Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Historically bad shooting night costs Iowa win over Indiana, but here's why the sky is not falling for Hawkeyes basketball

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

The men's basketball team drops a tough home game against Indiana on the heels of a terrible offensive performance that saw Iowa not score for 12 minutes. We break down what happened, why it was so rare, and what the Hawkeyes need to do going forward to correct this. Most of all, we point out why the sky isn't falling in Hawkeye Nation and why this team is still very good. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back, Hawkeye Nation, to a Friday morning episode of the Locked On 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 was hoping to be joining you this Friday morning talking about an amazing blowout win over Indiana. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Iowa falls to Indiana yesterday, and it was a rough game to watch.

It is what it is. It was a very rough game to watch from an Iowa perspective. Indiana wins 81-69 on the backs of one of the worst shooting performances I've seen from Iowa in many years. So let's talk a little bit about that game. We're going to go through the entire game. We're going to talk about what we liked, what we didn't like, and why this isn't the end of the world for the Hawks, and give you a little bit of context clues behind all of

that. Let's first actually start off with what we didn't like. Obviously, the shooting was terrible. I don't remember the last time, I don't know if I've ever seen Iowa go on a 12-minute scoring drought, and that is never going to help you win a game. And I think the big thing here is that not only was Iowa, you know, some people were off, everyone was off. Even Luka wasn't shooting the way he normally shoots, And again, that's tough because he almost shot 50%.

But Luka, 10 of 22 from the field. Jordan Bohannon, 0 of 9 from the field. Joey's camp was hot in the first half. Scored most of his points in the first half. Only shot two shots in the second half. Connor McCaffrey, 2 of 5. CJ Frederick goes down injured and only shot 0 of 2 on the day. Patrick McCaffrey, 0 of 4. Driving to the basket, just couldn't hit on anything.

He was getting to the basket at all. Jack Nunji, an all-right day. Keegan Murray, an all-right day, both 2-4. Now, let's talk a little about this, though, because that was, again, one of the worst shooting performances I've ever seen. And it's tough to watch those games because you know Iowa's a better team than that. I think that's why Iowa fans are so frustrated. And I don't blame you.

I was frustrated. That's why I'm recording this show Friday morning because I wanted to let myself calm down a little bit from what was such a frustrating game to watch. If I would have got on here last night, it would have been me just venting. But it gave me some time to think about it. Gave me some time to think about what Iowa can do going forward, and why this isn't the end of Iowa season. We know there's plenty more games to be played, and there's still a lot of opportunities to not only get a number one seed, but also win that Big Ten Conference.

Obviously, win the Big Ten Conference first, get the number one seed second. But let me tell you a little bit about why from that perspective. Iowa is still in control of its destiny, right? When you look at the other, the probably the top four teams in the big 10, we got Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. Illinois has five losses, right? Michigan got blown out 75 to 57 by Minnesota. Wisconsin got blown out by Michigan 77 to 54. Iowa gets all these teams. They haven't played any of these guys yet. There are still so many opportunities here. And honestly, to me, this seems like it might be a really good wake-up call.

And the Iowa players even said as much in their post-game interviews, talking about how they weren't really ready for this game and how they don't feel like the practice was as great coming into this. And maybe they took Indiana for granted. You think? I mean, they came out with such a lackluster effort, especially, you know, when you look at that first half, I was texting one of my buddies about it, and you could tell Iowa was a better team, but Indiana was just hanging on and just had a weird feeling that

Indiana was going to keep hanging on, and they did, and they ultimately eventually hung on long enough to get a lead and win that game and some of the national analysts are talking about Iowa and the blueprint for stopping the Iowa offense I think John Rothstein the guy who's been very high on Iowa Hawkeyes throughout the entire season said Indiana just put together a blueprint for stopping Iowa well unless that blueprint is make sure no one can shoot the ball from the perimeter and then attack Luka Garza, then yeah, I mean, of course,

when Iowa can't hit the broadside of a barn, they're not going to be as effective. How often is it going to be where Iowa has literally zero people who can hit three-pointers in a game? How often is that going to happen? We've seen it happen once this year, but we haven't seen it happen all that much throughout the course of the last couple of years with a very similar lineup here. I actually went back and looked at all of the past performances just to give you an

idea of how rare of a night this was. Iowa shot 38% from the field, and they shot 20% from three. Here are the games where they've shot worse than 20% from three in the last three seasons. Gonzaga, 18%. Last year against Nebraska, four of 33 for 12%. Last year against Wisconsin and they win three of 20 for 15%. And then Michigan, 2018 to 2019, 6%, one of six. That was a blowout loss in the conference tournament. Now let's look at the times they've shot 38% from the field or worse. Win over Maryland last year, they shot 37%. The win over Wisconsin last year, they shot 33%.

