Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa gets outworked by Purdue | Fran should not be fired, and there is still hope for this team | Breaking down overreaction Wednesday

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

It's overreaction Wednesday in Hawkeye nation so we're breaking down a few of the storylines that transpired after last night's disappointing loss to Purdue. 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? We are back with another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast,

your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. I am your host, Andrew Wade. I know I'm getting this episode out a bit later today, but it is my commitment, my goal, to give you an episode every single weekday going forward. So in the past where I would have maybe missed getting you a show today just because this morning got a little hectic and I had to go pick up some family and do some stuff like that, I wasn't able to get a show out as early as I'd like. But in the past, I would have just not given you a show. I'm going to make a commitment to try to get that out regardless. And also, I just have a lot of thoughts on this Iowa-Purdue game, which is what we are

going to be predominantly covering on today's show. Not just the recap of the game itself, but some underlying things that have kind of come from that within Hawkeye Nation, and I want to touch on all that on today's episode of the podcast. So if you are tuning in for the first time, if you do like what you hear, make sure to check out some of our other episodes. Make sure to check out our episode tomorrow. We have Michael Sleep Dalton, the punter from this past year's Iowa football team.

He's going to be joining the show. So lots of great stuff coming up as well. Make sure to like, subscribe, and follow us wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And go follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. That's how you can get the most up-to-date information as to what is happening on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. So let's jump into it, though. I think, honestly, it's probably a good thing I decided not to record right after the game. Because I'll be honest, I was a little bit pissed off.

As I think most of Iowa Hawkeye Nation was after watching that basketball game. And I try to be smart about what I'm going to tweet. I try to be smart about my reactions to things. Because all things considered, you have to take everything into perspective. Was that, just on the surface, was that a terrible game? Absolutely. Did Iowa just get beat down? 100%.

Was it embarrassing? Yeah, it was embarrassing. But keep everything in context of what is happening this season. That one game on paper in a month is not going to matter as much as it seems to matter today. And so I'm going to jump in and talk a little bit about the game and then talk about some of the reactions from people kind of intermittently. So it might be jumping around a bit. Before I do that, I do want to make sure I do give some shout outs to the men's baseball team. Rick Heller got his 900th win and Iowa won 15 to 2 over Grandview to move over to 6 and

4. So nice job, men's baseball. You were the only team that got some successful results yesterday in the city of Iowa because the basketball team stunk it up. Despite only losing by 9 points, 77-68 to a middling Purdue team that is on the bubble of the NCAA tournament, they they really needed this win this was a game that they had to win they could not afford to lose and they came out and played like they had to win this game and credit to the boiler makers i don't know what it is about them but they sure do have our number

in basketball um and they have it good i mean it, it reminds me, I saw this from someone on Twitter, I don't want to steal it, but it's almost like the Northwestern versus Iowa football thing where it just seems like something bad's going to happen. I had a weird feeling going into this game. I was like, man, on paper, everything just makes sense. Iowa should win this game. They're going to be pissed off and motivated. They have an opportunity to get a double bye.

They actually had an opportunity to get a number one seed prior to Penn State blowing the game, blowing their 19-point lead over Michigan State yesterday. But still, they had an opportunity to do some really big things, and they needed to get a win over Purdue. I mean, if you look at the remaining of their schedule basically over the February, this was the game where they had to win because it was at home against arguably the weakest team they were facing over the last couple weeks. That's a game you need to win. It's awesome to beat the ranked teams.

It's awesome to get those big wins. But part of being a successful team is getting the easier wins and making sure you take care of business when not as many people are paying attention or take care of business against the teams that you're expected not as many people are paying attention or take care of business against the teams that you were expected to beat. You need to beat the teams you're expected to beat. Now, that being said,

the big 10 stuff, um, Purdue isn't a bad team. Uh, I talked about this on the show yesterday as part of the preview, they were top 25 net ranking team. This is not a bad, this is not a bad basketball team.

