Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Where do Hawkeye athletics go from here? COVID-19 concerns results in all NCAA sports being canceled.

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

It was a weird week in sports last week, but we try to unpack all that happened and what that means for Hawkeye athletics going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network.

I'm your host, Andrew Wade, and I come to you with news that you already know about, but with just a lot of sorrow and sadness in the sense that the NCAA has canceled winter and spring sports. And due to concerns of the coronavirus, we are not going to be able to have live Iowa Hawkeye sports for a very long time. It's going to be five months until we get any live Iowa Hawkeye sports. So definitely a sad, sad week, right? So I didn't get to put a podcast out on Friday. I was in Canada skiing with my wife. We made it home safe and sound on Saturday. We are at this point self-quarantining ourselves. Not necessarily we think we are sick, but just we're going to stay out in our house for a couple

of weeks and we have, you know, food, dogs, a backyard, all that fun stuff. I wasn't able to get an episode out. The point of this is I wasn't able to get an episode out Friday after some of the big shocking news came down about the NCAA canceling basically all sports amid all these concerns. That being said, the first thing I want to say is we are still going to go on with the show. So the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast will continue. We might scale back on content later on in April and May, kind of depending on what is popping out there.

But we are not going to scale back right now. We are still going to be providing you five episodes a week going forward in April and May, maybe move back to three episodes a week. I know there's no live sports, but there's still a lot to talk about. And we're still going to be switching up a little bit more of the content. So instead of covering the games and previewing the games, recapping the games, talking about hypotheticals in season, we're going to be shifting our focus to more future stuff. So what do these teams look like next year?

This week is going to be primarily focused on how does this impact Iowa? What is the impact to Iowa? We're going to do some historical analysis, looking back at some of the best teams in Iowa history, doing some fun stuff with March Madness type of brackets, ranking, you know, all the basketball teams, all the football teams, that kind of thing, and seeing who ultimately wins by a fan vote at the end of it. So lots of stuff we're going to be bringing to you on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

Again, a little bit more of a change in content, but we're still going to be providing you that content. And if there's anything that you want to hear, if there's anything that you are particularly interested in, definitely let me know. Feel free to tweet me, send me a DM on Instagram, Facebook, whatever it may be. Just let me know if there's something you are particularly interested in, but the show will go on with the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, despite no sports happening for the foreseeable future. So nevertheless, before we jump into the show, I do want to make sure you are following us

on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so you can join some of these fun fan contests, that kind of stuff. And then also make sure to like, review, and subscribe. Give us that five-star review wherever you downloaded this podcast at. Again, I know there's no live sports, but that doesn't mean we can't be talking about sports. And I hope that the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast can help fill a tiny piece of that void, at least giving you that sports content that likely is going to take a dip without any

live sports happening right now. So hopefully you can find some solace in knowing that we're going to continue the show going forward. So with that being said, let's jump into just some of what actually happened. Obviously, coronavirus has made a huge dent in America and across the world, a global pandemic, a national pandemic, a crisis in the United States. And I know the numbers are not super high and this is not a health show. And I don't expect you to want to listen to this, but I just need to get it out of the way. Despite all that, there is a real concern

here, I think mostly on our healthcare resources. I work in healthcare. I work on the IT side. I am a consultant and my travel has been canceled for the foreseeable future. So I'll be able to provide a lot of content. But it also provides me the access to understand kind of how big of an impact this can be on our healthcare resources. Not that a significant amount of the population or sorry, a high percentage of the population that will be infected will have to go to the hospital. But there'll be more going to the hospital than we can handle in our hospitals

and whatnot. So it is important that, you know, we, we try to avoid contact with sick people. And if you are sick, self quarantine yourself. And even if you're not sick, if you know, you can stay home and get your stuff done, then you should try to do that. But that being said, you know, it makes sense why, and I think it seemed a little bit dramatic at the time, that the NCAA decided to, first of all, the Big Ten decided to cancel the tournament. I think the Fred Hoiberg thing was a huge scare. First of all, I think the fact that Fred Hoiberg, despite, he didn't have coronavirus, but I don't care if you're that sick and we're in the middle of a crisis here.

For the love of God, stay the hell home. Whoever cleared him to go on that court is a disgrace. And I don't think Fred Hoiberg's a bad person. I think he's a committed coach. I don't think this is necessarily Nebraska being the Nebraska we're used to, you know, very ridiculous, right? But I do think whoever let him play or whoever let him go on that court should be fined or fired or not fired, fined or disciplined in some facet because that was inappropriate. It was unsafe.

