Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Is the Fran Fade real and just how bad is this defense when compared to other Fran McCaffery teams?

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

We've got a lot of basketball talk on the show today as we break down the Fran Fade and whether or not the statistics prove what most of Hawkeye Nation believes. Also, is this defense as bad as we all... think? It actually might be worse. We also give our early preseason predictions for the Iowa football team after their 2021 schedule was announced.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 “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

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Tuesday 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'm excited to be dropping another show today. And first off, I want to thank all of you for tuning in and listening to today's show. I appreciate each and every one of you. It is crazy how much this show has grown.
Starting point is 00:00:35 I've been doing this for almost three years at this point, and it's amazing every single day, and I truly appreciate all of you listening in. On today's show, though, we are going to be talking some football. We had two Iowa Hawkeyes win the Super Bowl on Sunday evening. I didn't get a chance to talk about it yesterday because I recorded before the Super Bowl. I knew better than to try and record after the Super Bowl. We also have two women winning Big Ten awards for this week, which we will be talking about. And then we're going to break down the Iowa football schedule.
Starting point is 00:01:07 And then on segment two and three, we're going to get heavy into that basketball talk. I know there's been a lot of talk about the Fran fade. I want to show you some statistics about the Fran fade and what it means. Also giving you a little bit of a reason as to where Fran stands in the history of Iowa basketball. Is this as good as it gets? Could be. I'll talk about that on segment three. On segment two, we're going to talk about the defense and where Iowa's defense stands historically under Fran McCaffrey and what it means for their tournament hopes. That's all coming up on the show today. Again, if you like the show, if you love the show, if you've listened to it before and you haven't done this already, please make sure to like, review, and subscribe. And obviously, give us that five-star review if you like it.
Starting point is 00:01:49 And then follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I'm most active on Twitter, somewhat active on Instagram. Facebook can be a little bit interesting. I'm not as active there. But please follow us wherever you do have a social media account. We'd much appreciate it. As far as Iowa football goes, we had four Iowa football players in the Super Bowl on Sunday. Tristan Wirfs, Anthony Nelson, and linebackers Anthony Hitchens and Ben Neiman for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Starting point is 00:02:12 All these Iowa Hawkeyes showed up pretty well. Anthony Nelson had one tackle and one quarterback hurry. Anthony Hitchens, one tackle, one pass defended. Ben Neiman, nine tackles. And Tristan Wirfs graded out as the highest graded offensive player with a 91.7 grade, according to PFF. He just put together one of the most impressive rookie seasons a tackle has ever had in NFL history, allowed one sack and over 700 snaps.
Starting point is 00:02:37 It's pretty darn crazy to think about what he would have done had he returned to school. I mean, this guy's dominating the NFL. Imagine if he had returned to school. Always fun to think about. But again, congratulations to Tristan Wirfs and Anthony Nelson for their Super Bowl victory. Both young players experiencing the ultimate goal in the NFL. Also, before we get into the schedule talk,
Starting point is 00:03:00 wanted to give a congratulations to Kaitlyn Clark for winning another Big Ten Freshman of the Week award. I believe she has one more before she actually sets the record, or at least ties the record. And then Lauren Gurin on the women's gymnastics team got Big Ten event specialist player of the week for Big Ten gymnastics. She had
Starting point is 00:03:17 a floor exercise victory with a career high score of 9.95 and helped Iowa to its highest team score in almost 17 years. So congratulations, Kaitlin and Lauren. Awesome stuff all around for Iowa sports. Now, we talked a little bit about the schedule yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to break it down game by game.
Starting point is 00:03:37 That's what I want to do on the show today because I truly think Iowa's ranked, by some accounts, in the top 10. Mostly you're seeing Iowa somewhere in that top 25 from a football team perspective next year. Now they do lose some decent players. They lose some help along the offensive line. They lose their two starting wide receivers. And they again replace three starting defensive linemen and Nick Neiman. That's a lot.