The loss to Maryland last year, they shot 36%. The win over Pitt two years ago, 36%. The loss to Michigan State, 32%. The loss to Maryland in 2018 as well, 32%. The loss to Wisconsin, 31%. The loss to Rutgers, 35%. And then finally, the loss to Michigan, 36%. Those were all in that 2018-2019 season. But let's take a look at how well they shot from three in those games. In the game against Maryland, they won. They shot 37% from the field, but 39% from three. And the win over Wisconsin, 33% from the field, 15% from three.

Now, Wisconsin's an interesting case because Wisconsin plays just so... It's such sloppy basketball anyway, so that makes sense. The loss to Maryland, 36%, but 33% from three. Pitt, 36%, but 39% from three. Michigan State, 32%, but 27% from three. Michigan State, 32%, but 27% from three. Still an uptake over the 20%. Boston, Maryland, again, 32%, but 31% from three. Wisconsin, 31%, but 23% from three.

To Rutgers, 35%, but 28% from three. The only two games in the last three seasons where Iowa shot worse than 38% from the field and worse than 20% from three-point was Michigan and Wisconsin. That's happened twice in the last three years. That was a historically bad offensive game for this team. That is not going to happen every night. It just isn't. Iowa is not going to shoot like that on most nights. And I think then you factor in the

fact that they might have been maybe taking this game for granted. They were on a five-game winning streak. They're ranked top five. They're crushing it. People are talking about them winning a national title. And then they get humbled at home To Indiana now. I have a couple of thoughts on that great teams. Don't lose those games But you don't have to be a great team right now You can still be a great team and lose these games And what I mean by that is great teams don't lose those games when they absolutely need them And yes, it is important to win every single game in the Big Ten.

But I think this is going to be a humbling experience. I think if we know anything about this Iowa basketball team, they are resilient. They handle adversity pretty well. And they're going to come back hungry and motivated. You better believe if you're listening to those press conferences, they are pissed off about losing to Indiana. They shouldn't have lost that game and they know it. They know they shouldn't have lost that game. The Minnesota game, they knew they shouldn't lose that game. Look what happened after that. All right. This team is going to come back stronger. This is, to me, this is honestly a great wake-up call. This is what you build a team off of. You lose

this game. You lose it in such a terrible fashion. You don't make a shot for 12 minutes. And now you come back hungry and you're ready to show everyone that you're not that team. You know what can happen when you let off any given night. You know you have to bring it every single night. That's my thoughts. That's what I'm hoping we see from this Iowa basketball squad when they get back on the court. At this point, it's going to be against Illinois next week in a very big matchup in the Big Ten.

Coming up on segment number two, we're going to continue this talk. We're going to continue talking about basketball the entire day. I have some stats I want to give you about Jordan Bohannon's shooting performance and why it was such an anomaly for Jordan Bohannon. We're going to talk about that on segment number two of the show and then get into some more of the positives and why this season isn't over as well. That's all coming up on segment number two and segment number three. Before we get into that, though, you know I got to tell you about my favorite place

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Get more of the sports news you need in less time with our new Locked On Today podcast. Peter Bukowski hosts Locked On Today, a daily podcast breaking down the biggest stories with analysis from our local experts. Start your day with all the sports news you need in under 20 minutes. Subscribe to Locked On Today wherever you get your podcast at. All right, let's get into the conversation, though, again, continuing that basketball talk. And let's start with Jordan Bohannon.

And he gets, he catches a lot of flack, right? He's a confident guy. He takes a lot of shots. And when he's on, he is on. But sometimes you're not always on. Sometimes you're not on your A game. And that was, that was last night. Jordan Bohannon went 0 of 9 from the field, 0 of 8 from 3. Indiana did a solid job of defending him, but he also just wasn't making some of his typical shots. Now, you want to know how rare that is? You want to know how rare that game is? 2017, Jordan Bohannon. They lose to Michigan State.

