Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Hawks crush the Clones basketball team and Keith Duncan gets robbed of the Lou Groza Award

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

The men's basketball team crushes the Cyclones so we have to break that down before going on a nice ten minute rant about why the Lou Groza Award is garbage after not giving it to Keith Duncan. 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 Hawkeye Nation, and what a great Friday morning it is. It is a Hawkeye State, as it always has been, but it is official now with another win by the men's basketball team.

Iowa has taken a lead in that CyHawk Series for the year. A great win at the Hilton Coliseum. The first win for Iowa since 2003. So what a fantastic morning and a way to start off the weekend with that big win. Not all positive news though. We did have some interesting results in the Lou Groza award contest from last night as well that we're going to be talking about. But basically on today's show we're covering this Iowa-Iowa State game, the blowout win by Iowa over Iowa State at Hilton, and we're also going to be covering the Lou Groza award and how much garbage it is that that award exists if they're not going to give it to

the best kicker in the freaking nation. But I can go on a rant for that for a while. We're going to do that later on in the show. Again, appreciate you all tuning into this show, this beautiful Friday morning. Sorry for getting this out a little bit late. Had a late night last night flying in from work and all that fun stuff and had some calls this morning so I wasn't able to get to it as quickly as I wanted to but I appreciate your patience and I hope you enjoy the episode today. Make sure if you are tuning in for the first time that you go like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at whether that is

Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya Podcast app. Make sure to go follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram so you can stay in the know on all the things happening in Iowa Hawkeye Nation currently and going forward. All right, though, let's jump into it. First, let's cover the Iowa State news. That's the positive news. I like to start things off on a pretty happy note.

Again, a big win by the Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball team, winning 84-68, a night after the women also took down Iowa State and Ames as well. This comes after the wrestling team took down Iowa State and Ames, and the football team took down Iowa State and Ames. If you are an Iowa State fan, it's got to be rough. And you can see it on Twitter, just the amount of ridiculous insults Iowa State fans are throwing at Iowa, because they literally have nothing else to grasp onto in terms of wins and losses, because they just don't do it anymore. At least not this year in some of the major sports in the

state for these two schools. Iowa does with this win move to eight and three. This will be a good win come tournament time. I don't think Iowa State is as good as they have been in the past. They look to be a little bit weaker. Kind of a rebuilding year. I know Tyrese Halliburton is a really good player, but he's even like a national player of the year candidate, but I just don't think this Iowa State team is as good as we've typically seen. That being said, this is a good win for Iowa. It is going to be a good win come tournament time. It's going to be one of those key wins for the Hawks. And honestly, what just really impressed me about this team

is the resiliency throughout the game. Jumping out to a 16-4 lead, Iowa State did do a pretty good job. They had a couple 9-0 runs. Getting a little bit back into the game had you thinking, ah, crap, here we go again. We're going to blow a big lead to Iowa State in aims like we've done in the past. But this team did not let off the throttle, kept going, and kept going at Iowa State

and did a fantastic job of closing out this game. And all in spite of the fact that Jordan Bohannon actually didn't shoot very well. Going 2 of 12, still managed to get 12 points because he got 6 free throws. But not exactly the best shooting performance from some of the Hawks. I mean, from 3-point, Iowa was actually only 10 of 28, 35.7%, which is good for most teams. For Iowa, it's a little bit slightly lower, but again, just overall just a great performance by Iowa.

Offensively, I really like the way they're moving it around the perimeter and getting it into Luka Garza, as always. They also did a good job of getting second chance opportunities, mostly due to Luka Garza. I like the fact, I like the lineups that, you know, Fran was putting out there, and I like some of the matchups they were trying to find, especially with Connor McCaffrey posting up down low on a few guys. One of the things I think people don't realize about McCaffrey is how versatile he can be. And the fact that he really came in kind of as a small forward, but he plays that point position. And at his size, he can kind of play 1, 2, and 3, and also guard 1, 2, 3, and 4.

And so with a smaller lineup on the court, he can go up and post up on those point guards, on those shooting guards who are a little bit smaller than him, and be pretty effective down low when needed. And also one of the other things I thought was really impressive was the defense. I mean, there was a few transition points that Iowa didn't do a good job of getting back on. Obviously, Iowa State did a solid job offensively in the second half. I thought they did a lot better. And the scoreboard shows that it was a lot closer game in that second half, 45-44 versus

the first half where it was 39-24. So Iowa State did pick it back up. But again, for a defense that we've seen struggle pretty mightily in the past couple years under Fran McCaffrey, and even against Michigan who was shooting lights out, I thought the defensive performance was ultimately pretty solid, from my opinion, in this game. So excited to see that.

Excited to see Iowa get that win against Iowa State. A couple other notes that I want to cover about this specifically is I definitely thought it was going to be a little bit chippier. It wasn't as chippy as I thought it would be. Was interested to see, and I even stayed and watched the last, you know, the next 5-10 minutes after the game to see if anything happened on the court. Nothing happened outside of Jordan Bohannon just trolling the ever-loving hell out of Iowa State by writing on his shoes, thanks for the mems, and leaving his shoes on the court.

Bohannon makes this basketball rivalry pretty fun. You could see him talking crap back and forth with George's name. I think that's really good for the state. Uh, as long as it doesn't get too personal. I saw some people post some pretty aggressive and mean things towards Bo Hannon. Like, uh,

you should go die and stuff like that, which is absolutely ridiculous. But I do think, you know, when, when guys like that, when in state guys like Bo Hannon, um,

get into this matchup and, and make it more than just a basketball game, it makes it fun for the fans too. Uh, that was an ultimate troll move by by Bohannon, and I absolutely love it. If I'm an Iowa State fan, I absolutely hate Bohannon. And when we inevitably find out that he's likely going to be redshirting this year, if I'm an Iowa State fan, I'm pissed off because I have to see him again next year with an even more potentially loaded Iowa Hawkeye team coming up against

this Iowa State Cyclone team. And that actually gets me to another thing, and I'm kind of jumping around here, but it sounds like, you know, per Chad Lester, I mean, I always butcher his name, but you know who Chad is. If you're a Hawkeye fan, you know who Chad is. It sounds like Bohannon is likely going to shut it down. Didn't make that official decision last night, but it sounds like he was in a lot of pain after the game. And you can even see it with his on-court performance.

I mean, he's a good player, but he's not as good as he could be. You can tell that he's just not the same type of player that he has been in the past. And it looks like that hip is still hampering him a little bit. And one of the big things he said is, I want to be 100% healthy. The announcers at the game even said it multiple times. Like if you're not healthy, you should just sit out and play that next season. And yes, is it going to hurt the Hawks this year? A little bit, definitely, especially the clutch shooting, the ability to knock down those deep threes, like a Steph Curry type shot, those momentum changing three pointers. That is going

to be an issue for Iowa. Um, not having him on the court able to make those clutch shots. That's when you need other people to step up, though. And it's unfortunate, especially this year. I mean, this team looks pretty darn good. Luka Garza is looking like a National Player of the Year candidate. I mean, Joe Wieskamp has so much talent. T.J. Frederick is a beast, just can absolutely shoot the ball so well and plays really great defense. Ryan Kreener's coming into his own on that reserve role coming off the bench. I love that. And Connor McCaffrey has gotten past the shooting woes from last year and is doing a really good job of being a fantastic point guard. Is he

a Joe Toussaint? No, no one is a Joe Toussaint though. It's just not, it's not reasonable. We haven't seen a lot of guys like Joe come in here in the Iowa Hawkeye basketball program. So to compare him to that, they're just two completely different players. But what Connor McCaffrey does is so much above the shoulders. He's such an intelligent point guard in how he can handle those things. And again, he's so smart and able to find and pick his areas of battle. And he is getting a lot better shooting the ball, even though I would say he's

not exactly the prettiest shooter, right? When it comes out, it doesn't look that pretty, but it does go in. So that works. This team is a good team though. And without Bohannon, it's still a good team. Bohannon would be able to make this, I think a great team if he was able to be healthy, but it does sound like he is likely going to be shutting that down this year, which means that next year could be even better. But we're going to take a quick break. Coming up on the next segment of the show, we're going to be talking a little bit more about this Iowa-Iowa State game. I want to talk about Luka Garza,

some of the awesome play that Joe Tristan can do, hustling up the court and really pushing the ball up there. And also, again, talk a little bit more about Connor McCaffrey and kind of what he's been doing for this team in 2019. So coming up, we're going to be talking about all of those items. All right, so let's wrap up that conversation about Iowa, Iowa State. Luka Garza is an absolute tank. and I've said this on almost every show since I've come back on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast,

but this guy is a stud. I love the way he plays basketball. I love the fact that he can take on anyone at any time, and I love his aggressiveness down low, his hustle. There's a play later in the game where Jordan Bohannon had a breakaway, stopped at the free throw line, turned around, handed the ball to Luka Garza, who is just rumbling down the court, comes in for a slam dunk. That's a hustle play that some guys don't make because they're not willing to get down the court that fast, especially for a big man like Luka

Garza. He's a big reason why I think this team could be a dangerous tournament team, a team that can make the tournament and win a game or two, even without a Jordan Bohannon. And the announcers also loved him too. Just, I mean, how do you not? Look at the fact, I mean, he got hit in the mouth by Connor McCaffrey on accident, lost a tooth, was obviously an immense amount of pain. That can only hurt so bad, right? Went out on the bench, came back in a couple minutes later because he wanted to get back in the game. The guy is tough. He is a competitor and he's a huge reason why Iowa is a tournament team as of right now. As I said, I think this team is just complete. And I think more on the mental side, this team has what it takes. I think

in the past couple of years, you've seen a team where if they get down, they're not able to come back, right? If they have a big lead and it starts slipping, it starts spiraling out of control and no one can make a shot. But with this team, it just feels a lot different. Both the first and second teams, I love the way that Iowa is pushing the ball up the floor, but also making sure they find good shots. I think they have a nice balance of guys who can shoot the ball versus guys who can drive. I think really the big catalyst is going to be Joe Toussaint just because he brings such a different element to this team. He can get baseline to baseline in just a couple seconds.

He's so quick to get down there. And then driving into the lane, dishing out passes, I think he's a really key element for this team because once that first team comes out, you need someone who can make plays, and he's a guy who can do that on that second team. And we haven't had that in the past couple years. I mean, last year, Connor McCaffer tried, but he just didn't have that shooting stroke, and people were able to sag off him a bit. But now that he's gotten that shooting touch back, it's been pretty impressive.

So, again, just really happy and really excited about that Iowa-Iowa State game. A big win for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Next up on the schedule is Cincinnati, which will be a huge game for the Hawks. Again, a team they beat last year in the tournament in the first round. They get Cincinnati in Chicago, I believe, on December 21st, 7 p.m. on the Big Ten Network. So it will be a really fantastic game. If you are able to get to that game at the United Center, I obviously highly recommend it.

It will be a lot of fun. Hopefully we'll get a pretty big Hawkeye crowd there like we did at the Las Vegas Invitational. I know there's a ton of Hawkeye fans in the Chicago area. So make sure to get out there and support your Iowa Hawkeyes, your 8-3 Iowa Hawkeyes after that big win. Let's transition over to football let's get some of that negative stuff because last night Keith Duncan did not win the

Lou Groza award and if you follow me on Twitter follow us on Twitter at locked on Iowa or follow me personally on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew you will know that I felt like that was a complete bullcrap pick and this just just goes to show, in my opinion, that college football is flawed. There's a lot of big flaws with college football. It is a scam in a sense where you have people voting on things that they don't watch. You have people voting on things based off of who they like or who they feel. And there's just so little transparency about what is actually happening, it makes it difficult to trust the process or trust the system. Out of all awards,

