Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - State of the men's bball team - Cook forcing, defense lacks energy, size and physicality causes issues for Hawks

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

We are joined by special guest Jared Starkweather (contributor at Dear Old Gold) on today's episode to talk all about the Iowa loss to Rutgers. Jared was able to attend the game in person, so he provides a special insight to Iowa's dreadful performance. In addition to discussing the game, we look at larger trends from the season of the Hawks and review a few key topics:- Can Isaiah Moss be the x-factor Iowa needs?- Iowa continues to get outrebounded at the most important times- Connor McCaffery getting more aggressive and the importance of that- Defense lacks energyIt's an episode you do not want to miss! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering the Iowa Hawkeyes for the Locked On Sports Podcast Network. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Wade, and I'm also a contributor at Fansided's Iowa Hawkeye website called DearOldGold.com. And I'm very excited about today's show. Not exactly about the topic, as we're going to be talking a lot about the men's basketball team and how atrocious their loss was on Saturday afternoon against Rutgers. But I am excited because today I'm joined by my best friend and another contributor at Dear Old Gold, Jared Starkweather. Jared, thank you for jumping on today, man. Yeah, thanks for having me again. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Well, the people don't know this, but you are jumping on here, A, because you're very intelligent and I enjoy talking to you, but also because I did not watch the game yesterday I was busy driving through a freaking blizzard in the mountains

and trying not to go off the road but you actually were at the game so want to talk to you a lot about the basketball game today or you know on the show today and just from looking at the stat line Iowa didn't shoot very well and coming into this game I know Rutgers did a really good job against Iowa the first time defensively. They're one of the taller teams that Iowa has to face. They're pretty physical. Defensively, they're strong. I mean, they force Iowa into kind of a decent amount of sloppy turnovers.

What were kind of your key takeaways? I mean, was Iowa just not shooting the ball well, or was Rutgers playing pretty sound defense? Well, yeah, first let me just say I was super excited to go to the game and then I probably would have ended up rather driving through a blizzard like you. That's very unfortunate. Takeaways, yeah, Rutgers, your initial thought is Rutgers is probably one of those few teams that is bigger than Iowa, I feel like. Yep.

Most games you go into, Iowa is probably one of the bigger teams, the lengthier teams. We can dominate kind of down low with Garza and Cook and everybody, but Rutgers has a lot of size, and they were not giving any ground down there. Early on, when we tried to shoot, we were normally a pretty good three-point shooting team. We were just ice cold, absolutely ice cold from the three-point line uh your Rutgers defense certainly had a lot to do with that but they were just like a lot of the turnovers were careless turnovers some some poor shots things like that I mean it

was it was pretty bad it was about as bad as it could get yeah I mean you made an interesting point that Rutgers has a lot of size and they I think they are the tallest team that Iowa faces in terms of overall size throughout their lineup, and they don't really have any real small players on their team, especially in their starting five. Another thing that caught me kind of interesting is, you know, Rutgers has a lot of size, and that can be a detriment to Iowa. I think, you know, an analyst on Twitter made a really good point that there's just some teams in college basketball

that other teams don't match up well against. It's kind like iowa versus michigan iowa matches up pretty well against michigan and and vice versa rutgers matches up pretty well against iowa just because they actually take their size and it's even bigger and stronger and they're able to push around iowa i think the you know opposite of that is ohio state where they have a they're not tall at all and instead of trying to play up to Iowa's size they took advantage of Iowa's size and really played small ball and allowed the the game to go through Caleb Wesson do you feel like Ohio State and Rutgers are just kind of anomalies in the sense that they just match up well against Iowa and that they can't really play the big game against them they They kind of do some different things there. Yeah, there could be something to that. I do think Rutgers just seems to be a problem for Iowa in general.

Ohio State, there were times that game they did go small and Iowa tried to go small to match, but no one from Iowa's side is going to admit that our guard play isn't exactly the best. It's a matchup problem. I think it's interesting too. I don't know if you started to get this trend. I can't tell if it's how bad Iowa's defense is or just something about Iowa. When people play Iowa, they have their career nights. Ron Harper Jr. can't freaking miss when he plays the Hawks.