He goes 0 of 8, 0 of 6 from 3. 2018, they lose to Minnesota. He goes 0 for 2. 2019, win over Alabama State. He goes 0 for 3. 2019, a loss to Michigan in the conference tournament. He goes 0 for 2. Last year against Minnesota, 0-2. 2019, win over Alabama State, he goes 0-3. 2019, a loss to Michigan in the conference tournament, he goes 0-2. Last year against Minnesota, 0-4.

And then this year against Western Illinois, 0-3. Those are the only games where he scored zero points in a game he played in. Now, why is that important? He has never taken as many shots as he did last night and missed them. And went 0-4. That means, that was the rarest of

nights and performances from Jordan Bohannon. In a lot of cases, if Jordan Bohannon comes out and is playing well, I think Iowa still wins that game. Hell, if he hits three, three of those eight shots, we win that game. We're at least in it to win it at the end, right? So I think a couple of things don't, don't be hating on these players. Jordan Bohannon is a phenomenal player, and we're lucky to have him. That was just such a rare occurrence for him. And the fact that he still had a positive plus minus goes to show you what he can do without the ball in his hands, which I know is always a concern.

And people were talking about bringing in Joe Toussaint. Yeah, Joe Toussaint played well in garbage time. Joe Toussaint brings more intensity on the defensive side of the ball. He also plays a little bit more erratic, and he can't shoot the three ball, especially when CJ Frederick goes down. You need a Jordan Bohannon on the court to be able to shoot that three. You need someone who's going to stretch that defense, and that brings me to my next point is, again, Indiana played good defense, but that's not a blueprint. They did a great job of attacking Luka Garza. I mean, I haven't seen Luka Garza look flustered like that in some time.

I don't know if I actually remember ever seeing him that flustered. Multiple violations in the lane, multiple times getting his shot blocked. They did a great job of crashing on Luka Garza, but the reason they were able to do that is because Iowa wasn't able to shoot the ball anywhere outside of three feet from the basket. When that happens, every team can do that. It's so easy when you can't shoot the three ball, but when that happens, it's nothing we can do about it. But typically, you don't expect a team like Iowa to come into that game and no one shooting the three ball well. Not a single person shooting the three ball.

Well, now conversely, Indiana did a pretty good job. They shot the three ball pretty well, especially given how terrible they were coming into this game. If you listened to our show yesterday, you know that this team is not a good three point shooting team. Now you could have fooled me in this game because they shot 47% from three. They came into this game ranked in the bottom 103 point shooting percentage. They came out of this game ranked or with a 47% shooting percentage, eight of 17 from three. And that actually made me pull up a couple of questions because Iowa's defense is never going to be good, right? They're never going to be a great defense, but there is a clear issue with this defense and it is defending the perimeter.

The announcers even said it, Iowa has to have better awareness defending the three-point line. And that has been a consistent problem. And that is one of the reasons why Iowa, you know, they could be a number one seed, but they also could be a very high upset potential pick depending on what team they face, because they allow any team to shoot the three ball well. And I'm going to give you some stats as to why people talk about, well, you know, you hear people on online and whatnot. Iowa always lets guys get open and shoot the three. And then you hear people defending them saying that's just when they're shooting. Well, no one, you know, that doesn't actually happen all the time. Well, I got some stats for you

to kind of back up the fact that Iowa is just atrocious at defending the three and allows people to have career games against them and why that's a concern going forward. I'm going to list a bunch of different names here. Against North Carolina, Andrew Platek, 2 of 3 from 3, 67%. In a normal, this season, he's averaging 33% on 2.6 attempts per game. Iowa State's Jalen Coleman lands, 5 of 7 for 71% from behind the perimeter. Typically, he's 39% on 6.2 attempts. Gonzaga's Jalen Suggs, 7 of 10 for 70%. On the season, he's only shooting 3.3 attempts per game, and he's hitting 36%. Gonzaga's Aaron Cook, 2 of 4 for 50%. He normally

shoots 19% on 1.8 attempts per game. Purdue's Brandon Newman, 3 of 7 for 42%. He usually only shoots 3.8 attempts per game, and he hits it at 38% clip. Minnesota's Brandon Johnson, 8 of 9 for 89%. Against other teams, 38% on 2.1 attempts per game. Minnesota's Marcus Carr, 6 of 13 for 46%. For the season, 34% on 6.4 attempts per game. Chase Adige for Northwestern, 4 out of 7, 57%. He's normally shooting 30% on 5.1 attempts.

Pete Nance, 3 of 4 for 75%. He's shooting 36% on 2.5 attempts. Miller Kopp, 3 of 5 for 60%. He's shooting 45% on 3.6 attempts per game. Rutgers' Jacob Young, 2 of 3 for 67%. He's shooting 39% on 2.6 attempts per game. Rutgers Jacob Young, 2 of 3 for 67%. He's shooting 39% on 2.6 attempts per game. Rutgers Montez Mathis, 2 of 4 for 50%. He's shooting 40% on 3.5 attempts per game. Maryland Eric Ayala, 3 of 7 for 42%. He's shooting 33% on 5.1 attempts per game typically. Minnesota's Trey Williams, 2 of 3 for 67%. He's shooting 29% on 1.6 attempts per game.

Indiana's Rob Finnessy, 4 of 7 for 57%. On the season, 31% on 3.2 attempts per game. Now, that's a lot of numbers. The point of all that is, when teams play Iowa, these people shoot threes like they are Iowa. Because Iowa doesn't do a good job of defending the perimeter. When they operate in a zone defense, they do not do a good job of stopping perimeter

passing and ultimately three point shooting. They all collapse on the top guy and they leave the corners wide open or they'll collapse down low and they kick it back out and there's wide open three-point shooters. Iowa has to fix this. That is arguably my biggest concern coming out of this game. Not the shooting performance. That's going to be fine. But they have to fix that three-point defense. Just get even slightly better because it is so bad and so terrible to watch.

They have to get better at that. It's clearly a trend. Any major team we played for the most part has had a guy go off on us or shoot better than he ever has before against Iowa. That, that is a trend, right? So that, that is definitely a concern for me coming up on segment number three, though. I'm going to stop talking a little bit about that. I want to talk about the positives.

I also want to talk about the lineup changes and whether or not what Indiana did can be replicated. And then ultimately, what is to expect from Iowa going forward? That's all coming up on segment number three of the show. Before we get into that, though, we do have a few messages from our sponsors. So we're going to turn to them for a few minutes and then get back to our normal scheduled programming. to our normal scheduled programming. Go behind the scenes of the game you love and get all sides of the story with Rejecting the Screen podcast.

Each week, Noah Kaslov and Adam Stanko get personal while interviewing players, coaches, media members, all the people who make the NBA happen. Subscribe to Rejecting the Screen wherever you get podcasts at. And now let's get into some of the positives. We spent almost 20 minutes

talking about the issues we saw from Iowa. I want to talk about a couple other things, lineup changes. I want to talk about why this isn't the end of the season, CJ Frederick, and why this can't be replicated. And obviously some of the main positives for Iowa. A couple of things. People were complaining about the lineup changes. You know, Fran put in some lineups that were dead and basically did nothing offensively. The lineups he was putting in were the same lineups that we've been praising for the last five games. Sometimes teams just don't have it. And last night, Iowa didn't have it. That's what happens. Ultimately, I understand the lineups he was putting in. It is tough though when CJ Frederick goes down. Now you have to put a different guy in and they decided to put Keegan Murray in. That's why Tony

Perkins was getting a bit more time as well because C.J. Frederick was injured. So I'm not going to subscribe to the lineups were bad. I do think he could have changed them quicker when he realized they weren't shooting the ball well. I think you can ride your starters a little bit longer when they are the only people that are really getting a lot of things going, especially when you get some of those second string lineup in there. At times, some of the ball movement just doesn't look as

good, and that hasn't been the case for most of the season, but they weren't on in this game, and you look at the plus minus, it's pretty telling. When Jack Nudge is on the floor, minus 13, plus minus, Keegan Murray, minus 15, plus minus, Patrick McCaffrey, minus 9, Joe Toussaint, minus 9, Tony Perkins,

minus 13. When the starters were on the floor, Luka Garza, 0 plus minus. Jordan Bohannon, 3. Joe Wieskamp, minus 5. Conor McCaffrey, minus 4. C.J. Frederick, 11. They all played 30 minutes. I think at that time, you kind of got to ride those guys, though, right?

