Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - RESURGENCE? Iowa Wrestling Storms Back—Drake Ayala DELIVERS, Men's Basketball Must EXECUTE vs Purdue
Episode Date: February 14, 2026Iowa Wrestling stages a dramatic comeback to edge out Michigan, fueled by Drake Ayala's dominant tech fall on Senior Day. Can Tom and Terry Brands reignite the Hawkeye legacy amid growing concerns abo...ut aggressiveness and national relevance? Trent Condon analyzes the narrow 19-17 win, questions Iowa’s wrestling culture, and explores the pressure facing the program as postseason looms.Special guest Tom Kakert joins to break down Iowa men’s basketball after an alarming loss to Maryland. Discussion centers on defensive woes, the overreliance on Bennett, and the daunting stretch ahead with Purdue and Nebraska. The conversation also highlights key contributions on the women’s basketball squad and tackles whether the team can secure a top NCAA seed. Don't miss insider insights on Hawkeye wrestling frustrations and the critical factors that could shape Iowa's March destiny.Follow Trent Condon on X: https://twitter.com/trentcondonLISTEN TO THE PODCAST: APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-hawkeyes-daily-podcast-on-iowa-hawkeyes-football/id1441592240SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/0GTyz5ygevcGXdTF6QSoEoYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LockedOnHawkeyesEverydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYHave your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at https://5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon.MazdaLike our players, we’re driven by the details. Because highlights make the reel. What it takes to get there makes it count.There’s more to a Mazda. Because there’s more to you.Turbo TaxFor a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 — all in, if a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year. Just file by February 28. Take taxes off your plate and get back to your life.Visit https://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today. IndeedListeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcastFanDuelToday’s episode is sponsored by FanDuel. The Winter Games are on. And there’s no better way to follow them than with a bet on FanDuel. FanDuel - Play your game.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Iowa wrestling comes storming back to knock off Michigan in wrestling.
That's what championship programs do, but let's be clear.
A lot still needs to be fixed.
On the hardwood, the Iowa men's basketball team, in order to shock Purdue, they have to execute.
Keys to a victory today, Locked on Hawkeyes.
You are Locked on Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.
Welcome in. I'm Trent Condon and this is the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast.
Thanks for making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day.
We're available wherever you find podcasts and you can also watch us on YouTube.
I've been covering the Hawkeyes for over 20 years on the radio in the state of Iowa.
You can find me currently on the Iowa Sports Radio Network each weekday from noon to two.
Talking the world of sports and lots of Hawkeyes with you with stations in Sioux City, Iowa City,
the Quad City, Cedar Rapids, and our flagship 106.3 KX&O.
Today's episode of Lockdown Hawkeyes is brought to you by Mazda.
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We're going to talk about the big matchup at Carver coming up tomorrow
as Iowa faces off against Purdue.
what's it going to take for Iowa to pull off the win in this one to knock off a Boilemaker team that they played pretty well against the first time.
Still going to be difficult.
The Purdue team seems to be again rounding into form.
We'll break that down.
Tom Kekert is going to join us as he does weekly.
We will get a conversation with Tom.
We'll talk a lot of Iowa basketball.
Take a look at the women's team as they face off against Nebraska on Monday after their win earlier this week against Washington ending their three game skid.
and we will also talk with him a little Iowa wrestling.
That's where our conversation begins today as we come to you right after it goes final,
Iowa and Michigan on the wrestling match,
a match that certainly was more difficult.
I think then a lot of people anticipated as Iowa comes back, gets the win, 1917.
It came down to one match.
Iowa was down in the meet as they faced off against a okay Michigan team.
I get it, the ranked 10th, but in collegiate wrestling,
the gap between the haves and the haves-nots pretty significant.
And comes down to Drake IElla, a guy that is taking six losses already this season,
certainly has not been the guy that many people considered a guy that was going to be a contender
for a national championship, though all of his losses this year has been against top-level
competition and you look through the schedule that he has to face.
It's been an absolute gauntlet.