Against Ohio State, it was some guy I can't even name again because I can't remember his name because he's a bench player who averaged two points before the game. Yeah, but to your point there, it was the three-point line. Iowa, their man-to-man defense isn't the greatest. They've had a lot of success when they do switch to zone defenses, which they switch up quite a bit. But, you know, the best way to break a zone is to shoot out of it,

and Rutgers could not miss. You know, Harper Jr. went off for a crew knock, he said, but they had another player, and his name's escaping me. The first half, you know, they put him in. He went three for three or four for four or something like that from three. It seemed like every corner shot he had, he made. Was it Iza Tham? Yeah, I think that might have been it.

He's 6'10". Holy crap. It was just one of those things where, you know, the zone kind of was put in place to keep them away from the basket, you know, kind of counteract in place to keep them away from the basket, kind of counteract their size and strength down low. But then they were just shooting lights out from outside, so it was kind of pick your poison.

We fortunately couldn't hang with them. Yeah, that's tough. Obviously, Fran McCaffrey being out, I don't know how big of an impact that had. I was reading some tweets and some commentary that some of the assistants were really laying into a few of the guys on the Hawks in the middle of the game and whatnot, but wanted to get your feel for that. What was the sense of the game? Did you feel like the game was played differently or there was a different sort of energy without Fran there? I don't know that it was played differently. I think these assistant coaches have quite a bit of say in the game

planning and practices in general. Fran was wild to practice with them all week and prepare too. I don't know that the preparation was probably exactly the same. I don't know that the game flow was any different. Andrew Francis was the acting head coach. I think he did call a timeout at one point, which Fran is notorious for letting him play through and not using those timeouts necessarily. But I don't know that it changed much. There was a late call, a blocking call against Iowa that we thought looked like he had set his feet. Maybe it was Bohannon. It should have been a charge. The crowd got pretty upset about it at the time.

That was an instance where Fran definitely might have been halfway out mid-court there trying to... You can tell that assistant coaches were maybe a little more laid back about it. They were certainly out there laying into the referees and laying into the players too. I don't know. It's hard for me to say that Fran not being there had an impact, negatively or positively.

I just feel like he was involved enough in the game prep, feeding up to it. Assistant coaches, they've all been together for a long time. So they know how Fran coaches. I feel like they have similar tendencies. They all have had coaching experience themselves. Absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting.

I thought that was interesting, kind of going into the game, how the players would respond. At the end of the day, it's ultimately on the players. You can put together a great game plan, but if they can't execute and do what's needed, then it doesn't really matter.

And just, I'm looking up these stats real quick. So I thought it was interesting when you said, you know, Rutgers are shooting lights out from three. And I thought I remember them being pretty terrible. And I was right. They're 11th in the Big Ten at shooting the three-pointer at 32%. Do you want to take a guess at what they shot against Iowa? 45, close to 50 maybe? Yeah, 47.8%.

So they were 15 points above their average this season like that is absolutely ridiculous um do you think to me the you know iowa did a pretty good job earlier this season i think of a playing defense not not a good job but a better job than last year and it kind of went and kind of spurts right some games they played pretty poorly some games they they were able to shoot their way out of it. Some games they actually had some pretty stout defensive, you know, series. And I thought that was pretty impressive against Illinois, especially. They did a great job defensively.

But the last six games, five or six games, it feels like they're playing similar to how they played last year, where they're trying to win offensively. And when they're not shooting, there's nothing they can really do about it. They're trying to win offensively, and when they're not shooting, there's nothing they can really do about it. Yeah. You know, you think when a lot of good teams, if their shooting's not there, they can really rely on their defense, kind of settle in defensively and therefore take the other team's offense out of the game

until your shooting can kind of heat up. Whereas it seems like you're right with Iowa. They try to beat teams offensively, and when their shooting goes cold, it just all goes to hell, and this game's over. They're not really settling defensively. Again, Rutgers had something to do with that. I think they shot pretty well, whether that's them or Iowa's defense. I think their size down low certainly played factors with pushing Garza and Cook around.