It was putting others in danger. And then we found out, obviously obviously that another unofficial and another conference tournament was, you know, diagnosed with coronavirus. He had gotten sick. So I definitely think those kinds of things happening, the Rudy, you know, Rudy Gobert thing happening, him getting sick, getting Donovan Mitchell sick for the jazz, all that stuff happening at once really caused a little bit of a panic to set in. And I think the NBA canceling was, you know, the first domino to fall. And once that domino falls, everything starts going after that. So the big 10 tournament canceling, then the NCAA saying, we're not going to have the tournament at all. That was huge.

That was a, you know, a huge thing that happened. And I think last week and the coming weeks are going to be something that we will remember for the rest of our lives. A moment where, you know, exactly where you were when you found out these things were canceled. Do I think they made the right decision to definitely to postpone? Yes. I don't think it was correct to cancel it outright. These athletes have worked tirelessly for their entire lives to get to some of these moments. Speaking from an Iowa fan, I mean, this is one of the greatest winter seasons we have ever had from an athletic perspective. And, you know, first and foremost, safety and the health and wellness of everyone is the primary concern. But if we are,

if we do survive this, you know, global threat, in my survival, my survival, once we get past it, once we start, people get healthy and there's not as much of a concern and the panic dies down as we get a hold on this, hopefully. I do think it was, we should have considered postponing and looking for better options.

And it sounds like the NBA is doing that. The NHL is doing that. MLB is obviously doing that. The NFL is keeping a watchful eye on this. But the NCAA to just go ahead and outright cancel everything to me is pathetic. I know they're working on some ways to alleviate some of these issues, right? So I know the spring sports, they got canceled. That was terrible to see.

But they are, it sounds like, allowing an additional year of eligibility for those seniors and for those folks that were impacted negatively by that. I think that's the right move in the right direction. I'm interested to see, though, what happens to these winter sports. And I know there's definitely some conversation around that. And obviously, a lot of people have their opinions on it. My personal opinion on the winter sports is that you should either allow the tournaments to play in the summer or give those folks an extra year of eligibility. For the Iowa

wrestling and basketball teams, at least the men's basketball team, it doesn't impact them as much to lose these seniors. And that's not saying that these seniors are not important, but it's not as big of an impact. I mean, the wrestling team is losing. I mean, they're losing some great players, but it's not as huge of a blow to the depth of the teams. But I still think they should be allowed to either come back for another year if they so choose, or they should be playing the tournaments later on in the season as long as everything gets cleared and the health concerns die down with that. That'll do it, though, for segment number one.

I do want to talk about how this impacts the team, so we're going to dive a little bit more into the impact to both the basketball teams and the wrestling team coming up after a few short seconds and a few messages from our sponsors. from our sponsors. All right, we are back for segment number two of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And I apologize if I'm not super upbeat. Just even talking about this is kind of interesting, right?

I've lived with sports for my entire life as most of you listening to this have as well. You've grown up loving sports. You've grown up loving the Hawkeyes. And without sports in your life, I'm assuming this is how I feel, like there's a little bit of a void. Obviously, there's a lot of things I can do. And I've been tweeting about some stuff like my wife and I are going to be building some Legos and doing some puzzles and watching a lot of movies and taking the dogs in the backyard and playing with them and whatnot. But still, without sports, it's just such a huge loss.

It's something that I personally really care about a lot. I think all of you care about a lot. So my apologies if this is not as upbeat and exciting of an episode. I think it's a really important episode to have, though, to just kind of cover some of these things. So apologies for that. Before the break, though, one of the things I said is I want to talk about how this does impact these teams from a wrestling standpoint, just some of the things off the top of my head, right? So Spencer Lee at this point is no longer to 4P. He cannot be a four-time national champion. We just lost. And for the wrestling team in general,

we lost the opportunity to see a national championship winning Iowa Hawkeye wrestling team. That is what they've been building for and working towards this entire year. They were the odds-on favorites to win the NCAA wrestling championship. They had multiple opportunities to claim individual championships as well. And it's just a sad thing to see that go for an Iowa wrestling team that has been building its way back over the last decade. And finally putting everything together this season. And, you know, some of the other strong wrestling teams are kind of having down years this year. And Iowa's not going to be able to capitalize on that.

