Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa falls to Illinois. The best way to handle the loss is to talk about it plus we've got listener voicemails

Episode Date: January 30, 2021

Iowa fell to Illinois last night so we break down our thought on the game and listen to a few listener voicemails and react to each of those.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!KeepsIf you’re ready to take action and prevent hair loss, go to Keeps.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE to receive your first month of treatment for free.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 Saturday 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 wish we were doing this show under better circumstances. I wish we were talking about a win over Illinois. However, we are not, and that's why we are here. After the game, I was a bit frustrated. I couldn't tell why. It wasn't necessarily for Iowa's effort. I thought Iowa played a solid game. There was definitely some things they can improve on, as can any basketball team. But I was more just frustrated by the results and how we got there.

And any time a game can be impacted even the least bit by officiating in a negative way, that can be frustrating. And again, I do not believe that the officiating was what lost Iowa the game. It definitely did not help, but it definitely did not lose Iowa the game entirely. There were missed plays down the stretch. Iowa needed to make a few plays, and they didn't. It is what it is. They did not make some of the plays they needed to.

But I really wanted to have sort of a therapeutic session about Iowa and the Illinois game today. So we're going to be breaking down my thoughts on the game on segment number one. And then we have a few fan voicemails that are going to be airing on the show. And we're going to be breaking that down as well, whether I agree, disagree, whatever it may be. But I appreciate everyone tuning in. And as a note, if you want to get on the show in the future, if you want to share your thoughts after the game, whether that be a loss or a win, you can do so. And it's not that hard.

All you have to do is dial 319-855-7690. Leave your thoughts on your Iowa Hawkeyes. I'll make sure to post that after every single game. And I know I talked about it a little bit before, but I do believe we're going to be having a very special guest on. We're setting out some time right now to record tomorrow. We were going to be recapping the game, but I want to talk more with him about kind of the future of this team. And so ideally we get him on. If we do, we'll be airing that show. If not, I'll make sure, you know,

to let you all know that, but that is one of our special guests coming up. Probably going to drop that on Monday. We also have a Iowa recruit on the show as well. Devin Hilson. He's going to be joining probably Monday. He's announcing his commitment tomorrow. We haven't heard anything official about a scholarship offer, so that'll either be to Northern Iowa or Iowa. But obviously we'll have some information about that when we drop that show. But again, let's get into the therapeutic session about Iowa versus Illinois because it was a frustrating game.

Frustrating in the sense that Iowa lost. Iowa falls to 12-4, losing to Illinois 80-75. And there's a couple things I really want to point out here. First off, I don't think Iowa actually played that poorly, at least offensively. When you look at their shooting-wise, 10-25 from three, they shot 40%. Joe Wieskamp had a phenomenal night, 5-7 for 71%. They didn't shoot as well from the floor as I would have liked to see, 44% 21 of 47, but that's okay. They missed a few easy shots around the rim, which, you know,

that's going to happen. Obviously, you wish that that wouldn't happen. Illinois, on the flip side, shot 53% from the, you know, from the field and 42% from the perimeter. So again, better shooting from them, but also on less shots. So Iowa took 25 threes. Illinois took 19. Iowa took 47 twos. Illinois took 39. And when you look at the rebounding, honestly, I felt like Iowa did a better job rebounding in the first half, not so much in the second half, but ultimately the rebounding numbers paint a different picture. 17, or sorry, 30 rebounds for Iowa, 36 rebounds for Illinois. Iowa won that offensive rebound battle though, 11-8, giving them more second chance opportunities. Where this game really was decided though was in the free throw battle, where Iowa typically is one of the leaders

in the nation in shooting free throws. They only got to the line six times. And this kind of gets into my point about some of the officiating. So Iowa gets the line six times the entire game. They commit 15 personal fouls. Illinois gets the line 17 times and they committed 14 personal fouls. Now, another thing to keep in mind is that Kofi Coburn, good for him, shot very well from the line, five of seven, 71%. He's a 50 something percent shooter. So he had a better game shooting from free throws than he typically does. That also could be part of the difference as well, but I thought it was interesting because Iowa does get to the line very well, and I thought they were getting battered