Iowa gave up 90 to Ohio State and 86 to Rutgers, which those are all a little above Iowa's average for allowing teams up to that point this year. It's a discouraging trend that feeds into the narrative of the February fades that Fran's team seemed to have throughout his career here at Iowa, unfortunately. Yeah, man, I mean, four, three games ago, Iowa had matched its best regular season record under Fran McCaffrey,

and they're still currently tied as the best regular season, like tied for the best regular season record under Fran McCaffrey. I mean, they have Wisconsin up next, followed by Nebraska. The Nebraska team, you know, I think that's an interesting game just because they're missing Isaac Copeland Jr. They're kind of their second-leading scorer for most of the season until he's out for the rest of the year. And since then, they've been kind of in a free fall.

Nebraska's kind of a tough place to play. Wisconsin, though, is kind of similar to Iowa in a sense, man. They're kind of, I mean, less major issues, but I think more inconsistent just in general. They're kind of, I mean, less major issues, but I think more inconsistent just in general. They're kind of up and down. I think a lot of Wisconsin fans are getting frustrated by the play of Wisconsin, not knowing if they're going to win or lose a game. And I feel like that's how Iowa Hawkeye fans feel as well. What are your thoughts on the Iowa-Wisconsin game? Just kind of quickly, what do you think? Do you think Iowa can turn it around, basically? Do you

think they're going to be able to win these last two games? I think people may not realize this, but momentum is huge. And if you can go in winning the last two games of the regular season at the Big Ten Conference Tournament, maybe win one or two games there. If you can win two games there, I think there's a lot of momentum going into the unsealed play tournament. But if Iowa limps to a finish, I feel like they're screwed come March. Well, come March Madness time. Yeah. Well, I mean, they might already be hurting themselves, because that Rutgers loss

dropped their net ranking. I mean, they were looking at like a four or five seed, now we're talking eight or nine, which is not at all where you want to be. I think they match up well with Wisconsin. Kind of how we're talking about maybe Rutgers being like a bad matchup for them. I think they match up well with Wisconsin. Wisconsin can be hot and cold. Wisconsin is a very defensive-minded team. Their average scoring and average points allowed are pretty low.

Probably lower than the Big Ten, I would imagine. But it's definitely a game. The pace could allow for us to use our bigs. It could allow maybe to settle in and get some three-point shooting. And I think we can turn it around because the whole team has been seems like they've been cold the last couple weeks. Yeah. And we've seen at some point one of these guys has got to. Someone's got to start making shots

at some point, you'd think. I mean, you've got to commend in the Rutgers game, it seemed early on, Wieskamp was pretty aggressive early on. He had a lot of takes and drives to the hoop, trying to draw fouls. I think he only made a draw once or twice and got in the line. But there was an effort by him to try to get to the line, and then that just kind of went away. Then it was just settling for jump shots and easy buckets.

They were easy shots that weren't real advised and they weren't making them. They need to get back into that to attack the hoop if shots aren't falling. Kind of work the perimeter guys, the guards getting slashed and cutting in and moving towards the basket instead of just settling for those easy jump shots or forcing the ball into Cook and turning it over half a dozen times. I've noticed in the last couple games, Cook has been he's struggled, I think, personally. He's trying to do too much, it almost seems like. He's trying to control the ball and actually handling the ball outside of the paint, which is not exactly his strength.

And you can tell there's a lot of athleticism there, but he gets wild when he's up, you know, outside of the paint. And he kind of, you know, turns over a bit. I think also just in general, he's impressing from the paint in general. He hasn't made as many shots the last couple of games. So I think I want to get your thoughts on that from a Tyler Cook perspective. I mean, he's the, at this point, the best NBA prospect right now on the Hawks roster, but he has been playing completely, you know,

down to another level. That's not really what we're used to seeing with Tyler Cook. Why do you think he's kind of pressing or have you noticed that he's been pressing as well the last couple of games? I think he's been pressing their offense has been cold. He's he's the best player. I mean, I think he's been pressing. Their offense has been cold. He's the best player. I mean, I think they all know it. So, yeah, he's probably pressing to try to make something happen.