I really thought Keith Duncan had this one in the freaking bag. He has a better field goal percentage by five points. He has multiple Lou Groza award moments, such as the Nebraska kick, the two game-winning kicks, the one that got called back from the Nebraska kick, the two game winning kicks, the one that got called back from the timeout and the other one that actually won the game. He had the Iowa State game where he kicked in a variety of terrible elements on bad field and managed to help Iowa win that game. I mean, and over the course of the year, you could say he was probably one of the team's MVPs because he was able to keep the team in most games just from his field goal kicking.

Can you say the same about Rodrigo Blankenship? And again, I don't want to hate on this kid. He's a college kid. He seems like a really nice guy. I listened to his interview after he won. Super appreciative, super excited. But he just didn't have it like Keith Duncan did. And I think a couple things that came to note that

I found out that really pissed me off was the fact that they did voting before the championship games that is another flaw in college football how can you judge the Heisman how can you judge the Lou Groza award how can you judge these these rewards for guys that are likely playing in these championship games if you don't evaluate them based off the competition in the biggest games of the season. Rodrigo went 1-3 for field goals in the SEC championship game, which they obviously got blown out, but he could have kept it close for a while and made it a closer game, but he went 1-3 for field goals in that game, and that's acceptable. If you're going to be a Lou Groza award winner, um, 80%

kicker again, that's worse than everyone in the top 10, I believe. Uh, if not the top 15, that's not okay either. And, and Keith Duncan has made more field goals between 40 and 49 yards than Rodrigo has attempted. And again, people point to the three out of five 50 yard field goals between 40 and 49 yards than Rodrigo has attempted. And again, people point to the three out of five 50-yard field goals for Rodrigo. They were 50-yard field goals. Keith Duncan had a 49-yarder. That is a one-yard difference. Don't put that stuff in that box of 50-plus yards if it is a 50-yard field goal and count that as being significantly better than a Keith Duncan. So I think Keith Duncan got absolutely scammed by the Lou Groves Award. I am going to talk a little bit more about that coming up on segment number three, but I do need to take a quick break.

But again, coming up, we're going to talk about Keith Duncan and wrap up the show for this Friday morning episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Before we do that, though, treat yourself to the meal that you deserve and have your favorite restaurants come to you with DoorDash. Right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter promo code LOCKEDON. Listening on the go? If you can't visit DoorDash right now, you can find this and all our other offers from LockedOn sponsors at LockedOnPodcast.com slash offers. Alright, let's wrap up the show with another little rant on the Keith Duncan stuff. If you

listened to the show yesterday, you knew that I was pretty passionate about Keith Duncan. I talked about a kicker for 10 minutes because I do think he has put together one of the best seasons in NCAA history. And to not get the Luke Groves Award is atrocious to me. And again, this comes to a point of, I think there's some bias towards certain conferences and certain teams. I think the voting structure is terrible in general.

I remember there was a report that came out for the Heisman Award when Christian McCaffrey didn't win it. And if anyone watched Christian McCaffrey tear up the Iowa Hawkeyes, you knew that kid was electric. You see him in the NFL now. That's what he was doing in college football as well. A guy didn't vote for him because he said, I don't watch their games. I'm sorry, what?

Are you freaking kidding me? You did not vote for Christian McCaffrey for Heisman because you didn't watch his games? So what does that say about the Luke Groza award, for example, an award that obviously is clearly not as important as the Heisman award in the grand scheme of college football, even though the Heisman is kind of a joke at this point is basically who's the top quarterback on the top team in the nation. Um, and I digress a little bit there, but you're telling me that some of these voters just don't even watch the games and make their picks? That's bullcrap.