Well, it was not the case in his final match, and he made easy work,
a Betero, a young guy from Michigan, and dominated.
It got the tech fall at 21 to 5.
Didn't have to worry about bonus points.
Didn't have to worry about any of that.
A major would have been good enough to get the dual win.
He gets a technical fall in 425, and Iowa got the victory.
But things were off to a slow start again for the Iowa wrestling team.
It started this one at 141.
And Kail Peterson goes down, not just goes down, but goes down by a major decision.
Then, right, that was one where you anticipated maybe against a ranked opponent that Peterson was going to struggle.
You go to 149, ranked on rank, number 15 McNeil from Michigan against Rider Block,
the 19th ranked guy in the country for the Hawkeyes.
And Rider Block, who has been enjoyable to watch this year, out of this group of guys,
that the lack of aggressiveness has been a big problem area that we've talked about a ton
when we've been breaking down this wrestling team.
It just doesn't have that Iowa style.
Rider Block, at least has shown that, an ability to go out there and have a little bit of
extra, have that extra gear.
We saw that, not the case in this one.
It continued on the L train in a toss-up match
and it doesn't go Williams way as he loses five to four
and suddenly Iowa in this one.
They're down 10-0 and you're looking around saying,
who is this thing going to get ugly as Iowa going to lose
for the third time at Carver that was on the table?
It started to turn, though, with Michael Calliando.
As Mikey Calliando again, dominating performance from him,
kind of as we anticipate, right?
I'm just, he's that kind of guy, the most consistent guy in this lineup currently.
I think definitely has to be him dominating performance.
They get on the scoreboard with the tech ball with Caliando.
Patrick Kennedy, he falls in overtime.
Another one that went down to the wires, gave Arnold at 184.
He got the victory.
That was a nice win.
And that's when the tune started to change a little bit.
You're starting to see a potential path where I would come back and get the victory.
But maybe the headliner of the day was a young guy.
Harvey Ludington, who comes in there and a decision needs to be made, what they're going to do with him.
If you burn the red shirt, is that the direction you're going to go?
Gets the window against Walters from Michigan 6 to 4, and then you're starting to be, then we get to heavyweight.
And again, Penn Keeter and talking about a lack of aggressiveness, you look at some of Keeter's matches this year.
And Ben Keeter is not a monster, right, in comparison to some of the heavyweights that are out there at the collegiate level.
And he's a guy that's almost stuck in the middle.
and he's not obviously big enough to cut down,
small enough to cut down to 97.
That was never going to happen and was never the plan.
But compared to some of the behemists,
he's just not there.
And the lack of aggressiveness continues for a guy that had all the accolades
that Ben Keeter has,
this year certainly bet a disappointment on the mat for him.
We flip back to the small weights then after that.
We go to 25 with two matches remaining.
Dean Peterson gets the win,
a huge one there to set the stage for Riala at the end.
But as we go through this, 1917, all right, you get the victory.
It was great to see the teammates also Drake Iiella celebrating with him after he gets the tech ball
and gets the victory for the Hawkeyes and his senior day match.
That was great to see.
However, what Iowa is struggling with this, and I get it.
Fari's not out there.
He was on the side.
Good to at least see him in Carver watching the duel.
But when you're struggling like this against Michigan, this isn't Penn State.
This isn't even Ohio State.
What it takes this to get it done,
it just goes back to the big questions that we've had
about this wrestling program.
And is there enough there currently with Tom and Terry brands
to believe that these are the guys that are going to get this ship righted?
Fair unfair, the expectations are through the roof for Iowa wrestling.
And I think most fans realize that that gap that continues to grow
between Penn State and everybody else in the country,
as you saw if you're watching earlier with Penn State and Ohio State,
they're just in a different level.
And it's a level that right now is not realistic for anybody to track down.
However, what do you go through and you look at the squad and you look at some of the aggressiveness coming back?
I thought there were more signs of that.
You still have that glimmer of hope.
Maybe this team can wrestle well because they haven't wrestled.
They're certainly best top level at this point.
You want to be peaking leading into March.
We haven't seen that very often.
And even the times that we felt like here the last couple of years, maybe they were.
They get to Big Tens and that's not the case.
And, of course, what's happened at Nationals?
I didn't walk away saying, all right, this program has got to figure it out.
They're going to wrestle great down the stretch because we've had too many questions about it.
We'll see where it goes, but we will certainly talk more Iowa wrestling here leading up to the final duel against Oklahoma State.
And, of course, what happens as we get ready for Big Ten?
We'll do some crossovers on that one and talk to.
some more Iowa wrestling with you.
We continue here, locked on Hawkeyes,
and let's get into a little basketball after Iowa's ugly,
quad three loss against Maryland earlier this week.
The Hawkeyes need to bounce back.
Two huge opportunities in front of them,
starting tomorrow against Purdue.
A win here would certainly cure the ills that are happening right now
with Iowa basketball after the six consecutive victories.
Yet, Hawkeyes, we're not playing their best ball during that winning streak.
What needs to turn around?
We'll get into that and a whole lot more.
Tom Kekert will join us next from hawkeye report.com.
We continue.
This is Locked on Hawkeyes.
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The Winter Games, they have been epic and they are here.
If you're anything like me, you're locking in for events.
You only get to see on the biggest stage every four years.
I have absolutely loved the speed skating.
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I love when they have the team events, got everybody pushing each other.
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Fandul. Fandull, play your game. Right now though, it's time to talk Hawkeyes as we do each
and every Friday with Tom Kaker from hawkeye report.com as Tom joins us once again. Tom as always
appreciate your time over there in the Quad Cities and back home now for the Hawkeyes, two games,
two huge games with Purdue and Nebraska on tap after the disappointment of the loss against Maryland.
How are you doing over there, Tom?
Because now that NCAA resume, which I didn't think had any, you know, the resume was interesting because they were winning the games that were supposed to win pretty much.
They didn't have any warts on it.
Now it's got a wart.
Now it's got a wart.
And it doesn't have a signature, what I would call a signature win on it either.
There's some nice wins.
There's some decent wins.
There's a couple of quad ones in there.
But yeah, that big one, that one that's really going to resonate.
And maybe the biggest opportunity is going to be at senior day.
They're at the end of the season as they got Michigan coming to town for that one in March.
But plenty of basketball before that.
Let's go back first to Wednesday night against Maryland.
At the weird 5 o'clock central tip off time for that one, it didn't matter.
They were on the east close.
They're high, their college guys.
They're going to be fine.
Obviously playing at any time of day.
But Maryland, a team that doesn't shoot it really well, they were just driving by Iowa.
It's the defensive performance, maybe that gave me more pause.
I know they missed their, what, last 12, three-pointers.
Yes, that's concerning in its own right.
But it was what happened on the defense event to me that says, oh, boy, are we running into
some issues here?
Because overall, though they had a six-game winning streak after the Indiana game,
I could argue in all those games, and certainly for the first half against Washington,
I wouldn't play their best basketball even during the win streak.
Yeah, they have, I think the way I phrased it after the game was they've been,
been playing with fire and they finally got burned.
Yeah. Because they've just been, it's been this growing reliance from the other guys on the
team. And I have Ben McCollum about this today, too. It just seems like everybody's kind of
just like, well, Bennett will just bail us out. Let's get the ball to Bennett. He'll just bail us
out. And Bennett was doing that. I mean, you see his scoring spiking up and, um,
and these 30 plus point games. But that was just not.
sustainable. And Ben McCollum said he addressed it to the team.
Yeah, they have been deferring it too much and that those guys are talented on
offense too and they can score. And it's not like Bennett is going all ball hog either.
He doesn't, you know, he'd rather pass the ball than shoot it, I think, half the time.
But he just does what he has to do to win. And they've, it's, but it's a growing concern.
defensively, the first thing he mentioned about the game on Wednesday was the straight line drives, right to the rim.
I mean, the Mills kid was just going there all the time, and Coit was going there whenever he really needed to as well.
