Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Jordan Bohannon finishes improbable comeback vs Northwestern | Women's basketball wins again! | Gary Barta joins CFP committee

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

WHAT A COMEBACK! Jordan Bohannon finishes off Northwestern after rallying the Hawks from 15 down to beat them on a last second game-winning 3. Segment two has us covering the recaps of all other Iowa Hawkeye sports this past weekend including the women's basketball team winning two and the wrestling team blanking Maryland 48-0. We wrap up by discussing Gary Barta joining the CFP committee and what that means for the Hawks and the Big Ten. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to 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. And we have an awesome episode for you today. If you did not get a chance to catch last night's men's basketball game, you missed arguably one of the best comebacks you could have ever seen. It was fantastic. So we have to cover that on segment one today. On segment number two, we're going to be talking about the other sports in Iowa Hawkeye athletics, including tennis, basketball, softball, wrestling.

And then finally on segment number three, we're going to be discussing Gary Barta joining the college football playoff committee and what that means for the Hawks and the Big Ten. So make sure you stay tuned for this entire episode. It's going to be awesome. And just a reminder that on tomorrow's episode, we're actually going to be doing a kind of a depth chart preview of the Iowa Hawkeyes football team for next season. So make sure you tune into tomorrow's episode as well.

It's one you're not going to want to miss. Before we jump in, though, and talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes win last night, Jordan Bohannon's big shot, make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts at. And if you have a smart speaker at home, it's really easy to listen to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. If you have Siri, Google, or Alexa, just say, Siri, Google, or Alexa, play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes.

That will bring up the most recent edition of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast for your listening pleasure. So let's jump right into it. Segment number one, Iowa got a win against Northwestern last night, and I will not lie, it wasn't pretty. Northwestern is not a top-ranked team in the Big Ten. They're one of the weaker teams in the Big Ten. And coming into this game, Iowa was favored by 10 points.

ESPN and Ken Palm both gave Iowa an 80% chance of winning this game. And that's one of the reasons why all those type things that they say it should be a shoe and it should be an easy game, but there's really no easy games in Big Ten basketball. Northwestern came in, and they were hot. They've struggled the last three or four weeks, but they came in ready to play against Iowa. And it wasn't that Iowa's defense was necessarily bad.

Northwestern was just making some outlandish shots. I mean, everything was falling for Northwestern. And on the flip side, nothing was falling for Iowa. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I saw an Iowa basketball player miss a layup that was right at the rim, you know, bounce in, bounce out, three-pointers just kind of hitting the rim and going away. It just wasn't a pretty game for the Hawks, but what stood out to me was the fact that they found a way to win despite not having everything going for them in yesterday's game. Looking at the, you know, kind of the box scores and stuff, I mean,

obviously, Luka Garza was out most of the game. He only played 17 minutes, shot 0 for 4, had one rebound and two assists, right? That's not the kind of production you need from your star center. And it's kind of one of those things where he was hot for about two, three weeks. I mean, even leading up to the Indiana game, we talked about how well Garza's been doing

and how he's been really a force down low. Since then, you know, against Indiana, I believe he had four points. Last night he had zero points and four personal fouls, so spent a lot of time on the bench, but the other Hawks picked him up and picked up the slack for him. A couple of most notable Hawks, Joe Wieskamp, 7-10 for 21 points, also had four rebounds. Tyler Cook had a bad shooting performance, went 5-13, but got to the free throw line a lot, went 9-13 for 19 points and had 11 boards. And then Bo Hannon, who had no points almost all the way through the game, put up 15 in the last few minutes,

including one of the best shots I've ever seen, the go-ahead buzzer beater three-pointer with, you know, going in with.6 seconds left. I mean, that's a shot that shooters make. That's a shot that clutch people make. I don't know if there's, I haven't really seen anyone that I feel like they shoot the ball and you know, they're going to, it's going to go in. I knew it when three seconds left, Bohannon had to be the one getting the ball and he got the ball.

I was like, holy crap, he is going to, he's going to shoot an off-balance three. I mean, Northwestern had a good D on him, and he just made that shot work, just like he did against Indiana. Just truly incredible. I think what that really says about this team is just, A, they're able to fight through adversity, and we've talked about this a little bit on the show, but they're able to fight through adversity. They're able to find a way to win, even when things aren't really going well for them. It's not that they had a bad shooting performance on the game. I mean, they shot 47% from the field, 53% from three-point, and 76% from free throw. But some of the shots they were missing, just, man, they could have even made those.

So, it really, Iowa's obviously the better team. It shouldn't have been this close. So, let's not forget that. I mean, Northwestern is not a top the better team. It shouldn't have been this close, so let's not forget that. I mean, Northwestern is not a top-tier team, but the way Iowa won was truly impressive towards the end, being able to come back from 15 down with a couple minutes left. That's the type of comeback that kind of, I think, makes or breaks a team season.

I mean, losing this game would have been disappointing, extremely disappointing, especially heading into a pretty easy stretch for the Hawks, you know, playing Rutgers, having Maryland come to home, which a lot better than going away at Maryland. So coming out of this with a win that was huge, especially the way they did it. Bohannon's shot was so clutch, it was actually number two on ESPN's top 10. So fantastic stuff there. This win improves the Hawks to 19-5, 8-5 in the conference, and really, at this point, they're kind of gunning for a potential top seed in the Big 10 tournament, a 3 or 4 seed, gives them a little bit bigger buy during the conference tournament, a little bit

more opportunity to maybe go far in that tournament as well. The Hawks are back in action Saturday as they travel to New Jersey against Rutgers. And as I said, Big Ten basketball, never an easy game, not going to be easy going to Rutgers. And when we saw Ohio State earlier in the season go there and lose, Iowa needs to be ready to perform. And like I said, this past game just didn't look like a lot of things were going well for them. One thing I did want to call out though is Iowa's full court press defense towards the end of the game was absolutely fantastic. I mean, Northwestern was truly bewildered. They had no answer for it. Iowa was doing a fantastic job of trapping players at the top of the, you know, the key top of, you know, in the corners, that kind of stuff. I love to see

that kind of defensive intensity. Even Jordan Bohannon, who isn't really known for his defensive prowess, did a really good job of kind of communicating and getting guys over. And I even saw him yell at Isaiah Moss one time to move over and help him trap a guy. So the defense was pretty fantastic towards the end. Even Iowa's own defense did a good job of kind of stemming Northwestern to an extent, but again, they were making some ridiculous shots. Vic Law had a fantastic game.

The forward put in 24 points on 9-14 shooting, also brought in 10 rebounds. I mean, just overall, ugly game, fantastic finish, one of the best comebacks I've ever seen. I know I've seen a lot of people on Twitter talking about their reaction to the game or the fact that they thought Iowa was out of it. I mean, don't hold your head low fact that they thought Iowa was out of it. I mean, don't hold your head low just because you thought Iowa was out of it. I think it's pretty easy to think that.

I mean, there was 10 minutes left. I thought, okay, Iowa needs to start making a comeback here. And then they would find a way to get a bucket, and then they would blow something. They would either turn the ball over or Northwestern were going for an easy layup. And so it just felt like every time they got close to even turning the corner and beginning that comeback, something would come up and stop them. And, you know, even with four, five, six minutes left, I was like, crap, this isn't going to happen. But I kept the game on more or less just because I'm one of those guys where I just can't

not watch. I have to see how the game finished, even if it's not going to end well. And then, man, towards the end, I even texted my buddy. He was like, man, Iowa's not looking too hot. And I had to text him and say, Iowa's actually making a comeback. And then all of a sudden, Bohannon hits that shot, and, man, everything kind of changes. So fantastic game. Loved it. Tomorrow, just a reminder, we're going to be talking about the depth chart

for the 2019 Iowa football team. We'll be giving you some more basketball stuff later on this week as we get closer to the Rutgers game. And and obviously as some of the rankings come out and whatnot, there's going to be some more news to talk about for the men's basketball team. Just a reminder that on segment number two, we're going to be talking about the other Iowa Hawkeye sports and kind of what happened over this weekend, so stay tuned for that after a few messages from our sponsors. Alright, just like the men did, we are back on segment number two. We want to talk to you about Iowa Hawkeye athletics and starting with the women's basketball team.

Just like I was saying, just like the men did, the women won yesterday. They beat an okay Ohio State team, and this is coming after they beat number 23 Michigan State on Thursday 86-71 in Iowa City so the women got two wins over the last couple days against Ohio State in that win they beat them in 78-52 the game was never close the women had a pretty pretty big margin of lead the entire time Megan Gustafson tied the Big Ten record for double doubles with her 77th career double double personally I'm confused as to why there's not more talk of her being National Player of the Year. This girl is absolutely incredible.

She's leading the nation in scoring, and I can't tell right now. She's either number one or right up there with top scoring or shooting percentage. I haven't looked at the stats as of recent for her on that, but either way, so impressive having her on the basketball court every single time the women step on there. They face off against Illinois Thursday, February 14th, and they have a really big game against Maryland coming up shortly after that. Maryland is number 10 in the country, and if Iowa can beat Maryland, they kind of control their own destiny to claiming the Big Ten regular season title. Right now, Iowa is 10-3 in conference. Rutgers is 9-3 and Maryland is 11-2. Iowa holds the advantage over Rutgers. And if they beat Maryland, they would hold the tiebreaker

over Maryland and would control their own destiny. So fantastic stuff. I'll be obviously keeping you posted on the scores and highlights of those games going forward, but just make sure you're tuning into the women's basketball team. They are doing fantastic this year. And just like the men, they have a chance of going relatively deep into the NCAA tournament, especially with a player like Megan Gustafson on your team. Men's tennis, they lost to Miami 1-4 on Friday, and then they responded with a 5-2 win over Utah Sunday. They are back in action against UMKC in Omaha Friday, February 15th. That was their first loss of the season Friday against Miami, though. The women's tennis had a little bit better of a weekend.

They're still undefeated. They beat Iowa State 4-1 on Friday and then beat DePaul 6-1 on Saturday. Their next match is against Marquette on Sunday, February 17th. Again, we'll talk a little about Iowa versus Iowa State later in this week, but I believe, and I don't have the stats right in front of me, but I believe Iowa is guaranteed now to win the Iowa-Iowa State Seahawks series, kind of the overall sports matchup, regardless of what happens the rest of the way. I believe Iowa pretty much had a guaranteed shot already,

but that Iowa State loss in tennis kind of seals the deal. So fantastic stuff, women. The softball team, though, didn't have as good of luck. They had a rough start to the season. They went down to Baton Rouge for the 2019 Tiger Classic, and they walked away 1-3. They beat Bucknell Friday 5-3, and they lost to LSU twice. Once on Friday 0-9, and once on Saturday 16-1.

LSU is a strong team. They're 10th in the nation, but not a really good look going down there. They also lost to Tulsa on Saturday 3-1. LSU is a strong team. They're 10th in the nation, but not a really good look going down there. They also lost to Tulsa on Saturday 3-0. So rough start for the women. They are back in action though this upcoming weekend in the Diamond 9 Citrus Blossom Tournament when they take on Villanova and Kansas down in Orlando, Florida. And to wrap it up, I want to talk about something a little bit happier. The men's wrestling team smoked Maryland 48-0. I had a feeling that Iowa was going to have a pretty big win here. Maryland's unranked, and the Hawks have been destroying a lot of ranked teams even as of late.

So I thought it was going to be a pretty big win, but I was not expecting 48-0. That being said, the Hawks host Indiana Friday, February 15th on Senior Night at Carver Hawkeye Arena. Make sure if you're in the Iowa City area, you're checking that out. The men's wrestling team is fantastic this year. This will be probably the easiest match they have left. They then take on Wisconsin, a strong team in Wisconsin, and they also have to go at No. 2 Oklahoma State. So there's a chance the next couple of matches after this are going to be a little bit more difficult.

So make sure you're checking this out, especially at Carver Hawkeye Arena, giving those seniors one last good send-off for their Hawkeye wrestling careers. That'll do it, though, for segment number two. Just a reminder that on segment number three, we're going to be talking about Gary Barta joining the CFP committee on segment number three. So stay tuned after a few messages from our sponsors. All right, we are back with segment number three. And if you didn't see the news that broke, Gary Barta, Iowa's athletic director, is joining the college football playoff committee.

He's going to be replacing Ohio State director Gene Smith. And there's a lot of, you know, I think it's very easy to look at this and say, oh gosh, this is great. Iowa now has a better chance of making the college football playoff. Maybe they'll get more respect. And I just want to say, hold up, back off, back up a little bit. Not likely the case, mostly because Gary Barta is not able to join in the discussions about Iowa. So they try to take away some of that bias when they're talking about your school.

You are unable to participate in that. However, this actually helps Ohio State. And let's be honest, I'm not an Ohio State fan, but I am a Big Ten fan when it comes down to the end of the season. I want Ohio State to lose until they get to the college football playoff options. I mean, it looks better when there's a Big Ten team in there. This past year, Ohio State was not in there. But it looks good for the Big Ten, for Iowa, if teams are making it to that college football playoff, that four-team tournament. And the reason why this helps out Ohio State is that Gary Barta has to have a little bit of, you know, Big Ten bias in

his blood, and he's going to be able to participate in those discussions about Ohio State. He's going to be able to see them up front and give you a true firsthand perspective of what Ohio State brings to the table and maybe be able to argue in favor of Ohio State more so than Gene Smith could because he was Ohio State's athletic director and really couldn't do anything about it. So that'll really help, I think, the top end of the Big Ten, having a guy like Gary Barta on there. It also speaks volumes to what the college football landscape thinks of Gary Barta, the athletic director for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

He's in his 12th year at Iowa. That's obviously, you know, he's highly respected. He's going to be on this committee for three years. So again, keep in mind, it makes it a little bit tough. We don't have any Big Ten. We don't have another guy that's going to be kind of representing the Hawks because Gary Barter really can't. But it'll be interesting to see kind of how this plays out for the College Bowl Playoff Committee, having him there,

having him at least being able to talk up the Big Ten. Again, a good thing to have him so highly respected and to be asked to be on this College Bowl Playoff committee. For those of you who don't know a little bit about the CFP, they rank top 25 teams. After about the first six weeks of the season, they do it on sort of, you know, not a coaches poll or an AP poll type of thing. They have discussions on every single team. They vote on each team to rank at one, two, three, four, five. If someone disagrees, they have to make the argument as to why

or you have to convince them the opposite. So everyone kind of comes to an agreement on where teams are actually being ranked. And they do it based on a lot of things. And the one nice thing I do like about it is that they take into consideration wins earlier in the season. I think oftentimes, and I found this happening with the Iowa basketball team and the AP pool, wins that happened earlier in the season against teams don't matter as much now. So look at it like this. Iowa beat Iowa State. Iowa State has a worse record than Iowa.

In the college football playoff committee, they'd be ranking Iowa ahead of Iowa State. In the AP pool, Iowa State's 17th and Iowa is 20th. So you can see how that's a little bit different, right? I think that'll really help. I mean, that's obviously a big deal for a lot of football teams. You want to be able to get those wins early in the season and allow those to actually help you and count and be part of the merit of your overall package that you're delivering to the CFP committee of saying, here's what we've done.

And they also, I think, which is kind of saying, here's what we've done. And they also, I think, which is kind of cool. They do take into account injuries. They do take into account things that have changed with your team. So for example, Purdue, I think was getting a little bit of love from the CFP committee simply

because they lost, you know, their first three games of season, but they were doing really well after that. And the way they lost those games was a little bit unfortunate. So I love how the CFP works. I know a lot of controversy this past year with whether or not there should be four or eight teams or why was Georgia fifth. But at the end of the day, I mean, I think this is probably the

best system we have so far. And let's be honest, this year was kind of a weird year where four teams didn't even really matter. Everyone knew it was going to be Alabama and Clemson. It was a matter of when, not if. I mean, Oklahoma and Notre Dame were not going to make it to the national championship game. So I digress. I'm kind of getting onto a little soapbox here, but that's kind of how I feel about the CFP. I'm excited that Gary Barta is joining. I'm excited to see what that means for the Big Ten going forward. He'll be there for likely, or at least his contract is for three years. As we saw with Gene Smith, you are able to step down if you want, but I think it looks really good for the Big Ten to have Gary Barta on that committee going forward.

But that'll do it for segment number three and ultimately our show. As I said, I was really excited to give you this show today. I wanted to record it last night, but I was too excited from the big win, so I had to wait until this morning to calm down a little bit and give you a little bit more of the details behind it, as opposed to just a live reaction of what I felt about the game. Like I said, this will do it for our Monday morning episode. We'll be back again tomorrow talking about the Iowa football depth chart.

So make sure you're tuning in to that. And just a reminder, you can find us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. You can also find me on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew. And we give all sorts of updates as to kind of what to expect on shows. We find other Iowa Hawkeye articles. We give our opinions on that. So make sure you're following us on Twitter at LockedOnIowa. It's a great place to get all the information you need to know about the LockedOnHawkeyes podcast.

Also, make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast at. And please leave us a review. Let us know to think of the show. And lastly, you can reach out to me with questions, comments, or suggestions at LockedOnHawkeyes at gmail.com. Thank you again for joining us on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation, and we'll be back tomorrow.