There were a lot of little, you know, Cook getting a rebound and then taking it coast to coast and then dribbling off of his foot. Oh, my gosh. That was so frustrating. You can tell the crowd kind of just groan because it's kind of a common place nowadays. But he does try to do too much. I also think teams are quicker in doubling him, especially if Iowa's shots aren't falling from the outside. There's not a whole lot of fear there, so

they're doubling Cook quicker when he gets the ball, preventing him from getting the ball, basically trying to deny him the ball. And then we just try to force feed it in and turn the ball over. And that's kind of what leads to the downfall. Yeah, I just looked up his stats, actually. In his freshman year, he was averaging 2.4 turnovers per game. His sophomore year was 2.5. And now he's averaging three.

So half a turnover extra per game it's almost becoming kind of a weakness for the Hawks and I'm worried about that come you know postseason time he is the best player on the team but if he's trying to do too much he needs to be able to rely on some of the other guys I mean Isaiah Moss, Wieskamp, Bohannon they're great spot up threes if people you know attack down low when when Cook gets the ball just push it back out and hopefully you can make some open threes. The Hawks also need to be able to make those threes, though. That's another big issue that's kind of been hurting them the last couple games.

Yeah, and it's just ill-advised taking the ball off the court, Cook. You have Cook dribbling the ball off the top of the key, things like that. Just give it to a guard. His range isn't that great. He needs to get down closer to the basket and a few feet away. His rebounding didn't seem as strong. I was surprised. I guess I kind of tried to look at the rebounding stats. I was surprised Iowa actually scored pretty well in the rebounding stats

by the end of the game. It didn't feel that way in person, but it just seemed like Cook especially, shot goes up, he's turning away from the basket and moving. Yeah. Frustrating. I've noticed that too. Every single game I check the box score, all of a sudden somehow Iowa has the same amount of rebounds as the other team.

Like, for example, the Maryland game. Now, without looking, do you think Maryland had more rebounds or less rebounds than Iowa? It felt like more. Yeah. I mean, it felt like every time a shot went up, Maryland got the ball. Iowa out-rebounded Maryland by six rebounds. Against Rutgers, they were tied in rebounds.

I don't understand. You're absolutely right. in Maryland by six rebounds. Against Rutgers, they were tied in rebounds. I don't understand. You're absolutely right. It feels like every time Iowa shoots the ball, the other team gets the ball when it misses. Whenever the other team shoots the ball, they get three or four offensive rebounds before Iowa can do something about it. So they're getting two or three opportunities every time.

I'm not sure what the heck this even means as far as a trend. It's just bizarre to me that we both have the same impression about their rebounding abilities and now i just look tyler cook tyler cook's averaging eight rebounds a game it doesn't feel like he gets eight rebounds a game i mean it feels like he's getting beat by everyone down there yeah i just wonder too maybe it's just because more when the game is is on the line the line, it just seems like maybe they're not getting it. Once the game is kind of blown out, then all of a sudden, like last night with Rutgers,

Nicholas Baer kind of came on. I know he had several offensive boards, second chance points there, but the game was kind of well out of reach at that point. They were trying to make another miraculous comeback. So maybe that kind of padded the stats a little bit more when the game flow was going on. Rutgers seemed to be handling the boards pretty well. It was shot fine. Close it actually was.

Yeah, another – kind of speaking of rebounds though too, one thing that really frustrates me is the fact that we have Luka Garza. He's 6'11", 11 245 pounds and that guy is getting out rebounded by three or four guys on the Hawkeyes roster he's averaging just 4.6 rebounds per game offensively he can be a threat but I feel like he gets taken out a lot of ball games because he can't defensively handle anyone he's not athletic enough to handle you know smaller guys and the bigger guys can power through him. I want to get your thoughts on him. Offensively, he's been fantastic this year at

times, almost unstoppable, but defensively, he's really a big liability, I think. Yeah, he certainly isn't as strong of a center as an Adam Woodbury was for Iowa for all those years. He gets pushed around a little bit. He moves his feet. He's almost seven foot. You can't imagine the guy's too quick in his lateral movements. There's times when he can be a super dominant, super threat, superstar down there, basically is what I'm trying to say. It just seems like

the other half of the time, I don't know what he's doing down there. He's just kind of letting you settle liability. It's really frustrating because we've seen him take over games before. I would really like him to turn into that kind of dominant rim defender down there.