And that's been something that has been occurring more often, even against other teams, against Washington, and against, you know, you saw Zoom Diallo do that the first half quite a bit, and then they kind of locked them up a little bit more than the second half.
but that's something they're going to have to address.
A little more balanced scoring is going to have to be addressed.
And you've got a Purdue team that's coming in this week
and then Nebraska early next week.
So two huge games coming up.
No doubt.
A Purdue team that survived after nearly blowing the big lead against Nebraska
in overtime, getting the win in that one.
And maybe the most concerning part, yeah, they're big.
That's always a concern against this Iowa team that isn't exactly big.
But I don't think Fletcher lawyer is going to go four of 17 from three again.
That's my concern as he goes in there and suddenly, well, he might make four,
but it's only going to take seven as opposed to 17.
This team could shoot it from the outside.
They got Biggs inside.
I know Iowa played well in that first matchup.
It still just doesn't feel like a very good matchup, though, for the Hawkeyes.
It is.
And when you look back at that box score, Iowa was 12 of 25 from three in that game.
You know, basically shooting 50%.
Yeah.
Cal Combs, who has not been playing well,
had four three-point field goals in that game
at a career high, 16 points in that contest.
The thing that really concerned you, though,
is Iowa is not a great rebounding team this year.
I just haven't been.
And you look at what Purdue did at, Nebraska.
They had over 50 rebounds, including 20 on the offense event.
And if they're, and the offensive boards has been
issue for Iowa in terms of getting those defensive rebounds.
They just have not done that consistently and they've allowed some offensive rebounds.
So that has got to be a concern because, you know, Oscar Clough and Trey Kaufman-Renn, Carr,
those guys were all just kind of playing volleyball with the ball on the glass in that,
particularly in the second half against Nebraska because Nebraska, you know, even though they were
down 22 points. They probably should have won that game, but they, you know, Purdue missed a bunch
of free throws and, and, and kept allowing offensive rebounds. That was kind of heartbreaking.
They came all the way back and then they just slip on the floor. Thomas Brad Rose, I just,
you know, as I watched those games, I watched, you know, USC or Minnesota be able to isolate a kid
that hadn't scored very much. It ends up scoring. I can't remember which game that was. The kid scored
about 27 on us.
My question is more about
how do we get banks and
and Cook and some of the other kids?
How do we get them
back into the offensive flow?
I feel like our
Iowa's defense is always going to travel.
I think they'll do things even though they're
undersized a little bit to make
things hard for their teams. But how do we get those
other guys involved offensively?
Yeah, you were the guy
you were referencing Kim Woods.
Yes. Yeah.
The 30 plus
points in that game and 27 of them, I think, or 28 of them in the second half.
You know, he went, as Trent would determine, he went all Charles Bugs.
My favorite reference yesterday, he went Charles Bugs on the Hawkeyes.
No, hey, Gainwood since then, he's actually played really well for USC.
I watched him a couple of different times because he came in with 26 points all year long
and 33 against Iowa.
He has been playing well.
So apparently you just need to play Iowa, and that ignites the switch for players.
Well, I don't mean to change my own question, but my concern there,
was they were able to isolate.
They were.
And that was sort of like, uh-oh.
Yeah, like an uh-oh moment.
Like, hey.
Yeah, and Ben will not play zone.
Just not going to do it.
So it's just not something he's going to do.
So they're kind of, you know, limited.
And they're going to play man,
but they're going to try and help with gaps.
And they're not against Dublin.
So the,
but you're right, the offensive side of things for Iowa, too,
is, you know, some of those guys are just not,
scoring well. Fogaras had those three games in a row where he was in double figures.
By the way, Iowa 11 and O this year when Elvaro Fogaris is in double figures.
And the last two games, he had six points against Northwestern, not a great game, but it's okay.
And then at Maryland, he scored as many as Trent did in the game, which is zero.
So that's, you know, he's got to be one of their top three scorers every game.
opinion. Banks has been, I think, pretty good.