Yes. Were they 15 and 14 coming into this game? Were they 8-10 in conference coming into this game? Absolutely, but just a quick reminder, as you all know, the Big Ten is a very tough conference. I believe there's 8 teams ranked right now. That's absurd. This

conference is essentially cannibalizing itself. No team is safe on any given night. We saw Maryland with an opportunity to win the Big Ten regular season title, and they lost to Rutgers. Shout out Rutgers for getting that W and giving Iowa still a chance of getting that number one seed again before Penn State blew it against Michigan State despite having a huge lead, which also on a side note, Michigan State is not a team I want to face right now. They are looking good. Tom Izzo has

them primed to contend the NCAA tournament. This is a Michigan State team that I'd be concerned about. When you have a player like Cassius Winston, that is a guy who can carry a team. So anyways, off my little soapbox of Michigan State, but again, this Purdue game, I had a bad feeling right before the game. I just had this weird feeling that for some reason this was the kind of game that Iowa just lets down their fans. And I think overall throughout the season you could chalk up some of the bad losses to a few things. The DePaul loss.

DePaul came out and shot the ball real well. Iowa was still kind of figuring out its footing. They were figuring out its lineup. There's a lot of things. In the early part of the season a lot can happen especially. Losing to Purdue a few weeks ago, Iowa had been through a tough stretch. Purdue got real hot, and they're playing. Iowa's playing away. So, all right, they're a way game. Anomaly, a little blip in the schedule. Let's disregard it. No big deal. Michigan earlier in the year early in December you

know oh well you're at Michigan Michigan looked pretty strong at the time Iowa just started off weak and then you know built up later but wasn't able to diminish that lead fine this one though is not really one of those games where you can kind of say all right that's an anomaly on the schedule Iowa needed to win this game they They needed to come out with intensity. It was senior night. There was a lot of emotion. People were bumping at Carver. People were ready for this game.

And Iowa came out lifeless compared to Purdue. And I think that's what really bothers me the most. It's not the shooting performance. It's not the shooting performance. It's just the lack of effort that I felt like we saw. And not saying these guys weren't trying. I think everything, again, needs to be taken into context. I'm not saying that these guys are not trying.

They're not working their butts off. What I'm saying is they were getting outworked, though. Even Luka Garza said it. He's embarrassed. He felt like he got outworked, and that is one of the things he prides himself on. Rebounds, there is some skill to it, but there's also a hustle and a want aspect to it. You got to want it. You got to want to get those rebounds. You got to work for those rebounds. And Purdue did that all freaking night. And for some reason, Iowa couldn't figure it out.

So I want to touch on some of those numbers behind that and kind of what I think it means before jumping into a few things that I've heard from Hawkeye Twitter who seems to explode after losses like that. That's all going to be coming up in just a few short seconds after we take a message or take a quick break for a message from our sponsors. We are back with segment number two of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, continuing our discussion on this Iowa-Purdue game that has Iowa fans wondering what the hell is going on with this team. And as I talked about before the break, rebounds.

That is, again, there's some skill. Obviously, you need to have some size. But there's a lot of just general heart that goes into getting a rebound. I'm a short guy, but I can get rebound in, you know, rec league games because I want the ball. I want to try to get that rebound. You need to work for it. And when you look at the game,

that is the only thing that really separates itself from the game that gave Purdue the advantage. Iowa outshot Purdue. Okay. They hit 37 and a half percent of their shots. Purdue hit 37.3%. From three, Purdue shot a little bit better, 29.6%. Iowa shot 26.7%. Turnovers, they were both tied at 15. Personal fouls, 19 for Purdue, 20 for Iowa. Iowa actually had eight blocks. Kudos to Luka Garza and Ryan Kreener,

four and 3 respectively. Purdue only had 4 steals. 8 for Purdue, 7 for Iowa. Assists were down for Iowa. They had 17, whereas Purdue had 21. Rebounds. 47-33. And where that number really pisses me off at is offensive rebounds. 21-10. That is so many second chance opportunities that Iowa

perpetually gave Purdue the entire freaking night. If I'm Fran McCaffrey, I'm livid. That is not a talent thing. That is an effort thing. That is a hustle thing. That also goes for Iowa on the offensive side of the ball. When they're shooting deep, crash the boards. Don't watch. Don't run backwards. Crash the boards and get your rebound. There were a couple long rebounds that Iowa was not in the position to get because they were already running back. At least try.