Completely destroying the defensive boards as well. But so far, he just hasn't been that guy. Yeah, it's interesting. I know we talked a little bit about offensively in general with the Hawks. We're kind of jumping around here, but just kind of his thoughts come up. But you talked about offensively, Iowa just has been struggling across the board, the entire team.

And it's interesting because if you look at their roster I mean they have probably six seven guys eight guys one account Macy Daly that could go off at any moment and now you know they're struggling to get one guy to make consistent buckets you know heading into the Big Ten tournament and the NCAA tournament can you imagine if if Iowa just had four guys scoring consistently? Let's say Jordan Bohannon actually made three-pointers outside of the last two minutes of a game. Let's say Tyler Cook was consistent throughout the game and Luka Garza didn't get taken out within five minutes for foul trouble

or Wieskamp had another incredible freshman game or, God forbid, Isaiah Moss make a three-pointer. I think this team could be pretty dangerous, but as we saw, obviously, against Rutgers, where they shot 35% from the field and 27% from three-point, they could lose to literally any team in the nation on any given night, but they could also beat any team in the nation on any given night. Well, the frustration with it is that, like last, yesterday with Rutgers game, nobody was looking to shoot. Like, it seemed like nobody on that team was wanting to be the guy to take over.

Nick Baird did kind of towards the end. His shooting percentage probably wasn't that great, but at least he was trying to put up shots. Tyler Cook, again, does try to be the guy, but he's not the guy you want going coast to coast. He's not a jump shooter. But all the guard play, Moss and Bohannon and Wieskamp, it just seemed like none of them were looking to shoot

or wanting to be the guy to try to take that game over. And then Moss, my goodness. Moss is the one player that could set this team to the next level. Everyone knows he's capable of going off for 20 points easy. But then he has multiple games in a row where he doesn't score. And then with Rutgers, he wasn't even playing because he would go in, he doesn't shoot, and he has three turnovers in a few minutes and then just sits the rest of the half.

He's a huge enigma, man. At 6'5", 208 pounds as a shooting guard, this guy is incredibly athletic. He can also shoot the three. He's shooting 40 40 from three point this year but dude look so let me read out this outline for you in the last all right this is so interesting so against ruckers zero points zero three shooting ohio state three point zero four shooting indiana six points one of eight shooting maryland four four shooting for 12 ruckers seven to twelve for 17 northwestern six to twelve for 16 and then he put up zero zero 23 and two like it's still hit or miss with this

guy but you're absolutely right if he could go off or if you could just get consistent maybe 10 points a game consistently from this guy he could really make or break this team i i feel like it's tough to guard a tyler cook and Isaiah Moss. Those are two of your more, I would say, athletic in size mismatches offensively for the Hawks. Yeah, I think Moss could be a better NBA prospect than even Tyler Cook if he would just develop that consistency. The thing with Moss is he is a he needs to get his confidence. If he takes a couple early shots and they don't fall,

then, you know, you know where his night's going. If he drops a couple three-pointers, then, you know, look out. Iowa's going to go off and he's going to score 20 points. We're going to win the game pretty easily. You're absolutely right. He's got to see a shot fall early on. And those stats you're reading, like Rutgers and Ohio State, he only shot the ball three times or four times, but then he's shooting 12, 13, 14 times. That just goes to show you. He doesn't shoot the ball

very much, because if he shoots a few times and he misses, he's done. It's just over. Yeah, just completely done. Whereas a good shooter should shoot through that. Bohannon's kind of an example of that. Frustrating, but a good example. What's that? Bohannon's a very frustrating, but a good example. Yes, but Bohannon's shooting through it, and eventually they're going to fall and he's going to make four three-pointers in a row, but Moss just doesn't do that. Moss gets in his head, loses confidence, and he's done.

