Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Men take down Minnesota on the road | What happened to Joe Wieskamp? | Hawkeye sports roundup

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

The men's basketball team grinds out a win versus Minnesota despite offensive struggles from most of the team. We break down the "February fade", why this Hawks team needs Joe Wieskamp, and why this coaching impressive from deserves an applause before doing a roundup of the other Hawkeye athletics taking place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off right away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!

Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the 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 am glad to be back after a week off. My apologies, that was unexpected. As you all know, I went on vacation. If you have been listening to this, you all know that I went on vacation a week and a half ago, went to Cancun for a buddy's wedding, destination wedding down in beautiful Mexico, had an absolute blast there. Pre-recorded some great content. I hope you got a chance to listen to that. Had a full recruiting episode and also had Cody Hills, the founder of Iowa Sim on the show. So pre-recorded that stuff, was planning on recording a new episode last Tuesday, but I lost my voice. And how I lost

my voice is relatively embarrassing, but I feel like I should share it with all of you listeners because I think you'll get a good kick out of it. As you know, like I said, I was down in Mexico having a blast. The wedding was Friday night, had a great time, danced my butt off, showed some moves I probably shouldn't have shown because I just like dancing. And then finally on Saturday, everyone was going to the pool, the main pool, just to have a good time when we found out there was going to be a foam party at 1230. And I had never participated in a foam party, but the idea of it sounded fun. And I was with a bunch of fun people. So the foam starts going, and they start playing some dance music, some electronic music, some Avicii type of music, right? And I just decided to turn up and have a great time.

And in the middle of that, not only was I just yelling in general, but I was also yelling moss bubbles to the worker to get more bubbles in our area. And that's how I lost my voice. I said it very loud, said it probably about 100 times over the course of an hour and a half. He was getting a big kick out of it. Talked to him after that. He thought it was really funny. He said our group was having a blast and he loved it. I had a great time, but my voice was basically destroyed after that.

And it took nearly a week to get it back. Also, sadly enough, despite the fact that I work out, my arms were so sore from the next day from literally fist pumping over and over again as if I was in Jersey Shore circa 2010. So, yeah, great time down in Cancun. But, again, I'm glad to be back. Sorry I couldn't make any episodes last week. But, again, the voice was just shot and I was pretty busy with work coming back from vacation. Lots of stuff happened, though, over the last week and a half. We're going to focus on some of the stuff that just recently happened though.

Some of the things that are going to be coming up, the Hawkeyes did get five combine invites, Gino Stone, Nate Stanley, AJ Epineza, Tristan Wirfs, and Michael Ojemudia. So we're going to be covering that. That's coming up at the end of next week and the beginning of the week following that. So we're going to cover that probably tomorrow, maybe even Wednesday. On today's show, though, we're basically talking about all the sports that took place this weekend with a primary focus on the men's basketball team, then talking about wrestling, baseball, softball, and women's basketball.

Just a forewarning, wasn't able to watch the baseball and softball games. I have been, again, very busy trying to catch up with everything. But the plan is to provide that full, well-rounded coverage of all Iowa sports, or at least all the kind of main Iowa sports. Some of the other ones are a little bit more difficult to get on television and actually watch, so my apologies there. But let's jump into it. No need to delay the show any longer, but the men's basketball team got a big win yesterday, 58-55 over Minnesota, and it was a game that they shouldn't have won. When you think about the amount of adversity that this Iowa Hawkeye team has faced, it is honestly impressive that they are still somehow 18-8 and third in the Big Ten. And if we're not considering Fran McCaffrey coach of the year, or at least a candidate,

I'm flabbergasted. I know there's some Iowa fans who were ready to say Iowa is in the middle of a February fade, the Fran fade that always happens in February after some rough games against Indiana. Just not exactly a great game. Purdue was just a blowout. Didn't like that game at all. I'm not going to say we're done with that.

We're not out of the woodworks yet. We're not out of the opportunity where there could be a fade. That being said, this team is different. They managed to win a gritty game, a gutsy game on the road against Minnesota, a team that hates us for, I don't understand why Minnesota hates us so much, but their hate actually makes me hate them too. So I guess I appreciate it. Must suck being a gopher when you can't win any major sports

in the entire year, but nevertheless, Iowa managed to pull that game out with Joe Toussaint not playing the best game, Bakari Evelyn playing major minutes, Joe Wieskamp being relatively ineffective from a shooting perspective, CJ Frederick being out with an injury. That is not easy

and Luka Garza being in foul trouble if you would have told me Iowa would have all those things happen I would have laughed I'd be like oh well might as well watch the next game but despite all that they managed to mount a 10 point comeback

in the last 5 minutes not allowing Minnesota to score once after the 5 minute and 23 second mark to come back and win the game 58-55. And that just speaks volumes about this team. And I know I've seen some things on Twitter, some things from some of the experts from ESPN. And believe me, don't get me started on ESPN. I think they're absolute garbage, especially when you post a poll about the best big man in the nation.

And you do not include Luka Garza among those top four. You kind of lose a lot of credibility. But there's other people, other pundits that are basically saying, you know, Iowa is not a team that can win a game on the road. They're a team that I would absolutely bet against. I mean, these are not all ESPN guys, but just national pundits in general, college basketball fans, guys saying you should bet against Iowa in the NCAA tournament.

First of all, back the hell off. I think that's absolutely ridiculous. Iowa has the NCAA tournament. First of all, back the hell off. I think that's absolutely ridiculous. Iowa has won road games. They're actually second in the Big Ten in terms of road wins in the Big Ten next to Penn State. And they're doing it with an absolutely depleted lineup. Think about it. Yesterday against Minnesota, their lineup featured two of their starters from the beginning of the season. Two of them. Two of them.

Just two of them. Like, that is ridiculous. They did not have Jordan Bohannon, they did not have C.J. Frederick, and they did not have Patrick, you know, sorry, Jack Nudge, excuse me. That is ridiculous. You cannot expect to be at 18-8 at this point. It's just absolutely an anomaly. I think Fran McAfee

is putting together an incredible coaching job. And I've seen some people say how actually having a smaller bench has maybe helped Fran because in the past years, there hasn't been as much separation between guys six and 12, which makes Fran's rotation seem a little bit even more ridiculous and difficult. I've seen him put on, you know, it's tough right now to put in any of the backups because there's not a lot of scores in that group. And so he's struggling a little bit with that. But at the end of the day, when you only have, you know, seven scholarship guys in the court or six true scholarship guys, sorry, seven true scholarship guys, you know, count Riley Till, however you want. You can only have so much lineup variations in that.

So kind of an interesting, you know, note or side note from the frame McCaffrey, you know, lineup change perspective. But one of the big things here, I thought Iowa played great defense throughout the game. You know, Daniel Artua missed those, that last free throw, you know, at the end of the game, that was huge for him. I needed to put those away to at least give Minnesota a fighting chance. Garza, despite being in foul trouble throughout the game and ultimately fouled out at the end of the game, still put in 24 points and had eight rebounds. He got some crappy calls. That last foul call was pretty garbage, I think, in my opinion. But despite all that, Iowa's shooting was terrible. Ryan Kreener was the next best shooter with 10

points, 4 of 14. Cordell Pemzel, probably the most efficient game, going 3 of 3 from the field with 3 rebounds. A big rebound game, get it, from Pemzel after being suspended for a game due to his previous incident with the police. Bakari Evelyn put in some big minutes when Toussaint was struggling. Played 29 minutes, had 7 points and 3 assists. Wieskamp, though, is an interesting person I want to talk about. We're going to talk a little bit about him coming up after the break. But I haven't been impressed with him on the road. People talk about him maybe going pro. I love Joe Wieskamp, don't get me wrong.

When he's on, he's on. And we'll talk about that. Iowa's record with him being good and shooting from the ball and how bad Iowa is when he doesn't shoot the ball well. That'll be coming up after the break. But, man, I just don't know what's going on with Joe Wieskamp. So coming up in a few seconds after a few messages from our sponsors,

we're going to be talking about Joe Wieskamp, touching a little bit more on the February fade, and finishing out our analysis of the Iowa-Minnesota game. We are back with segment number two of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Continuing our discussion on the men's basketball team. Again, a big 58-55 win. Iowa gets Ohio State on Thursday at home, which will be featured on ESPN. And Iowa might have C.J. Frederick back.