You're not even evaluating the right options. You're not doing the decision due diligence. You're not doing it justice. You're not doing these kids justice by not watching the game. That is literally your responsibility as a voter is to make sure you have all the facts in front of you and you know how to actually evaluate those facts and you evaluate them correctly. Will there be differing opinions based on what you see? Absolutely. But not watching it at all is unacceptable to me. And I wonder if that happened with Keith Duncan as well. If people didn't see these incredible moments, if people turned off the game of the Iowa State game and just didn't care, or did they not factor into the fact that Keith Duncan was kicking in significantly

worse weather than Rodrigo Blankenship throughout the season? Iowa State was a great example, but it wasn't the only example. Of the last four weeks of the season, it was freezing cold temperatures. It's not easy to kick a freaking football in those temperatures. It just really, really freaking bugs me. And one of the things that really bugged me the most was the fact that when they announced Rodrigo Blankenship as the winner of the Lugros Award, on Twitter they mentioned he has had a fantastic season and an even better career. Wait, this season-specific award is now being awarded to the people with the best career?

Okay, fine. Yes, Rodrigo probably deserves it if it's a career award. But it's not. It is not a career award. It is a season award, and that season award deserved to go to Keith Duncan, who is going to set the NCAA record for field goals, most likely, has a fantastic field goal percentage, is going to go down as maybe one of the best kickers in Iowa football history, and put together arguably the best season in Iowa football history from a kicker standpoint, save for maybe Nate Kading, who happened to be the one presenting the award

and unfortunately had to present it to a Georgia kicker and not an Iowa kicker. Honestly, I just couldn't fathom that. I couldn't believe that they did not do that. And one of the things that people mention is maybe it was a hype thing where Rodrigo had the hype coming into the season as a Lou Groza award contender. I don't care. If that is an issue, if that is a reason why people are voting for this kid at the end of the season, after all the results are in, then we need to get rid of that preseason crap.

Because if it's going to influence and make the process more flawed, then it's not right and it shouldn't be there. That's not fair to Duncan, who maybe wasn't on the radar because he hasn't kicked in two years, fair to Duncan, who maybe wasn't on the radar because he hasn't kicked in two years, that he doesn't get voted for the Lou Groza award because he wasn't mentioned at the beginning of the season. That's not fair to these teams. That's not fair to these players. Again, I think it just goes to show that college football is incredibly flawed. They have such an amazing product and the fact that anything can happen on any given Saturday, it really is truly incredible to be able to see that. I mean, anyone can upset anyone.

Illinois can upset Wisconsin. Iowa can knock off a top five Michigan or a top five Penn State at home. The atmosphere at College Bowl is just so much more electric than the NFL, but it's being brought down by these old guys who are controlling the system. Whether it's from the voting perspective, whether it's from that monetary perspective, you name it, they're making college football worse. And it just pisses me off. And it sucks that a kid like Keith Duncan, who has worked his butt off the last four years, had to pay because people don't understand how to actually look at what the kickers have done over the course of the season. Just, God, I'm still fired up over it, if you can't tell.

So just really pissed off, but neither here nor there. Let's get Keith Duncan that record. Kirk, let's get him that record. Let's have him kick three field goals, break the NCAA record, and Iowa fans can know who the real Lou Groza Award winner is this season for the NCAA landscape. That'll do it though for today's show. I think I ranted enough about kickers over the last two days,

so I can end it on that note. I do appreciate you all tuning into today's episode of the locked on Hawkeyes podcast. As always appreciate all your support, the comments, the tweets, all that stuff back on Twitter, Facebook,

Instagram. Appreciate all that. Appreciate the love and the support. And again, thank you for tuning in to today's episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. If you are tuning in for the first time, make sure to go like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. If you have any feedback, please feel free to let me know that as well. If there's things you want me to be covering that I'm not, also let me know that as well.

I want to make this podcast for you, the listener, and I want to make it as good as possible for you, the listener. So thank you again you again have a fantastic Friday Hawkeye Nation and go Hawks