And I think it's a really sad turn of events. Michael Kermer and Pat Lugo specifically, those are two seniors who, if they're not granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA, and we're going to hopefully hear more about that in the next couple of weeks to see kind of what the NCAA decides for these winter sports. You know, that's the last we're going to see them go. And, you know, Pat Lugo went out on top as a Big Ten championship. Michael did not get the opportunity to win a Big Ten championship following to Penn State's

Mark Hall. And so, again, if the NCAA decides not to allow these guys additional year of eligibility, that's the last we're going to see of those two fantastic wrestlers. I do think next year the wrestling team is in good shape to be a title contender as well. Losing those two guys, number one and number two in the nation, that's a huge loss, but you still return guys like Spencer Lee.

You return guys like Austin DeSanto and all the other, every wrestler except for those two. So a lot of opportunity there for the wrestling team. On the women's basketball team side, I don't think this team was going to go as far as they did last year, but if they were able to get a top four seed, that almost essentially guaranteed them an opportunity to go to the Sweet 16 again. And anytime you get a go to the Sweet 16, that's a huge accomplishment, no matter what kind of team you are.

And that was something that we are going to miss out on. We miss out on the opportunity to see big time player of the year, Kathleen Doyle, carry this team again. And we're losing multiple seniors from this squad. Kathleen Doyle, Mackenzie Meyer, and Amanda Olinger, all three fantastic and huge contributors to this women's basketball team. Similar to last year, a lot of departures from, you know, a very talented senior group. That being said, I think as we've seen at Lisa Bluter, no matter what, her team is always able to be competitive.

And they're bringing in top five recruit Kaitlyn Clark next year. There's a lot of hope with this team. There's a lot of breakout players with this team. I think next year we're still going to see a very strong women's basketball team. On the men's basketball side, that was the last we're potentially going to see. Bakari Evelyn, Ryan Kreener, and Riley Till. Till, excuse me. Kreener, and Riley Till. Kreener is obviously the biggest loss there, a guy who has played really big minutes in his career for the Iowa Hawkeyes,

coming in as a pretty highly touted recruit. Didn't exactly have what I would consider the career that probably he expected, being primarily a sixth man, but he performed his role admirably. I'm going to miss seeing him play and being a great depth player at the post position. Bakari Evelyn, I thought, put in some pretty good minutes and provided a sense of stability at the position when Joe Toussaint wasn't able to handle the position at times. He's a freshman, so obviously there's going to be a little bit of concern there. I thought Bakari Evelyn stepped up and played pretty well throughout the season, though,

being a grad transfer, the first in the Fran McCaffrey era. And then Riley Till, obviously not a lot of minutes in his career. It sounds like he's leaving the program after his redshirt junior season. He got put on scholarship this year. I thought he played some pretty, when he did get an opportunity to play, you have to love the hustle and the effort that we saw from Riley Till game in and game out for the Iowa Hawkeyes, especially when they're missing a lot of depth there for a bit. But this team next year, I mean, if they return all of these pieces, and I think if the NCAA tournament is not played this year, I think that even helps the case of a Luka Garza returning, which we'll talk about on

future episodes. I don't think Luka Garza is in a position to go into the NBA, but there's always the opportunity, right? And same with Joe Wieskamp. I think he isn't at that spot where he can go to the NBA now, but this team, if they are able to return those guys, this is a team that I think could compete for a national championship next year. When you return a Big Ten Player of the Year, what I think should be the National Player of the Year in Luka Garza, future NBA player in Joe Wieskamp, you also are going to return Jack Noonj, Patrick McCaffrey, and Jordan Bohannon,

three guys who are expected to be, I would say, top six, top seven contributors on this team. Joe Toussaint with another year under his belt, understanding the offense and maturing a bit more. C.J. Frederick absolutely came out of nowhere this year. Anyone close to the Iowa program expected that, but I think his performance definitely exceeded my expectations. Him at the shooting guard position. This is a team that can compete with any team in the nation.

Imagine having Joe Toussaint come off the bench, an energy guy who can give a ton of key minutes. Connor McCaffrey played fantastic. I mean, there's almost not enough minutes to go around for this team and how much talent they are going to be returning next year. I want to talk a bit more about that, so that will be coming up after the break for segment number three, covering a bit how does Iowa divide these minutes up and really where do we go from here as an Iowa Hawkeye fan base. break for segment number three, covering a bit, you know, how does Iowa divide these minutes up?