My guess is they probably will rest him another week just to give him an opportunity. But it sounds like he's out of a walking boot, which is fantastic news. Not as severe of an ankle sprain as originally thought, which would be huge for Iowa. But at this point, if Iowa is able to gut out some of these wins, maybe you get him completely healthy because you're going to need him in the NCAA tournament and the big tournament. If you want to win any games, you're going to absolutely need him to be able to do that. And as I talked about a gutsy win from Iowa, the 58 points is the second lowest point total Iowa scored in the last three seasons. And it's the lowest point total they've scored to actually win a game since Wisconsin in March 2017 when they won 59-57.

So kudos to Iowa. Again, great defensive effort by them being able to get a win on the road in a packed house against a fan group that just absolutely hates us for no apparent reason, to be completely honest. I mean, believe me, I didn't used to hate Minnesota until this year, but I wrote an article about the Minnesota Gophers football team, and all I said was that I felt like Minnesota's football team did not prove anything yet. I said, you know, getting to 7-0, fantastic.

That is impressive. I'm not arguing that. That is impressive. There's some good things to like about the team. But then I pointed out how they struggled against teams like South Dakota State and how I haven't been impressed with the teams they've actually beat. And none of the teams they beat were actually going to be in a college football bowl game. And believe me, the mentions I got,

the people coming at me on Twitter was absolutely ridiculous. I got called so many names, so many different things. After that, I was like, I don't like Minnesota fans. I have a couple good buddies that are Minnesota fans. If you're a logical Minnesota fan, cool, I can deal with that.

Get out of here with that hate for no freaking reason. Why don't you win something for once before you get all up in our mentions anyways though um the Joe Wieskamp thing you know people were wondering will he go pro last year he uh you know declared for the NBA but didn't actually you know no one really thought he was going to go through really just getting some evaluations and whatnot um he's a smart kid he's got a good head on his shoulders. I did see something from folk on Twitter saying his girlfriend's a senior on the basketball team, Mackenzie Meyer, and maybe that'll convince him to go pro. I think if Joe Wieskamp is smart, he's not going pro. He has not put together the games that you would expect from a first-team all-Big Ten

player. Imagine if Joe Wieskamp was playing consistently as well as Luka Garza. But when I look at some of his performances, I'm just not super impressed by Joe Wieskamp. In the games that he shoots over 50% from the field, Iowa is 10-1. That's fantastic. When he shoots under 40%, Iowa is 3-5. And they would probably be worse if they didn't have luca garza putting together

arguably one of the best performances by an iowa big man in in the last 30 years so um imagine if they didn't have luca garza where i would be if joe weeskamp couldn't do this his shooting percentage has dropped from 48 to 46 percent from three it's 42 to 38 um you know in the in six big 10 games he's shot under 40%. You need them to shoot better. I was one of three of those, one of those being against Northwestern, so not really that much to hang your hat on. But I just think Joe Bieskamp is an incredibly talented player. He is so good at basketball, and he's an absolute stud,

and he has a great future ahead of him. But his performance this season leaves a little bit more to be desired from a guy that had such high expectations. And I just can't imagine that NBA scouts are looking at him as a premier prospect and as a sophomore. Do you really go out if you're probably going to be undrafted or maybe sneak into the second round? I don't think that'll happen, but I just think he's coming back. Luka Garza is another interesting case of whether or not he will go out. I think there's a better chance that Garza does go out, especially after an amazing season like this, but

we'll touch on that more as we get through the rest of the season. I really do hope if they came back, Iowa could have a great team next year. The February fade, I want to quickly touch on that. I know people can be frustrated by some of the tough losses, losing so poorly against Purdue at the Mackey Arena. Purdue had their best three-point shooting game of the tough losses, you know, losing so poorly against Purdue at the Mackey Arena. Purdue had their best three-point shooting game of the year. Not exactly the thing you want to see as an Iowa fan. The defense was terrible.

Purdue was shooting lights out. It was a packed house. Purdue does a good job at home. They've had those good games. As I mentioned on the show, coming into that Purdue game, Iowa needed to limit the three-point effectiveness. When Purdue gets hot from three, that's when they win. When they're not, there's not a lot else to their game, and Iowa could have won that game.

Neither here nor there. I get the issues with the February fade, though. People are concerned. As soon as you've seen Iowa lose a game in February, there's PTSD to the last nine years under Fran, where you just see these Iowa teams, these good Iowa teams, these top 10 ranked Iowa teams, crash and burn so poorly in February and just stumble throughout the season.

But I've said it time and time again this year, Iowa's a different team this year. They're tough. They're resilient. They're mentally battle-tested. They're ready to go. They can handle these challenges. And just because they lose one game doesn't mean they're going to lose the next couple games.

these challenges, and just because they lose one game doesn't mean they're going to lose the next couple games. That being said, the lack of depth in their lineup could be troublesome from an energy perspective coming into the latter half of this Big Ten season, just a couple more games left. That is a concern I do have. If Iowa does win three more games, though, I think you've got to consider this season a success regardless of the February issues and whatnot. If you look at it, Iowa is still putting themselves in position to get a 5 or 6 seed in the tournament.

They're currently ranked 21st in Ken Palm and 30th in the net rankings with 8 Quadrant 1 wins, which I believe is 3rd or 4th best in the nation. I'm impressed by this Iowa basketball team. I'm taking everything at face value. I'm just happy they're winning some games. I'm taking everything at face value. I'm just happy they're winning some games. I'm happy they're still in it. I was worried that this was going to be a transition season, the season that we had to wait through and see some guys develop a la the Jordan Bohannon freshman year. I was worried that this was going to be the case for

this season, but I'm glad to see that Fran McCaffrey has really put together a squad that is ready to battle night in and night out to win, you know, Big Ten basketball games. So I think as an Iowa basketball fan, if you're one of those people that are hating on this team, I think you really got to appreciate what they're doing with how little they have. And another person you need to appreciate is Connor McCaffrey, a guy who just continues to get blasted all over the place, but he is absolutely crushing it for what he needs to be doing. Yes, he's never going to be a great three-point shooter like Jordan Bohannon. He's never going to be a great scorer in general, but he does the little things. And he's such an incredibly smart person on the court.

You have to love his basketball IQ, his basketball intelligence. And he's a large reason why Iowa is in the position to be third place in the Big Ten and ranked top 25 of the nation and 18-8. So that's my thoughts on that. Coming up, though, we're going to finish off the show by just wrapping up, talking about a few of the other sports going on in Iowa Hawkeye Athletics, doing some quick recaps of those games this past weekend. So that will be happening after a few messages from our sponsors.

We are back with our third and final segment of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. And as I said, we're going to be covering the other sports. That means wrestling, baseball, softball, and women's basketball. I don't mean to classify them as other sports. They are just as important, if not more important, than the men's basketball. I don't mean to classify them as other sports. They are just as important, if not more important, than the men's basketball team, especially the women's basketball team and the men's wrestling team.

But I just haven't had a chance to watch all those games. It's a little bit more difficult to find those events, and if I'm not there, it's tough to watch those. So it's tough for me to give that tried and true analysis that I want to be able to give you, the fans, about Iowa Hawkeye Athletics. Let's start with wrestling, though. The men's wrestling team knocked off

Minnesota. Another great opportunity to make sure Minnesota realizes who the little brother is in this relationship. They beat them 35-6 to claim the Big Ten dual meet title for the season. Love that. Also love the fact that that is not what they came here for. Obviously they were excited

about it, but they were ready to move on to Oklahoma State next weekend. A top 10 ranked Oklahoma State wrestling team. A team that historically has been really good. Having a little bit of a down year this season, but it'll be a great wrestling meet regardless for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Also some great news, getting Austin

DeSanto and Max Maron back in action after being injured. I was really worried about DeSanto. The knee injury did not look good. That looked like it could have been a torn ACL or something bad like that. Glad to see him come back and get a big win there. Spencer Lee didn't get a chance to wrestle. I feel like that was Minnesota basically saying,

you know what, screw it, we're not going to ruin the confidence of our guys, you know, whatever. I know there's some other reasons behind it, but you could have thrown someone out there against Spencer Lee, and they chose not to. Specifically, they just gave Iowa six points. They didn't want to deal Spencer Lee. That speaks to the level of respect that coaches have for Iowa's lightweight wrestler, Spencer Lee. Also, some news that kind of happened earlier on in the last week and a half that I haven't had a chance to cover, but raises all around for the Iowa Hawkeyes coaches. I think that is more than deserved.

The wrestling program generates a ton of money for the Hawkeye athletic program in general. One of the few wrestling programs that can really just elevate the school and you get a packed house every single time. The fact they're able to build an entire training center just for the wrestling team, that's amazing. And so I do think the contract, the raises are well-deserved for this Iowa Hawkeyes team.

And I think hopefully at the end of March, we're going to be able to talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes wrestling team as the national champions. And it's all going to come to fruition after years of hard work. And I really love what this team looks like now and how it's set up for years to come. Only a few seniors that are really in that starting lineup. Obviously, the following year, you've got a lot of guys to replace, but they're doing a great job of bringing in some studs in the weight classes and whatnot in the younger years below them that can kind of fill the spots when they need to. So love that for the wrestling team.

Baseball team, softball teams, both have been off to hot starts. The men's baseball team went 3-1 this weekend at the Snowbird Baseball Classic. They beat Kent State 3-1 on Friday, beat St. Joe's 7-2 on Saturday, and then fell to Pitt on Sunday 8-10. They had the Tony Gwynn Legacy Tournament next weekend. Like I said, more analysis to come on the baseball team.

I played baseball growing up. I had scholarship offers, played baseball. I love baseball, but it's a little bit difficult to watch some of those games because they're not aired in a way that I can watch them. So I'm hoping to be able to get more access to that coming shortly and be able to give you more analysis on that. Same with the softball team.

Off to a blistering start, 7-2. They went 3-1 in the ACC Big Ten Challenge, winning both games over Boston College and splitting a pair of games with Georgia Tech. So shout out to the women's softball team. And then the women's basketball team, the team that has also been facing quite a bit of adversity this season, mostly just losing three seniors, including the GOAT Megan Gustafson, Lisa Bluter putting together

arguably her best coaching performance of her career, similar to Fran McCaffrey. The women's basketball team moved to 21-5, beating Wisconsin 97-71 yesterday. They get Penn State this upcoming Saturday. They're currently one game back for first place, which they're going to need a lot of help to be able to claim that Big Ten title after losing to Maryland pretty bad last week. But nevertheless, the fact that the women's basketball team is in a position to potentially get a top four seed is absolutely huge.

You want to get one of those high seeds so you can get some home games to begin the tournament and get you an opportunity to move up in the NCAA tournament without having to play in a hostile environment on the road against a top-rate team. So that is huge and something we will definitely be monitoring for the women's basketball team. Lots of stuff to cover on the episode today, and I

appreciate you all tuning in. Obviously, I love the fact that you're all listening to the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. If you liked what you heard today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that is Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya Podcast app.

And make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Trying to get more active on the Facebook and Instagram front. Expect a few videos and whatnot, especially as I continue to unroll some of the stuff I've accumulated and whatnot from the NFL draft process. Want to get some of that stuff out there on my Instagram account as well. So make sure to follow us at LockedOnHawkeyes or LockedOnIowa on there.

Again, appreciate all the love and support. We're going to have episodes the rest of this week. Excited to be back in action talking to you about the Iowa Hawkeyes. Not as many sporting events taking place, so we're going to do a little bit more, probably some draft coverage, talking a little bit more meta, long-term type of things

for the Iowa Hawkeye athletic program. So more to come this week. Again, thank you for tuning in to today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. I hope you have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. And go Hawks! We'll see you next time.