right in and kind of going through a lot of questions. So I hope you enjoy. Let us know what you think of the show, and we'll be doing a little bit more of these as we get into the Big Ten slate of basketball games.

All right, I am excited to meet a special guest, one of the site experts over at Badger of Honor, the Wisconsin Badger fan-sided site. Tanner, thank you so much for joining me to talk about this upcoming number 22 Wisconsin Badgers. Kind of feels a little weird to say that starting the season out. Both teams were unranked. Both teams off to very hot starts. So how are you doing today, buddy? I'm doing great. We get to talk about Wisconsin basketball instead of Wisconsin football. So I'm in a good mood.

Yeah, I've seen the Wisconsin-Minnesota game this past weekend. It feels like Wisconsin just kind of gave up on the season. I don't know if that's what your thoughts were, but just to this point, I feel like we cannot wait to get to next season. Yeah, I don't know. This was supposed to be a magical year but that seems to be the trend with wisconsin football you know when there's expectations they kind of dwindle and fail and when they're overlooked they seem to shine and outdo themselves but whatever yeah i mean that honestly is exactly how i feel about iowa football and looking at the i thought

the wisconsin loss but you know there was a chance iowa wisconsin would be competing for the big 10 west title it was a great game kind of anomaly it was a great game it sucked obviously the fourth quarter but it was a fantastic contest and then i'm pretty quickly for both teams iowa had a three-game lose johnson scattered a few losses in here and there. And both teams, I think, are – kind of sucks, but we have basketball to talk about. Yes. I'm super pumped that Iowa, you know, started off such a being number three in the University of Connecticut.

And the Badgers, obviously, off to a hard start as well, 5-1 at this point. And I believe they're taking on at night, so recording on Tuesday night. So those of you listeners, today's ahead of when this podcast will come out. So if we're talking about things kind of that haven't happened yet, it's because they truly haven't happened for us. But that is – talk about opening matchup between Iowa and Wisconsin. And it sounds like, just like you said, you're kind of excited to get past the football season. and talk about opening matchup between Iowa and Wisconsin. And it sounds like, just like you said,

that you're kind of excited to get past the football season. Wisconsin's coming. I don't have the stats in front of me, but I think it was honestly Wisconsin's one of the worst seasons in the past five years. So are you excited about what the team? Yeah, the thing is, it doesn't really matter what they did or how bad they did. It's that they didn't make the tournament, and it was the first time since the 90s.

Things obviously didn't go as planned last year. It was, you know, there were injuries left and right. Dimitrik Trice, who's one of the stars of the team now, he missed most of the year. Kobe King was supposed to be an impact freshman. He missed pretty much most of the year. I believe both of to be an impact freshman. He missed pretty much most of the year. I believe both of them saved their year of eligibility with hardship waivers. And it was a lack of personnel. Nate Reavers, who's one of the big men that we're going to be talking about tonight,

and Brad Davison, they were both – Davison played well, but he was playing out of position. And Reavers was meant to redshirt last year, which they had to pull due to lack of personnel. And it was just a jumbled mess. And all those guys, you know, with Trice coming back and Kobe King coming back as a key reserve, Reavers and Davis did not have so much more experience. It was sort of like a silver lining. And that's sort of what we're hoping with the football team.

I won't talk too much about that, but a lot of forced experience on these guys and there's more experience on this team than there would have been without that year full of hardships. And, and I think everybody was just trying to draw the most positive spin from a horrible year last year. And so far it's coming out in our favor. You know,

you want to spend everything in a positive light and just hope it goes that out in our favor and you know you want to spend everything in a positive light and just hope it goes that way and it sort of is for wisconsin absolutely and i think since it's worst season since fran mccaffrey and the iowa hawkeyes um they won i believe 15 not a box either um A similar kind of concept, although I would like to say I could blame it on injuries. It was honestly just a talent and lack of experience this year, though. They're coming back strong with a year under their belt. They're bringing back their top nine. I would say both teams are kind of in a similar position.