when they were going into the lane, and Illinois, meanwhile, were getting very ticky-tacky fouls called against Iowa. For example, the fourth foul on Luka Garza, honestly, he was just standing there against Kofi. So I don't understand how that could possibly be considered a foul, but let's look at the numbers and why this is so confusing for Iowa fans. All right. Iowa is 20th in fouls per game. So they don't give out a lot of fouls. Illinois is 218th. So they don't, they don't get a lot of fouls. They're going their way. Iowa is 53rd in drawing fouls. Illinois is 68th, so let me back that up. Iowa is 20th in fouls per game.

Illinois is 218th in fouls per game, so Illinois fouls a lot. Iowa doesn't foul hardly at all. Iowa is 53rd in drawing fouls, so they get a lot of fouls also drawn against them or for them. Illinois gets 68th, so they also get a lot of fouls drawn for them. Iowa is 23rd in free throw attempts attempted per game. Illinois is 54th. All right. Those numbers are pretty consistent. Illinois or Iowa is 68th in free throws allowed per game. Illinois is 216. So Iowa doesn't foul a lot. They don't allow a lot of free throws and they get to the line a lot. Illinois, on the other hand, does foul a lot. It is pretty good at drawing fouls, but doesn't get to the line as much as Iowa, but also allows other teams to get to the line very easily.

So that would mean, in theory, Iowa would have less personal fouls, Illinois would have more, Iowa would have more free throw attempts, Illinois would have more. Now all of that, everything can change in a one game thing, right? You can narrow it down and every game is unique and different. But when you have such a lopsided differential, 17-6, that to me is very big. And when you have a differential of how many times a team fouls, so Iowa is 20th in the nation in fouls per game, Illinois is 218th, yet Iowa fouled Illinois one more time, that to me is a little bit concerning. And then you add that into the fact of some of the other ridiculous calls that happened. The goaltending call.

Let the players play. Why are you reviewing that? They took off two points. Iowa gets a turnover. That's a huge, huge loss for Iowa there. Obviously the travel along the baseline. I don't understand how you don't call that foul. Or how you don't call that as traveling.

That to me is absurd in my mind. Everyone and their brother saw that. Anyone who didn't even understand basketball could have said, wow, why aren't they dribbling when he takes four steps along the baseline? And then, you know, kudos to them, kudos to Illinois for draining that ridiculous three, but still they shouldn't have had that opportunity. So that's my thoughts on the fouls, that kind of stuff. We're going to get a little bit more into some of the other pieces, though. First and foremost, Iowa still is struggling in transition defense. They're also struggling with guarding the perimeter.

Illinois wasn't able to knock down as many shots as they possibly could have, considering how wide open they were. But still, they did a pretty good job. Trent Frazier, 4 of 9 from 3. Io DeSumo, 3 of 3 from 3. And Io is an absolute beast. I mean, he was baking Iowa alive, burning them down the court every single time whenever he could. Out in transition, Io is a beast.

I mean, he showed why he's one of the best players in the nation and why he's a guy who's going to be in the NBA at some point. Io was not able to keep up with him specifically. I also really was impressed by Connor McCaffrey. He really surprised me. who's going to be in the NBA at some point. Iowa not able to keep up with him specifically. I also really was impressed by Connor McCaffrey. He really surprised me. He said, and we talked about this, he said before coming into this game that he was maybe going to have to be a bit more aggressive.

And boy, was he a bit more aggressive. It was fun to see him. You can tell that he can, he's not the best scorer. He's, especially on this team, he's probably 9th or 10th. But when he needs to, when he has to get something done, he will try to. 11 points, 4 of 9 shooting, 2 of 5 from 3. Those were clutch, key threes, especially early on. What I thought was interesting was Jordan Bohannon was a bit tentative.

No shots in the first half, only 6 field goal attempts, 2 of 5 from 3. Obviously, one of the big threes was that 3 to make it three points away from tying up the game late in the game. But Jordan Bohannon played very cautiously in 28 minutes of time. And I thought Jack Nunji had a phenomenal game defensively. He even brought a little bit more offensively than he has in the past. But very aggressive, handling Kofi Coburn defensively very well. Kofi, between Luka Garza and Jack Nunji finished with nine points, 10 rebounds, two of seven shooting for a guy who's been averaging a double double. That's pretty

darn impressive to be able to hold him like that. And especially with Luka Garza going out without trouble, that was a big deal for Jack Nunji. We also saw with, you know, with CJ Frederick out of the game, we saw a little bit more of Tony Perkins. And I really liked what I saw from Tony, especially the fact that they were, you know, the fact that Fran can trust freshmen to guard Io as his true defensive stoppers, A, says a lot about those freshmen, and B, says a lot about the other guys in general defensively, but the fact that he had Keegan Murray on Io is huge. The fact that he was willing to try Tony Perkins on Io as well, and he did a pretty solid job

as well, that is huge. In seven minutes of action, Tony's plus-minus was three points plus-minus. He scored two points, had three rebounds, two assists, and I really liked what I saw from Tony Perkins. The future is very bright for the Iowa Hawkeyes between Patrick McCaffrey, Tony Perkins, Joe Toussaint, and Keegan Murray. Joe Toussaint, another guy I saw people questioning, why was he not playing more? Joe Toussaint and Keegan Murray. Joe Toussaint, another guy I saw people questioning, why was he not playing more? I honestly don't know for sure, other than the fact that when you have Connor McCaffrey and Jordan Bohannon, both are guys who typically have the balls in their hand. There's just not as much room for Joe Toussaint to be on the floor. He's not a shooter, and he needs the

ball in his hands to be productive and to make this offense go. So that takes the ball out of Jordan Bohannon's hands. That takes the ball out of Connor McCaffrey's hands. And again, Connor McCaffrey is not going to scare a lot of people offensively outside of his playmaking abilities, at least from his passing abilities. So I think that's probably why Joe Toussaint maybe not getting as many minutes as people had expected. Again, Jordan Bohannon a little bit quiet though, which was very interesting. Coming up on segment number two, we're going to give a little bit more of a breakdown on this game and then get into some of

the fan voicemails and break those down as well. It's all coming up in just a few short minutes. Before we get into that though, as you know, I love going to betonline.ag. Betonline.ag is your place that has you covered and the one place that I personally trust for all my betting needs. Unfortunately, I lost a decent chunk of change on Iowa last night. I really thought Iowa had it in the bag, but they didn't. However, you can go put a little money in your pocket, a little extra money in your pocket, by signing up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use the promo code LOCKEDON. You'll get 50% on your welcome bonus.

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Very frustrating to see Iowa drop that game against Illinois, but I don't feel like it was a fade by any means. I feel like there were just so many instances that kind of went against Iowa. I felt like the foul calling was very ticky-tacky against Iowa. I thought Iowa actually played pretty well. There was a couple moments with a few lineups they were just not able to get anything going, but overall, I thought Iowa played a good game. They were on the road against a top 10 team in net ranking,

against a team that's going to be playing deep into the NCAA tournament. That sometimes happens. We're in the Big Ten. And before we started this six-game stretch, I said Iowa, in my opinion, is going to go 6-2. That's what I predicted. They will go 4-2 in that stretch. I thought Illinois could be a loss, although I was hoping it wouldn't be, and it was. But I thought they would go 4-2 in that stretch. So I didn't think they were going to win every single game. Losing a game does not mean this team sucks. They lost a game against a very talented team that, honestly, Iowa doesn't match up with that well. Clearly, Luka can handle

Kofi, but they did not match up well from an athletic standpoint with Illinois. They also were missing one of their best players in C.J. Frederick, and they were on the road against Illinois. Man, I know there weren't fans there, but it seemed like there were a lot of fans there at that time. It seemed very loud, so kudos to the guy handling music for Illinois because he made it seem like it was absolutely bumping in that game. Iowa now falls to 100 in adjusted defensive efficiency. They need to improve in transition, and they need to improve on the perimeter to be able to be a good defensive team. But they are still fourth in the nation, according to Kempom.

And Kempom only has them losing two more games on the way out. One to Wisconsin, and one to Michigan. But again, I projected them to go 4-2. I thought there was a chance they could go 6-0. The least they could get is 2-4. They have a game against Michigan State on Tuesday. They have a game against Ohio State on Thursday and Indiana on Sunday. It's crucial for them to get on track with three wins in a row there before they take on a tough game against Rutgers at home, followed by Michigan State. After that, they get a tough schedule. They have Wisconsin, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin. So they need to win

these next five games to put themselves in a good position to possibly be competing for a Big Ten title. Obviously, having three losses in the Big Ten puts them a step behind. They only have one game against Michigan that puts them a step behind. So they need to be able to win these next couple games to be in a good spot. That's my personal opinion. Also, as far as the Fran Fade goes, I've talked about this before. I used to write for D'Erold Gold. I used to be the editor there. And I talked about the Fan Fade.

Fan Fade. Wow. Fran Fade. Excuse me. Say that 10 times fast. It's a tongue twister. The Fran Fade, it's real. It has happened in the past couple years where Iowa struggles down the stretch.

We're not in the stretch. Also, the Big Ten's really good. When I look at the Fran fade, what I look at that is Iowa losing games to teams they shouldn't. Now, you can argue they shouldn't have lost to Minnesota or maybe even Indiana, but Illinois is a darn good team and out of all the games, I'm less upset about Iowa's performance against Illinois than any other game that they've lost so far. It was just, just, it was a tough situation to be in. They couldn't convert a few things down the stretch. Obviously Jordan, we had an opportunity to tie the game up with a couple seconds left. We want Jordan Bohannon taking that shot. He missed it. It happens. He's also made a ton of awesome shots to keep Iowa in these games. So it's just the fan, the Fran fade is bullcrap.

Anyone who's listening to black heart goal, whatever the hell, screw them. I'm over that. That's annoying to me to sit there and just dump on this team as if they're not good at this point in the season. Are you freaking kidding me? Have you watched this team play basketball? Yeah, they struggled. They've been struggling a little bit.

They're also missing one of their best players. And they haven't been shooting as well consistently. Jordan Bohannon has been a little bit quiet. Those are things that are going to change. So that stuff really frustrates me. But with that being said, let's get into some of our fan voicemails right now. Jack Nunji should never play another minute. many dribbles. He can't find the outlet pass like we've typically seen Luka Garza be able to do. But what Jack Nunji brought to the table against Illinois, I think cannot be talked about enough. Defensively, he was able to keep Iowa in the game when they had Luka Garza, an All-American,

and arguably the best player in the nation on the bench, and he kept Iowa in the game. I know his plus minus was minus nine, but I was very impressed by Jack Nunji last night, especially defensively handling one of the best centers in the nation, and Kofi Coburn. Given the fact that he also gave up a lot of pounds and size to him, four points, three rebounds, four blocks. Keep that in mind. And one steal.

I really thought Jack Nunji had a phenomenal game. I disagree with you, but I appreciate you calling in. I appreciate you listening to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, and have a good day. Let's get to voicemail number two. Hey guys, this is CJ. Twitter handle is Matt Hankins, with

the I being an L. Gosh, that game, I have a few things. I thought they played great, especially with Garza being in terrible foul trouble, bad calls. Frederick hurt. I truly thought they played a really good know, especially with Garza being in terrible foul trouble, bad calls. Frederick, I truly thought they played a really good game. And the calls and the no calls just added up towards the end,

and it kind of cost them. But just for the future, this gets me kind of scared in terms of, you know, we always say with this team, you know, they've lost to Minnesota, Gonzaga. We just said brush it off, move on, and then they start winning again. But, you know, they've dropped two straight. You know, we don't know Frederick's future. It's kind of scaring me, and I just don't know if they're going to be able to get a win in enough time to where they can stop the bleeding because they need to stop the bleeding. You've got a good opportunity with Michigan State coming up.

And if they don't stop the bleeding, then I don't know if this is going to turn into another Fran fade. I hope it doesn't. But, you know, we've seen it before. I don't think it will. I think this is the team that's able to get a big win to stop the bleeding. But, you know, it just kind of scares me because they're starting to trickle down the stairs and we don't know about Frederick's future.

And that's just kind of my thoughts on the game. CJ, I could not have said it better myself. This is concerning. I think the future of Iowa basketball is very high. The hopes are very high. There's a lot of strengths on this team and the talent is there. But you're absolutely right. One loss is all right. Two losses becomes a problem. Three losses becomes a trend. And then it, you know, sometimes things can, you know, spiral out of control from there. I do agree with you. I don't think that is this team. I don't think Iowa

is going to spiral out of control. They have a great opportunity against Michigan State to get back on track. It was unfortunate timing. Indiana was a must-win game, a game that you can't lose, especially going into that stretch with Illinois next. You needed to beat Indiana. So I think that's really what started it. And I think if we'd beaten Indiana, I don't think people are nearly as concerned about this Illinois loss. Still concerning, but not nearly as concerned. You're absolutely right about C.J. Frederick not getting a lot of information from Fran McCaffrey after the game about CJ still, which is very concerning, but I think ultimately they realize they're going to make the tournament. They have the ability to beat any team in the

country on any given night, even without CJ. So if they can get CJ back, that is huge. They need to get him back healthy. I agree though, it is concerning to not see him on the court and to not know when he's going to be on the court. I think you did a great job of really summing up everything you talked about, the foul trouble. I couldn't agree more. Even Fran McCaffrey was heated after the game.

You could tell he was so pissed off at how that game was officiated. I would love to have heard his comments, maybe to the refs, towards the end of the game because that was a very frustrating game to watch from a foul perspective. But basically, CJ, thank you for calling in. I couldn't agree more. One other thing when I was listening to your voicemail that kind of hit home with me was one thing I wanted to call out is Iowa still had a chance down the stretch, as you mentioned. Iowa still had a chance to win the game. If Jordan Bohannon hits that three,

stretch, as you mentioned, Iowa still had a chance to win the game. If Jordan Bohannon hits that three, if Joe Weiskamp hits that three, if the goaltending isn't called, what if they box out Kofi Coburn? That's a huge mental mistake that they're going to hear about a lot, I'm assuming, this week. Joe Weiskamp didn't see it. It went off of Jack Nungi's hand. They need to be more aggressive in that situation. Kofi did a fantastic job of getting there, But even then, if Iowa gets that ball, maybe it's a different game. Maybe Iowa still comes down the court and pops a three and ties the game up. So lots of opportunities, lots of missed opportunities. I think with Michigan State on the horizon, that is a great opportunity to get a win under Iowa's belt

and get back on the right track. Also allow CJ to continue to get healthy. We're going to take a quick break, though, and get to our final two voicemails before we wrap up the show today. And as you all know, we always have some messages for you. And my favorite one, though, is Bilt Bar

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account. Go to Locked On Bets podcast and get all the betting information you need to know, because 2020 is mercifully over and it is time for a fresh start and a few more wins. If you're betting this year and want more wins, listen to Locked On Bets with your boy Q and Lee Sterling of Paramount Sports. They are picking college basketball, football, and NBA locks all winter long. Subscribe to Locked On Bets wherever you get your podcast at. We're going to get back into our next two voicemails. First one coming up right now.

Hey, this is at Iowa underscore cup. And I just need to get some things off my chest about what just happened in that Iowa-Illinois basketball game. I'm not usually a person that blames officiating for a big loss. In fact, I routinely make fun of a school just a little bit to our west for their fans and how often they do it. But there were a number of things that happened in this game tonight that cost Iowa that win. I'd like to go through them with you quickly. Number one, can we

talk about the worst mistraveling call in the history of basketball to end the first half? The Illinois player running the baseline takes four steps with an official right there and it doesn't get called. What happens? An incredibly lucky three falls for Illinois. I mean, talk about a swing going into the locker room. Number two, on the goaltending call late in the second half. So let me get this straight.

Because you're an inept official, and you can't get the call correct, that means you also get to wipe off Joe Wieskamp's putback? That didn't count? It's like it never happened. Give me a break. And number three, the biggest thing. All they could talk about during the broadcast to start off was, wow, Iowa has made more free throws than their opponents have even attempted this year. What does that mean? Iowa is an elite team at getting to the free throw line. How could they only attempt six free throws tonight?

How could they be in the bonus with 11 minutes to play in the second half and not attempt a single free throw for the rest of the game? There is no way a team that pounds the ball inside to Luka Garza couldn't get a single foul the rest of the way and couldn't attempt a single free throw. I'm sorry. Iowa's the better team. It hurt not having CJ, but in the end, it's tough to win a game when it's eight against five. Thanks for taking the call, Andrew. Keep doing a good job. Go Hawks. Iowa underscore Cub. As always, I appreciate you calling in. I appreciate your thoughts and insight. I have a couple things to say to that. First, though, have you bought the beer for Matt Vandenberg yet? You need to do that.

If not, he's about to have a baby or his wife is about to have a baby in a couple months. He needs some celebratory drinks. So definitely make sure to give him that beer. But I completely agree. I personally loved how we managed to dig at Nebraska. Always a big fan of digging at Nebraska, even when we're not talking about Nebraska. But I couldn't agree more. That traveling call was atrocious.

The fact that Joe Wieskamp field goal got wiped was ridiculous. And you're absolutely right. Iowa is elite at getting at the free throw line. How do they not get there for 11 minutes? And can we talk about the fact that Illinois didn't get a foul called on them for the final 10 minutes? That is absurd to me. I don't understand how that possibly happens.

You know, I agree. I don't like to blame the officiating. And I do think it's important to note that Iowa, even though the officiating was bad, should have been in a better position, right? You want to put yourself in a position where officiating doesn't impact the outcome of the game. So I think that's always the way to look at it. But agreed, Iowa wasn't able to put themselves in the position to not let officiating impact the game.

So officiating did impact the game, and Iowa falls in part because of that. And that is incredibly frustrating. And I think you're right. I'm not taking away anything from Illinois either. I put some stuff out there on Twitter about the differences in fouls and whatnot. And, you know, we had some Illinois fans clapping at me. But here's the thing. I'm not – I don't hate on Illinois.

I hate them as a team. But I don't hate them as a – I don't hate them from a talent perspective. They're a very talented team. You can tell they're a very good team. But this is – that was not a fairly played or fairly called game. No matter what way you swing it, there was the one time where the ball went out of balance and they said it went out because of Illinois. I disagreed with that call, but outside of that, I would argue that it was basically all Illinois the entire time from an officiating perspective,

which is very frustrating to see. Luka Garza could have, you know, hugged or basically, no, he could have basically tapped Kofi and got called a foul and Kofi was just bumping him continuously, moving him all around. One time I saw him throw him almost and didn't get a foul call. So to me, that's absolutely ridiculous. And you're absolutely right. CJ Frederick, not being there hurt bad. It sucked not having CJ, one of our best on ball defenders. That was tough to swallow, not having him there. But again, I think Fran's playing the long run here. That's my thoughts. Appreciate you calling in.

Appreciate you always listening as well, and we'll talk to you later, buddy. Let's get to our final voicemail of the day, and then we'll wrap up the show. Hey, it's Ben Russell at Hawkeye Bright, and I got my little opinion here after the Illinois-Iowa game. But something that's just kind of frustrating me about this game in particular is because I was thinking back to the Gonzaga loss, the Minnesota loss,

the Indiana loss, and those games were just Iowa got outplayed. Minnesota game, Iowa just played poorly. Indiana game, we lost to Frederick in the second half, and it was just kind of not something going. Gonzaga just is a better team, right now at least. But the Illinois game was just... It got taken.