Cam is sort of came in, you know, sort of like a garbage man. But right now,
Combs has not given him a lot offensively.
Coop's hitting probably one three a game. But, you know, you'd like to see a little bit more from
Cooper Koch. And then Isaiah Howard's really struggled. The guy that really kind of helped him
gave him a little bit of spark was Brendan Howson talked to him today a little bit. And he came
and hit a couple threes, but then he missed his last five.
And I thought, I thought on Wednesday they just settled for too many three-pointers
late game between Bennett and Housson, because Maryland had some significant foul trouble.
And they should have really tried to get in the lane, get to the hoop.
And they didn't do that and kind of just settled for the threes and they weren't falling.
I guess the good news is they're not broken.
Yeah, it didn't seem like they were in rhythm either.
so they got no offensive boards off of those shots.
Yeah.
Because it seemed out of rhythm a little bit.
You mentioned Koch.
He had a couple of good looks too.
Those are just looks.
He has to have.
He's too good of a shooter to miss that many open looks like he did in that one.
It's frustrating, no doubt.
But I think when they began this group of games, this seven game,
if you would have told any Hawkeye fan,
hey, you're going to go six and one.
I think every single one of them would have said,
yes, absolutely sign me up for that after the three game losing streak.
It was just the fashion.
Win six in a row, then lose to Barlin.
And then that leaves people kicking themselves.
Now, we talked about Maryland.
It's Nebraska after that.
Then you got to go to Wisconsin.
Then he got Ohio State coming in who's a tournament team.
Still got Michigan and another Nebraska matchup here.
Closing stretch incredibly difficult.
Are they ready for it?
Ben McCollum going through it for the first time in the Big Ten.
Are you confident that they're going to have their head above water?
And I'm not going to have to find another term like I came up with a Fran Fade.
The Frann fade.
Here's the good news is that four of those games are.
home.
So we kind of think that they'll be able to get that one.
And I tell you,
you know,
everybody's kind of saying,
well,
they'll win at Penn State.
Penn State's kind of sneaky.
Getting better.
They went out to Washington the other night and won.
And they have kind of the type of players that have given Iowa trouble,
those guards that can get to the rim.
And so they're going to have to,
that's not.
And,
you know,
that's a Saturday,
11 a.
Central, sleepy, there'd be nobody there.
You know, that's a sleepy spot for Iowa.
So they've got to take care of business at home.
And probably, honestly, they probably got to get two of the four at home and then, you know,
win at Penn State.
Then you've got three wins out of this.
But, you know, if you would have told me before the seat, I think I picked Iowa to be 21 and 10 for the year.
So there are a couple of three.
wins away from that right now. And if they can get three more wins, then I think they've met
expectations this year. But this is, this is a huge game. These next two, I think, are really,
really important for the psyche of the team and for the psyche of the Iowa fan base that's
seen the chair pulled out from underneath them more than once. Are you saying the Hawkeye
fan base is fickle? Come on, Tom. I don't know that they would be fickle, but they're, they're
easily disappointed. That's true. What are you?
enjoy most about coach mccolum what do you enjoy most about him his honesty he's just really he's almost
too honest sometimes um where he's just he's really um just you know just so honest about what's
going on you know i brought up the thing about the about the players kind of deferring and he's like
yeah you're right you know and to talk to him about it you know it's like you're not used to that
from coaches or they kind of talk around things and don't give you real introspective answers.
And he is really good about that.
And he's really accommodating and really welcoming.
It's not kind of standoffish where, you know, Fran towards the end, he could run hot and cold.
I mean, he, you know, he's like his personality.
It was just there's some nights you'd talk to him and yes, no, and that was it.
And then there's other nights he'd be really expansive in his answers.
is always expansive.
And the answers,
and open to just about any question, too.
Very thoughtful.
And that's, yeah,
my conversations with him, McCollum,
it's been different,
certainly, and enjoy it.
But, yeah, there are times,
maybe he's just a little bit too much there.
I definitely get that perspective.