He's one of those guys we really need. You know, if we're going to come and make any sort of run in the Big Ten tournament or the NCAA tournament, they're going to need him. Absolutely. Another guy who I think is kind of important for the Hawks offensively, kind of a sleeper pick for someone who needs to be important offensively, is Connor McCaffrey just because he he, I think the scattering report on him after about, you know,

20, 25 games is the fact that this guy doesn't shoot the freaking ball ever. He is always looking to pass. He's like the antithesis of Jordan Bohannon. He's literally always looking to get the ball out of his hands and someone else in the last couple of games, he's been attacking the basket a little bit more, um,

shooting a little bit more, not, not overly successful necessarily, but he's at least shooting a little bit better how did he play against ruckers did he you know did it feel like he was in the game offensively i mean he went one for three from the field he went three for six for free throws and then had five overall points which honestly might be one of his highest scoring games of the season. Yeah. No, Connor is another frustrating guy because, yeah, you're right. He never looks to shoot ever. Wish we could morph Bohannon and Connor into one player.

You know, Connor's ability to feed the ball and set up the offense with Bohannon's ability to shoot. But Connor did attack the basket. Like I was talking about Wieskamp earlier, early on, Wieskamp had a couple attempts where shots weren't falling, so he definitely tried to drive. Conor also was trying to do that. His free throw shooting wasn't the greatest.

I think he said he was 3 for 6, 50%. Yeah. I like to think he's a little better free throw shooter than that. The whole team seemed kind of off free throws. Yeah, they actually had 36 free throws in the game, which is pretty good for them i mean you give them 36 free throws that's usually a win for the hawks um but they made just 66 of those yeah it was it was an off free throw shooting night uh yeah but connor didn't look to score

he was a little more aggressive there he just it just wasn't a whole lot to go with it so it wasn't i mean there weren't any other players making runs. None of the runs were sustained and they couldn't get any stops. So it kind of went from nothing. Yeah, funny, I'm looking at Connor's stats right now, and he has scored over four points three times since the start of this year. He has scored six points once and five points twice. Dude, I mean, you're absolutely right.

If you could morph him into Jordan Bohannon, that'd be like the perfect freaking point guard. But God forbid, they're so opposite of each other. And Connor was a good, was a decent shooter coming out of high school anyway. It's really just his lack of looking to score. He doesn't look to shoot. He doesn't put up a lot of attempts, I don't think. If you look at his attempts in those games, I imagine they're just as low as his point totals.

Actually, he's shooting pretty terribly this year. He's shooting 37% from the field and, holy cow, 11% from three-pointers. Yeah, I know his three-point's bad. I saw him play high school. The guy was one of the better shooters in the floor easily in the game he was in. Speaking of Connor McCaffrey, Patrick McCaffrey is going to be a beast next year too, joining the team. If for some reason Tyler Cook decides to stay, the Hawks could be pretty good next year. Yeah, Patrick would be a little more

offensive-minded than Connor. I think he's probably the better overall player. I mean, their point guards and power forwards determine what position Patrick actually ultimately ends up at. He's definitely an offensive threat. Hopefully he can build on his physique a little bit and put on some muscle and be able to throw around in the Big Ten. They're going to get all their pieces back. Cook leaves and Nicholas Baird graduating, but Patrick comes right in.

With Jack Nunji and Cordell Pemzel back, there's certainly going to be still some size and some ability there. Yeah, I mean, I think Penzel is kind of an underrated returning for next year. I think he kind of fills that Nick Bayer role pretty well in terms of the athleticism and just the – not the athleticism, but the hustle and the want and the willing to do anything you can to make the team win. So that will be exciting. We only have a few minutes left, man, so I appreciate you jumping on. Any quick last thoughts on the game against

Rutgers. I know we kind of jumped all over the board there, but any quick thoughts on the Rutgers game before we, we kind of tied up. You know, the frustrating thing with that is it seems like everybody has their career nights shooting the ball three points against Iowa. Iowa comes down to Iowa's inability to guard the three point line,

which is just frustrating to see over and over again. So I really hope they can address those concerns. I would like to give a shout out to Nicholas Baer. He went out the way that he came in, hustling to the end. He fouled out there with a couple minutes left in the game, but I think he probably got four of his fouls, I feel like, in the last half of the game. But it was all effort, and he had a lot of offensive boards,

trying to create second-chance points. He chucked up a lot of three-pointers when the game was at a reach. You know, I think he probably had four or five of the eight three-pointers he made. Yeah, he did, actually. He did it the way we love him, hustling, playing as hard as he can until the end. That's why we love him. Yeah, man, he had half the three-pointers and a quarter of the overall made field goals.

Well, I mean, it kind of seemed like everybody was hanging their head and giving up, but Nick Bear had to come out. They had to drag him out, literally, because he couldn't stand anymore because he was so exhausted from his dad which is just what you normally think of when you think of Bear yeah last question though how was the how was the atmosphere at Carver I mean was the was the crowd into at the beginning um how quickly did the crowd kind of be deflated I think with the last couple games with Iowa being able to come back I feel like there's always a a small glimpse of optimism regardless of how bad I was doing. But at what point did you feel like the game was pretty much over? And then just in general was, what is it a

pretty fun game to be? I mean, you've been to a lot of Iowa basketball games. I think there's been a different perception of the Hawks for a long time. And each year is kind of bringing a new, different team. And this year is one of the more talented teams. What was the perception from you of Carver and the fans? It was awesome. The atmosphere was awesome. The crowd was a sellout. It reached sellout status. The crowd was jam-packed in there. The crowd was into it, I would say. There were moments when it got really loud. The crowd was ready to explode.

We were all looking for a reason to get up. But Rutgers, it seemed like any time Iowa would kind of inch back into it, Rutgers would go and drop a couple three-pointers. But to your point of, yeah, there wasn't ever this – it was kind of almost – there was never a sense of dread because you think, well, Iowa doesn't really start playing until the under four-minute mark, right? Yeah. And even the announcer made some comment of like, it's time to get this comeback started.

I think it's turned into a running joke with comebacks. I don't know how much time. There's two minutes left. Iowa had closed the gap, but then there were two possessions in a row of turnovers that led to breakaway dunks by Rutgers. And that was the moment where it deflated, people started leaving. You're just like, yeah, I mean, how

anticlimactic. Two breakaway dunks for Rutgers, their bench goes crazy. And then I think Bear Bohannon drilled a three after that, and I remember looking at my buddy going, if they hadn't turned the ball over the last two times, this would have been an eight-point game at that point instead of being 12 or 13 or whatever it was. You could just tell those turnovers in the last couple minutes totally ruined any chance of a

comeback, whether they would have been able to or not. I hope the crowd continues to turn out for this team. I went to school there during the look-alike years, which were the dark. The place never sold out. You know, it got to the point it was so bad you could show up five minutes after tip-off and the students, like, you could still walk

all the way down to the court side because there's nobody there. I mean, we did that a couple times. I remember going to the Drake-Iowa game and we were literally in the front row i would i would get a text from somebody going oh we saw you on tv and i was like well you know it's not surprising the only one here so they gotta show someone yeah i mean i think it's it's kind of one of those chicken or the egg things i mean i think fans want to want to want to watch this team they want to

support this team but they get frustrated by some of the things that I feel like could be changed, right? The lack of defensive intensity, the inability to stop these poor shooting teams from having incredible nights. I think that can be frustrating for a fan base, but also I think the fan base needs to appreciate kind of where this team has come from. I mean, last year was a disaster. They're guaranteed to make the NCAA tournament this year. They have 21 wins.

They have a chance at 23 wins. They have a lot of talent here. So I absolutely agree. I hope the fan base continues to support this team because that doesn't just have an impact on today's game or tomorrow's game. It has an impact on the next three, four or five years. I mean, there was two five-star recruits in the crowd at the Iowa Rutgers game. And yes, not a good game to probably watch, but if the fan energy and the crowd is into it that's something that can maybe turn a five-star recruit into a an Iowa Hawkeye signee so I think I personally hope that you're absolutely right people continue to show up and and support this team going forward yeah and you know I think they will people kind of were down you know the 0-3

start in the Big Ten play, not being able to win on the road, which they quickly broke that streak. But people are jumping kind of on Fran's case, putting him on a little hot seat. But, I mean, how many 21 seasons has he had in his nine years? You know, this is looking like it's going to be his fourth NCAA tournament team. The guy is doing extremely well. You even wrote a piece earlier about why a friend deserves more support.