So the effort just didn't seem to be there. Credit to Purdue who came out just really ready to slug Iowa up and down and really be aggressive. And I do think there were some issues with the officiating. We've seen that. Purdue got a little bit of a leeway for some reason with all the grabbing and thrusting and throwing people around down low. The fact that the officials had to give them a warning.

Call a freaking foul on someone when they're hitting an Iowa player. call a freaking foul on someone when they're hitting an Iowa player. But regardless, Iowa needs to not put themselves in the position to let the officials decide the game. They need to also be working for that. And the fact that Purdue got 21 rebounds on the offensive glass compared to Iowa's 10 is pathetic. And that 21 rebounds, that's the difference. Look at the shots.

That's 11 more rebounds offensively. Purdue had 11 more shots in the game. And again, if you don't shoot well, you typically aren't going to win this game. The fact they had 11 more shots, though, allowed them to make up the difference and beat Iowa by nine points. So I'm just really frustrated by that effort. That is something that I think is a player thing. You better believe that Fran McCaffrey is not going out there and saying, oh, you guys play lackadaisical today. Don't crash the boards today. Don't play good defense today. No, he's not doing that. And if you're pissed off about Fran McCaffrey, honestly, just don't get off my Twitter. Don't don't with the unfollow. But like, I don't I don't want to hear about I get it. Some people don't like Fran McCaffrey. I have been so impressed by what Fran McCaffrey

has done this year with this Iowa basketball team. Again, look at, let's look at the bigger picture. The fact that Iowa still has, still after this game, still has an opportunity to get a double buy is so impressive considering all the things that have happened to this team. And we've seen Fran's team fade in February. Iowa, I would not say has faded in February. I don't think it's been the best February, but we've seen Fran team's crash and freaking burn in February. I mean, offers one, one in six, that kind of stuff. And we have not seen that from this Fran team.

They have actually gone, I believe, 3-3 in the month of February. So not the worst February that you could expect for this Fran McCaffrey-led team. And like I said, to question that I think is a little bit ridiculous. What I don't like about it is the fact that when they win a big game, no one says, oh my gosh, excuse me, some people do, but the people who hate on Fran don't say, nice job, Fran, good job coaching your team up. But as soon as Iowa loses a game like this, everyone's coming out to hate on Fran McCaffrey. I think Fran McCaffrey is a great coach. I do think what he was doing during the game was also fantastic. Some of the stuff, I mean, him getting fired up, he was pissed. He was absolutely livid at his basketball team. And a lot of the stuff he

was doing was not just getting pissed off at the officials or foul calls, but trying to fire up his team as well, because they were just playing with such, such minimal energy that it was just disappointing to watch. And I just, I feel like, you know, I'll honestly just a little bit embarrassed by the, the, the effort that was shown in that game. It just didn't seem like Iowa was ready to battle Purdue in that game. And we deserve to lose that game. That being said, again, Iowa still has an opportunity to come back. And they've shown that they are resilient.

It is college basketball, too. Keep that in mind. That's why March Madness is called March Madness. Because anyone can win on any given night. If you're facing a team with an off night, you could win that game. Or if you're willing to run all over the court and get the ball, you want to out hustle a team, you can still win that game. And that's what makes college basketball so, so amazing. These are just, you know, these are 18 and 18 to 22 year olds playing a game they love. So I think all those things considered, take that,

you know, take that back, take considered, take a step back and realize these are college kids playing this game or young adults playing this game. Things happen. They still have an opportunity to do something really great with this season. And it starts with Illinois. They need Illinois to lose tomorrow night

and they need to beat Illinois when they go on the road to play them, I believe, on Sunday. So that, you know, those are some, that's a big game for the Hawks. They need Illinois to lose. They need to beat Illinois as well. And that'll get them that double buy they've been, you know, working towards throughout the season. So again, it's still on the table. There's still the possibility of, you know, a great season. This is not the end of the Hawkeye season. There's still so many more games to be played.

Whether or not they let this game impact them, though, remains to be seen. As I've said, this team is very resilient. They know how to bounce back. They've dealt with adversity. I do think we're going to see a more motivated and hungry team that plays Illinois on Sunday. But before that, make sure you're rooting for Ohio State tomorrow evening when they take on Illinois. We need Ohio State to win that game if we want to get that double bye.

And that double bye will be huge for Iowa's chances of success in the Big Ten tournament. Coming up, though, we're going to touch on the actual game itself and some thoughts on that before wrapping up the show. We are back with our third and final segment of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And as I said, I want to touch a little bit more on the game itself. Iowa did not come out very strong. Purdue was getting second chance opportunities throughout.

I thought Luka Garza was getting absolutely abused down low. And Iowa wasn't following their three-point misses. So a couple things they could have done better there. Also, Purdue had a pretty good game plan. They were basically daring Connor McCaffrey and Bakari Evelyn to shoot the three-pointer. And Connor McCaffrey took the bait. He went two of eight from behind the arc. I know people are going to get pissed off about Connor McCaffrey's play because he shot so poorly, but it does happen. He's not the world's best shooter. He's probably, honestly, one of the worst shooters on the Iowa Hawkeyes team. But what he does on this team is so much more than just shooting the ball.

That being said, he's an incredibly intelligent player, and I would have liked to see him attack a little bit more. We saw that in the second half. Evelyn had an opportunity to shoot a three as Purdue was sagging off. They were basically sagging off of both those guys, giving them large amounts of room and daring them to shoot the ball. They were sagging off so they could play a little bit closer and tighter on Luka Garza, who they were literally doubling every single time he touched the ball. Connor McCaffrey took the bait, shooting eight three-pointers. Bakari Evelyn took the bait a little bit, shooting four and 25 minutes of play. But then he got a little bit better in the second

half. He had one opportunity where they sagged off him a bit. He decided to drive anyways and was able to get a really nice layup there. Connor McCaffrey, same thing. I think, you know, I know they're baiting you, but we don't see Cordell Pemzel shooting that three every single time. Connor was struggling from behind the arc. And if he made a couple of those, you know, maybe a different game, but I'm not going to sit here and hate on Connor McCaffrey. It's, you know, I'm not, I'm not the one playing the game. I'm just merely pointing out the fact that sit here and hate on Connor McCaffrey. I'm not the one playing the game. I'm just merely pointing out the fact that if you're hating on Connor McCaffrey because he sucks at shooting, yes, we know he's not the best shooter in the world,

but what he does is not really important from a shooting aspect. He brings the team together. He is an incredible distributor of the ball, plays great team defense. He's probably the brightest IQ from a basketball perspective on the floor at any given time. This is the guy who really holds this team together. One shooting performance isn't going to make me hate him. And anyone who sees that and says, screw Connor McCaffrey, you clearly haven't been watching some of the stuff he's been doing over the course of the season.

Again, I think I would have liked to see him drive a little bit more, though, put a little bit more pressure on the defense. Going 2 of 8 from 3 is not really super helpful. Another guy who struggled as well, Joe Wieskamp. He went 3 of 7, so not the worst, but 0 of 2 from 3. And those were open looks, too. I don't know what the heck's going on with Joe Wieskamp, but this is no longer a

road game struggle or a two or three game struggle. This is a full-blown month-long struggle that he has not been able to snap out of. He has not been able to snap out of this funk. And if Iowa wants to win NCAA tournament games, they need Joe Wieskamp. The expectation coming into this season was not that Luka Garza was going to have a National Player of the Year type of season. It was that Joe Wieskamp, the star guard or star wing for the Iowa Hawkeyes, top 100 recruit, somewhat of a local hero, was going to carry this team. And he has not done that. And I love Joe Wieskamp. I think his game is fantastic.

When he's on, he's on. But we really need him to be on and step up and get that confidence back. He just doesn't even seem like he has the confidence to shoot anymore. He was passing up open looks at the end of the game as well to give it to other people. That is not the Joe Wieskamp we want. We want the Joe Wieskamp who's going to be driving and shooting that ball and getting that confidence back and taking some of the pressure off of a Luka Garza. Because when you look at that lineup, when you have Luka Garza, you have Connor McCaffrey, Joe Wieskamp, CJ Frederick, and Joe Toussaint. Toussaint is not a shooter. McCaffrey is not a

shooter. Luka Garza is great down low and a shooter, but a lot of pressure gets put on him. He's getting double and triple teamed game in and game out. CJ Frederick can shoot the ball really well. I think he's the tops in the Big Ten from a three-point shooting perspective, and that leaves Joe Wieskamp. He needs to shoot the ball as well. If we can get those two guys spacing out the floor with their ability to hit open looks, then this team will thrive. But right now you basically have Frederick able to shoot from behind the arc. You have Luka Garza who can do that as well, but also playing down low.