And it should have been a great game, and it just got taken. And that's what frustrates me about it, is the travel. Like, I don't know how you don't call it travel on Cabello. I can't remember what the tweet was, but it was like, Ackman wildly got flagged for doing the same thing, but in a sport that you don't even dribble in.

Like, I don't know how you don't call that a travel. And then Joe Wieskamp is, you just let the play continue. Like, I don't know how you don't call that a travel. And then Joe Wieskamp is, you just let the play continue. Like, I don't get it. And that's what frustrates me. I think in the end, Iowa will be fine. I think that Iowa will probably go on and either make an Elite Eight or Final Four run. I don't know right now if they're a national championship team, but I think that they could be.

But as of now, I think they'll be fine. They need to get back into a groove. A little side tangent here. I think another one of my bigger issues is from what I'm seeing online is a lot of Illinois fans, you know, being like, oh, Iowa fans are just crybabies for talking about the refs. And it's like, yes, there's a little bit of part of blaming the game on the refs, but you cannot tell me that if the game was in the complete opposite direction, that Illinois fans would not be doing the exact same thing

and would be talking about how Garza gets a call every single time that he touches the ball. Like, I don't understand how there can be this conception of, like... Because what I'm seeing with the five-second call underneath the basket is that if the two things were not called, like the travel was called and then the basket was counted for Joe Wieskamp, we wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place. So, I don't know. It just frustrates me.

I think that Iowa will be okay. But I think that this referee group needs to be suspended probably because that game was one of the best I've ever seen. I was glued to my dorm bed, like, the entirety of the best that I've ever seen. I was glued to my dorm bed the entirety of the game. I was so nervous. And the refs just took the game away from the fans, from Iowa, just the team overall, the players. Ben Russell, my man.

I appreciate you calling in. And unfortunately, you did get cut off with the voicemail. But I think you got a lot of the stuff across. You really articulated well what was so frustrating about it. And that's what I was trying to think about this last night a bit when I was trying to calm down from the game and stuff. But the other three games, Iowa got outplayed. But they didn't get outplayed in this game. I really felt like they should have won that game.

And that was honestly what was almost even harder to take was the fact that they didn't get outplayed. Against Indiana, I was pissed, but they got just outplayed. And obviously the CJ Frederick thing was just hard to, you know, that was tough to come back from. But I couldn't agree more. You articulated that very well. Also, you mentioned being so nervous, watch that game. Holy heck. I couldn't agree more. It was, it was one of the most stressful games I've watched. I was glued to my seat the entire time. If I were just a basketball fan, not an Iowa fan, not an Illinois fan, no money on the game, what a freaking game to watch, right?

I mean, that is what college basketball is all about. That was a lot of fun. And I do agree that the crew needs to be suspended. There has to be some suspensions for how terrible they were. But, of course, the Big Ten isn't going to do anything, so we shouldn't get our hopes up because the Big Ten doesn't seem to do a lot. They really just kind of hold their tongue and sit back and let things happen and eventually make a few decisions and just rely on the fact that they have a lot of really good programs in the Big Ten, but they don't do anything

to actually help out these programs. At least they haven't as of late. That's just my personal opinion. But Ben Russell, thank you for calling in. Have a fantastic day. As always, y'all, I appreciate you all calling in. I appreciate everyone tuning in to today's episode of Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I hope it was as much of a therapy session for you all as it was for me. We have a lot of great content coming up this week, a lot of games. We're going to be doing a lot of crossover episodes with a lot of our other Locked On

hosts. And we have two guests. One is a recruit for the Iowa Hawkeyes, Devin Hilson. I haven't heard at this time if he's gotten a scholarship offer yet, but either way, we'll be dropping that episode because he's talked about his recruitment experience. And honestly, his story is just amazing. And we have a former Iowa basketball player that I'm looking to get on the show tomorrow to talk a little bit more about the future of this program. So stay tuned for all that. Stay tuned for more episodes of Locked on Hawkeyes podcast dropping daily every single Monday through Friday.

And as always, subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. Have a fantastic day, y'all, and let's go Hawks.