Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Men's basketball rebounds with win vs Illinois | Does Carver suck? | Breaking down the postgame scuffle

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

It was an action packed Sunday. The women fell to Michigan, the wrestling team dominated Michigan State, and the men rebounded after a loss to Maryland to beat a ranked Illinois basketball team and while the game was great on the court, the theatrics off of it is most of what we will covering. 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 Europe. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off, run 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 got it! Smith! Decks down 85 yards. Iowa. 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. We are back for another episode this week, and we have a lot of great content coming at you the entire week. If I haven't been teasing it before and you haven't heard it, just as an FYI, I'm going to be out later on this week. So we have some great pre-recorded stuff coming up on Wednesday. We are doing a full recruiting bonanza, kind of highlighting some of this stuff before National Letter of Intent Day. Obviously, Wednesday is a huge day for a lot of college football teams.

The Iowa Hawkeyes, not so much. They have 20 of the recruits already signed. But we're going to be doing an awesome show, having four interviews of current recruits for the Swarm 20, that class of 2020 for the Iowa Hawkeyes, and also doing a little bit of a breakdown of that class in general. And then on Thursday, we have Cody Hills, the founder of Iowa Sim, the guy who created the Iowa Sim and helped it turn into a charitable cause

to raise thousands of dollars for the University Children's Hospital. We're going to have him on the show Thursday to talk about his experience creating Iowa Sim, how much time goes into it, and how it turned into a charitable event. So lots of great stuff coming up on this week's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. On today's show, though, we're going to be covering the basketball game. Lots of stuff kind of came out of the men's Iowa basketball game against Illinois. A big win over the ranked Illinois fighting Illini. So we're going to be covering that mostly on today's show.

Also sprinkling in a bit of wrestling talk, some women's basketball talk, and some Super Bowl talk. So let's go for it. First off, the women's basketball team lost their first game in quite some time. The last time they lost was to Nebraska, December 28th, 78-69, to fall to 9-3. Since then, they've rattled off quite a few wins before falling to Michigan yesterday, 78-63 in Michigan. That drops them to tied for first in the conference with 19-3 Northwestern who also owns a 9-2 conference record. Some more to come on that.

Obviously have a few more games in the Big Ten schedule, but unfortunate to see the Iowa women lose, but it is expected to happen, right? At some point, streaks are bound to end and going on the road is never easy regardless of men's, women's, whatever. It's always tough to go on the road is never easy regardless of men's, women's, whatever. It's always tough to go on the road and win all of those games. So they dropped that game. Iowa, the wrestling team, did a fantastic job rebounding from a very tough Penn State performance. Obviously got the win against Penn State as we covered on Saturday morning's episode. They rebounded against Michigan State though to just absolutely annihilate the Michigan

State Spartans. I thought that was a fantastic, fantastic way to kind of come back out and show just how incredible they are. What I thought was kind of interesting in this match was the fact that Michigan State only had 1,500 people at that match compared to Iowa where they had Carver sold out for months and had that place absolutely rocking on Friday evening. Like I said, the men came out and dominated beating Michigan State 32-3. The only loss they had in that entire match was freshman Abisad falling in that match.

The one key story that I want to quickly cover, though, on this match is the fact that Austin DeSanto did not go. We saw him get injured against Penn State. There hasn't been a lot of information on that injury, and we saw him not wrestle against Michigan State in his deed. Senior Paul Glenn stepped up and beat Garrett Peppel 9-4. As you know, with any Iowa wrestling team, there's going to be a lot of depth. There's going to be a lot of talent there.

But missing a guy like Austin DeSanto is going to be a huge loss for Iowa, depending on how long he is out. So that will be a really key storyline to monitor as we move forward in the wrestling season. But as we get more information on that, we'll make sure to drop that and cover that right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. But nevertheless, Iowa got a big, easy win, 32-3 against Michigan State yesterday as well. In Super Bowl talk, the Fighting George Kittles fell. Unfortunately, the San Francisco 49ers

did not pull it out against Kansas City. They were up 20-10 heading into the fourth quarter. I really thought they had a fantastic chance. I really thought that the 49ers were on their way to their first Super Bowl victory under Kyle Shanahan, his son. The Chiefs just came out, and they came out firing, putting up 21 points in the fourth quarter. Congratulations to Anthony Hitchens and Ben Neiman.

Both played in that game a bit. Ben Neiman had some nice special teams play and a big hit on the quarterback later in the game. I thought Anthony Hitchens played solid. Obviously, he didn't hit his name a ton, but did finish with a couple of assisted tackles. So, love to see a few Hawkeyes get a Super Bowl ring. The big thing I'm kind of concerned about from this game is the fact that for some reason, San Francisco couldn't figure out a way to get George Kittle the ball. And Kansas City's passing defense isn't known for

being the best. And I would have liked to see them try to target George Kittle a bit more. In the game, he finished with, let me confirm this, I believe it was four catches. Four catches for 36 yards, an average of nine. I really felt like they could have targeted him a bit more. When you have the league's best tight end, you've got to go for him a bit more than that. Jimmy Garoppolo finished with 219 yards, but when it mattered in the fourth quarter, I just felt like they had no chance. They weren't going to move the ball.

We saw it when he tried going deep to Manuel Sanders, he had an opportunity to hit him, missed him. That could have been a huge play in the game, but ultimately the Kansas City Chiefs won. And I know out of anyone on this podcast, right, there's probably a lot more Chiefs fans than 49ers fans. So congratulations to all of you. I am not personally happy. I wanted the 49ers to win. I wanted to see the George Kittle Super Bowl celebration tour. I wanted to see two weeks of George Kittle just going wild, a la Rob Gronkowski. Maybe we'll see that from Travis Kelsey,

but it would just have been really fun to see a guy as energetic and fun to watch as George Kittle, a former Iowa Hawkeye player. But nevertheless, congratulations again to Ben Neiman and Anthony Hitchens, both former Iowa Hawkeyes. Obviously well-deserved by those two. Hitchens has been in the league a little bit longer. Ben Neiman has had to work his way onto that roster from a UDFA spot, so congratulations to him as well. Coming up, though, on the remainder of the show, we're going to be covering Iowa basketball, talking a little bit about the scuffle that happened post-game, and covering Carver-Hawkeye Arena and whether or not it is the arena, the people, or whatever that

makes it a good arena or a bad arena. So we're going to be talking about that as well coming up on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. All right, we are back with another segment of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And if you didn't realize, the men's basketball team did win 72-65 against the Illinois Fighting Illini yesterday at Carver Hawkeye Arena. And it was an absolute slugfest throughout the game. Just physical, huge battle. I thought the men did a pretty good job of keeping Illinois at bay and obviously pulling away at the very end, despite how difficult that game was. We got a good performance from Joe Wieskamp, who went 6 of 11 for 18 points.

Luka Garza missed their consistency, put in 25 points and got 10 rebounds. But the big storyline here for Garza was the fact that he did not have any points for, I believe, the first 10, 15 minutes maybe. So it took a while for him to get going, but he did get, you know, Kofi Kochburn, I believe, Kochburn, Kofi Kochburn, into foul trouble early in the game, and it caused him to sit out quite a bit, and that really helped Garza kind of get going. Hit four of nine from three-pointers, which is a huge contribution from your 6'11 big man.

That was almost half the shot that he made, so loved to see that kind of production out of him. Kind of an interesting game, like I said, all around. Throughout the game, Illinois was clearly focused on stopping Luka Garza, whenever he got the ball they were double teaming him down in the paint when Joe Toussaint was on the court they were actually sagging off a bit and you know allowing them to even put more pressure on Luka Garza anytime he got fed the ball and that's why we saw Joe Toussaint only get 12 minutes in the game finished with two points one is or two assists two rebounds and three turnovers.

He's a great player, and I think, like we've talked about multiple times on the show, I think he's going to be a huge asset for the Iowa Hawkeyes long-term. But in some games, his style just doesn't fit well with what Iowa needs to do to ultimately get their playmakers the ball, the Luka Garzas, the Fredericks, the Joe Wieskamps.

And so, kudos to Fran McCaffrey again for making some adjustments. Joe Toussaint only played 12 minutes in that game. We saw CJ Frederick take the point a couple times and Toussaint play the two. We saw Frederick take the one and have a Ryan Creener out there. We also saw Bakari Evelyn put in 16 minutes more than Joe Toussaint. So it's nice to see the ability for Fran to adjust throughout the game based on the flow of the game. And obviously those adjustments helped Luka Garza get going later in that game.

Had a big five minutes in the last part of the first half. Obviously played well in the second half to continue that forward. The Hawks shot 43% from three, which I think is excellent, as we all know. Not as great from the free throw line, shooting 70%. Against Illinois, a team that isn't a very good three-point shooting team, they did allow them to shoot 36%. And one of the things I said is we cannot let some of the guys who aren't as prevalent of three-point shooters get going, right,

or not as prevalent of scorers get going. And Iowa did in the first half. Griffin, Fel feliz frazier uh all guys who are you know without a doubt good players right but feliz is a guy off the bench who scored 17 points um you don't want to see that from a bench player and we've seen that too much from iowa in the past but they did a good job of containing the rest of the team. DeSonmu only had 11 points, 3 assists, and 1 rebound. A relatively quiet game for him. Like I said, the big center, Kofi Kochburn, only had 6 points and 6 rebounds. So Luka Garza did a really good job defensively on him, I thought.

And this is a huge Quadrant 1 win for the Iowa Hawkeyes to move them within one game of the Big Ten, first place in the Big Ten standing. So love to see that. They have a tough matchup against Purdue coming up on Wednesday evening, and that's on the road. And as we've talked about before, I'm expecting them to lose every road game and win every home game.

That's kind of how I projected it out. But if they can steal one or two road games, that'll go a long ways. And if they want to contend for the Big Ten title, they need to win at least two, maybe not three of those Big Ten road games. Although we've seen the Big Ten, again, struggle throughout the season on the road. A couple other things I wanted to cover on this. That crowd was rocking. We've heard some stuff from some reporters, Chris Hassel, namely, saying, why can't the men's basketball team have a good crowd we saw from the wrestling team.

First off, let's not compare wrestling and basketball. Those are two different things. Wrestling is huge in the state of Iowa. That program has built a very loyal following. And that program has been a national title contender for decades. They haven't won a national title since 2010, I believe, but they still have been within the hump. They've been top 10 ranked. And on Friday night, first of all, it's a Friday evening. They had the build.

It's 8 p.m., so people who don't live in Iowa City can travel there after work. They don't have to worry about work the next day. And it's number one versus number two, one of the most hyped matchups in a long time for the Hawks at Carver. Of course we're going to get up for it. And then you saw it, though, the men's basketball team. That crowd was bumping for a Sunday, especially a Super Bowl Sunday. When Luka Garza drained two three-pointers,

you could hear that crowd on the TV very, very loud. At the end of the game when Joe Wieskamp dunked it to basically seal the deal for the Hawks, that crowd was going wild. And you saw the when Joe Wieskamp dunked it to basically seal the deal for the Hawks. That crowd was going wild. And you saw the emotion from Wieskamp. You saw the emotion from Luka Garza as well. They were into it. The crowd was into it.

I absolutely love to hear that and see that on the TV, obviously. But the one thing I will say is there are some improvements I think Carver could make. I don't think they should be charging students to come to those games. I think you need to make that stuff free for the students. Does it really matter that you're not going to get that $20 or whatever it may be for the students to get into the game? I think it doesn't. I think you let them go in for free and help try to build some of that fandom, right? The arena is bumping when it needs to be from a bunch of other people, but you don't necessarily see the student section like the Cameron Crazies of Duke. That leads me to my next point that I don't feel like the placement of the students

is very conducive to creating a rowdy atmosphere at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. And so I really feel like the students need to be behind one of the benches on the sidelines, not tucked away in the corner. I've went to a couple Iowa basketball games in my time, and where you're placed at is just you don't really have the ability to impact the game with your noise level or just generally what you're saying. You need to be a little bit closer to the game to have that big of an impact in my personal opinion. So I think that's the one thing that Carver could fix. But as we saw, this arena can get up and can get going depending on the right situation and the right time.

I have seen complaints about people wanting fans to sit down during the middle of the game. And first of all, I find that very annoying. Second of all, if you're one of those fans who's asking people to sit down, please, I would love for you to tweet at me at LockedOnIowa. Let me know why you think that. That is... We are not going to a freaking orchestra concert. We're going to a basketball game.

If you want to sit down, watch it on your TV. That's personally how I feel. I'm sorry if I'm offending you, but you're going to a basketball game. If you want that team to win, you need to be as hyped and energetic as you possibly can because energy feeds into the team as well. And we saw it on, you know, yesterday, on Sunday, Luka Garza was absolutely jacked up. All those guys were pumped when the crowd was going into it as well. So just keep that in mind next time if you are one of those people

who do sit down at the games consistently and don't like when people stand. Get up and have some fun. Anyways, though, that does kind of jump into another topic. Excuse me. So coming up on the final segment of the show, we're going to be talking about the post-game activities that happened at the men's basketball game and give you kind of my thoughts on those. So stay tuned after a few messages from our sponsors. If you've been a listener of the podcast, I'm sure you've heard all the great advertisers working with the Locked On podcast network to reach sports fans. But you may not know that Locked On Hawkeyes is a great way for your local business to reach passionate Hawkeye fans just like you.

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or visit lockedonpodcast.com slash advertising and let us know who you are. We'll get our team to help your team achieve Locked OnPodcast.com slash advertising and let us know who you are. We'll get our team to help your team achieve Locked On advertising success. Once again, text the word advertising to 33777 or visit LockedOnPodcast.com slash advertising. We look forward to hearing from you. All right, we are back with our final segment of the show today. A relatively quick segment, but I thought it was important to cover. As most of you saw, if you were watching on TV, there was a bit of a back and forth between the coaches and the players

in the handshake line after the Iowa win over Illinois. And there's some thoughts going around as to what happened. And obviously some thoughts going around as to who was in the wrong. And some people pointing the blame at a Fran McCaffrey. And first off, I just want to say I think that's complete garbage. I love Fran McCaffrey as a coach. All the former basketball players I've had on the show love Fran McCaffrey as a coach, and I think that to me goes a very long ways.

When your players love you as a coach post-playing for you, you know you're a good coach. And one of the things I love about Fran is the fact that he stuck up for his players in this. And I think for me the thing that really pissed me off was that it was instigated by Illinois. Their assistant

basically started yelling when Fran McCaffrey walked over there, that is bull crap, that is BS. And I believe he was talking about the fact that Joe Wieskamp dunked at the end of the game. And I, personally as a fan, I freaking loved it. I loved the fact that Wieskamp went up and dunked it, and then got down and yelled at the crowd and was super excited. That was fun. That was a good moment. My thing for Illinois is don't freaking press if you don't want

that to happen. I'm sorry. You can't get pissed off when you're the one forcing that issue. If you played off the ball and let the Hawks just run it up and dribble it out, that's fine. I would be pissed off too if Wieskamp went and dunked it. But you were pressing them

and so McCaffrey made a very great play as he has done all season for you Connor McCaffrey haters, and he threw the ball to Wieskamp, who dunked it. Get over yourself, Illinois. Just because you're ranked, just because you're actually relevant, doesn't mean you need to be a little bit ridiculous about this kind of crap. I also thought that, obviously, it was a very rough game out there. It was very tough.

Frederick was getting hit quite a bit. Luka Gar very tough. Frederick was getting hit quite a bit. Luka Garza, as always, got hit quite a bit. Although I thought his battle with Kofi was a really fun one to watch. Not like previous battles where it's just hack-a-luka. It was actually some really strong defense all around. I thought that was a fun battle. But the guys in the perimeter were getting knocked around a lot. And it was a very physical game.

on battle, but the guys in the perimeter were getting knocked around a lot, and it was a very physical game. And the thing I love about this Iowa Hawkeye team is they will stand down to absolutely no one. You saw when Frey McCaffrey was yelling back at Illinois, turned around and told his team to go back. CJ Frederick needed to be held back. I love that in a player. A guy who I really respect, Troy Hyde.

You can follow him at TroyHyde44 on Twitter. I thought he actually made a really interesting tweet. He said, I'm going to say it. I think Isaiah Moss transferred because he knew CJ Frederick was an alpha dog. He plays with a chip, isn't afraid of big moments, and actually cares about defense. He's also just as skilled or more on the offensive end. He would have taken Moss' minutes. Troy, I completely agree.

I hope you're listening. You've been on the show before, and I really appreciate it. But we get lots of respect for you and your opinion, and I think you're absolutely spot on. I love how Frederick is playing. I love the tenacity he plays with. I love the attitude he plays with. He backed down from no one.

He's constantly talking the entire time. And he has more of just a game than just shooting from behind the arc. So I'd love to see that from some of these Hawkeye players. And obviously another thing that kind of caused some of the issues at the end of the game, at the very end of the game, they gave the ball to Connor McCaffrey. And one of Illinois' players was just basically mugging him. No foul called, nothing. Here's the thing.

Either call the freaking foul or don't mug Connor McCaffrey. And you know Connor McCaffrey. If you've watched any basketball games, he's also a guy who is not going to back down. He is just as fiery as Fran. He's also smart about the fieriness. He knows when to pull his team away and to back off, but he also knows when it's time to talk, and you can see him have a few choice words when he was walking away as well. Again, I love that tenacity from this men's basketball team.

That's what I think is going to really help them. That gives them the edge in any game. It doesn't matter if they're down or not. They were down against Illinois. They've been down in a lot of their home games recently, and they managed to come back because they have that fight, because they have that passion, because they don't let those type of things get in their way.

They don't let it affect them. They don't let it crumble them, which we've seen in the past from other Iowa Hawkeye teams. So with their first game in February, getting that win, a lot of talk has been on the February fade and any of Fran McCaffrey's teams dropping games in February. I'm excited to see them not suffer that. I think there's going to be a little bit of Iowa fans who are not really thinking coming

out after Iowa loses one or two road games and saying, oh God, here comes a Fran McCaffrey team again. But keep in mind, these road games are tough anyways, and I do think Iowa is going to be playing better basketball this February than they have in the past, so I'm really excited to see that. That'll do it, though. That will cover our show today. Lots of basketball talk, obviously some Super Bowl talk and some wrestling talk as well.

But I hope you enjoyed what you listened to today. If you did, make sure to go to um, go to iTunes, go to Google, go to Spotify or the Himalaya podcast app, hit that like, and subscribe button. Also give us a five-star review. Let us know what you love about the show and go follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We have some great teasers coming up from some of our interviews. So you're going to want to see those in advance of the episode, maybe get you some, you know, get you some excitement before that Wednesday episode with the recruits, get you some excitement before that Thursday episode with Cody Hills.

So we're going to be dropping some teasers for that as well on all three mediums. So make sure to tune in to those and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Again, I appreciate you all tuning in and listening to this episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I hope you all have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. And go Hawks.