Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa basketball has a huge weekend | Lisa Bluder shoud be coach of the year | Will Epenesa and Wirfs declare this week?

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

It was a big weekend for both Iowa basketball programs, and the coaching performances that we are seeing by Lisa Bluder and Fran McCaffery are quite impressive. We wrap up the show talking about the two Iowa football players who have yet to make a decision on their NFL futures. 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 even one you haven't. 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'm Andrew Wade, excited to be back for another riveting show of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, talking to you all about a lot of basketball and some football, and obviously just covering all things Iowa Hawkeyes. On today's episode, just a ton of basketball talk, though, just like I said, because the men's team took down a ranked Maryland team. The women's team took down two ranked teams this weekend, and both teams are showing a lot of promise and should be in the top 25

at the beginning of this week when the polls come out, I believe, later today. So some exciting stuff there. Also, in the NFL draft world, I want to talk a little bit about A.J. Peneza, Tristan Wirfs, and some exciting news for the listeners of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I am going to be going to the Senior Bowl, and I just got credentialed. So expect to be hearing a few interviews with Michael Ojemudia. And obviously, if Nate Stanley gets a very late invite, possibly him as well. But we're going to be talking about that on today's show in addition to all the basketball talk.

If you are tuning in for the first time today, make sure to 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. Give us that five-star review. Let us know what you love about the show. If there's anything constructive you want to share, please do that as well. Or feel free to email me or tweet me if you like. You can also find me on all social media accounts. So feel free to follow us on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast on Twitter, Facebook, and

Instagram. I'll have some great stuff coming there. And in general, we have some good stuff coming up on the show. Like I said, I'm teasing a couple things. We have a potential player who's going to be on the show in a few weeks from the football team. A guy who just graduated. Excited to potentially get him on the show. We also are going to be having Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United,

is likely joining the show this week or early next week to kind of get started on that conversation about the Iowa United and kind of the big things that he has been working on going into year two of that Iowa conglomerate team that combines Iowa, Drake, Iowa State, and UNI. After a great, great game last year in the TBT tournament. I'm looking forward to getting a win and kind of moving forward with the Iowa United in TBT 2020. So we'll be talking to Matt as well later on in this week, but lots of stuff to cover on today's show. Like I said, the big thing we're going to get to Iowa basketball, but one of the things that, you know, people need to realize that that the Big Ten is freaking wild this year.

No matter who it is, you have an opportunity to lose. This is not a league or a conference that you can take a night off because you will lose a game. And we saw that this week, specifically this weekend. Lots of ranked teams going down in the Big Ten. Obviously, Iowa took down a ranked Maryland team. Maryland looked like absolute crap. I mean, Iowa didn't look that great to begin the game either. Played better after that Fran technical. Wisconsin took down number 20 Penn State. Indiana took down number 11 Ohio State. Purdue took down number eight Michigan State in a huge loss. And Minnesota

took down number 19 Michigan. Just again, the big 10 is a strong, strong conference and people need to realize that, especially with an Iowa team that has just been dealt some crazy blows, right? They just literally can't get healthy. Even, you know, with the lineup they had now, CJ Frederick, who was likely out for a few weeks, at least with that, you know, stress reaction, Patrick McCaffrey, it appears, probably is going to be redshirting this year as he still kind of deals with some of the repercussions from the cancer that he survived and beat years ago. This team just keeps getting down blows, but they're doing a great job.

Taking down a Maryland team like that was a fantastic way to kind of show the fans that have been a little bit negative that this team is still going to be fighting. And there's something we haven't seen a lot over the past couple years. I think that's probably one of the biggest arguments the Fire Fran crowd has against Iowa is that lack of fight that we've seen from them in the past couple years. When things get tough, when the going gets tough, it seems like they kind of um you know crumble right and then against Tennessee we saw them come back and make it a game and ever since then really this team has been um just so much fun to watch such an interesting team to watch and there's a lot of stuff going on right so um awesome stuff they have a really interesting schedule coming up over the next couple weeks they get Northwestern tomorrow

evening we'll be doing a preview of that on tomorrow morning show they get number 19 Michigan They have a really interesting schedule coming up over the next couple weeks. They get Northwestern tomorrow evening. We'll be doing a preview of that on tomorrow morning's show. They get No. 19 Michigan at home on Friday. And then they get Rutgers and Wisconsin at home as well. It'll be really important to have a good stretch here. Right now they're currently sitting at 11-5. If they manage to go 4-0, which is not completely unreasonable, Northwestern is the second worst team in the Big Ten,

possibly the worst team in the Big Ten behind Nebraska. Michigan is obviously a great team. Iowa played pretty well against them when they went on the road to Michigan, you know, save for a rough first half. They played well in the second half, and they've been doing a much better job on defense as well since that time. Rutgers and Wisconsin, both decent teams, but playing at home is always going to be an advantage for the Iowa Hawkeyes. So if they can manage to go three and one in that, but that's great. If they go four and oh, though, that's huge. That would put them at 15 and five, only five games away from kind of that magic 20 game mark. That being said, with how tough the Big Ten is this year, I think, you know think 19 wins could even potentially get a team into the tournament, especially if they do well in the conference tournament.