I got one question for you on Iowa women's basketball.
Brad's got one for you on Iowa wrestling,
as we wrap up here, Tom,
a needed win for the Iowa women.
You beat Washington.
You give up 25 in the first quarter.
It's like, here they go again.
They can't play any defense.
He lose McCabe.
And now you can't play D, but they buckle down in the final three quarters, give up just 31 combined points over those three.
They get the victory.
Now they got this weird 11 a.m. tip off against Nebraska Monday.
They go to Purdue after that.
The road slate isn't overly difficult.
Michigan's still on there.
Where are you at right now with this team?
A much needed victory.
Is it enough to kind of cure their ills, if you will?
Yeah, I think it will, it's going to help them.
I think moving Stremlow into the starting lineup was a really.
really smart move from Jan just because Taylor had started before and she seems pretty comfortable
in that role and it kind of takes some of that pressure off of thatty deal. There's just there's
already so much pressure on her because everybody thinks well she's a five star she's got to be great
and she's got to do all this and do that and it's it's not that easy and she was I thought just
really getting comfortable in that role coming off the bench and and starting to thrive when
Taylor McCabe goes down.
So I know they tried to like press the hot hand a little bit that
Eddie was coming along, but that was probably not the direction.
But now you've got Shremlow out there.
I think she's playing well.
But this President's Day game at 11 a.m.
is going to be interesting.
This Nebraska's pretty good.
And I was got some challenging games ahead, but we'll see.
I feel better about them.
I think the big thing for them, they've got to keep winning enough games
to be able to host for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.
That's got to be their goal.
Win three out of five, probably in good shape.
Don't take a big loss of the Big Ten tournament, and that's enough?
Yeah, I think so.
I think that would be enough.
Because they've got some good wins.
Yes.
They do.
They've got a good resume of victories,
and they hit a little bump in the road.
But, you know, I don't know that any of those losses.
I know people pointed out,
Minnesota but Minnesota's net is really good.
And they're just, that's a, that's a team that's, that's good.
I think the margin was the big surprise for the loss of the Gulf.
Tom, my question about wrestling is, you know, I have a lot of wrestling friends, a lot of,
a lot of coaches I know, and certainly the state of Iowa is, uh, Ohio and Iowa State,
uh, wrestling.
What's the panic level?
What's the panic level like over in Iowa City with, I mean, we've always been.
I mean, since I was a kid, Iowa wrestling's been right there.
You know what I mean?
So how's the feelings over there?
The French tip from Firehouse Subs is here for a limited time.
Piled high with premium roast beef, caramelized onions.
For Iowa Wrestling, the movie War Games where they had the Defton levels and everything.
It was like DefCon 5 was pretty calm, but when it got the one, it was like,
we're all going to die here.
It's probably about DefCon 2 right now for Iowa wrestling.
Boy, they're just, there's a sense of frustration that I haven't seen.
And I've seen some kind of grumpy wrestling fans in the past.
But it is really bad right now, to be honest,
it's just not the performances or anything like that.
They're just doing the best they can.
But the Iowa wrestling has had a place in college wrestling that's, you know, it's where Penn State is now.
That's where Iowa wrestling fans believe that Iowa should be.
And they're right to feel that way because of what Dan Gable was able to accomplish.
But, you know, they are really struggling right now because they don't, they're, I think the thing that frustrates Iowa wrestling fans the most,
is that the team does not,
they're not aggressive.
You know,
they're not getting takedowns.
I mean,
the second half of the Penn State,
they didn't have one takedown.
I think the Ohio State won the second half.
They didn't have any takedowns or maybe one takedown.
It's,
that's not Dave,
Dame Gabel wrestling.
That's not what,
I think Iowa fans would feel better if those guys were going out and going
down swinging,
but they just haven't done that.
Yeah,
the rider block kid has been a lot of fun to watch.
Yeah, but I can't tell you that I've seen a lot of aggressiveness out of the other kids.
You're right.
It's different.
And not what Hawkeye wrestling fans are used to.
