Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Luka Garza is an ANIMAL | What are postseason expectations for Iowa football? | Reviewing the analytics from win over Nebraska
Episode Date: November 30, 2020The men's basketball team was back in action so we break down what we learned from the two wins at Carver including the ridiculously hot start from Luka Garza. Segment two has us analyzing the results... across the Big Ten and the NCAA and how it impacts the Iowa Hawkeyes. We close out the show by reviewing what the analytics tell us about the win over Nebraska.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.BuiltGoVisit BuiltGO.com and use promo code “LOCKED,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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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 another 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 today's episode is brought to you by Built Bar.
Go to BuiltBar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON, and you'll get 20% off your next order.
And stay tuned, because we have some great deals kind of going through Built Bar as well,
so you're going to want to check those out on one of our little breaks we take in between each segment today.
But coming up on today's show, we have a lot to talk about.
And we have a very busy week this week, especially with basketball really kicking off and football still in play.
Lots of stuff to talk about.
We're going to first recap the two basketball games, talk a little bit about that, what we liked, what we didn't like, what things need to improve, etc.
Then we're going to do a little bit of a Big Ten heat check.
And by that, I mean we're going to be reviewing some of the games that happened across NCAA basketball and NCAA football,
how that impacts Iowa, also kind of how the Big Ten races are going on right now, both basketball and football,
talking a little bit about the rankings as well.
And then we're going to wrap up with a few of the metrics from the Nebraska win.
As you know, if you haven't checked it out, make sure to check out our Monday morning recap of Matt Vandenberg.
We did that on Saturday, so you had two days to possibly listen to that.
Highly recommend you check that out. But we're going to do
a little bit more of a deep dive into the analytics
on today's segment number three
and we're also going to be handing out our game balls
as well. That's all coming up on today's
show. So action-packed episode. Let's not
waste any more seconds and let's hop
into it right now. First and foremost
Iowa got off to two victories.
They are 2-0 right now. The men's basketball team started a little bit
sluggish against North Carolina Central. I guess that could be
somewhat expected, I guess. It was their first game in a long time.
You get into a game against North Carolina Central, they started off a little bit sluggish
but they picked it up over the course of the game. Ended up winning 97-67.
They also defeated Southern University 103-76.
Honestly, they should have been 103-73, but Southern popped up a half-court three-point shot,
a buzzer just for the hell of it, and made it.
But nevertheless, Iowa got off to two nice victories.
They take on Western Illinois this week as well.
We're going to be breaking down that game on Wednesday's morning show.
But a couple things we noticed from this game.
First and foremost, Luka Garza looks like he's actually hungrier than before.
I don't know how you can get more motivated than he already is.
We saw the workouts that his dad, you know, Frank, was posting on Twitter.
We saw the work he was putting in over the offseason to continue to get better.
And what we saw these first two games, Luka Garza is a freaking animal.
What he did against Southern University just wasn't even fair.
And I know these are mid-major competition, but neither of these teams are terrible teams
from a mid-major perspective.
And what Luka Garza did was just downright dirty.
Let me kind of read off these two game splits for you.
Against North Carolina Central, 11-14, 11-13 from 2, 0-1 for 3.
He had 26 points, 10 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, and 3 blocks.
Against Southern, 14-15, 41 points, 3-3 from behind the arc, 10-12 from free throws, which is definitely something
he wanted to improve on as well.
Nine rebounds and three blocks.
Absolutely absurd.
He did this in 53 minutes.
He scored 67 points in 53 minutes.
He now is ninth all-time in Iowa basketball history, passing Jess Settles.
Big-time stuff from Luki Garza.
Nice to see him get comfortable very early.
You could tell Iowa was like, you know what, screw it.
Let's just get him the ball because he's scoring at will here, which is fantastic to see.
One of the other things I also noticed was Jordan Bohannon looked healthy and he looked
very comfortable without the ball.
Coming into this season, that was a concern for me.
Jordan Bohannon has been the primary ball handler and we saw last season, they had a
couple guys that really stepped up to do that. Connor McCaffrey, Joe Toussaint, even CJ Frederick and Joe Wieskamp, right? So
we saw them handle the ball. What was going to happen when Jordan Bohannon came in the game?
And I felt like he did a really great job at impacting the game on other ways other than
just shooting. Now, again, that's going to be huge down the stretch with Jordan Bohannon having the
ability to shoot the ball so well like he does.
But it is nice to see him be able to do some things off the ball.
And it makes you feel pretty good about how this team is going to be able to handle the interesting amount of rotations they're going to have
with all the impact players they have on this team, which we're going to get to in a second.
They definitely showed a few lineup combinations I think we're going to see going forward.
But overall, I thought he impacted the game a lot better
than what he typically does outside of just shooting the ball
and didn't really shoot the ball that well.
On the season so far, he has made four shots on 15 attempts,
so not exactly ideal there, but he's going to continue to get better.
We're going to see him progress and get his shooting stroke down. That is to be expected for Jordan Bohannon. A couple other things.
Patrick McCaffrey, I thought, looked fantastic. He was a threat on both ends of the floor. I loved
when they were pressing and had him up playing the point guard. He did a great job at impacting
passing lanes. Just a really big athletic guy, and you could see him being willing to drive to
the basket as well that year off, obviously for reasons outside of basketball, but seemed to serve him well
as he gained a lot more weight and seems more comfortable in this offense.
He is going to be a huge contributor for Iowa as we get deeper into the season.
Keegan Murray, another guy who unheralded recruit.
We knew his dad was Kenny Murray.
We knew him and his brother, you know, they had those genes, right? But they were, they didn't have those stars behind their name when Fran
McCaffrey offered and they accepted, but you can tell these guys are ready to play college basketball,
especially Keegan Murray. He played a lot of minutes. Now that being said, those minutes are
going to go down as Jack Nunji gets back into the flow of things. Obviously again, condolences to
the Nunji family. He's dealing with the passing of his father. But what we saw
from Keegan Murray was very impressive in two games. In the first game, he had 20 minutes,
four of 10, two of three from three, and seven rebounds. That's fantastic production from a true
freshman. When you have a guy like that, you can come in and play those kind of minutes. That's
going to make this team even more difficult to defend. And that's what you love seeing in this game early on in the season,
seeing Keegan Murray step up and be a contributor. We knew that he was going to be able to rebound
the ball. That was actually what kind of set him apart early on in practices, but really impressive
stuff coming in two games and doing so well, like he did at this point. Let me see, he's shooting
50%, 7-14 from the field.
He is shooting 42% from three.
He has 10 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 3 blocks.
So he's getting active on both ends of the floor, and that will be huge,
especially now that we don't have a guy like a Nicholas Bayer,
which to me, Keegan Murray kind of fills that mold a little bit.
Also, it was great to see some of the freshmen get in there, get some playing time.
We saw Joe Toussaint get 17 minutes, Aaron Ulis.
Joe Toussaint's not a guy I was worried about, but Aaron Ulis, Tony Perkins.
We even saw Josh Ogundeli get in there for a bit.
So good to see some of the freshmen get some minutes.
They're not going to have nearly as many of those minutes as we get into tougher competition.
But let's get into the starting lineups.
Obviously, J-Bo took the point, C.J. Frederick at the 2,
Connor McCaffrey at the 3, Joe Wieskamp at the 4, and Luka Garza at the 5.
I think we could definitely see some switching there depending on where they want to put Jack Nunji at.
But when you look at where Murray was playing at, that's really where I see the Jack Nunji role coming in.
The second most popular lineup, though, is actually Joe Toussaint at the 1, J-Bo at the 2, Wieskamp at the 3, Patrick McCaffrey at the four, and Keegan Murray at the five.
That could be something we actually see a lot with Jack Nunji taking that Murray role.
And then the other lineup that was a very interesting lineup as well was Joe Toussaint, J-Bo, Patrick McCaffrey, Keegan Murray, and Luka Garza.
Again, what Fran McCaffrey has at his disposal is a variety of weapons who can defend multiple spots,
which allows you to be very versatile with coming up with these different combinations.
It's about finding the combinations that work well together, though.
And I do think it's interesting to see a Luka Garza on the court
with a Patrick McCaffrey, Keegan Murray, and a Joe Toussaint
all going to be bench players for this program.
So it is going to be fun to see as Jack Nunji gets acclimated again,
where does he fit into these rotations.
But the big takeaway here is that I liked what I saw.
Defense still needs to improve.
That was something we knew was going to be an issue,
and they still need to continue to improve on that.
They're not the level that I feel like they could be,
especially with the athletes they have,
especially with seeing what Patrick McCaffrey was doing.
But that, to me, is very interesting
and something that we're going to need to be on the lookout for as they take on Western Illinois,
as they get North Carolina, Iowa State, and then obviously Gonzaga.
The defense needs to improve if they want to win those games.
Offensively, though, this team is humming already, and I love to see it.
Coming up on segment number two, we're going to be doing our heat checks
of the Big Ten in both basketball and football, so stay tuned for that.
Before we get into that, though, I do have a very important announcement for you
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All right.