I was the most, you know, the recent history of being able to go to the you know the NCAA tournament on a consistent year-to-year basis but both teams kind of had pretty down years and this year they're kind of on that you know the hot streak it'll be interesting to see kind of how they match up like i said you know iowa has a ton of experience coming back this year and they're adding in you know former member taffrey who was sick a lot of last year and ended up getting a registered camp who is a phenomenal prospect the top 100 player now and starting as a performing quite well so these teams it's a similar trajectory and i think this game will be pretty good both about two both that experience is going to set them up for quite a deadly next couple of years outside of losing Ethan Happ.

But from the team perspective, are you pretty excited? Wisconsin's one of those programs where you don't have a lot of one-and-dones or really any one-and-dones. A lot of players stick around for the full time eligibility. So are you pretty excited to come to basketball in the next three to four years? Yeah, and it's funny you mentioned that whole Wisconsin's not known for having guys that leave after even – Sam Decker, he was flirting with the NBA after his freshman, sophomore year and ended up leaving after his junior season. And that felt kind of strange

even, but it sort of cost Wisconsin because Tyler Hero or Hero, I'm not positive how to pronounce his name and it really doesn't matter to me. He ended up spurning Wisconsin. He's from just outside of Milwaukee, top 10, top 15 recruit, according to most services. He didn't want to be seen as a four-year guy. He wanted to be seen as somebody who could be a one-and-done or potentially leave college after two years. So he ended up going to Kentucky. He's supposed to be a great player and all that,

but that kind of thing hurt Wisconsin. But the players that Wisconsin does have, Brad Davidson, and that's the luxury of it hurt wisconsin um but the players that wisconsin does have brad davison and that's the the luxury of it is you look at somebody like reavers or kobe king or even davison not that any of these guys are necessarily nba prospects but you can just automatically think man what is this guy going to look like when he's two years, three years, four years into the program, and they're just going to be such great players. Losing Hap is going to suck. He's incredible. He's one of the best Wisconsin basketball players of all time, one of the greatest Wisconsin Badger student-athletes of all time, but the future is definitely bright, and the experience that these guys are going to get from the run that they're going to be taken on because

of hap i think is something that uh bronson koenig he was a great leader for this program but he was an underclassman during the frank kaminsky sam decker days but he was able to tag along for those experiences and you know he leadership wasn't forced upon him. I don't think leadership is going to be forced upon this Brad Davidson, Dimitri Trice, Nate Reavers group of underclassmen. They're going to be able to speak from experience instead of just being like, oh, I guess I'm a senior now. I guess I have to lead this locker room. I think that's the best thing. No matter what happens with this season, this team should make the tournament. They should compete. I guess I could be taking that for granted,

but I'm really looking forward to all of these guys, not to look too far ahead of this year anyways. I'm looking forward to see what these guys do as upperclassmen. Before we jump back into Tanner and I's awesome discussion on the Wisconsin and Iowa basketball game, we have a message for you, the listener. Because if you're like me, you hate to miss your favorite team play, regardless of who they are playing.

That's where Sling TV comes in. Now I never have to miss a football or a basketball game. And the best part is, I no longer have to pay for a bunch of channels I don't even watch with a typical cable package. For just $30 a month, you get access to ESPN, the Big Ten Network, and more without the hassle of a long-term contract. What's even more exciting is that we have a fantastic offer for you. Locked On listeners can get a free 7-day trial by going to sling.com. listeners can get a free seven-day trial by going to sling.com slash locked on that's s-l-i-n-g.com slash locked on never miss a game again with sling tv absolutely a couple things you touched on there

the big one is you know you have that player the top 15 prospect to exception and that ultimately sucks i mean that sucks for you all as you know as you have that player, the top 15 prospect to exception. And that ultimately sucks. I mean, that sucks for you all as a, you know, as a Wisconsin Badger fan and Badger program, but at the same time, I think the programs are so successful because of what they're able to build over three to four years. They bring people in who are so committed to the team and you experience in that process. And while obviously the Kentucky is in that process and while obviously the kentuckys and the dukes of the world they're able to bring in you know the zion williamsons and you know the

top five prospects year in and year out i think duke actually had had prospects i believe from the 2018 class but you know they can win by having just such uber talented people but teams like wisconsin and iowa to a lesser extent need to have those programs that build and i would say almost kind of like their football teams i mean wisconsin does a really good job of recruiting in-state bringing in the under the radar prospects and building them up type of players and and iowa does a really good i'm not i personally hate the wisconsin badgers i lived in madison for four. And so I'm, I hate when Wisconsin wins, but I can respect how they win and the way they get about it.