In that game, though, a couple things that I thought were pretty important to bring up. Joe Wieskamp turned it around. That was to be expected, right? His shooting performance against Nebraska is one of those anomalies that he just isn't going to have very often if ever again. And he did a fantastic job against Maryland. He was a huge factor in that. Luka Garza was also a factor. Not putting up as big of numbers as he normally does,

but that's more of a kind of saying about how good his numbers are when you have a ho-hum day with over 20 points and over 10 boards. And the fact that he played with a fever is even more impressive. The whole team has kind of been battling a little bit of a sickness, it seems like. You guys have been under the weather. So Luka Garza being able to play big minutes and turn in another great performance kind of, again, solidifies my opinion on him as he should be one of the frontrunners for the National Player of the Year this season. And if he isn't, that's ridiculous. I've seen a couple articles already with some of the

leaders with national player of the year possibilities and he is definitely on that I think Iowa has to make the tournament and you know win you know 2021 games to be able to make that a realistic possibility it's just tough to give a national player of the year award to someone if they don't make that tournament so be fun to watch that kind of going forward. I also thought the Fran technical, although really early in the game, was huge. You could see the momentum swing. You could see the difference in the Iowa basketball team after that technical. And I think that's just one of those things that kind of goes to show you

what kind of a coach Fran McCaffrey is. And if you've been listening to the show for the past year, you know that I'm a Fran homer. I think he is a great coach. I love that he is the coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes. Obviously, I have some concerns with some of the recruiting, right? He wasn't able to get Xavier Foster, wasn't able to land a super high-profile recruit in the class of 2020. Did do a good job of getting some good players, and as we've seen, he's done a superb job of finding three-star recruits and turning them into studs for the Iowa basketball team.

If you remember, Joe Toussaint was a three-star recruit, and he's already playing big minutes for the Hawks. Speaking of him, though, did struggle a bit against Maryland. Wasn't playing a little bit out of control. And as we've said multiple times, that's going to happen with him being a freshman, being very energetic on the court, but he found other ways to be productive like that block from behind, kind of LeBron James-esque, loved seeing that kind of play. It's something we haven't really seen from Iowa in the past couple of years. So he's going to be one hell of a player to watch as he continues to improve and mature in his Iowa basketball career. Coming up though, I do want to cover a little bit more about the men's basketball team

before we jump into the women's basketball team and finish off with some football talk. So stay tuned after a few messages from our sponsors. All right, we are back. And like I said, I want to continue that discussion about the men's basketball team. I just feel like there's a lot to cover, a lot to break down from that game on Friday evening. After that game, big win for Iowa, as we all know. A quadrant one win that moved them up to 32nd in the net rankings and 19th in Ken Palm. And the one thing I really want to call out is the fact that Iowa's defense is ranked

76th. And if this continues, that'll be the best mark in the past four seasons for Fran McCaffrey. And that's a huge reason why Iowa was able to stay in these games. In past years, if their shots were not following, if they're turning the ball over, they were not going to be able to win that game because they didn't play defense. But even when they aren't going to have a huge game from Joe Wieskamp or Luka Garza, their defense is able to keep them in the games. And some of those guys, Bakari Evelyn, Joe Chastain,

they're finding ways to stay productive on the court without necessarily putting up big point totals in every single game, which you love to see kind of that depth and the aggression and the willingness from some of the guys who aren't necessarily going to be the number one or number two score on a consistent basis. Also, like I talked about earlier, Patrick McCaffrey likely going to be redshirting is my kind of thought on that. It'll be interesting to see what happens with CJ Frederick, how long he is out. Once Iowa gets him back, that could be huge.

With the schedule they have for this January, like I said, if they can survive and get out of this four-game stretch 3-1, that'll be a big deal. If they can do that without C.J. Frederick and let him get healthy for that February run, which includes a significant amount of very difficult teams, that could be the difference in Iowa making the tournament and not making the tournament with his presence on the court consistently. I do want to turn my attention, though, to the women's basketball team. Haven't had an opportunity to talk a ton about them on the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And we're trying to get into the groove of things again,

since coming back on the air. But wow, what a, what a coaching job by Lisa Bluter to put this team in the position they are currently in taking down number 12, Indiana, 91 to 85 and double overtime yesterday, in the position they are currently in, taking down No. 12 Indiana 91-85 in double overtime yesterday, taking down No. 17 Maryland 66-61 on Thursday. Those are huge wins, and I fully expect the women's basketball team to be ranked in the top 25 coming up this week.