Before we hop into segment number two, doing our Big Ten heat checks,
just a reminder that we do actually have Michael Sleep Dalton joining the show,
former Iowa Hawkeye punter, transfer from Arizona State.
Did a fantastic job last year.
He's joining our show tomorrow to break down the special teams for Iowa,
talk a little bit about Torrey Taylor and what Torrey Taylor is going through.
Obviously, Michael Sleep Dalton kind of paved the way for a guy like Torrey Taylor, so he
has the best insight.
I thought it would be perfect to bring him on the show, and Michael Sleep Dalton's always
a fantastic interview, so make sure to tune in to tomorrow's episode where we break down
the special teams from Michael Sleep Dalton's point of view.
Let's hop into the Big Ten Heat Check, because Northwestern lost a game.
We'll talk football first, basketball second.
Northwestern lost to Michigan State.
That was unexpected.
Technically, Iowa still has a chance at a Big Ten title game.
Northwestern has to lose out, though.
So it's important that we are rooting for Minnesota this week, as much as that pains me to say.
And we're rooting for Illinois the following week to take down Northwestern.
If Iowa wins out, they are in the Big Ten championship game. There still is hope, for me at least. It's always good to have that
hope, and I do think Iowa has a shot. They're playing solid football. Spencer Petras can
continue to get comfortable, and we're going to talk a little bit about some of those metrics as
well. I've been tough on Spencer. I've talked about it with Matt a lot. I think he's getting
better. It's just tough to see
when you see some of those really bad overthrows we're going to talk about that as Spencer continues
to improve though Iowa can go six and two now if they don't get their chance at the Big Ten title
game they are looking at a number two spot in the Big Ten West which means they will get a crossover
game with Indiana who is continuing to win ball games here I don't think they should have been
in that game against Ohio State but nevertheless nevertheless, they are doing well, and Iowa would get Indiana,
which would be a great Big Ten crossover matchup. Wisconsin had their game canceled against
Minnesota, though, and that is concerning because Wisconsin is not going to get to that six-game
threshold, regardless of whether they win out. What makes this interesting, though, is that Ohio
State is also one game away from not being able to play in the Big Ten Championship game.
If I'm the Big Ten, I'm looking at this and seeing an issue.
You need Wisconsin and Minnesota to play.
That is such a huge rivalry.
That's bigger than the Big Ten West versus Big Ten East playing.
Honestly, if they can, I would try to actually see if the College Bowl playoff committee would be willing to push things back a week,
maybe push the Big Ten Championship game back a week, allow these games to get replayed.
But this is what happens when you screwed up so many things early on in the offseason.
But nevertheless, it'll be interesting to watch how that does kind of play out over
the next two weeks.
Also, Iowa came in at number 24 in both the AP and the coaches poll.
I think from a college ball playoff poll perspective, we can expect Iowa to move up to number 23.
That's kind of where I'm expecting it to be at. Um, actually in one quick, you know, I'm right on
the 24. I wanted to make sure I did a spot check 24, both the AP and the coaches poll. Um, but I
do expect them to move up to number 23 in the college football playoff committee poll. There
weren't a lot of, it's not a poll, excuse me, but the college football playoff committee rankings,
there weren't a lot of losses in the top 25 this week, but Oregon did lose to Oregon State,
and I really haven't been impressed with Oregon thus far in the Pac-12. I do think Iowa can make
a jump over Oregon. They'll be at number 23, obviously winning against Illinois, beating a
Wisconsin team. That will also help Iowa continue to progress in the rankings, and that will play
an impact on what bowl game Iowa goes to, which is going to be interesting because right now, we're looking at a possibility
of maybe Iowa getting a Citrus Bowl bid, depending on how the season shakes out.
Some of the bowl games are getting canceled, though, so that's something we're going to
be paying very close attention to as well.
Moving on to the basketball side of things, nothing huge here.
I'm recording this Sunday mid-morning, so not a lot I can really
give you any of the games that happened today. But overall, Illinois survived a scare after
looking pretty dominant in their first two games. They struggled to beat Ohio, needed a last-second
basket to win. Rutgers without Geo Baker still getting the W there. It just feels good to have
basketball back. The only two teams in the Big Ten that actually lost this week again prior to me recording, Nebraska and Purdue. And as we said, Iowa got two big wins. And when I
say big, I mean just getting wins is huge any time before they have a tough stretch coming up after
this Western Illinois game. That being said, in the poll that we're going to get this week, Iowa
should move up to number three after Villanova and Virginia lose. That is absolutely huge, seeing
Iowa ranked number three in the nation
this early on in the season, something we really haven't experienced before.
So please, don't take this for granted.
It's super cool to see Iowa this high up.
And depending on how they do in these upcoming games,
UNC, Iowa State, Gonzaga, they're positioning themselves
to be the number one ranked team if they can win those ballgames,
which will be a lot of fun.
And we're obviously going to be covering that very heavily
as we get closer to those games.
Next week, we'll have the host of Locked on Tar Heels on the show,
Candace Cooper, so we can break down that game.
We're also going to be probably trying to do an Iowa State crossover
and then, without a doubt, bringing on a Gonzaga expert
to talk about Gonzaga versus Iowa because that is going to be a lot of fun
and arguably the biggest game Iowa has played in non-conference play outside of the tournament in probably the
last 10-15 years.
I can't think of another game that would be bigger than this.
So that's all going to be broken down on the show.
Coming up on segment number three, we're going to hop into those metrics that matter
though, giving you the game balls and talking about Spencer Petras as well and what the
advanced analytics say about our young Redshirt sophomore quarterback.
Before we get into that though, we do have an important announcement for you because it is Cyber Monday and Bilt Bar has some fantastic deals going on right now.
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And I couldn't recommend them enough.
We've actually had Brian Peacock on the show to talk about the 49ers.
As I try to do, I try to cover the NFL.
It's not always as easy, especially when we have basketball and college football going
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So if you want your NFL coverage, especially with all these Iowa Hawkeyes in the NFL, make
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But let's hop into those analytics from the Nebraska win.
As I said, we're going to talk about Spencer Petras, talk about the top five players, and
obviously hand out those game balls.
So first and foremost, let's talk about Spencer Petras because that has been a hot topic here.
He has been struggling.
And I know that. I know he's been struggling. You all know he's been struggling. We saw Nate Stanley play
for the last three years. He is not up to the standard that Nate Stanley has set and I've gotten
some weird feedback about me hating on Nate Stanley and then talking really highly of him.
You can talk about both. There were definitely some negatives about Nate Stanley and there were
some positives. But overall, Nate Stanley had a good career for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Now, that being said, looking at Spencer Petras, the win over Nebraska, 18-30 for 193 yards, 63.6 passing grade.
That was actually his third best of the season, right behind Purdue and Michigan State.
So you can see some of the progress there.
But the thing that really stood out to me was the five drops. And we talked about this with Matt Vandenberg, but when the wide
receivers cannot do you justice, that's not going to help you. Five drops, two from Nico, two from
Brandon Smith, one from Tyrone Tracy, no wide receiver graded out better than 57.9, which is
average. That's bad, right? That's not good. Especially when you have such a talented
wide receiver group, you expect better from them, and they weren't able to bring it in the game
against Nebraska. Now, I don't expect them to be an every game problem, but they did not help out
their young quarterback like you expect a Brandon Smith to be able to do. The catches he dropped,
you expect him to make those catches. And again, no wide receiver graded out better than 57.9.
Amir Smith-Marset was than 57.9. Amir Smith
was at 57.9, followed by Tyrone Tracy, Brandon Smith, and then finishing up with Nico Reganey,
who I've noticed has struggled with drops. And that was actually something I did a little bit
more analysis into Nico himself. And he is at the top of the leaderboard in terms of drop
percentage. We have three Iowa Hawkeye wide receivers in the top 35 people in terms of drop percentage with a minimum of 25 targets.
So that was obviously, that's a concern.
You expect this talented wide receiver group to do a better job of bringing in those passes, helping out their young quarterback.
Also, one of the things I noticed from a rushing perspective, we did a lot better when we went to the middle,
right? So the A and B gaps went to the middle or to our left guard, which was a rotation of
Kyler's shot. He did kind of rotate between left and right guard there. Kyler's shot, you know,
coming back from being out, played 52 snaps, was our second best pass blocker of the day.
But interesting that we're doing better running the ball right up the middle, which is where we've
been effective at over the last couple weeks. Obviously, the running game
took a little bit longer to get going, but nevertheless, great to see it going later on
in the game when they wanted to seal the deal. Also wanted to point out some of our pass rushing
over the course of the season. We've talked about Davian Nixon and how tremendous he's really been
over the course of the season.
He's first in the NCAA in sacks for the interior pass rush.
24th in pressure rate with a minimum of 50 snaps for that interior pass rush.
Jack Heflin, 38th, all out of 319 players.
On the edge, Chauncey Golsan with 50 snaps minimum pass rush.
79th for the edges, Zach Van Valkenburg, 149th,
and Joe Evans, 165 out of 391 qualifying linemen.
So great to see the defensive line be consistent contributors.
We talked about this coming into the season.
That was a concern.