He's going to have more success. He's going to continue to be a successful coach. I know he caused a lot of distractions this week with his comments. I appreciate his fire and his passion.

At the same time time you're representing the university you don't need to be chasing an official down the hallway that might happen more often than not but nowadays everyone's got a phone they're always recording everyone's on twitter there are press members right there in the hallway you can't do that

so but I'm going to stick by his side I think he's going press members right there in the hallway. You can't do that stuff. That was a little bit more for me. I'm going to stick by his side. I think he's going to continue to take this program the right direction. Like I said, if fans can continue to support it too, that's going to help

push it along too with the atmosphere. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. This team has a lot of potential. The only guy, Nicholas Bayer is going to be gone. I get, I couldn't agree more. This team has a lot of potential. You know, the only guy they – Nicholas Bayer is going to be gone. I get that. He's an important piece, but he's not the only piece.

Tyler Cook could be leaving for the NBA. But I think, you know, with Jack Nunn's coming back, and Gordon Pemzel, and Patrick McCaffrey, you have a pretty solid slate of guys who are going to be returning on to next year's team, joined by senior Jordan Brohannon, who maybe shoots the ball a little bit better more consistently maybe a Connor McCaffrey that's a little bit more aggressive offensively and hopefully Isaiah Moss I know he kind of teeter on the NBA draft last year but hopefully he comes back as well and this team could be pretty solid

I mean I do appreciate you jumping on the show I want to try to keep it you know under that half hour mark and we had a good a chance to talk a lot about the iowa ruckers game talk a little bit about the state of iowa basketball in general i think it's you know nice to kind of chat about that and i hope the people are listening to the show do you know support the fact that fran mccaffrey is going to be this head coach he's not leaving anytime soon i was building something great here there's a good opportunity that they could make a run in the big 10 tournament and in the unsubway tournament all it takes is to to get on that run and hopefully that can start with the something great here, there's a good opportunity that they could make a run in the Big Ten tournament and in the NCAA tournament. All it takes is to get on that run

and hopefully that can start with the Wisconsin game. But that will do it for our episode for today. Real quick, Jared, any last comments before I close out the show? No, I'm looking forward to the game on Thursday and getting turned around. Go Hawks!

Make sure you tune in to our Wednesday episode. We're actually going to be recording a podcast with the Locked On Badgers podcast talking all about the Iowa-Wisconsin game, giving some good insights or getting some good insights from a Wisconsin Badger guy. Hopefully those insights can allow us to feel comfortable going into that game that Iowa could potentially win at the Kohl Center, which is something they don't do very often,

but either way we'll be recording that show Tuesday afternoon, delivering that Wednesday. We have another show coming at you tomorrow morning as well, talking a little bit about the NFL combine and talking about some other, you know, state of Iowa Hawkeye sports. The baseball team has had a fantastic series down in Oklahoma state. So I want to talk about that as well, but that'll do it for our Monday morning episode.

Again, big shout-out to Jared Starkweather for joining us on the show today. As you know, I'm your host, Andrew Wade. You can find me on Twitter at Wade underscore Andrew. And, Jared, what is your – well, you don't – never mind. You don't really want people to be following you on Twitter, so I'll just keep going on. Locked on Hawkeye's Twitter account. You can follow us at LockedOnIowa.

And make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts at. And if you have a smart speaker at home, it's super easy. If you have a smartphone or Alexa, just say Siri, Google, or Alexa, play podcast LockedOnHawkeyes. It's that easy to listen to the latest episode of the LockedOnHawkeyes podcast. That being said, thank you for joining us on this Monday morning. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation.

And we'll be back tomorrow.