I think the programs are still very similar across all athletics in that regard. Yeah. I'd have to agree with that. There's, there's definitely two ways of going about winning in college sports. You can do it with the big time flashy recruits, or you recruits or you can try to build a culture and go get guys that fit your scheme and your culture and all that stuff. When you don't have the superior talent, then scheme becomes so much more important. Fitting guys into the scheme is how you win

games. Wisconsin and Iowa, in both football and basketball, have beaten teams better than them and more talented than them throughout the years. So there is a way to do it. And I would say actually Iowa, there's not much love lost between me and Iowa, but there's some of the better athletic departments and athletic programs at doing that, winning without being the most talented team on the football field or the basketball court, for that matter. Yeah, it's kind of like always being the underdog in a sense.

I mean, always have that. If you lose, you know, well, we're not necessarily the most talented, but if you win, it's because you win by working your butt off and, you know, grinding every single day and working your. off and you know grinding every single day and working your uh even to a lesser extent not to touch too much on this programs in general but i think northwestern embodies that that spirit as well program under what you know under pat fitzgerald or pat fitzgerald who was just named actually the coach of the year a few moments ago um i think northwestern has done a really good gas constant looking at iowa similar things with their program, and it makes them a deadly team year in and year out, even when they are considered to be better than both Wisconsin and Iowa to beat us every single year.

And it just pisses me off. But, again, kudos to them. I think that's how you need to win in the Big Ten. Right, right. Well, man, I want to talk to you a little bit about Nate Reavers. You know, you talked about his debacle. He didn't get a chance to – into some big – he brings the table as a big man who, you know, can drain that outside shot.

And that's really something that, you know, have a talent at. They're really taking it outside, and they win by the athleticism of their big men. It has, I believe, hit a three-pointer almost every single game this year and can consistently drain the three-pointer. It's going to be a fantastic match. We'll see what those two do together.

How have you seen nate reavers this year and he'll what is what is the best aspect of his game would you say it's his step back and drain the three-pointer i mean that's he's shooting about and i think he's taking like just under two three-point attempts per game he's making about 45 of his threes on the year so that's that's pretty good. I really don't know if I'd feel comfortable with him taking too many more threes than that just because there are much better shot makers on the team.

But I think with him, it's just that he's much more comfortable on defense around the bucket. And Ethan Happ is about 6'8", and you never know exactly how tall these guys are given their listed heights. But he's about 6'8", and Revers is like 6'10", or 6'11". So he's significantly taller than Happ. He had the one game against Stanford in the Bahamas where he had eight or nine blocks, and he was just swatting everything away and uh they were talking about

how he added 25 pounds to his frame over the offseason and i think that's the difference because not only he actually does look bigger which is one of the things i was really looking for this year he actually does look significantly bigger and he's more comfortable probably because of that size. Maybe he always had this shot-blocking ability. Maybe it's confidence that's been growing over the first few games. But that, I think, is something that's huge that Wisconsin definitely did not have last year. First of all, they didn't have a five-man really at all. And now not only do they have a five-man, but they have one that's competent.

He sort of knows his role on the team. He's learning. He's eager to learn all that stuff. And he's good at what he does. Plus, you know, that ability to step out and make the three. But I think, and this is something that I was doing a little homework with Iowa, you guys, you get to the line a lot. Yeah.

You guys are going to be attacking the basket quite a bit, especially with that guy, Tyler Cook. Yep. He's a lot. You guys are going to be attacking the basket quite a bit, especially with that guy, Tyler Cook. He's a tank. He's going to be attacking the basket. And if you have somebody that's down there in front of the basket who's not afraid, I think that's huge. First of all, you need somebody that's going to be there, which we now have with Reavers.