Starting point is 00:03:59 But for a program like Iowa where they do build their program, right? They develop, they recruit well, and they develop. There is always hope for a strong performance. And I think it always starts and stops with the quarterback position and specifically Spencer Petras. Can he pull it together this year? Can he improve upon what we saw last year, which there were some glimpses of good quarterback play. There's also some very, very negative glimpses as well, but can he improve? That will be the key to me. I'm not as worried. I mean, losing a burner like Amir Smith-Marset is always a huge loss. Losing a guy who can go up for jump balls like Brandon Smith is always a huge loss, and you cannot underestimate
Starting point is 00:04:40 the loss of an All-American like Davian Nixon or a future NFL player like Chauncey Golsan and obviously Jack Heflin. Those are big losses. But Iowa returns a stacked secondary, a very high potential linebacker group, a very good offensive line led by Tyler Linderbaum. Iowa has been recruiting offensive line very well the last couple years. There's guys waiting in the wings here. And then again, wide receiver, we have a good, young wide receiver group. And then at running back, we have all Big Ten, Tyler Goodson. So there's a lot of hope for this team. So I look at this schedule.
Starting point is 00:05:15 To me, there's some interesting parts where I think, oh my gosh, this could be bad. And also, oh my gosh, this could be good. It starts with Indiana, though. And Indiana is a very sneaky team, a team that's also getting a lot of hype, returning a lot of players, including a guy who was a dark horse for the Heisman early on into the season, Indiana's Michael Penix Jr. Indiana's going to be tough, but at least Iowa gets them at Kinnick. What I'm concerned about is that first game is always sloppy, especially for Iowa. They do not do a good job of starting that strong.
Starting point is 00:05:46 So when you get Big Ten play that early on, you've got to worry at least a little bit. And I am worried. I'm worried about playing a team like Indiana early on in the season. You do not want to come out of the gate slow. And especially when you get Iowa State on the road the following week. That is just not ideal for the Iowa Hawkeyes. And so for me, I mean, we're looking at the schedule and I think there's a chance Iowa could start 0-2. I hate to say it, but it's what I believe. I think there's a chance Iowa, a very good chance,
Starting point is 00:06:20 Iowa could start 0-2 for this season. Now, I might get some hate for that, and I understand that. I'm just being realistic about it. Iowa just doesn't start off typically very strong. They take a half to get going usually, even against inferior opponents. Now they're facing a top team like Indiana who returns a significant amount of starters.
Starting point is 00:06:39 That's going to be an advantage for Indiana. However, I'm going to predict a win. That's at Kinnick. Given everything going on, I believe it's going to be probably a packed stadium. I mean, I would think at least at 50%. People are going to be ready to go.
Starting point is 00:06:54 I mean, this Iowa Hawkeye team is going to be hyped up. You've got to take into account the fact that Kinnick Stadium is going to be freaking bumping on September 4th. So I'm going to give Indiana that win there. Iowa State, this is going to be arguably bumping on September 4th. So I'm going to give Indiana that win there. Iowa State, this is going to be arguably the best Iowa State team Iowa has faced under Kirk Ferens. And it pains me to say this, but I do feel like this would be a loss for Iowa. Now, Iowa sitting at 1-1.
Starting point is 00:07:18 We get Kent State and Colorado State back-to-back. Those should be wins. Maryland, they had ups and downs. Obviously, having Tua's little brother is always a benefit. Iowa can sometimes struggle against some scrambling quarterbacks, but I believe this linebacker crew is more athletic than what we've seen in the past and very instinctual as well. So, to me, I think Maryland on the road should be a relatively easy win for the Hawks.
Starting point is 00:07:43 That means they're currently starting out at 4-1 with two wins in the Big Ten. They get Penn State at home. Again, Penn State, always a solid team, always a tough out. At home, I think they get that W. I think they also get that W versus Purdue, and that is probably the toughest one. Purdue always does a fantastic job of airing the ball out against Iowa, but this secondary, I'm going to take some pride in the secondary. I'm going to give some benefit of the doubt to this Iowa secondary.
Starting point is 00:08:10 I believe they get that W against Purdue. They have a bye week before heading into Wisconsin. Now, I'm going to pick that Wisconsin game as a win, and here's why. I think Wisconsin is losing a few guys, but they have obviously Jalen Berger. They got Graham Mertz back. It's always a battle for that game. I believe Iowa takes that game with having that bye week right before that. I think that's a great opportunity for Iowa to get ready and take down Wisconsin. But I do believe they fall to Northwestern the following week.
Starting point is 00:08:39 It's tough. If they're going to get up and they're going to get ready for that Wisconsin game, get up hyped, it's tough to turn around and go again on the road to Northwestern, a team that always has Iowa's tough. If they were going to get up and they're going to get ready for that Wisconsin game, get up hyped, it's tough to turn around and go again on the road to Northwestern, a team that always has Iowa's number. We saw it this past year. They had Iowa's number. I do worry about playing Northwestern. I think, honestly, you could look at Wisconsin or Northwestern and call that a loss, one of those two games. I think Purdue also could be a sneaky loss. Then Iowa gets Minnesota and Illinois at home.