You've got two guys who are point guards, distributing type of guards, and then you have Joe Wieskamp who is not able to shoot the ball very effectively right now. So we really need Joe Wieskamp to stand up going forward, especially if we want to win or have any opportunity to win the Big Ten tournament and make it far in the NCAA tournament. One other thing I want to quickly cover, Luka Garza did set the single season record for scoring. Again, I think this just caps off a phenomenal season by the center.

What we're seeing is one of the best seasons in Iowa basketball history. If he doesn't win Big Ten Player of the Year, I'll be pissed. If he doesn't win National Player of the Year, I'll also probably be pissed off because I think he's put together one of the most incredible seasons in college basketball. And what I love about this is that there's a solid chance I think we get him back next year. I don't think his game is going to translate perfectly to the NBA. I think his work ethic will. I think he could be an effective NBA player.

But he's not the kind of guy that teams are clamoring for to draft in the first round. If you're a second-round pick, do you go back? I think you do. Especially when you're looking at what this team is putting together. With Jordan Bohannon returning, Jack and Patrick returning, a couple top recruits coming in, that's huge for the Hawks. This is a team that next year should maybe be ranked in the top five in the country preseason rankings because that's how much talent

they are going to be returning. Luka Garza, shout-out to him for such an incredible season, somewhat improbable season that we probably weren't anticipating, but really awesome to see and really helping this team be relevant in a season where we thought it was going to be a rebuilding year, especially after that DePaul win. Last thoughts though, for those of you that are just hating on this team just remember some of the awesome stuff they've done this year remember that they are young adults if you're tweeting at them on twitter please don't they don't need that that's just that's just wrong to be tweeting anything inappropriate to them on twitter they are young adults playing a game they love it should

be fun it should be a good time for them. They should be enjoying themselves. And when we're saying stuff like that on Twitter, it takes the fun out of the game when you start being rude and just completely inappropriate to those players on Twitter, Facebook, whatever it may be. Like I said, I think the game was embarrassing. I thought they played poorly. Their work ethic or sorry, work effort there and hustle was definitely lacking and unimpressive to say the least. But it was one game, and I'm looking forward to see them playing against Illinois. And we'll be talking about that on tomorrow's episode, giving a little bit of a preview, or sorry, excuse me, on Friday's episode, giving a bit of a preview of the Iowa-Illinois game.

We're also going to be breaking down the Iowa versus, oh, sorry, not Ohio State, the Iowa women's basketball game on Friday evening. We're going to be talking about who they're playing as well, breaking down that opponent and covering a few other things in Iowa Hawkeye Nation. And just a reminder that on tomorrow's episode, we have our interview with Michael Sleep Dalton. So make sure to tune into that. You're not going to want to miss the conversation. He was really great to talk to.

I think kind of eye-opening some of the stuff he said. I didn't even realize that he was actually a top player in Australian rules football. He was in the league just below the pro leagues before he hurt himself. Went to be an electrician and then got the call, decided to try to punt and worked his way. And now he spent a year in Iowa City and absolutely loved it. So you're going to love the conversation we had with him. So make sure to tune into that tomorrow. Again, I appreciate you all tuning in to today's episode.

I know a little bit different, kind of just a big one-long conversation and rant about the game last night, Iowa losing to Purdue, but I thought it was important to get it out, and I think it's important to get you an episode every single day so you understand the consistency that's coming out of the show. And you can come to expect a show every single day, Monday through Friday. So again, thank you for tuning in. I appreciate all of your love and support.

Make sure to go like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Hawkeye Nation, have a great day. The sun does come up tomorrow. We got some more basketball games coming up later this week, so we expect some wins here. And we got the Big Ten wrestling tournament coming up as well, so lots of great stuff coming up in Iowa Hawkeye sports, so stay tuned for that. Have a great day, Hawkeye Nation, and go Hawks! We'll see you next time.