Now they have 11-5 Minnesota on Thursday on the road, and they have to go on the road against 9-7 Wisconsin on Sunday. Again, another opportunity to get two big wins there. They are currently fifth in the Big Ten with a 3-1 conference record, and they stand at 13-3. So this women's basketball team is, man, they are a lot of fun to watch. And I think what I talked about earlier, what's most impressive about them is the fact that they are doing this without the three seniors they lost last year, three very important

seniors, and Megan Gustafson, Hannah Stewart, and Taniya Davis. They're doing it without them, and they're doing it in a variety of ways. They kind of changed up their offense, and they're being led by Kathleen Doyle and Mackenzie Meyer, who are both seniors and playing major minutes, over 30 minutes a game. They are first and third in scoring, respectively. But the one person who's kind of a big standout here is Monica Sinano. And I definitely butchered that name. It's always tough to kind of say those names, you know, even after hearing them.

But the sophomore from Minnesota has been a huge deal in this season, replacing some of that production that Gustafson had. She is currently second on the team in scoring with 15.4 points. And what's most kind of interesting about this is the fact that last year she only played 5.3 minutes per game and is now up to 27.4 minutes per game. So putting in big minutes for the women's basketball team, fulfilling that score down low. And for me personally, like I said, what Lisa's doing right now, I think she should be in the conversation for National Coach of the Year again because she is doing so much with not necessarily so little, but with definitely a huge loss. Teams don't typically suffer that big of a loss losing the best player in the nation and two fantastic seniors, one who's currently coaching and one who's playing overseas.

They don't typically see that kind of production go away all in one season, but the fact that she changed her offense up, really putting the ball in some other people's hands and getting that production from their seniors and a sophomore who didn't really get a lot of minutes coming into the season, just wow, all around fantastic, and you love to see it from the women's basketball team. Coming up, though, we are going to wrap up the show by talking a little bit about the NFL draft and the Iowa Hawkeyes that are in the NFL draft process and in the NFL as well.

So that will be coming up here in a few short seconds. All right. We are back with our third and final segment of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Before we jump into some of the NFL draft talk, I want to quickly cover some NFL playoff talk. Some Iowa Hawkeyes are currently still in the mix for it. The Tennessee Titans' Imani Hooker is still there. Had two tackles in the win over Baltimore.

Unfortunately, that knocked Marshall Yonda, a longtime guard for the Baltimore Ravens from Iowa, originally knocked him out of the playoffs. And this is potentially the last game of his career, so it'll be sad to see him go if he does decide to do that. Otherwise, looking forward to seeing him back in action next year. But Imani Hooker does advance to the AFC Championship game, and he'll be taking on, along with his Tennessee Titan teammates,

the Kansas City Chiefs and Ben Neiman, and I believe Anthony Hitchens as well. So that'll be a fun, exciting kind of matchup with three Iowa boys playing against each other to have an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl. Obviously some Hawks in the NFC games as well. We saw George Kittle and C.J. Bethard play in the 49ers. Obviously, Bethard didn't play. Sorry, excuse me.

C.J. Bethard didn't play for the 49ers in the game, but they just made it to the NFC championship game after taking down the Minnesota Vikings. And then finally, in the other NFC championship game, the Seahawks versus the Green Bay Packers. A couple Iowa guys in that matchup as well, currently recording during the game. It is the end of the third. I'm going to go back to watching it after I get done recording this. But Brian Bulaga, Josh Jackson, a couple other guys, you know, playing in this game from

the Iowa Hawkeye community. So lots of representation from Iowa that's going to be happening in the AFC and NFC Championship games, which is really exciting for the program, especially if they can do some pretty big things on that stage. Now let's talk about some of those guys, though, that are going to be heading to the NFL next season, specifically Tristan Wirfs and A.J. Paneza. If you are not aware, they still have not declared for the NFL draft.

And I think what's interesting about this is why would they have not declared yet? They're clearly thinking about it very heavily. It's weighing very heavily on them. And that's something that, you know, we've kind of, we've kind of talked about on the show is that I believe they love being in Iowa so much that it could be a very difficult decision for them. They're both guys who, you know, are relatively quieter guys, guys who may not be ready to go to the NFL from a standpoint of they love college. They love their teammates. They may not be ready to go to the NFL from a standpoint of they love college. They love their teammates.

They're not necessarily ready for that kind of pressure. So when will we find out? We have to find out within the next week. The NFL draft declaration deadline is January 20th, I believe. So that gives them seven days to determine their futures and whether or not they're going to be returning to Iowa. I mean, at the end of the day, I don't know how you turn down guaranteed millions of dollars, them seven days to determine their futures and whether or not they're going to be returning to Iowa. I mean, at the end of the day, I don't know how you turn down guaranteed millions of dollars,

especially considering that Tristan Wirfs has been repeatedly mocked in the top 10 of NFL drafts, NFL mock drafts, and AJ Paneza is anywhere between, you know, seven and about 20. The big issue with him is more the fact that he's kind of a tweener in the sense, 280 pounds, young guy. Does he play defensive tackle or does he play end he can kind of move around a little bit uh does you know but i just i really can't see them returning from a money standpoint we saw this happen with tj hawkinson last year i don't think he even realized he was going to be um skyrocketing up nfl draft boards and be a top 10 pick but when you have that kind of money being thrown around in front

of your face you kind of have to take that. There's no, what happens if you get injured? What happens if your performance suffers and you don't get that kind of money again? Are you going to have regret? Are you going to live with regret? Some guys know some guys love college football and they're going to be okay

with it. And they're willing to accept the risk of potentially being injured and, you know, losing millions of dollars. Obviously there's the insurance policies that they are able to get, but sometimes those can be difficult to prove. If you do have an injury, that your draft position was impacted by that. Nevertheless, a big opportunity if they do return.

I would consider Iowa the frontrunner in the Big Ten West if you have Tristan Wirfs and AJ Paneza return to the program. 10 West if you have Tristan Wirfs and AJ Paneza return to the program. Hopefully we find out here in the next couple of days so we can, you know, let out our breath. I'm collectively kind of holding my breath at least to, you know, hopefully see if they decide to come back to the Iowa Hawkeye football program. Because if they do, you're returning to all American type of players.

And that's a big freaking deal. It means you don't need to break in another tackle that gives the offensive line some solidarity and some continuity that allows spencer petras who's likely going to be the starting quarterback some protection um aj epinesa we saw him just dominate in the last part of the season with chase young not there anymore epinesa could really be the the top guy the guy who could win a bunch of national awards as the best defensive end in the nation and coming into a bunch of national awards as the best defensive end in the nation. And coming into a draft, if he were to go into the 2021 draft, as of now, he would have

to be considered arguably the top person at the defensive end position now that Chase Young is entering the 2020 draft. So some things to kind of think about from their perspective. Again, I do expect them to ultimately declare for the NFL draft, but we got to wait and see what's going to happen. Another draft news, Nate Stanley has not been invited to the Senior Bowl yet. I don't think it's going to happen at this point. They've already announced the quarterbacks for the North and South squad. If Joe Burrow wants to go, they're definitely going to let him come

because you can't pass up a number one overall prospect, quarterback prospect at the Senior Bowl. But regardless, it looks more and more likely that Nate Stanley is not going to be going there. And it also means he's probably not going to be playing in other All-Star games or post-collegiate All-Star games, which I find a very interesting move. I can't imagine someone wouldn't want Nate Stanley at whether there's the NFL PA game or the

Shrine game. I really thought he was going to be going to the Senior Bowl. So maybe my foot will be in my mouth in a couple days. He's actually going to get invited and it'll be fun to watch him down in Mobile. But at this point, it's not looking very likely. We do have Michael Ojemudia there though. And I'm really excited to get an opportunity to talk to the cornerback and see kind of what his thoughts are on the NFL draft process, where he thinks he might be taken, what he's looking forward to most at the next level. So we'll be talking to him all week next week and be dropping four or five episodes throughout the week, kind of covering his gameplay and his experience at the Senior Bowl.

So really looking forward to providing that content to you. Now that I have the credentials to do so. I'm really excited for that opportunity. I hope you all are as well to get that coverage right here on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. That'll do it though for our Monday morning episode of the show. Thank you for joining. Thank you for tuning in. Appreciate it. Hope you all were able to have a fantastic weekend seeing lots of winning by the Iowa Hawkeyes. Also hope you were able to stay safe. I know it was pretty nasty out there in Iowa, some snowstorms kind of hitting your way.

So stay safe, stay warm, and have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. And if you liked what you heard today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. Make sure to give us a five-star review. Tell us what you love about the show. And go follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. All right, that'll do it though. Have a great day. Great Monday. Hawkeye Nation. Go Hawks! We'll see you next time.