But he's also not afraid, and he's confident in his ability. I think that's the most important thing that he brings to the table. The three-point shooting is great, but Wisconsin's been kind of hit or miss with threes this year. When they shoot a lot, they make a lot, but there's some times where they just don't take many of them at all. They just kind of play through hap and just see what happens and get some guys driving to the basket of their own. So the three-point shot is always nice,

but I really love that we have a rim defender down there now. Absolutely, and you need that in the Big Ten especially. Similar to Big Ten football, Big Ten basketball, I would say is a more traditional game. The other thing i wanted you know you talked about tyler cook and it's really interesting to see these kind of these matchups right because tyler cook and i feel like ethan hap are you know ethan hap is obviously the and i would say arguably tyler cook is the number one player on iowa and then obviously you have

luke garza at center and they both you know both kind of match up very similarly to the bat. You have Luke Garza, 6'11", can shoot the three. Similar to what you're saying, he doesn't always go back there, doesn't shoot a ton of threes, but he makes them on a relative. But he also can attack you down low against innate reavers, and so that size on size will be good with that 6'10"-6'11"-range. That 6'8"-6'9"-range, you have Tyler Cook going against Ethan Happ. So what is, you know,

Ethan Happ is obviously a very talented and special scorer. What is he like on the defensive side of the ball? Do you think, you know, because Tyler Cook is an athletic beast. He is, he's explosive. You know, he toyed with going to the NBA last year. What are your thoughts on that matchup? He is explosive. He toyed with going to the NBA last year. What are your thoughts on that matchup? Do you think Hap has to slow him down defensively or at least basically keep it even?

I have a feeling they're going to kind of go and trade scores back and forth. Tyler Cook isn't exactly known for his defense, so wondering what Ethan Hap brings to that matchup in terms of defense. The thing with Ethan Hap is he's very active on the defensive end and therefore very susceptible to collecting fouls. And I believe it was against Stanford. And, you know, there was maybe a minute or two left and the game was kind of out of reach at this point.

Wisconsin went on their last run already. But Happ fouled out. was kind of out of reach at this point. Wisconsin went on their last run already. But Happ filed out. And, you know, he's maybe a little too handsy, but because he's so good, he gets away with a lot of steals and a lot of blocks. But against somebody like Cook, who's going to be moving a little bit faster

and going to be just a little bit stronger and a little bit more vertical, that might not be good enough. And that's going to be a really good matchup to watch is specifically Happ and how he guards him because I agree with what you were saying is Revers is a good matchup for your other big guy, and they're going to be playing their own game, you know, inside out. Who's going to outdo who there? But how Happ guards Cook is that could be, believe it or not,

that could be an exploit for Iowa just because uh Khalil Iverson I don't know if he's going to be big enough he's certainly athletic enough but I don't know if he's big enough because isn't Cook listed at like 250 pounds like he's he's a tank I'll actually get the numbers up right now while you're talking to to get yeah he's he's a big guy i really don't know who else could match up with him or even keep up with him for that matter besides hap and if hap gets into foul trouble which i'm sure cook is going to be trying to do to him you know why not if you can get the other team's star in foul trouble that's great right yeah i i think that's something that iowa

should definitely look to do and that's that's a more likely outcome than I like to admit, I think. Just because he's not going to give up those easy drives. He's going to try to make a play just about every time. And he might not be so fortunate to get away with so few fouls. I know that Iowa does do a really great job of getting to the line. I feel like they're averaging around three throws a game. It's almost absurd how often they're getting to the line. Yeah, I saw Iowa shot about 180 free throws on the year,

and Wisconsin's opponents have shot only 80 on the year. So huge disparity there. That's the thing is Wisconsin will be disciplined on defense. But who knows if Iowa is driving. Iowa is definitely the best team other than Virginia that Wisconsin has played or will have played this year. So things could be – we could be in for a very unpleasant surprise. And who knows, maybe Iowaowa like one of those two

