Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa goes on the road to Indiana | Recruiting recap for class of 2019 | Analyzing Iowa & Indiana's media conference

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

On segment #1 we are giving a full preview of the Iowa vs Indiana matchup taking place tonight before jump over to the world of football where the Iowa Hawkeyes put their finishing touches on the class of 2019. Segment #3 finds us analyzing the media conferences given by Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery and Indiana head coach Archie Miller.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your University of Iowa Hawkeyes. I'm your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at DearOldGold.com, where you can find analysis pieces on all things black and yellow on the fansided network's DearOldGold.com website. And we have another awesome episode coming at you today. Obviously, we didn't have an episode yesterday. We're going to have an episode today and tomorrow morning. On today's show, we're going to be covering the Iowa versus Indiana game that takes place tonight. We're going to be giving you a full preview of what to expect in that game. On segment number two, we're going to be covering recruiting. As you may or may not know, yesterday was National Letter of Intent Day. It was a big day for a lot of big-time recruits all across the nation. The University of Iowa pretty much had most of their recruiting class kind of wrapped up at this point, but there were three true commitments in the sense they finally signed their letters of intent yesterday,

so we'll be talking a little bit about that. And then finally, on segment number three, we're going to be diving into the interviews that Fran and Indiana head coach Archie Miller conducted over the last two days kind of in preparation for this game talking to the media that kind of thing we're going to be talking about some of the quotes they said and give our analysis on that so it's an episode you're not going to want to miss just a reminder on tomorrow's episode as well we'll be giving you a full rundown of the Iowa Indiana game and we're going to be talking about mock drafts. That's right, it's NFL draft season.

If you didn't get a chance to, we had a great five-episode series with 24-7 Sports' Nick Kendall talking a lot about all the Iowa Hawkeyes who are going to be in the NFL draft this year, or at least eligible for the NFL draft, and kind of what they bring to the table. So make sure you check that out. Tomorrow, we're going to be talking about a seven round mock draft that Bleacher Report

Matt Bleacher Reports, Matt Miller conducted and where some of the Iowa Hawkeyes fell on that. So stay tuned for another episode. That's going to be awesome on tomorrow morning. Before we jump into our actual show, though, make sure you are subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at. And if you have a smart speaker at home, it's really easy to listen to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Just tell Siri, Google,

or Alexa to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. It's that easy to listen to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast by just telling your smart speaker to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. That being said, let's jump right into segment number one, where we're going to be covering the Iowa versus Indiana game. Another awesome game on the Big Ten slate. Indiana is coming off a huge win against Michigan State. They've been battling a lot of injuries and they went on a seven game losing streak. So not exactly an ideal situation for

them, but they got the big win against Michigan State. Another win over a ranked Iowa team, especially a ranked Iowa team that just beat Michigan, would put Indiana firmly back into the NCAA tournament contention and conversation. Right now, they're one of the first teams out, I believe, on ESPN's bracketology. So the 13-9 Hoosers, though, they're taking on the Hawks in Bloomington, Indiana tonight. So make sure you're checking that game out. I want to say it's on ESPN. The tip-off is at 8 p.m. Central Standard Time. So make sure you're checking that out.

It's going to be a fantastic game. There was some concern that Indiana's second-leading scorer, Jawan Morgan, was going to actually be out of the game. Sounds like he's going to be ready to play. And that's huge for, you know, Indiana. They've been battling injuries all year. And that's part of the reason why they went on such a bad losing streak, seven straight games in the Big Ten.

But they have some quality players, and they're a pretty solid team. And especially, honestly, just Iowa going on the road is never an ideal situation. And Iowa going to the Assembly Hall, right? So Assembly Hall is one of the toughest places to play basketball in college basketball. So it's not going to be an easy game for the Hawks, especially if they can't contain Romeo Langford, right? This is the seventh best player in the nation last year in terms of recruiting. He's a five-star recruit. He is really shouldering the scoring load for the Hoosiers. He's averaging 17.4 points per game.

He's also second on the team in rebounds with 5.4. This guy is incredible. I mean, Fran had a lot of really good things to say about him. It's going to be interesting seeing how they match up with him, who they're going to put on him, especially when they move to a man defense. I don't think, you know, it's not going to put on him, especially when they move to a man defense. I don't think, you know, it's not going to be a Jordan Bohannon, obviously, but maybe a Joe Weiskamp kind of takes him on. He's been playing well down the stretch defensively. So that'll be an interesting matchup to see. One of the things with the Hoosiers, though, they're not exactly a great offensive team.

So right now they are ninth in the Big Ten in points per game. They're 11th in three-point field goal percentage. So whereas, you know, teams have kind of burnt the Hawks from three point, you know, Penn state is a good example. They were hot from three point. Northwestern was doing some things late in that game when they played them, Michigan state, you know, got hot from three point when they went on that run that ultimately, you know, brought Iowa down as a, you know, to a loss at Carver Hawkeye arena.

That'll be a good opportunity for the Hawks to really focus on the defense and the paint, that kind of stuff, just because, well, keep in mind, Indiana is not good at three-point shooting right now, but apparently against Iowa, everyone is. Just look at the Penn State game. But they really don't take a lot of three-pointers. They are 325th out of 351 teams in the nation in terms of scoring distribution coming from the three-point. They are 15th in the nation from two-pointers.

So that'll be huge for Luka Garza, Tyler Cook. Make sure they're manning the paint down low and providing good solid defense there. And now that Iowa, it seems like, has kind of turned a corner defensively, hopefully that will show tonight against Indiana. Defensively, though, Indiana is a very strong team. They're the 30th best team in the nation in defensive adjusted efficiency margin and the 31st overall in terms of points allowed per game with 66.7. As we saw against Michigan, though, Iowa can really take on any of the elite defenses

and have a good offensive game. So I'm not as worried about Indiana's defense. More so I'm worried about Iowa making sure they can get their shots going early in that game just because they're playing on the road. We've seen Jordan Mohannon kind of struggle lately hitting any shots. So it'll be huge to have him have a good game. Isaiah Moss, Joe Weiskamp, that kind of stuff. The one thing that's kind of interesting here is that Indiana is actually, you know, despite

the fact they play mostly man, they're not a very high fouling team, which will be an interesting situation for the Hawks, whether or not they can get to the free throw line with, you know, the consistency that they're used to getting there with. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Indiana has supreme home court advantage at assembly hall. They are, you know, that's one of the best or hardest places to play in the nation. And it kind of shows Indiana's win loss record is 10 and two at home and two and seven on the road. ESPN is giving the Hawks a 43% chance of winning while Ken Palm is getting them a 47% chance. Either way, it's going to be a fantastic game. It'll be a huge game. And the last game of Iowa's tough four-game stretch

that started with Michigan State going on the road to Minnesota, playing Michigan at home, and then finally ending with Indiana. Before they get into some of the middle-to-bottom-tier teams in the Big Ten, they're getting in some of the easier places to play. So there's a few more road games. I think the real daunting one left in the schedule at this point is taking on Wisconsin at the Kohl Center and going away to play Ohio State.

So those are kind of the two big road games left for the Hawks. This is obviously, I would say, the biggest one. If they can get another win in here, that would be huge for the Hawks, putting them closer to that 20-game threshold and kind of getting them closer to that NCAA tournament contention and making sure they're going to be solidifying that appearance. But that'll do it for segment number one. Just a reminder that on segment number two, we're going to be talking about recruiting for the Iowa football team after we have a few messages from our sponsors. All right, we are back with segment number two. We're going to be talking about recruiting. Just a reminder though, on segment number three, we're going to be diving into the media conferences that

Fran McCaffrey had and Archie Miller had, the Indiana head coach, talking a little bit about their quotes and what our analysis is on those quotes. But for now, let's dive right back into recruiting. We've talked a lot about this over the last couple of days, but Iowa's really had the recruiting class kind of wrapped up, right? They've had most of their guys signed, but they've made a few last minute pushes for some guys. And it showed today they had three guys sign national letters of intent.

That was Michael Sleep Dalton, Jamari Harris, and Tajir McCall. Those are all three scholarship guys. I think obviously, you know, it's kind of funny talking about punters as a huge signing, but getting Michael Sleep Dalton is absolutely crucial to the success of the Iowa Hawkeyes next year. As we saw Colton Rassetter, you know, probably a good guy, but just he wasn't getting it done in the punting game. His average per game was ranked, or his average per punt was ranked 112th out of 124 teams. That is not good. Michael Sleep Dalton's average, I believe, is 43.6,

and that was good enough for 26th in the nation, okay? So kind of a, it'll be good to have him on Iowa's side, kind of pinning the team back, hopefully, and allow Iowa's defense to really take care of business. I mean, we saw in the Outback Bowl, Colton Rasseter's punting just isn't getting it done.

I mean, he tried doing one of those Australian-style kicks, popped it right into Mississippi State's hands, got a 12-yard punt. And it's just, it's happened too often. And so I'm excited that Michael Sleep Dalton is going to come in as a graduate transfer.

I'm excited about Jamari Harris and Tajira McCall as well. Tajira McCall, sorry, excuse me. That name is always difficult for me to pronounce. But I'm excited for both those guys. I don't think they're going to be contributors right away, but I think they're going to be big contributors down the line. They're going to be good depth players this upcoming year. Jamari Harris is, you know, a cornerback coming in. Kind of looked at as potentially filling that Imani Hooker role down the line. They're going to be good depth players this upcoming year. Jamari Harris is a cornerback coming in. Kind of looked at as potentially filling

that Imani Hooker role down the line. And to Jeremy Call, as we know, Iowa's defensive line has been just shattered with transfers, with graduation, with early declarations for the NFL. The defensive line has been whittled away at. I mean, granted, the starting units still can be a very good bunch, but there's not a lot of depth left on this team. Also, Kirk Ferentz had a press conference today, talked a little bit about the recruits, how excited he is about, you know, them jumping on campus and whatnot.

You know, Michael Sleep Dalton is going to be coming in May. Excited that he signed a letter of intent today. But he also talked about Davia Nixon, the defensive tackle who entered the transfer portal. And this is huge. All right. Nixon was in line to get some solid playing time, especially with the way Phil Parker, you know, gets his defensive lines, and now he rotates them a lot. I mean, that's why we saw

A.J. Epinesa and Chauncey Golston play 25 to 30 snaps a game, despite being the reserve guys. I mean, heck, A.J. Epinesa was second team all Big Ten as a reserve defensive end, so Nixon was in line for some playing time, but for whatever reason, he entered the transfer portal. But Kirk sounds pretty excited. Sorry, excuse me. Wrong choice of words. Kirk sounds potentially optimistic that there's a chance Nixon comes back. It does sound like he's in discussions with a few teams, some Big Ten teams, some SEC teams, and some junior college teams about his potential options.

No decision has been made as of yet, but Kirk is hopeful that Nixon does show back up on campus and ultimately does return to provide some more depth on that depth chart. Also, some big news today. The Iowa football recruiting staff has been hot on the road, trying to get an early start on the 2020 class and the 2021 and the 2022 class. So a few offers were made today. Linnell Carr, a three-star linebacker out of Missouri in the class of 2020, got an offer. Fadil Diggs, 2020 defensive end.

He's a four-star prospect, 112th nationally. He held 32 offers. He also received an offer today by Iowa. Wide receiver Jaquan Smith in the class of 2020. Currently he's unranked, but as that kind of happens, as people kind of get more familiarized with certain recruits, that'll obviously jump up, I'm assuming, to a two- or three-star recruit. And then the big news was the offer given out to 2022.

That's right, this kid has only played one year of high school football, Arlen Harris Jr. He was a second-team All-American last year as a freshman. Iowa gave an offer out to him. So, you know, nice to see the Hawks are getting started on their next classes right now. And as we talked about on yesterday, or sorry, Tuesday's show, the 2020 class is already shaping up to be pretty solid. I mean, we have Deuce Hogan, a four-star recruit who looks to be a stud at quarterback coming in. So it'll be interesting to see how this continues to shape up as Iowa turns their focus from the class of 2019 to the class of 2020. In other football news, Josh Jackson and James Daniels are back on campus in Iowa City.

They're both taking some classes. As you probably know, they declared early for the NFL draft. Jackson's taking online classes. Daniel's going to classes in person. And obviously they're going to be training at the Iowa facility, making sure they're staying in shape for the NFL season. So just some exciting stuff. If you're in the Iowa City area and you see them on campus, do not be shocked.

They are actually on campus. That'll do it, though, for our football talk for today. Just a reminder that on segment number three, we're going to be breaking down bits and pieces of Fran McCaffrey and Archie Miller's media conferences and giving our analysis on each of those items. All right, we are back with segment number three. We're going to be talking about the media conferences for Fran McCaffrey and Archie Miller. Lots of really good information given in these media conferences, so I want to make sure we're talking about that and kind of what to expect based on those quotes.

We'll start with Iowa. One of the first questions, obviously, that came up was, what are they expecting to see from Indiana, especially considering Indiana's 1-7 in their last eight games? And Fran had this to say about the situation. He said, you have to look at the situation. It's kind of like why, why is Lucas scoring 20 points a game? Well, he's healthy. Why did Indiana beat Michigan state at Michigan state? Well, they're healthy. They weren't healthy. They were losing seven in a row

and weren't getting drilled. So they were playing as well as they were capable. They were 12 and two and they were healthy. Beat Louisville. And then Green is out. Finneas is out. Davis is out. It's going to be different. Now they're all back, go on the road and beat Michigan State.

That's who we're playing. And to me, I think that really says a lot about how Fran's taking the situation. He knows Indiana is a solid basketball squad. He's not overlooking them. And obviously you can't really overlook any team in the Big Ten. Every team is pretty solid, save for Illinois for the most part, Rutgers. Even Rutgers had a big win over Ohio State earlier in the season, but neither here nor there. I mean, he's not overlooking this team. He realizes this is a very tough team that they're going to have to go and win on the

road, which Iowa has historically not done very well. Another item he got asked about, kind of interesting with baseball season starting, Connor McCaffrey, Fran's son, is a dual, you know, two-way player. He's playing baseball and basketball, and he's been trying to juggle both. So in between, you know, practices, he's going to baseball, he's doing basketball, he's doing both them. And I don't know if you've ever done this in high school. I played one sport and had some, you know, kind of training practices at the end of the night. And it's exhausting even in high school. I played one sport and had some, you know, kind of training practices at the end of the night. And it's exhausting even in high school. I can't imagine being a college student doing both of those things, playing D1 baseball and basketball, especially for two high

achieving programs like Rick Heller's baseball squad and Fran McCaffrey's basketball squad. But here's what Fran had to say about that. He said, you talked about overdoing it. The thing that is important is that you get over there and hit and throw. He's going to be in shape. He doesn't have to go over there and run. He doesn't have to lift. He lifts with us. Doesn't have to do everything they're doing, but you got to go over there and hit in the cage and get some live pitching and stuff like that. So I think Fran's being real honest about it. I'm assuming he's probably talked a lot to his son about the situation. I mean, it's not easy to juggle that in college, but he's absolutely right. I mean, you don't need to do the conditioning twice. I remember in high school baseball, when we had

kids who were playing or running track, if when they came from track practice, they were excused from the running portion of practice because they've already done it. You don't need to do it again. It's not helping you to continue to run. There's a certain threshold where it's no longer beneficial. So interesting take on that from Fran McCaffrey. And talking about another player, but this one on the Indiana, he talked a lot about, you know, five-star recruit Romeo Langford. Here's what he had to say about him. He said he came in with a huge reputation. And I think a lot of times there's a lot of pressure on guys like him. He's going to be the fifth pick going to be the sixth pick, but hasn't played a college game yet. I don't think that's easy. He's handled

it as well as anybody I've seen. He plays at his pace. He's got a complete game. He can dribble, pass, and shoot. Plays defense, rebounds. They go to him late, makes big shots. Made big shots the other night in that game. Has tremendous confidence in himself.

He's one of the best players in the country. And again, Fran's not taking Indiana lightly. He's not taking Romeo Langford lightly. My guess is, based on the way Iowa has played against other star players. I mean, I'm thinking about Michigan State, the very first game. Cassius Winston came in as one of the leading scorers, one of the leading, you know, dishing out the most assists and Iowa really shut him down. Granted, they couldn't shut down Nick Ward, but they did a good job of shutting him down and they've really done a good job of

eliminating some of the star players of each team. It's just a matter of not getting burnt by the second, third, and fourth guys. So it'll be interesting to see what kind of defensive game plan Fran devises for Romeo Langford and how they can confuse him. And kind of moving on, Archie Miller had a few quotes I wanted to talk about as well. When talking about Iowa and facing them, he had some really positive things to say. He said, Iowa coming in as good as advertised. They have a great one-two punch inside with Garza and Cook, and they also have tremendous shooting and depth and one of the best offensive teams that we'll see all season. And mixing up their defenses and whatnot will give

us some different looks. And that's our concern coming in is obviously being able to withstand their inside punch and their push and obviously take care of the basketball and continue to try to become a better offensive team. I think he realized that, I mean, he wasn't exactly throwing compliments out on the defense, but more so just pointing out that it can be confusing if Iowa is effectively operating their defense, that it can be confusing for opposing teams. It's just a matter of Iowa effectively operating that defense. When they stick in man, sometimes they get burnt. When when they stick in man Sometimes they get burnt when they stick in zone Sometimes they get burnt but if they can move around and and I'll fade the defense up that could cause some problems for Indiana's not Weak, but not as strong offensive squad

I'll start as interesting. I mean he spoke glowingly about their shooting in their depth I mean we've seen that with there's guys across the board who can shoot three-pointers who can get hot and go on runs But we still haven't seen them all put it together outside of potentially the Illinois game. So it'll be interesting to see if they can get that going at Assembly Hall tonight. And then finally on Luka Garza, because Luka Garza has been on a tear as of late. Multiple questions on Garza to both Archie Miller and to Fran McCaffrey, but this is what Archie had to say that I thought was really interesting about Luka. He said, he's a really good offensive player. They do a great job of being able to pound the ball inside. They force you to run. He's got tremendous size and he's got a really, really

good game in terms of being able to score on the basket and also bring you away from the basket at times. So to me, he's one of the most improved players in the league. I mean, that is a very big compliment to the sophomore who's worked really hard at his game. I mean, he kind of struggled early on in the season, battling through some injuries, but wow, as he came on as of late. I mean, he's really been the focal point of the offense. I mean, move over, Tyler Cook. Luka Garza's here.

And that's incredible because Tyler Cook is, without a doubt, an incredible scorer and a potential NBA player at one point. I think Luka Garza is showing his potential as well. Came in as a four-star recruit, struggled a little bit, grew up last year, worked really hard in his game, and is starting to show as he's getting into big-time play and starting to finish this season really strong. So we'll need a big game from Garza if Iowa expects to beat Indiana tonight. But that'll do it for our recap of the media conferences. We're going to be giving a lot of a recap of the game on tomorrow morning's podcast. Make sure you're checking that out

on your Friday morning commute, as you know already. And if you don't make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at. And if you have a smart speaker at home, it's really easy to listen to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. All you need to do is tell Siri, Google, or Alexa to play podcast Locked On Hawkeyes. That will give you the latest episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. That'll do it, though, for tonight. I'm your host, Andrew Wade, and you can find me on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew. And you can also follow all the exciting happenings of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. And you can reach out to me, any questions, comments, suggestions through my email, LockedOnHawkeyes

at gmail.com. That'll do it for this morning's show. Thank you for joining us on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow.