Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - NCAA makes a bad decision on winter eligibility | Impacts to spring and winter sports | Spencer Lee wins the Hodge Trophy

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

We are back after a brief hiatus due to computer issues and we break down the NCAA's recent decision on winter sports future eligibility and how that impacts the Iowa Hawkeyes before jumping into some news and announcements. 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 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 Hawkeye Nation, to a long, overdue episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and I'm excited to be back for another episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast on the Locked on Sports Network. And I know it's kind of been rough the last week and a half. We have not given you a single episode. And part of that is because we did not have a computer. My computer broke this past week. I was trying to get it fixed. And as you can imagine, doing that in a quarantine is incredibly difficult. So working on still getting that fixed.

In the meantime, I decided to repurpose an old Mac that my wife had so I could start getting out some more episodes to you all right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. And over the past week, despite no sports actually happening right now, there has been a ton of stuff going on in the sports world that does impact the Iowa Hawkeyes. And we're going to try to unpack a lot of that today, jump on a lot more tomorrow, and wrap up with a solid Friday.

We also have an interview with Bakari Evelyn coming up, former Iowa Hawkeye guard, who's going to be talking a bit about his time in Iowa, his career in college basketball, and kind of what his next steps are for his future basketball career. So I'm excited to have that interview coming up. That'll likely be airing on Monday. And after this week, we'll be moving to a three-episode-a-week format

unless there's something kind of special coming up. A good example of this is the NFL Draft, but will most likely be on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday format. And like I said, if there's additional stuff that needs to be covered, I might be dropping a few Lockdown Hawkeyes live events, something like that, just to make sure I'm getting you all the information and covers that you want to have on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast for your Iowa Hawkeyes. Before we jump into the show, though, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you download that podcast at. And if you are stuck at home like I am and

you're not able to listen to your phone as much, feel free to tell your Alexa device to play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes. That'll give you an opportunity to listen to the most recent episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast from the comfort of your home without having to put in headphones with your cell phone. So make sure to do that.

Also make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We're still kind of going through that March Madness bracket of Iowa Hawkeye football teams, but I'm starting to try to figure out what would make sense going forward and if you all like it. So if it's something you are enjoying, please make sure to let me know. It takes a lot of time and work to go into, and I want to make sure I'm doing something worthwhile for you all that you, the fans of the show, are going to really appreciate. So like I said, a lot to cover on today's show. Specifically, we're going to talk about a few awards that have been handed out, one

that went against Iowa, one that went in favor of Iowa. Then we're also going to be talking about the decision to allow for an extra year of eligibility for spring sports and to not allow for an extra year of eligibility for spring sports and to not allow for an extra year of eligibility for winter sports and what that means for the Iowa Hawkeyes. So lots of stuff to come on the show today. Let's start with the awards, though. As you all are aware, Luka Garza got shafted in the AP National Player of the Year Award going to Dayton's Obi Toppin.

Incredible player. Absolutely. I mean, I don't want to Dayton's Obi Toppin. Incredible player. I don't want to take anything away from what he's done. He's had a phenomenal season, and I think that's quite obvious. He's a big reason why Dayton was in a position to have a top seed in the NCAA tournament. He put together just an absolutely phenomenal stat line, and I think he had every right to be in the conversation for National Player of the Year. Now, that being said, and as I've covered a lot on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, this is not about who has a better chance to go pro.

This is about the guy who did the most for their team and was the best player in the nation. who did the most for their team and was the best player in the nation. So to me, when OB averages 20 points a game, 7.5 rebounds per game, shoots 63% from the field, that's really fantastic. I'm truly, truly impressed by that. Again, let's not take anything away from him. What he did was absolutely fantastic. He also, though, that comes with a grain of salt he did that against competition that was not nearly on par with Luka Garza's competition

and that's really where I get frustrated I understand if you're a Dayton fan you wanted to see Obi win that's fair that should be what you want to happen. But to ignore the fact that Luka Garza did what he did against significantly more difficult competition is just being ignorant at this point. Just pure ignorance. You're not paying attention to what is actually happening if you truly feel that way. that way. When Luka Garza averages 23.9 points, nearly 10 rebounds at 9.8 per game, and still shoots 54% while shooting a few more three-pointers overall throughout the season, to me, that means a lot more, especially given that he's done that against Big Ten competition. Now, again, this is not a, you know, if you want to talk about Obie being a better player in general, okay. I think Obie has a higher ceiling. He has a better chance of having a longer

career in the NBA. No one is going to deny that, but Luka Garza and what he's done for the Iowa Hawkeyes was impressive on a whole nother level. The reason why Iowa still had an opportunity to get a double buy in the Big Ten tournament was because of Luka Garza and what he did this season. The guy played lights out against some of the toughest competition in the NCAA. Multiple guys from the Big Ten, some of the big men have already declared or are going to be declaring or going to the NBA draft soon. The fact that Luka Garza had to go up against these guys night in and night out, to me, yes,

his shooting percentage might be a little bit lower than OB's. He might have taken a few more shots, but he was getting every team's double and triple team every single night. Teams were basically saying, you know what, Luca? We're going to force you to stop. We're going to try to stop you and let the rest of your Hawkeye teammates beat us because we don't think they can. And you know what he did?

He continued to put up double doubles and 20-point games every single night. So to me, it is just an outrage that, again, an Iowa player got screwed for the national player of the year or a national type of award, similar to Keith Duncan, who got screwed out of the Lou Groza award. And if you listen to the washed up walk-ons podcast, which I highly recommend you doing, I think they do a fantastic job of giving you that inside look from a former football player's perspective. You know, I, you know, I'm, I'm not going to sit there and bash people that I'm technically competing against. I think if you have a quality product, definitely deserve to listen to that as well. I think they do a fantastic job.

They're probably my favorite Hawkeye podcast in the podcasting world. So I highly recommend checking them out. But if you listen to what they said after Keith Duncan lost to Lou Groza, people were literally saying, you know, we voted for him because he's in the SEC or because they felt like it was tougher to kick in humidity than kicking in cold weather, which is just a completely flabbergasting take and complete bullcrap in my personal opinion. It is noticeably more difficult to kick in colder weather. The balls rock. You don't know what the conditions are going to be like. And Keith Duncan did a fantastic job despite all those things.

And I think he got robbed there. To me, the question really is, who got robbed more? And if I had to really look at it, I think Keith Duncan did. With Luka Garza, a lot of what comes down to the argument is more on the qualitative side, not the quantitative side. Whereas Keith Duncan, you can pretty much look at the quantitative and say he had a superior statistical advantage over Rodrigo Blankenship. And from a kicker's perspective, if you have a superior statistical advantage over them and you're kicking in a higher degree of difficulty in terms of situations, then that easily goes to him.

Whereas Luka was playing in a qualitatively tougher situation, but had quantitatively worse numbers. So that makes the argument a little bit more difficult, and I can see where some might have decided to vote for Obi. Again, I don't agree with it absolutely at all. If if I had to pick I would think that Keith Duncan probably got robbed more than Luka but we still have to wait to see if Luka does win the Naismith you know he's been he's won a couple national player of the year awards from different outlets which is still absolutely phenomenal being a first team all-american just big time player of the year you

have to love what you're seeing from Luka Garza. Regardless, it's one of the best seasons that we've ever seen in Iowa Hawkeye men's basketball history. So tip my cap to him. I would absolutely love to see him return for a senior year. I think this team has the ability to be a top five team throughout the season. And we're going to be talking a lot about that over the coming months, especially because there are no sports right now. So we are going to be filling some of that time to talk about and going much more in depth on these teams going forward. That being said, though, I want to wrap that conversation up coming up on the second segment of the show and likely the third segment as well. Depending on how passionate I get about this, we are going to be talking about the decision to extend eligibility for the spring sports and not extend eligibility for the winter sports. So that'll be coming up on segment number two. All right, we are back with segment number two of the Lockdown Hawkeyes

podcast. And just a quick reminder, make sure to subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. And now that you kind of have some different opportunities to listen to the show, you can listen to the show on your Alexa device, on your Apple Watch, basically anywhere you have an electronic connection, you can probably listen to the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. Make sure to find us wherever you did find us first time and go subscribe so you can get more episodes coming right your way. And like I talked about coming up before the break, we're going to talk about the decision wherever you define us first time and go subscribe so you can get more episodes coming right your way. And like I talked about coming up before the break,

we're going to talk about the decision to extend spring sports eligibility and decline the eligibility extension for winter sports. And this is huge for the spring sports, obviously. The logistics of this have a lot to be determined. It sounds like it's going to be up to the universities to kind of figure out what that financial aid will look like for some of these spring sports players. Thinking of track and field, baseball, softball, those kind of sports, figuring out what to do there. They are going to extend, obviously, the roster size so teams can keep those players if they choose to stay.

I think for one of the sports I really want to cover is the Iowa baseball team. I feel like they have a huge advantage here with a lot of talented players that may not have been ready to go pro this year having an extra year to work in that system. This is the team that I think we could be talking about them Omaha bound in the next one to two years, especially having some of their key guys returning for another season and another year of growth and another year of maturity. And the one thing to keep in mind here is where some players might have been drafted in maybe the 16th, 17th, 20th round like a Matt Dermody a few years back. The MLB draft seemingly is going to be a little bit shortened this year, it sounds like. The MLB draft seemingly is going to be a little bit shortened this year, it sounds like.

So there's a possibility that we're not even going to see some of those, maybe not as middle-level prospects from the Iowa Hawkeyes get drafted because the draft is going to be shortened. So more than likely going to be returning to the Hawks. But what I want to focus on, again, that is huge for the spring sports. I'm super happy that the NCAA decided to do that. It would have been, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have your final year canceled before it really even began. I mean, the men's baseball team, the softball team, they were just 20 games in or 15 games in. There was still so much sport to be played left in both those sports and in track and field as well.

So exciting stuff there. What was disappointing, though, is to find out that for the winter sports at this point, the decision has been made to not extend eligibility. And what sucks the most about that is this was possibly the best winter in Iowa history. We had two basketball teams, our women's and men's basketball teams teams both ranked in the top 25. The women's basketball team still was a fringe team to potentially secure a top four seat and get two home games at Carver with all Big Ten player, Big Ten Player of the Year player Kathleen Doyle. The men's basketball team was a team that no one wanted to play because you really didn't know what you were going to get on any weekend night. They had a ton of talent with a guy who's competing for National Player of the Year honors,

Luka Garza, Joe Wieskamp, Connor McCaffrey. And they're not going to be able to have the opportunity to do that with this year they put together. That being said, I don't think they were going to win a national championship this year. But nonetheless, you never want to lose an opportunity to at least compete in March Madness because you never know what could happen but what really sticks out is the fact that the wrestling team the odds on favorite to win the wrestling championship this year no longer has that opportunity to do that this year they still have a great chance next year they're returning a lot of guys but we're losing out on two top-ranked wrestlers, Pat Lugo, who went out with a win

in the Big Ten Wrestling Championships, and Michael Kermer, who did fall in the championship round. Both of those guys are no longer going to be competing in an Iowa Hawkeye uniform, and that, to me, is an atrocity, and I think, from the NCAA's perspective, they are really missing out on a great opportunity to do right by these student athletes. They worked their tails off to have an opportunity to compete in Minneapolis. They made it to Minneapolis. And then to have that ripped away, another guy that's impacted, Spencer Lee, who decided to not take an Olympic redshirt so he could be a part of this Iowa Hawkeye wrestling team.

Is there a less selfish act than that in sports? He took an opportunity to compete for the team more important than it was for him to go to the Olympics. And not saying that he wasn't going to go to the Olympics. He was still competing. But that is a heavy workload and a heavy schedule to be able to try to handle both of those commitments. And he decided to not take that Olympic redshirt like a lot of collegiate wrestlers decided to do. And now he's

getting screwed. He could have been a four-time NCAA champion. That's gone. That is absolutely gone. Unless somehow I was able to appeal and do some sort of appeal process for that. Sounds like Coach Brands is not happy with that decision at all. It also sounds like he kind of understands that there's really no right way to do this. But I just think don't cancel the tournament. At least let them wrestle. If you're going to take away their potential for an extra year of eligibility, at least let them do. If you're going to take away their eligibility for next year, take away their potential for an extra year of eligibility, at least let them do the NCAA Wrestling Championships.

Let the guys who qualified do it when all these things clear up. Let them do it in July or August. I can't imagine. Obviously, it's not ideal. They were in peak form heading into this, but that's kind of the same boat that they're all in. But let them at least compete. To me, that's incredibly frustrating to see the NCAA do that.

I don't agree with it at all. I think what they should have done is at least allow those sports to continue. Do the NCAA tournament in July or August. That's such a moneymaker. I know it's logistically a nightmare, and you don't know how long this COVID-19 pandemic is going to extend out to, but to just go away with it, that just ruins the possibility, not even of Iowa, but of so many collegiate athletes' careers. That's the last time we're going to see Cassius Winston with Michigan State. I mean, what an incredible player that we got to watch in the Big Ten.

Princeton with Michigan State. I mean, what an incredible player that we got to watch in the Big Ten. Anthony Cowan, what a fantastic player for Maryland. There's so many guys we could walk through that we're just not going to be able to see play again. And Iowa got off a bit easy from the men's basketball side. We're not losing any starters per se. Ryan Creener was a great, great asset to the team. And it is a huge loss to lose a guy of Ryan Creener's stature,

a guy who can come in and has the potential to put up double digits every night if he gets his shots, a guy who can rebound and shoot the three, has a nice little sky hook too. It's unfortunate that we're not going to see him play, but let's call a spade a spade. He is not Joey's camp. He's not Luka Garza. Bakar Evelyn, a fantastic guy. I think you're going to really love the interview that we had with him. A fantastic guy to talk to and a key contributor on this team. But this team, it's not like losing Cassius Winston,

even though I think Bakar Evelyn is a fantastic player as well. Iowa didn't get hurt as bad from the men's perspective as some other teams, but still think, you know, this team had a lot of potential to potentially go to a Final Four or even compete for a national championship. And you're going to hear Bakari feel the exact same way when we talk to him and have that interview scheduled later this week or early next week. So coming up, though, I'm going to wrap it up quickly for segment number two. Coming up, I want to talk about a few pieces of news that have come out. So coming up, we'll be talking about those pieces of news that have happened in Iowa

Hawkeye Nation. All right, we are back for our third and final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And as I said, there's a lot of things that have kind of popped up in Iowa Hawkeye Nation. I do want to make sure we're going to get to that and cover that and kind of give you a little bit of a roadmap of what's going to happen going forward. The first things first, the NFL draft is still taking place. The NFL draft, we're not sure exactly what it's going to look like, but the NFL draft is still taking place. That is not going away. And that is important because we finally have something to still talk about. And so we're going to be doing a lot of NFL draft talk.

And if it's something that you really enjoy, I highly recommend checking out the Locked on NFL Draft podcast, one of our sister podcasts. They do a fantastic job. Trevor Sikma and Benjamin Solak, both great guys from the Draft Network who host that show. If you love the draft talk, you're going to love that as well. So we're going to be talking a lot about the NFL draft, kind of breaking down the mock drafts that

come up. That'll be what we do on Mondays. As a lot of mock drafts come out on Mondays, we'll be talking about those mock drafts and kind of what they mean for each of the Iowa prospects. Just a couple of news and notes that I've noticed around the league. Michael Ogimudia definitely rising, and I think the fact that he was able to go to the Senior Bowl is huge as scouts are not able to do as much and not able to do any in-person scouting anymore. Absolutely huge for him. AJ Peneza kind of sticking around that late 20s range now with the Ravens, Seahawks, and Patriots kind of being teams he's been linked to. And Tristan Wirfs, I would be highly surprised if he doesn't, if he makes it out of the top 10 without