styles is gonna is gonna win out either i was gonna get to the line a ton or they're not gonna get to the line at all and the way cook plays i think i think it might lean a little in your favor on that end and that's honestly that i feel like that would be probably the one of the biggest matchups and things to watch because iowa is once they get to the line they're active at making those free throws they have a pretty um good free throw shooting team so when they get those free points um and build we get the and one type buckets and stuff so that'll be an interesting matter on the on the guard and the wing side of things you know Wisconsin actually matches up pretty well Iowa has and size um from the the wing perspective connor mccaffrey go hand into the shooting guard so you know from a perspective you know

starting lineup i was six foot so he's the shortest person all davidson those six foot three and clill5", and then Kobe King is 6'4". So you have a position on the defensive side of the ball, getting into the lane, you know, different than that. Yeah, the thing with Trice being so small is I really wonder. I didn't like him so much at the beginning of last year just because I thought he might have been a little too small and therefore a little too quick to settle for shots. small is that I really wonder I didn't like him so much um at the beginning of last year just because I thought he might have been a little too small therefore a little too quick to settle for

shots but he's been making shots that are really making tough shots at a really high clip this year and uh as long as you're able to get shots off I think maybe that's what went wrong against Virginia was their defense was a little too physical, and there wasn't enough room for our guards because, you know, there's some size there. But I think outside of Bohannon, Iowa's got some pretty good size. Like they're kind of like 6'5", 6'6", across the board for the most part. Yeah. And I think Wisconsin's actually going to be at a size disadvantage too,

in the backcourt especially. And I don't know how physical your guards are going to be with our guards, but that could definitely be. If you're forcing Trice and Davison to take tough shots all night long and whatever you're going to do with Hap down low, forcing him to make tough shots, I'm sure, with double teams and all that, I'm a little concerned with the undersized there. I really hope Kobe King, he's a bigger guard.

Revan Pritzel, he's got some size. He's more of a shooter. We just need more contribution to come from the Wisconsin backcourt, which we haven't gotten so much this year. Yeah, and I think from the Iowa perspective, the backcourt for Iowa has been hot and cold for the most part, and they're still kind of experimenting with what lineups really work. Fortunately for them, when one player's off and another player's on, and they have a decent amount of depth there.

And you're absolutely right. The size on the Iowa backcourt and the athleticism that accompanies that. Connor McCaffrey has been kind of a six-man off the bench. But like I said, he moves Jordan Bohannon over. Jordan Bohannon is the smallest person on a buck 82. But Connor McCaffrey, six foot five, Joe Weiskamp,

who's been playing sort of a small forward role is six foot six. And then Isaiah Moss, who is their starting shooting guard is six foot. Mace Daly comes off the bench and he's also six foot six. So there's a ton of size from that perspective. I will say this though, um, a quick athletic guards.

Iowa really struggled to contain some of their smaller players. I believe Green Bay only had one player over 6'5", and Iowa wasn't able to keep up with that amount of athleticism. So there's an opportunity there potentially if the metric tries to be a maneuver around, especially if Jordan Mohan and then is out of the ball and obviously I know having some legacy background there you probably wanted to have Bohannon but he's uh he's a liability on the defensive side of the ball I mean he's worked hard to to get better at it and you know you gotta applaud his effort but he's not that stout

defensively so that could be a one kind of under the radar matchup that may work in Wisconsin's favor. Yeah, Bohannon's bigger brother. He was one of my favorite Badgers ever. I remember when I found out that there was a little Bohannon and he wasn't coming to Wisconsin, I was a little bummed out. But if he's going to, you know, if he's going to struggle on defense, when's the game, Friday night, if he's going to struggle on defense and let our boy Trice go off,

then I think I can live with it. Absolutely. And just real quick, I don't want to bring this in, but Jared Uthoff, what was your thoughts on him before he transferred to Iowa? Were you pretty excited about his potential as a Wisconsin Badger? Iowa, were you pretty excited about his potential as a Wisconsin Badger? See, the thing is, whenever you have a bigger white guy like that that comes through Wisconsin, you just kind of assume he's going to be a great Badger. So there's several on the roster right now,

and we don't really know too much about them because they're redshirted or they're underclassmen. And whenever you lose one, you just kind of assume you're losing a great player. But, you know, we never really saw him blossom too much at Wisconsin, and he's been a great player for Iowa. So you can't really do too much about it. That makes sense, yeah. No, it's funny.

Not Iowa, but Wisconsin definitely has a blank year white white basketball player, which is not. Yeah, you just assume Nate Reavers is going to be a great player. It's the mold. He's been like every other great Wisconsin basketball player that's come through lately. Well, man, I think we covered a lot about the matchups and whatnot. I don't want to – over your time, you've been great, and I loved having you on.

Real quick, what is your prediction for the game? What do you think ultimately at the end of the day, what do you think is going to happen? And then what does that mean for the Wisconsin Badger program? Well, I think Wisconsin is a better basketball team than Iowa, but I totally understand why Iowa has the ranking that they do. They clearly have the better win by beating Oregon, and then beating UConn is not bad.

For all we know, these teams that Wisconsin could have beaten, Oklahoma, Stanford, and Xavier, those are the big ones. All three of those teams might not make the NCAA tournament, so these wins could be – we just don't know. But anyway, right now I think Wisconsin's a better team. I do like, you know, the way that Trice and Davison have been playing. Obviously, Hap is going to get his. So far he's gotten his against whoever and against whatever.

is going to get his. So far, he's gotten his against whoever and against whatever. In Wisconsin, they've showed grit and toughness when the going got tough in the battle for Atlantis other than against Virginia just because they're a great basketball team. But even then, they made that game close. I think Wisconsin is going to end up pulling it out. It's going to be really, really tough. Winning on the road in conference is one of the hardest things to do in college sports. I was going to play great basketball, but I think Wisconsin's just better. It's really hard for teams built like Wisconsin and that play like Wisconsin

to lose games to teams that they're better than. That's fair. Personally, I think from my perspective so it sounds like you you think wisconsin's gonna pull it out i truly think just talking to you and talking to you i feel like these teams are extremely i don't disagree a player like ethan hap you always have to give the advantage if two teams are relatively even matched you've got to give the advantage to the team that has the best overall player. Right. I think Wisconsin can have,

with that being said, I think Iowa has the advantage of playing at Carver Hawkeye arena. Although that advantage of playing at, which Wisconsin almost realized again, I don't know how Wisconsin keeps being a Kinnick at night, but I think, I think it will be a close game. I want to say Iowa's going to pull it off.

I do think when Iowa goes to Madison, that game, I feel like it's going to be a split between the two. Honestly, I feel like that's going to be a lot of games this year and the Big Ten is loaded. It's going to be each team eating each other and essentially cannibalizing when I think Iowa can play. I think it's going to be a really good match. It'll be whether Iowa can get to the line or not.

Yeah, the thing is, no matter who loses this game as of right now, it's not going to be seen as a bad loss. Both teams, I think, are obviously ranked. I think both teams are seen as tournament teams loss uh both teams i think are seen they're obviously ranked i think both teams are seen as tournament teams uh teams that could potentially make noise or at least they're going to be in that second tier in the big 10 if it's michigan and michigan state in tier one uh i i think another thing to watch for is obviously all eyes are going to be on hap trice and davidson those are like the big three and then of Reavers, who we spent a lot of time on, it's Khalil Iverson. He's really like, he's a roller coaster of production. And he's going to be tasked with having to play some good defense. It might be against Weiskamp. And

that's going to be fun to watch because that's going to be, I believe Iverson's a fifth year senior. So super upperclassman versus an underclassman. And that's going to be a matchup to watch. I think whoever wins that one, that's going to be the extra bit of production that's going to help out the winning side ultimately. I can't say Iverson's been my favorite player throughout the years. He's definitely great for the big moments and all that, but he's really frustrating too because he's super athletic and he should be able to do just a little bit more.

So we'll see. But in the end, you really can't be upset with whatever result you get out of these two teams. As long as they play well and the game's tight, it's not going to be a bad loss either way. That's my feeling at least for the football game, too, or at least the football game a couple earlier in the season. I think, like I said, if they can keep it close, that's huge.

I think, like you said, it won't really matter at the end of the day as long as it's close. Hopefully Iowa comes out on top, but we will find out on Friday night when Iowa opens up their Big Ten slate against Wisconsin. Tanner, thank you so much for jumping on the call today. I really appreciate it. It's been great having you on. Hopefully we can do a few more of these maybe later in the season

when Iowa heads to Madison to take on the Badgers. We can have another little call and talk about this through another podcast. But real quick, before I let you go, wanted to make sure the folks that are listening know to check out dearoldgold.com, all of your Hawkeye analysis on fan sided network, and then also check out badger of honor.com. That is where you can find all of your Wisconsin badger news. We have some good collaboration pieces coming out between myself and Tanner

and his co, you know, co-expert Sam. So we're going to have some good Q and a type stuff, some good articles coming out about what to expect for the game. In addition to obviously listening to this podcast. So Tanner, thank you again for coming on. Any last words before we, before we end the podcast?

No, you pretty much got it all. I just wanted to say thank you for, for asking me. It was a ton of fun. I hope, I hope I gave all the insight to your Hawkeye fan followers and listeners that they could want. And they go into the game, you know, a bit more educated. Absolutely, man.

I mean, this session was eye-opening for me as well. I'm even more pumped for this matchup. So I'll be glued to the couch Friday night watching this game take place. Makes me want to win it that much more. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's how I thought after the football game. After talking to you, I was like, oh, my gosh, we need to win this game. It gives Makes me want to win it that much more. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what I thought after the football game, after talking to you,

I was like, oh my gosh, like we need to win this game. It gives a little bit more. So I think it will be good. We'll have, we'll talk a little bit more later in the season. And like I said, check out both of our websites.

We have awesome content, whether it's basketball, football, or what have you. You can find awesome stuff on both of our fan-sided websites. So Tanner, thank you again for jumping on. Have a great night, buddy. And hopefully Wisconsin can beat NC State tonight.

Yeah, for real. All right. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you all for joining us on this fantastic episode that Tanner and I had to be able to talk about the Iowa and Wisconsin basketball game. I know from listening to the audio, there was a few concerns with what I was saying in terms of audio clarity and quality, but I believe Tanner's responses are more than

sufficient for having a good podcast on here. I didn't want to lose the opportunity to provide his responses to you fans. So I definitely understand that as a concern. We are going to get that fixed for the next time we have guests on here. And talking to Tanner, we're definitely going to have him back on here again when the Wisconsin Badgers take on the Hawks later in the season when Iowa travels up to the Kohl Center. So again, if you liked this episode,

make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, etc. And please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the podcast and the show. And you can interact with us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. You can also find me on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew. And you can communicate with us via email if you want to at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com. Also, some exciting news. We're getting a Facebook account, and we will be having a Facebook where we can post our podcast,

and you can interact with us there as well. So trying to give you as many mechanisms and mediums as possible to interact with us. We'd love to hear from you. So please feel free to do so. You will be graciously appreciated when you're doing that. And that will conclude though for our Thursday episode. We're thinking about maybe recording a quick episode tomorrow. Obviously, if you're following us on Twitter, you'll know whether or not we decide to move forward with that. If not, though, we will be back on Monday with plenty of things to talk about. There's a lot of action this weekend in Hawkeye Athletics. The women's basketball team faces Notre Dame tonight.

We'll definitely be talking about that. Number one, Notre Dame versus the number 12 women's basketball team. We have Hawkeye basketball on Friday night, men's basketball, sorry, versus Wisconsin, and the wrestling team is taking on Iowa State. So a lot of big, awesome things coming along. We also have some great guests coming on next week. So it's going to be a fun week next week as well. We have a former Iowa Hawkeye wide receiver, one of the best in the Kirk Ferentz eras, is coming on to talk to us about his time as an Iowa Hawkeye and kind of what he thought of the football team this season.

And we have a few experts, a few analysis folks who are going to be able to talk to us about some of the upcoming NFL draft stuff, some of the things we can see from the Iowa football team, etc. So again, we have lots of guests coming up. It's going to be some fun times. You do not want to miss those episodes. And with that, thank you for joining us on the Locked On Hawkeye podcast. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow.