Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Hawkeyes send notice to NCAA after road win vs Michigan Wolverines

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Fran McCaffery's Iowa Hawkeye squad put the NCAA on notice with a dominating victory over Michigan in Ann Arbor last night to get their second quad one win. National Player of the Year candidate Keagan Murray started off on fire and kept his foot on the throttle as did his brother Kris and super-senior Jordan Bohannon to lead the Iowa basketball team to a big victory. We break down the game, and what it means for tournament seeding as well as give you a preview of Sunday's pivotal matchup against Illinois. What does Iowa need to do to take down Kofi Cockburn and the Fighting Illini? We've got you covered here.We wrap up with a preview of tonight's women's basketball game versus Northwestern, a team that has given Lisa Bluders' squad challenges in the past. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.RunYourPoolIf you want to play against us for a shot at a cash prize join us at RunYourPool.com/LockedOn. And while you’re there, create your own pool for your friends and family. Enter ‘PUREMADNESS’ at checkout for $10 off your custom pool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back Hawkeye Nation to a Friday morning episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and I'm excited to be back today because we are talking about another Iowa W, the Hawkeyes taking down Michigan on the road last night in a very convincing fashion. We're going to be talking about that game, what we learned from that game,

and the similarities between this team and last year's team, at least when it comes to win-loss records. And there are quite a few similarities, despite the very, very nuanced differences. We'll also be talking a little bit about Iowa versus Illinois, which takes place on Sunday, another key game for the Hawks, as they try to position themselves, not only in the Big Ten tournament, but also for the NCAA tournament. And then finally, the women's basketball team taking on Northwestern today in a quest for a Big Ten championship.

We're going to talk about that game as well. So let's get into it. But first, I want to thank you all for making the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get podcasts at and also on YouTube by searching Locked On Hawkeyes. So let's get into it. Last night, what a win for the Hawks. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect.

It's been one of those kind of roller coasters of emotion, right? You don't want to get too excited about this team just in case you see something happen, something bad, a rough game, and all of a sudden we're disappointed again. But I'm really starting to believe, and I think a lot of Iowa fans out there are starting to believe. Now, is Michigan as good as we thought they were going to be? They're not, right? They are not a top 10 team like they were originally projected to be early on in the season. But there is a ton of talent there. And going up to Ann Arbor is never an easy task.

And to win the way Iowa did is never an easy task. Iowa getting a 10-point double-digit, I should say, win, 82-71 over Michigan in last night's game. And there was a couple interesting things about this. Iowa started off strong. Keegan Murray came out firing, right? A couple threes of that layup. He was outscoring Michigan himself in the first two minutes. They basically kept that lead.

In fact, they built on that lead as they continued to up the game, occasionally knocking it down to a 10-point lead, but up to as much as a 19-point lead during the game. It wasn't until the last seven minutes where Iowa fans were starting to wonder, what is going on here, right? Michigan was shooting lights out. At one point in the second half Michigan was 15 of 20 from the field Iowa was 10 of 24 yet Iowa was still maintaining a 10-ish point lead then Iowa turned the ball over four times between the seven minute mark and the three minute mark and Michigan was getting a little closer I think it was seven points at that point. But fortunately, a huge three-pointer from Chris Murray at the 240 mark

from a pass from Keegan made it a 10-point game. Then Michigan went down the court, had two turnovers in a row, which I'll get to here in a second. And then Keegan Murray blocked Musa Diabadi's shot with 35 seconds left to basically close out the game for the Iowa Hawkeyes. So let's get into some of the takeaways from this game. Let's kick it off there. I mean, Keegan Murray played out of the world again.

He is so consistent. And what he brings to this team is truly amazing. And having a guy like that can help you go far in the NCAA tournament now on Twitter I posted a tweet saying who would be your top five in the Fran McAfee era now most people picked Luka Garza in that top five and I did as well but there's a story or a case to be made where a team might be more effective in the NCAA tournament without the best center in college basketball at times, especially depending on the matchup. I think that's where Iowa sits now. Keegan Murray gives them an opportunity to go far. He's a dynamic player who can guard that one through five.

He can do a variety of different things. Now, Luka Garza could as well, right? Again, I'm not hating on Luka Garza. Luka Garza is a phenomenal player, and we were so lucky to have him. He's the main reason why we were even a top two, a number two seed in the NCAA tournament last year. You get up against a team like Oregon, and that's going to be a tough matchup. It isn't going to help Iowa out a ton there.

But Keegan Murray in this game, 23 points on 7 of 9 shooting, 4 of 4 from 3, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks, and 1 steal. His brother Chris was also a big factor down the stretch. He was about 19 points on 9 of 11 shooting and 6 rebounds. As we talked about yesterday, Chris Murray had to stay out of foul trouble. He had to stay out of foul trouble. Chris is going to be a huge factor going forward in this tournament. Because defensively, Iowa has been improving quite a bit. They are now 74th

in Kempom. They are getting their hands in passing lanes. They are doing a fantastic job of trapping players, even in half-court sets. They use their height and length, and they are making guys throw cross-court passes. Then you have guys like Tony Perkins or Chris Murray who are sitting there waiting for a pass, and they intercept it.

We're seeing Iowa force a lot more turnovers than we have in the past. And against a team that is not skilled at controlling the basketball, that is going to be a huge problem for them, for that opposing team. Iowa has the ability to force turnovers in a hurry, especially against sloppy teams. Iowa has the ability to force turnovers in a hurry, especially against sloppy teams. And what really impressed me the most about this game is Iowa locked down late. They figured out how to get a win.

Michigan was trying to claw back into it. The crowd was back into it. The officials were bad, as always, on both sides, but especially late it felt like. I don't know how many times Moussa Diabadi has to hook Keegan Murray's arm and then get a foul called on Murray. I don't know how it continues to happen. Or it might have been Chris Murray, excuse me. But the team put together a really nice stretch run the last few minutes. Key plays from several players.

And for the most part, I thought they did a good job of breaking the Michigan press outside of that weird 10-second violation call that they had. The biggest thing here, it's a quad one win. It is a quad one win. That is huge come tournament time. Now Iowa goes on the road to take on Illinois. And if they win, they have a double buy. In fact, I believe they might have the number three seed. If they lose, they need Rutgers to lose to Penn State and Ohio State to lose to either Michigan State or Michigan. That's what needs to happen for Iowa to get that double bye.

Right now, though, the lowest in play, I believe, is a sixth seed in the Big Ten tournament. This is huge for the Hawks. Right now, I would say in the NCAA tournament which we talked about yesterday I was looking at a 60 at this point I think if you go far in the Big Ten tournament if you make a championship game I think it might be worth a four seed I actually do I think it's worth the four seed. If you win one game in the Big Ten tournament, I think you could probably go to a six seed.

I think that's probably where that, if you get to the finals and lose, which would need to be a win over a Wisconsin or a Purdue or an Illinois, more than likely, Iowa's got to be a five seed, right? So they are really positioning themselves well in the NCAA tournament. As we've talked about, a lot of it is the matchups. It's not even how good of a team you are.

It is the matchups you have. And they should be able to at least make that quarterfinal or that semifinals round if they do get that double bye because the team they're going to be playing against is going to be coming off back-to-back games or one game 24 hours ago a lot of really tough turnaround for any team going into the big 10 tournament the last thing i'll say about iowa did a really good job on a big team in the paint michigan last time around had a phenomenal performance.

Diabate put together a career day. Dickinson had a very consistently good day, but in this game, they locked them down. They held them. They shut them out in the first half with Brabracha on Dickinson, Murray on Diabate. He only had four points and seven rebounds, so Iowa figured out a way to, again, handle some of the mismatches they had in the first game. They figured out ways to reduce and remove the issues they had from the first game. That goes back to Fran McCaffrey being a truly phenomenal coach. This year, he has just pushed all the right buttons, pulled all the right levers to get this team into a good spot. Coming up, we're going to talk a little bit about Iowa versus Illinois, and also how similar is this team to last year's team. We're all talking about how excited we are

about this big run Iowa's making. Would you be shocked to know last year's team did the exact same thing? That's all coming up here in a few short moments. First, March Madness is only two weeks away. That means you need to start thinking now about where you're going to be running your brackets this year. Are you going for the usual or are you looking for the best? We've done our homework here and we're running our brackets at runyourpool.com. Along with standard brackets, Run Your Pool offers game types like Survivor or Pick X, and they have options to edit scoring and they offer more intel to make your picks, all stuff you will not find at ESPN or CBS. If you've got a business, runyourpool.com can help

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All the rules and details will be available there. That's runyourpool.com slash locked on for your chance to win a cash prize. We look forward to seeing and beating you right there and y'all it is march we are two months into our new year's resolutions a lot of resolutions typically focus on eating healthy or fitness in some capacity and i know it can be difficult i know the healthier eat the more you want a candy bar well i'm here to tell you you can eat healthy and get yourself a candy bar by grabbing yourself a candy bar. Well, I'm here to tell you, you can eat healthy and get yourself a candy bar by grabbing yourself a Bilt Bar, the protein bar that tastes just like a candy bar. They have so many different types and varieties, so many different flavors, sweet, salty,

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That's L-O-C-K-E-D-1-5. And you'll get 15% off your next order. Use that promo code lock 15 or 15 off at built.com thank you again for making the lockdown hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day make sure to check out the lockdown bracket breakdown march 14th right here on the lockdown hawkeyes podcast feed and youtube channel college basketball experts chris gordy andy patton and betting expert at least early give you in-depth breakdowns on every single matchup and speaking of matchups let's turn our attention to Iowa vs Illinois

which is going to be a very big game for the Hawks but before we get to that I want to talk a little bit about this team and the comparison to last year's team first and foremost last year's team coming into the season had significantly higher expectations we can all agree on that they were consistently rated a top five Ken Palm team in the country they started off the season 12 and 2 with a weird loss to Minnesota in overtime and a loss to Gonzaga, but beating quality teams along the way. Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, North Carolina, and in pretty dominating fashion in several of those games.

So Iowa was in a better spot. Then they lose 4-5. They lost to Indiana, Illinois, Ohio State, Indiana in 4 of 5 games. but they turned it on. The end of the season, this is what's interesting, Iowa won eight of their last, seven of their last eight games, with their only loss being to Michigan. They also had a big road win against Ohio State after losing to Michigan. They also got Nebraska quickly after that and dominated the heck out of them. And then they went and had Wisconsin at home and got a W against Wisconsin. Now when you look at this year's team, they won eight of their last nine. They had a close loss to Michigan, not a 79 to 57 blowout loss like last year's team. And this is all after

a tough loss to Penn State. So there's some similarities between that, but I think this year's team's a little different. Last year's team, we expected them to win every game. They were supposed to win every single game. They had reached what we had considered kind of their ceiling of where they were at from a talent perspective. This year's team feels different. It feels like they are peaking at the right time. Whereas last year's team was maintaining the status quo where they should have been,

this year's team is peaking at the right time. They are figuring it out offensively. They are getting production from areas they were not expecting to get production from. They're getting production across the board. Everyone is getting involved across the board. Everyone is getting involved in this offense. And again, Fran McCaffrey is pulling all the right levers.

For example, in this game, Joe Troussant and Aaron Uless only got 9 and 10 minutes respectively. Peyton Sanford didn't even play. Instead, we saw Keegan Murray get 36, which is expected. Jordan Bohannon get 33. Tony Perkins, who has really come on late, 27. Chris Murray, 26. Connor McCaffrey, 23. Ray McCaffrey still, he figures out what rotation is going to work best

in that given matchup. And it has more often than not gone Iowa's way. This team is peaking at the right time. Defensively, they're peaking at the right time. Rebounding-wise, you can no longer consider that an issue. Iowa has been absolutely devastating on the boards against opposing teams. Even in this game, with such a size mismatch, Iowa was only out rebounded by two rebounds, despite such a size mismatch.

A huge game for Iowa against Michigan. And going into Illinois, this will be a really interesting test as well because they have Kofi Coburn. And Kofi is like no one else in college basketball. He's a big, big guy. And what I want to see Iowaowa do against kofi coburn is swarm him every single time he touched the basketball he is not a very good passer he is susceptible to turnovers fluster the heck out of him and maybe the big 10 officials will

start calling some stuff on him as well because he will literally use his body to throw guys around like ragdolls and no one calls anything maybe in this game the big 10 officials decide to actually call a game like they're supposed to but i think in order to beat this team you stop kofi first and when i say stop i mean kind of ruin him on the court. Force a lot of turnovers. Iowa has done this consistently against big men. Whoever is matched up with him will take him in the front. You have another guy come from the back and start knocking away the ball. You'll see a guard come. You'll see another wing come.

We need to see that a lot against Kobe Coburn. He is susceptible to turnovers. He's also not going to be as good of a passer as we saw with Hunter Dickinson in this past game where he was doing a good job of finding outlet passes. That is not Kofi Kilburn. You also need to stop Jacob Grandison. He torched Iowa in the first game, and he's currently shooting 41% from three. That is not ideal.

In the last matchup, Illinois beat Iowa 87-83, but it was really a lot closer. I didn't think it was as close as the score really indicated. In that game, though, Kopi had 18 rebounds, which is almost nearly as much as Iowa did total. Iowa has gotten a lot better on the glass. However, Illinois didn't have Andre Corbello, and they had 18 turnovers. Illinois shot 44% from three. Kofi had 18 rebounds, and yet Iowa only lost by four points. The turnover piece is absolutely huge.

Now, if Iowa can figure out the rebounding piece, they should easily be able to win this game. It shouldn't be a problem so there's a lot of things that illinois does that could hurt iowa we've seen the defense get a lot better illinois parameter offense is fantastic though they are 46th in the nation of three point shooting percentage they are 58th in point distribution they like to rely on the three-pointer if they are not going down low to kofi Kilburn. So this is an up-and-down team. We've seen them lose to bad teams, beat good teams, kind of all over the place. Definitely not the season they were expecting.

And their best win to this point, when you look at Kempom, is actually against Iowa. It's actually against Iowa. So it'll be an interesting game with with a season on the line right with Iowa trying to make it run here with Iowa having a lot of momentum with the Hawks trying to position themselves for a better NCAA tournament scene with the Hawks trying to make sure they get a double-by can they go on the road to Illinois and take care of Illinois you better believe these older guys these veteran guys they are tired of losing to Illinois

they are sick of it it has been quite an interesting rivalry the last couple years and these Iowa guys these Connor McCaffrey's Mohannes, they are sick of losing to Illinois. Regardless, you know, whether they beat them, they are sick of losing to Illinois. Last year, losing to Illinois as well. Twice this year, ordered to lose to Illinois. They want to take down Illinois bad. And you better believe this team has the characteristics,

the makeup to be able to do that. And we'll be watching that game on Sunday, so stay tuned for that. We're going to be breaking that that down we have a special guest who might be joining us as well to help us break that game down so be on the lookout for that coming up we're going to talk about the Iowa women's game versus Northwestern and what the women need to do and kind of what their path is going forward the first football season might be over but basketball is in full steam as we've been talking about the last couple of days. It's all been basketball. It's in full steam for both pro and college hoops. March Madness is right around the corner. From all the latest odds, totals, player performance props to where the next fired coach is going to land, BetOnline.net is your number one spot for all of your sports

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run of their own after struggling to start the season they are back this team has it really not rattling off multiple ranked wins over the past couple of weeks. They are primed and ready to win a Big Ten conference tournament. Last year, they made the finals. This year, I believe they have the ability to win the finals. But they're going to have, or win the tournament, you could say. They're going to have a lot of tough battles up ahead, though, starting with seventh-seeded Northwestern, a team that has beaten Iowa in the past. Seventh-seeded Northwestern

just took down tenth-seeded Minnesota, and when you listen to Lisa Bluter talk, they have been preparing for Northwestern. If you had to split your time of preparation, because you can't really prepare for just one team because you don't know which team you're playing. It'd probably be 70% Northwestern, 30% Minnesota. They felt pretty comfortable with how they play against Minnesota, but they did not feel comfortable about how they play against Northwestern. And that's really key as we get into tonight's matchup. In the first game, Northwestern dominated the glass. Absolutely dominated the glass against the Hawks. They out-rebounded Iowa 42-31 and 14-4 offensively. They also had nine more shots, and Iowa had six more turnovers. Never a good thing to have more turnovers and less shots than the opposing team.

That's what happened. In that game, Northwestern's all-conference player and conference defensive player of the year, Veronica Burton, had 25 points, six rebounds, six assists. Melody Daly had 22 points and six rebounds as well. But Kaitlin Clark and Monica had phenomenal games too, from a scoring perspective. And the win, kind of a similar thing. Monica and Kaitlyn ate a little bit, right? Kaitlyn did struggle with turning the ball over though. 11 turnovers, a career high for

her. But Monica ate in that game. Iowa out-rebounded Northwestern 48-31 in that win. But Northwestern still had 13 more shots than Iowaowa because i would turn the ball over 25 times that is asinine you cannot turn the ball over 25 times and typically expect to win a basketball game in that game burton at 19 points seven assists and three rebounds now what's interesting about this is iowa is clearly the more talented team. Even talking to some Northwestern beat guys, they would argue that on the court at any given time, Iowa is going to have four of the five most talented players on that court, save for Veronica Burton.

Potentially Courtney Shaw as well on Northwestern, could be considered in that class. But Iowa, three or four of the most talented players on the court at any given time. Iowa is the better team here. That much is clear. We know they are the better team. But Northwestern can be scrappy. They can get into Iowa.

They can force those turnovers. As we've seen, Iowa has had issues with turnovers against Northwestern. Veronica Burton can be kind of a nuisance as well to the wings to the guards you could say and that's what I'm going to be watching for in this game can Iowa hit the glass can they not make so many sloppy turnovers right we've seen some issues I can't remember um got a blank I think it was against I want to say the Ohio State where just felt like turnover after turnover on good cuts to the basket. Just couldn't hold on to the ball, couldn't corral the ball as they were driving to the hoop. But Iowa has been playing much better basketball as of late.

And if they want to continue to get that four seed, if they want to continue to get that home court advantage for the NCAA tournament, they need to win here and have at least a close game in the semifinal. At least a close game in the semifinal. Some things that give me hope, Northwestern has struggled defending the perimeter as of late, and obviously we know Kaitlin Clark, right? She can drain it from wherever she is on the court. And when you look at Northwestern and how Iowa lost that first game, that was coming off a long COVID pause for Hawks. They were struggling to get games in because of several COVID pauses. Again, Clark played poorly in that second game. If Iowa plays an average game here, right? If Kaitlin Clark puts together a normal performance, just a normal, not an elite performance, just a

normal performance, and we dominate the glass, Iowa should have no problems taking care of business against Northwestern, especially with Northwestern coming off a game just 24 hours earlier. If they win this game, they should get Michigan next, which is going to be a very interesting matchup as we've seen Iowa lost to Michigan earlier without a few folks in the lineup. They then took care of business against Michigan this past game. Michigan is going to want revenge against the Hawks. What happens there will have you covered here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Lots of fun stuff going on in the basketball world.

We also have the Big Ten Wrestling Tournament going on this weekend as well. We may have a bonus episode dropping either tomorrow or Sunday, depending on what happens. So be on the lookout for that as well. Again, thank you all for making the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. Now make sure to make your second listen to the Lockdown NFL Draft podcast. Former NFL quarterback Eric Crocker plus Ryan Tracy,

they bring the NFL Draft to life every single day with insight and analysis on college football prospects and NFL front offices. It's free and available wherever you get your podcast at, which is also wherever you get the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast at. So look on, look on Biddle, look out for for that um again thank you all for tuning in have a fantastic friday and even better weekend as always hawkeye nation let's go hawks