being drafted. So interesting stuff there. And then finally on the Geno Stone note, I actually saw a tweet from Geno Stone saying that he got injured at the Combine, which is something that I've heard, you know, with the new schedule they had at the Combine, definitely impacting players' performances, not kind of knowing when they're supposed to be going, kind of sitting around for 10 hours before having the opportunity to run. It sounds like Geno Stone was not at his best. Hopefully the Iowa virtual pro day he was able to put together some great numbers. I haven't heard any feedback from that, but I'm hoping that he was able to put together some great numbers

because I think he could be a huge asset to a team in the NFL. And even on the Stick to Football podcast hosted by Bleacher Report, Melo actually spotlighted Gino Sona as one of his guys to watch because he loves his playmaking abilities and his instincts on the team. Outside of the football note, on the wrestling, I know we talked a bit about Spencer Lee and the atrocity of him not having another year, having an additional year extension for his Iowa eligibility. He did, though, just win the Hodge Trophy, which is the wrestling equivalent to the Heisman Trophy. having another year, having an additional year extension for his Iowa eligibility.

He did, though, just win the Hodge Trophy, which is the wrestling equivalent to the Heisman Trophy. So no surprise there. Spencer Lee, just a beast this year. He should be the odds-on favorite to win that next year. And I think Iowa wrestling should, despite losing Pat Lugo and Michael Kramer, should be the odds-on favorite to still win a national title next year. Just unfortunate they didn't have an opportunity to do that this year. Also, sports aren't going on, but that doesn't mean that sports world has completely stopped. The basketball tournament, if you've been following the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast for some time,

you know we have a nice little partnership with the Iowa United, the TBT team, comprised of the four schools, the four major schools in the state of Iowa that compete in the $2 million winner take all tournament. We have most of those guys. They're going to be returning to the show this year to talk about their basketball careers, talk about their careers at their former schools, and talk about what it means to play for the Iowa United. If you didn't get a chance to watch the Iowa United last year, it was a lot of fun watching

Iowa and Drake and Iowa State and you and I, well, not you and I guys last year, but those guys come together. So we're going to be continuing our coverage on that. And that team is building currently. I've talked to Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United, and he is putting together a nice team. You're going to obviously recognize some familiar names, some Iowa guys there that you're going to really love seeing. And he's recruiting a few other what he would like to call grad transfers. So as that news officially breaks, I know who those guys are, just not really allowed to say them right now. As that news breaks, we'll be talking about what that means for the Iowa United going forward.

That'll likely be potentially the first real sports action we get with an Iowa connection until the football season, which I think, honestly, at this point, could be potentially in jeopardy. So just a lot of stuff we can cover and a lot of angles we can take, and we're going to be talking all about it right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. So stay tuned with us every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Make sure to subscribe so you can make sure you get those episodes downloaded right to your phone or just hit us up on Alexa and Friday, make sure to subscribe so you can make sure you get those, those episodes downloaded right to your phone, or just hit us up on Alexa and say, Hey Alexa, play locked on

Hawkeyes podcast or play podcasts locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Um, so you can get those episodes played to you while you're cooking, while you're doing some chores, whatever it may be. Um, you can get your Hawkeye fix right here. So again, thank you all for tuning in my apologies for not having episodes out the last week and a half with the computer broken. We are going to be dropping an episode, obviously, today, tomorrow, and Friday, and then going forward Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of every week with a potential opportunity for some special episodes on Tuesday and Thursday, depending on what news notes have popped off. So stay tuned for an episode tomorrow.

Again, thank you for listening to us. Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate all of your love and support. And make sure to go follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And again, if you do like the NFL draft talk that we're going to be having, um, come up quite often over the next month, make sure to follow our sister podcast, the lockdown NFL draft podcast hosted by Trevor Sycamore and Benjamin Solak. You will not be disappointed. Thank you all again, Hawkeye nation. Um, appreciate the love and support. Have a fantastic day and let's go Hawks.