It was a concern about whether or not this defensive line could live up to the lofty
expectations that have been set and bestowed upon the Iowa defensive lines.
They have been doing a great job without having the star power of handling it and making the plays when they need to,
which is fantastic to see.
Now one other person I wanted to kind of point out,
Jack Plum getting his first start, he struggled a little bit.
Pass blocking grade was down to 57.
We talked about it with Matt.
Spencer Petras was having to step up a lot in the pocket,
and that was because Jack Plum was allowing quite a few pressures.
Four of the eight pressures allowed in the game came against him. Cody Inc. had two of the other
eight, so the other three or four linemen out that you've considered the rotations only allowed
two pressures. A lot of that pressure came from Jack Plum, so it'll be great. He's a young guy.
I expect him to continue to get better, but it'll be great to get Mark Kallenberger or Coy Cronk
back in the lineup, help out our young quarterback Spencer Petras a little bit more.
Definitely something that I watched out for as well.
And we saw Spencer too, a good job of stepping up,
but that is a concern going forward.
You want to make sure your pass rush can be locked and loaded,
especially when we get to Illinois.
We'll talk about this a little bit more on later shows in this week,
but they have some potent pass rushing capabilities.
They haven't been that strong lately, but there is an opportunity there for Illinois
if we don't have our line play settled and ready to go,
that that could be an issue for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Now back to the thing you might be all wanting to hear.
You might have saw this on our Twitter account, but if you don't follow us on Twitter,
make sure you do that as well.
The top five PFF college graded players from the win over Nebraska.
Number one was Jack Campbell, 82.2. Alaric Jackson graded players from the win over Nebraska. Number one was Jack
Campbell, 82.2. Alaric Jackson came in at second with 81.4. Chauncey Golsan at 80, let me see,
81.2. We have Jack Heflin at 75.4 and Davian Nixon at 74.7. If you look at it offensively,
Alaric Jackson, one, Sam Laporta, two, Sean Byer 3, Cole Bamworth 4, Tyler Goodson 5.
Defensively, Jack Campbell 1, Chauncey Golsan 2, Jack Heflin 3,
Davian Nixon 4, and Dane Belton 5.
Dane Belton has been quite a fantastic player for this Iowa Hawkeyes team.
Really versatile, and you can tell that Phil Parker trusts him
because he's putting him all over the field.
He's done a really great job of timing those blitzes as well
and doing a really great job of covering folks in the slot.
So that's kind of my take on some of the metrics there.
Now let's hand out the game balls, and then we're going to wrap up the show.
Defensively, I've got to give it to Chauncey Golston.
I don't know how you don't give it to Chauncey Golston.
Obviously, Jack Campbell I thought played a fantastic game.
I called him out on the Saturday show with Matt, but Chauncey Golsan
played a pretty darn good game
and then making that game-sealing
sack, that was just
fantastic. I don't know how you don't give it to
Chauncey Golsan there.
On the offensive side of the ball, the game ball has to
go to Larrick Jackson as well.
He did a fantastic job in both run
and pass blocking. Graded out
as the top lineman of the day, top offensive player of the day.
And he's been really putting together a nice season.
Struggled a little bit against Penn State, but really had a nice rebound game back in this game.
And then on the special team side, man, it's tough.
You look at Charlie Jones and what he's doing from a Turner perspective.
You look at Torrey Taylor.
You look at Terry Roberts.
I don't know how you don't do a shared award every single week
or how I don't do a shared award every single week,
but I've got to give it this time to Torrey Taylor.
What he's done, and we're going to hear about this with Michael Sleepdahl tomorrow,
but what he's doing is really impressive.
And how he's being able to play some of these balls
and impact the game has been truly amazing.
Obviously, the Nebraska punt returner struggled to catch that ball.
That wasn't him sucking, although I like to say that it would be.
It was also Torrey Taylor putting a unique spin on that ball as well,
making it difficult to reel that in.
So those are my three game balls for the week.
Let me know what your thoughts are on your game balls.
And a reminder that coming up tomorrow, we have Michael Sleep Dalton
joining the show to break down special teams for the Iowa Hawkeyes,
talk a little bit about his relationship with Torrey Taylor,
and also how he knew that Charlie Jones was going to be a fantastic player in this program.
That does do it for our show today, though.
I hope you all enjoyed this episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.
And if you did, make sure to subscribe so you get every single one of our daily episodes
downloaded directly to your smart device.
As always, folks, I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you tuning in.
I really enjoyed.
We set some records this month in November with listenership.
Let's keep it going for December.
And as always, folks, stay safe out there.
Have a fantastic day and let's go Hawks.