Starting point is 00:09:04 I'm going to predict a win for both of those games. I think Minnesota and what P.J. Fleck has done has been phenomenal, but I just do not see them matching up well against Iowa, especially after losing Rashad Bateman. And then at Nebraska, I think is a W. So to me, I'm predicting, I say the best record Iowa has is 10-2. Obviously, all these games are winnable. There's not going to be a game they're outmatched in by any means. They're not getting Ohio State. They're not getting an Alabama.
Starting point is 00:09:30 So I think Iowa, in theory, could be 12-0. But I think probably the max is 10-2. I think the worst they could do is 8-4, and that's it. They drop all three tough road games, Iowa State, Wisconsin, Northwestern, and lose either Penn State or Purdue. That's kind of my thoughts there as well. So I think the min is 8-4. The max is 10-2.
Starting point is 00:09:49 Anything worse than 8-4 is a pretty bad season in my opinion for how talented this team is. Anything above probably 9-3 in my opinion is a good Iowa season. It's something that we should be pretty excited about. That's my quick prediction on the Iowa football schedule. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are as well. Send those to me at LockedOnIowa on Twitter. Coming up on segment number 2 and 3, my quick prediction on the Iowa football schedule. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are as well. Send those to me at LockedOnIowa on Twitter.
Starting point is 00:10:09 Coming up on segment number two and three, we're hopping in to some basketball talk like I talked about. Lots of interesting statistics I found when I was doing some deep diving into what to expect for this Iowa Hawkeye basketball squad this year. But I do have to tell you a little bit about an awesome company I found, and that is Rock rockauto.com. Rockauto.com is a family-owned business serving auto parts customers online for 20 years. Go to rockauto.com to shop for auto and body parts from hundreds of manufacturers. I'm going to tell you a little story.
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Starting point is 00:11:28 RockAuto.com Get more of the sports news you need in less time with our new Locked On Today podcast. Peter Bukowski hosts Locked On Today, a daily podcast breaking down the biggest stories with analysis from our local experts. Start your day with all the sports news you need in under 20 minutes. Subscribe to Locked On Today wherever you get your podcast at. And as I alluded to, we are turning our attention to basketball because there are definitely some interesting things I wanted to look at. Most notably, I want to talk about the defense.
Starting point is 00:11:56 Is this as bad of a defense as we think it is? Short answer, yes it is. And then I want to talk about the Fran Fade and Fran McCaffrey in general. Is this the best Iowa can do from a basketball perspective? So let's talk a little bit about it, starting with the defense. So I looked up all the statistics for Iowa defensively. Since the first year, Iowa was a competitive team under Fran McCaffrey, that 2012-2013 season when they went to the NIT.
Starting point is 00:12:23 I thought that was important. That was still a solid team. They got their stuff together late in that season, made it deep into the NIT and lost the NIT championship game. When I look at this, though, I broke it out by Ken Palm, defensive adjusted efficiency, Ken Palm, offensive adjusted efficiency, 30-point defense, turnover percentage on defense, rebounding percentage on defense, and then obviously the record. So when I look at this, Iowa's Ken Palm defensive adjusted efficiency is 121 in the nation. And that is the third worst under Fran McCaffrey. The other two times that were
Starting point is 00:12:55 worse were actually in two of the last three seasons. Last year, they had a 97 Ken Palm defensive adjusted efficiency. Before that, it was 111th and before that, 242nd. Now, I'm not one to draw conclusions, but Fran McCaffrey's team has not always been this atrocious at defense. The years prior in 2016, 30th, 2015, 34th, 2014, 77th, and 2013, 24th. Now, to me, that says a lot about the player. So, Fran McCaffrey's scheme can be complicated for opposing offenses. It's tough because they constantly switch it up. But when the players are not able to communicate and handle that, it can be a struggle. Now, I do believe with some of the bench guys Iowa has that will be starters in years to come,
Starting point is 00:13:41 this defense will be significantly better. But the guys that Iowa has on the floor that allows them to have the best offense that Fran McCaffrey has ever had also means they're going to have one of the worst defenses. Points per game is also noticeably bad as well. 74.7 points per game allowed. That is the third worst in Fran McCaffrey's tenure here, at least under him having a good team.