When they're struggling, you've got to ride those guys to get a few more minutes out of them if you possibly can. But again, I don't think the lineups were an issue. I actually think Fran has done a phenomenal job this season with handling his lineups. You just have some off nights and that's what this was. Also some positives. I thought the hustle was good. Iowa did a fantastic job on the boards. 45 rebounds, 16 offensive to Indiana's 28 and seven. Anytime you win the rebound battle like that, you're typically going to win the game. That's, again, how porous Iowa's shooting was. They were hustling, they were getting the ball, and they were getting Indiana into foul

trouble, and they just could not capitalize. That was just such a rare performance of ineptitude in terms of shooting that we're just not going to see that a lot. And can this be replicated? Yeah, I mean, to an extent, you could always attack Luka Garza and force him to try to make a good pass he even mentioned that in his post-game interview he wasn't doing a good job of making that pass and I agree there was a couple times where there were guys wide open on the perimeter and he just wasn't hitting them but also the guy's got to hit

shots to give Luka Garza some room to operate typically he has that room to operate so can this can this be replicated I mean mean, technically, yes. If Iowa's having a historically terrible shooting performance, it can definitely be replicated. But this is a wake-up call for Iowa. That was an ugly game. Iowa needed to find a way to battle and win. They didn't. They couldn't score for 12 minutes.

And I think they're going to improve going forward. And they're going to figure out what they need to do going forward to get back on track. I also thought Joe Wieskamp was crushing it earlier. I thought he could have done a better job of getting more involved in that second half. The second unit was struggling. I think you've got to play the starters a little bit more there. Again, the lineups were not producing, but these are the same lineups that have been producing. So where does Iowa go from here in my opinion?

First, we need to figure out if CJ Frederick is going to be back. Is he healthy? Can he be healthy? They do need C.J. Frederick. They talked about the fact that Iowa's offense was stalling out because C.J. Frederick wasn't there to open up some space. Yeah, that certainly helps. You add another three-point shooter on there, one who's confident and willing to attack the basket,

that definitely helps your team. But that wasn't the only reason why Indiana was able to do what they did. It was because no one else was hitting three balls as well. So from here though, Iowa still controls its own destiny. It gets a week off now. It can regroup. It gets Illinois for a big Big Ten game in Champaign. From an offensive efficiency perspective, even after that atrocious performance,

they're still number one in Ken Palm's offensive adjusted efficiency. Obviously they dropped a lot in defensive adjusted efficiency moving down to 90th after taking on an Indiana team. I think the other thing to note there is that the Big Ten is tough. Again, there are no easy outs. I know coming into this game, on paper, it looked like the perfect matchup for Iowa. I stand by that. On paper, it did. And Iowa just didn't do what they needed to do.

They didn't come out prepared. They didn't come out ready. And they lost. They got punched in the mouth. They fell down and didn't do what they needed to do. They didn't come out prepared. They didn't come out ready. And they lost. They got punched in the mouth. They fell down and didn't get back up. Now is the time for Iowa to get back up and show them they can be the best team in the nation. This is a fantastic wake-up call. And as I pointed out with a bunch of different stats here, Jordan Bohannon has never had a night like that.

Iowa has only had two nights like that in the last three years, and Iowa needs to improve on the three-point defense and obviously get CJ Frederick healthy. Those are my thoughts on this game. That's the last time we're going to talk about this Indiana game. Hopefully we're looking back at this in a couple weeks and laughing at it, just like we did the Minnesota game, because Iowa gets back on track. Again, there's a lot of positives that you can take away. Obviously the rebounding, the hustle, the energy in general with getting to the glasses and getting Indiana, a team that doesn't get into foul trouble, into foul trouble. That just goes to show you how well Iowa does in doing that, but you've got to have the shots fall.

Now, on this weekend, Iowa wrestling does take on Minnesota tonight. Let's get a big win there. Should be a pretty big win for the Iowa Hawkeye men's wrestling team. We'll be back next week for a show every single Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. There's a good chance the Monday show doesn't get posted until the afternoon though. I'm going to go on a little ski trip with my wife and we won't be coming back till Monday morning.

I'm not bringing my mic or anything with me, so I'm not going to be able to record until Monday afternoon. So stay tuned for that. It'll be a little bit delayed. As always, folks, I appreciate you tuning into today's episode of Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic Friday. Have a fantastic weekend.

Reminder that the sun does come up and Iowa Hawkeye basketball is still here and still a very good team. And we'll see them beat Illinois next week. Again, have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. And let's go Hawks.