Our buddy Hawkeye and he'll be there in attendance tonight.
We'll see if he could actually see a couple of takedowns.
And Tanner, he's got things covered over at Hawkeye report for you, Tom, him, Kyle
Hewesman.
You guys got a lot going on.
Baseball season underway today.
First pitch against K State.
You got softball that is happening.
and a new soccer coach over there as well.
Yeah, new soccer coach.
It seems like a really good hire for that, yeah, too.
I mean, you know, comes over from Dean Ward comes over from Xavier where he's won 31 games the last two years.
I think the big question we've got to find out is what's his Premier League team.
He's a Brit.
So we've got to find out what is, what is, what Scarfe he's got.
And that'll decide where, you know, how much we like him, you know.
No doubt. Tom Kaker, hawkai report.com, joining us as he does Fridays on Miller and Condon. Tom, thank you for your time.
All right. Thanks, guys.
He is Tom Kaker, hawkai report.com, part of On3 Media.
Thanks to Tom Kekert, as always for joining us here on Lockdown Hawkeyes.
Well, final parting shot for you. What's it going to take for the Hawkeyes to knock off Purdue?
That's next as we continue here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast.
This is Mazda's moving the game forward.
For those who show there's more to the score than what's on the screen,
the people that raised the bar.
And speaking of raising the bar, excuse me,
we absolutely saw it tonight out of the performance from Drake Ayala.
Back against the wall, needed to get it done,
needed not just a victory, a major decision,
he took it a step further.
A technical fall as Iowa gets a win against Michigan.
That is the extra effort.
dialing in every detail, giving it that extra fire, that grit, and I never quit.
We put that same passion into every bottle.
Highlights make the real.
What it took to get there makes it count.
There's more to a Mazda because there's more to you.
Trent, kind of back with you one final time here, Lockdown Hawkeyes, as we look at the matchup against Purdue,
a game that I felt really good about going back to after the first time that they played.
I thought Iowa bouncing back against Maryland, but boy, as I dug deep,
her back into that Purdue game and some memories started to flood back a little bit.
I went back and watched the condensed version of the game.
And I would play it really well and still wasn't enough to beat Purdue.
Purdue also didn't play that well.
And as confident as I was, and I think everyday listeners, you guys definitely know this.
Sometimes I get a little too pessimistic.
I don't have the same good feeling that I did.
Hope I'm dead wrong.
In order to get the victory, though, you have to hang around on the boards.
You can't get dominated there.
I do think it comes down to the inside game.
If this is a game where Clough or Kauffman-Renn goes off
and he see Kaufman-Renn finish the game with 26 points and 11 rebounds,
I was going to be in big trouble.
It's as simple as that.
If they're knocking down shots,
sometimes you just have to throw up your arms.
But I go back to a game, oh, maybe six, seven years ago,
a big one with Purdue came in.
It was a Chris Street, a Memorial game,
and they just got pulverized in that one.
I just, I have so much of that scar tissue.
in these Purdue matchups recently that I think maybe that concerns in my mind.
A lot of signs point to Iowa being right here.
Hawkeye is a two point underdog when things opened up at Fian Dual.
That's where I was when I last checked on that one against the boilermakers.
This would be huge to get it done.
And we got you covered here.
Locked on Hawkeyes.
We will be back with you some point on Saturday evening.
We'll see it is Valentine's Day.
And I don't want to make the wife upset.
But we'll get something up for you as well.
If not on Saturday, certainly on Sunday, and recap what we say there.
Set the scene for Monday as well with the Iowa women as they get ready to face off against Nebraska with that 11 a.m. tip time over in Lincoln.
That'll do it for today.
Have a great weekend.
We will talk to you again on sometime this weekend.
And make sure if you haven't already, go check out our everyday or club.
It's an opportunity for you to get locked on Hawkeyes, add free, plus members-only Discord access, and a whole lot more.
go to lockdown hawkeyes.
Dot supercast.com and see if it makes sense for you.
We'll talk to you again soon.
Until then, go hawks.