Starting point is 00:14:07 Those first two years I'm just taking away because they didn't matter. It was tough rebuilding that team after Licklider. But the only time they were worse was 2017-2018 and 2016-2017 where they allowed 78.7 points per game and 78.1 points per game. Now, three-point defense. This is going to be really frustrating because I think one of the things we're noticing is in the zone, Iowa doesn't communicate very well.
Starting point is 00:14:29 They leave guys wide open. Guys who aren't having great years shooting the ball have historical performances against Iowa. We've seen it time and time again. Bad teams shoot well against Iowa. And the statistics show that Iowa has their second-worst three-point defense under Fran McCaffrey this year, allowing a ridiculous clip, and they are 254th in the nation with three-point percentage allowed.
Starting point is 00:14:51 The only time they were worse was back in 2018, when they had a 307th-ranked three-point defense. Turnover percentage, also second-worst in Fran McCaffrey era. 288th rebounding percentage, third-worst in the Fran McCaffrey era, 288th rebounding percentage, third worst in the Fran McCaffrey era, 285th. Now turnovers can be a little bit interesting because it's not, you know, it's about playing good defense, about jumping into the passing lanes. Now, naturally when Iowa has such bad three-point defense, it also is a testament to probably some bad perimeter defense, which we've seen time and time again, rebounding percentage.
Starting point is 00:15:23 to probably some bad perimeter defense, which we've seen time and time again. Rebounding percentage, Iowa allows a lot of three-point shots. Some of those balls can fall pretty weird and are going to be tough for Iowa to rebound. So that is part of it, but another part of it is hustle. We've seen that game in and game out. Sometimes Iowa just isn't hustling for those loose balls, whereas the other teams are. They're trying to get those balls. Iowa is not. So to me, it is defense is just as bad as we
Starting point is 00:15:45 are seeing it. Now, one thing I did notice that I thought was really interesting was luck rating. And that is something Kempom uses to kind of determine how, how far away from the mean is, is this team at, right? So if they should be 10 and O and they're five and five, and it's because balls have kind of gone a weird way, or teams have shot ridiculously well in certain situations, that's luck rating. So really, how bad of luck or how good of luck are you having in terms of your schedule? Are you better than you're projected to be, or are you worse than you're projected to be?
Starting point is 00:16:18 Iowa is 309th in luck rating, which is the worst in the top 35 of Kempom. That was something I thought was really interesting, but again, this defense is historically bad, even under Fran McCaffrey. Now, I thought what I wanted to do after that was take a look at, is this team, can this defense still get the Iowa Hawkeyes to a Final Four? Now, I know after losing two straight for the last five, we're probably not thinking Final Four. Heck, I even talked about it on the last show. I think Iowa is a sweet 16 team. And that's if they don't get a bad draw, if they are a five seed, get a bad, or get a really good shooting 12 seed. So that's, that's, that's still, even if they get the right matchups, they make the sweet 16. But I looked at the final four because I was just interested. What were the worst teams in the final four from a defensive adjusted efficiency. Now last year we didn't have a tournament, but I looked at the last seven years. 2019, Auburn was 36th. All other teams were
Starting point is 00:17:10 in the top 10. 2018, Kansas was 47th. All other teams were in the top 20. 2017, Oregon was 17th. 2016, North Carolina was 21st. 2015, Wisconsin was 35th. 2014, Kentucky was 32nd. 2013, Michigan was 37th. Iowa has a long ways to go. Even in their best season, 2013, from a defensive perspective, they were 24th. Now that team still wouldn't be that great for a Final Four team from a defensive adjusted efficiency perspective. So Iowa needs to improve defensively, and I think that's part of the reason I'm going to get into this Fran Fade talk here in a second, but defense holds you accountable in those late season games. When you don't have the legs under you, when you're not able to shoot the ball well, defense
Starting point is 00:17:56 is what holds you in games, and that's one of the reasons why Iowa struggles late in the season, in my personal opinion. Big 10 games can be physical. Offense is not going to always be that easy, and defensively you need to be able to bring it, and Iowa just cannot do it. That's my thoughts on the defense, how bad it is. Again, you look across the board in the Fran McCaffrey era,
Starting point is 00:18:15 this is one of the worst defensive teams Fran McCaffrey's ever had. So pretty ridiculous, in my opinion, that we have a veteran squad who can't figure it out, especially when you're playing zone. You're trying to help your team out, not get into foul trouble nearly as much. Obviously, you're going to allow some open shots here and there, but the communication is huge, and it's been bad, and Iowa has left a lot of open shooters, and I know they don't have the athletes that typically match up in a man-to-man defense, but I think you need to start putting that in there a little bit and relying on your interior defense of Jack Nunji and Luka Garza to hold guys accountable and redirect
Starting point is 00:18:49 shots. That's just my thoughts, though. What do I know? I am not Fran McCaffrey or a head basketball coach. Coming up on segment number three, though, we're going to get into that Fran Fade talk. And also, is this the best Iowa can do? You'll be surprised to hear that answer all coming up on segment number three of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Before we get into that, though, you know I got to tell you about the one
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Starting point is 00:20:18 And speaking of basketball, let's turn our attention to the Fran Fade with this Iowa Hawkeye squad. There's been a lot of statistics being thrown out there, and I want to thank Scott Dockerman of The Athletic to put together one statistic that helped me, kind of spearheaded my thoughts on this. So I went a lot deeper into it, but he pointed out that since 2014, Iowa is 24-30 after February 16th, which is a 44% winning percentage.
Starting point is 00:20:44 February 1st to February 15th, Iowa is 14-12, which is a 44% winning percentage. February 1st to February 15th, Iowa is 14 and 12, which is a 54% winning percentage. Basically saying Iowa typically doesn't start struggling this early on in the season. Now I took that a couple steps deeper. I looked at Iowa's winning percentage overall, their non-conference winning percentage, and their conference winning percentage in comparison to some of these items. And what I found was quite interesting, especially if you remove that 2018 season where Iowa was just absolutely atrocious. After February 16th, Iowa was still 45% from a winning percentage if you take out that 2018 season where they went 2-3.
Starting point is 00:21:19 February 1st to February 15th, Iowa was actually 14-8 with a 63% win percentage. Now, I had a couple thoughts when I was going into this. I wanted to see, is it really a Fran fade? Or is it the fact that the Big Ten is a tough conference and Iowa looks really good on paper coming into conference play because they play a relatively lackluster non-conference schedule typically year in and year out. So here's what I found. And I'm going to break it down for you. 2021, this year, Iowa had an 86% win percentage
Starting point is 00:21:49 in non-conference, 68% overall, 58% in conference. Last year, 82% non-conference, 65% overall, 55% in conference. 2019, 87% non-conference, 66% overall, 50% conference. 2017, 56% non-conference, 56% overall, 55% conference. That was, and then the next year was kind of interesting too, actually. 2016, 67%, 67%, 67% across the board. 2015, non-conference, 63% overall, 65% conference, 67%. And 2014, 73% non-conference, 61% overall, and 50% conference. One of the things I noticed when I'm looking at this is the fact that Iowa has had a relatively
Starting point is 00:22:33 easy non-conference schedule the past couple years, explaining a little bit about why their non-conference looks so good. But when you look at it on paper, there isn't much of a difference between non-conference and conference schedule across the board, especially when you take out some of those easier games from an Iowa perspective. But when you compare their conference record to that February 16th and beyond, it isn't that good. 45% compared to 58%, not ideal. 45% compared to 55%, not ideal. 45% compared to 50%, not ideal. 45% compared to 55%. Not ideal. 45% compared to 50%.
Starting point is 00:23:05 Not ideal. You look at it across the board, outside of that 2018 season, Iowa does struggle post-February 16th compared to the rest of their conference winning percentage. And it's also worth factoring in that conference winning percentage does factor in those games after February 16th. So likely, it's a bit higher than that even. So you can see that it's clear there is a fade. Although, I'll be
Starting point is 00:23:25 honest it wasn't as drastic as I thought it was going to be I was thinking in my head mentally when I look at the Fran Fabe it you know it seems like the the sky is falling and Iowa can't win a game but 45% is just a notch below 522 and 27 if you take out that 2017-2018 season if you add that season back in, 24 and 30 after February 16th. February 1st to February 15th, that was a bit interesting to me, especially if you take out that 2017-2018 season, they're at a 63% winning percentage. Now, that's actually better than most of Iowa's conference winning percentage.
Starting point is 00:23:59 So, it looks to me that Iowa has done pretty darn well February 1st to February 15th. So to me, that begs the question, what is happening now? I go back to the defense. I go back to CJ Frederick being out. And I think Fran McCaffrey is struggling to figure out what are the right lineups to put on that court. And you wouldn't expect that to be a problem given the veteran presence of this Iowa basketball squad.
Starting point is 00:24:21 But again, when I'm looking at it, the Fran fade is real when you look at the statistics, but we're just not used to seeing it as early as Scott Dockerman has said on his Twitter account. Again, I went deeper into those metrics. I thought it was interesting the fact that Iowa truly does drop about 20 percentage points when they're playing after February 16th. Part of that is going to be tired legs.
Starting point is 00:24:44 Part of that is it's a long season. And a part of that is getting into Big Ten play. But I thought that was interesting. It wasn't as drastic as I thought it was, but it is evident that there is a correlation between that, that Iowa does struggle post that February 16th mark for the Iowa Hawkeyes. So, honestly, it could be getting worse here before it gets better. But we have a Rutgers game tomorrow night.
Starting point is 00:25:02 We're going to be breaking that down. Now, I also looked into Fran McCaffrey, and people are talking, people are starting to question, is Fran McCaffrey the guy for the Iowa Hawkeyes? I even talked about it on the show yesterday. Is Fran McCaffrey the guy? When you look at it historically, you're comparing him to Lute Olsen, Steve Alford, and Tom Davis. And when you compare it to those guys, he actually is performing pretty well.
Starting point is 00:25:23 In terms of tournament appearances, you've got to factor in that they would have made the tournament last year. They will make the tournament this year. He has a 54% percentage of making the tournament. Tom Davis had a 61%, 8 appearances in 13 years. Steve Alford had 38%, 3 appearances in 8 years. And Lou Olsen had a 33% winning percentage, 3 in 9. When you look at it from a ranking perspective, though, Fran McCaffrey doesn't really match up.
Starting point is 00:25:47 Tom Davis, I'm going to try to go in order, apologies. Fran McCaffrey, two times ranked in the top 25 at the end of the season. Granted, we don't know what it is going to shake out for this year. One of those years was last year when they didn't even play a tournament, so 2 out of 11. Steve Alford, 2 out of 8 with his highest ranking being 15th. Tom Davis, 6 out of 13 with 3 of those coming in his first 3 seasons. And Lou Olsen, 3 out of 9 with a high of 13. Tom Davis,
Starting point is 00:26:14 also a high of 6. So Fran McCaffrey not stepping up in terms of end of season play, end of season rankings, that kind of thing. And when you look at it from a tournament seeding perspective, Fran McCaffrey's highest seed was a 7 seed. Now, granted, they should be able to break that this year, but at this point, I'm not sure. Tom Davis, his highest seed was 4th, and he had that twice. Steve Alford, 3rd. Now, that was also a really bad game when they made the tournament and lost.
Starting point is 00:26:40 Lute Olsen, his highest, was 3rd as well, and had two others, 4th and 5th. So, when you look at it, Fran McCaffrey has made the tournament at a higher clip than two of those three guys, including Lute Olsen, who is a Hall of Fame type of coach, a guy who crushed it at Arizona and won a national championship with Arizona. Fran McCaffrey doing better than that, but from a rankings perspective, they're barely, basically when you look at it, Fran McCaffrey does good enough to get his teams in, but not good enough to take them far, having not advanced past that second round of the NCAA tournament,
Starting point is 00:27:10 having not gone to a Sweet 16, not even really basically stumbling into the NCAA tournament. So that's not ideal, in my opinion. But can it get better? I honestly don't know. We've seen some great coaches come through. Tom Davis, Steve Alford, for as much as he's kind of a crappy person, a decent coach. Lute Olsen, a highly regarded coach, and they couldn't get it done at Iowa either for the most part. Now, we've seen some great seasons under Tom Davis, under Lute Olsen, but nevertheless, Fran McCaffrey not living up to what we expect from
Starting point is 00:27:41 him, but maybe living up to what is kind of the historical norm at Iowa. So to me, that's really interesting. Obviously, we'll be breaking all this down as we continue throughout the season. Iowa gets another chance to pick things up against Rutgers. Oh man, it'll be an interesting pod if Iowa doesn't beat Rutgers tomorrow evening. Hopefully, we don't have to come to that, but ideally, Iowa does take down Rutgers, and we can start talking about what Iowa can do to continue to improve, hopefully getting C.J. Frederick back, hopefully getting their shot back, and hopefully showing a bit more on the defensive side of the ball.
Starting point is 00:28:11 That does do it for our show today. I hope you enjoyed the show, and if you did, make sure to give us that five-star review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Have a fantastic Tuesday, Hawkeye Nation, and let's go Hawks!

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