And really, where do we go from here as an Iowa Hawkeye fan base? We are back with our third and final segment of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast today. And as I said before the break, I wanted to talk a bit more about this basketball team and kind of where do they go from here. You have to think that Jordan Bohannon is going to be the starter. He'll be starting at the one position, CJ Frederick at the two, Joey's Kemp at the three, Jack Nunes at the four,

and Luka Garza at the five. So that gives you a second lineup of Joe Toussaint, Connor McCaffrey, Patrick McCaffrey, Cordell Pemzel, who I think has really come a long ways this year. You also have to think about the fact that Aaron Ulis and Tony Perkins and the two twins were bringing in some pretty good recruits. Tony Perkins is an explosive athlete who I think could get key minutes early on in his Iowa career. That's a damn good second lineup. You see this this year where Luka Garza is playing a ton of minutes right now. The Iowa Hawkeyes starting lineup just can't get a break because there's not a lot of depth.

When we go into next year, they don't need to play 40 minutes a game. They don't need to have Luka Garza on the court 39 minutes and 40 seconds of the game to try and win the game. When you can bring a second lineup that could rival some teams' top lineup. I mean, you're essentially bringing in, on that second lineup, you're bringing in two guys who started on this year's squad as backups. You're bringing in Patrick McCaffrey, who is a top 100 recruit. If he's healthy, he can be a dynamic player, a guy who can play multiple positions and really cause fits on both ends of the ball or both ends of the court.

And then Cordell Pemzel, a guy who played significant minutes early on in his career and I think is still kind of getting his legs under him. He kind of came on strong towards the end of the year, and I think he brings a component of toughness and aggressiveness, a perseverance to this team from that second string. That is a darn good second string lineup. This is the team that I really do think could be the best team Fran McCaffrey has ever assembled if we are able to return all those pieces.

This is the team that I think should be favored to win the Big Ten title and, like I said, be a top-ten team going into the next season. If I am a betting man, and I definitely am, if I'm you and I'm going to Vegas, I would try to find those odds on the Iowa basketball team next year, and I would definitely put money on Iowa. I don't necessarily think Iowa's going to win, but I do think they'll be in a position where they can win. I bet Iowa is not favored or even given very good odds. So I would highly recommend if you have an opportunity to put some money on Iowa next year. The other side of this is if the NCAA decides to grant another year of eligibility or decides to play the NCAA tournament, that obviously

changes a few things here. You know, that could change the perception of whether Luka Garza and Joey's camp decide to return or not if they do play the NCAA tournament and they have outstanding performances and their draft stock starts to rise. That could change that. Or if they allow a guy like Ryan Kreener, Bakari Evelyn, and Riley Till to come back. It sounds like Riley Till is for sure gone regardless. I would imagine Bakari Evelyn likely won't return either. I think the depth there would be a little bit tough.

He wouldn't really get a lot of playing time. I think Kreener would be a guy who I'd be interested to see if he would want to come back if the NCAA does grant an extra year of eligibility. But it sounds like he had a pretty good performance touring overseas last year with the USA team. I think he's a guy who could be a good performer in Europe. And we even saw, you know, last year, Nicholas Bayer, a great six-man. He's currently, you know, he was playing for the G League, the Raptors G League team.

So I think a guy like Ryan Kreener could play key minutes over in Europe as a big. And maybe we'll see him in the future on the, you know, the TBT Iowa United team. I'll have to talk to, obviously, Matt Crawford and see, kind of hear from him, kind of his thoughts, but that's a guy who I'd like to see from the Iowa perspective, a fantastic post player who could give them good size and key minutes off the bench, but that'll be interesting to see, kind of, what the NCAA decides there. You never know what to think with the NCAA, and it sounds like they've already put the kibosh on having the tournament it sounds like they've already put the kibosh on having the tournament this year they've even even put the kibosh on releasing that what they thought

was going to be the bracket which I think is kind of crap I would have loved to see what that bracket is I think it would give people a lot of stuff to talk about and just kind of give you that idea of what could have happened from a national player of the year perspective I think this actually probably helps Luka Garza's case because he's had such a tough schedule to go against. The Big Ten is like playing an NCAA tournament over and over and over again every single week as they play all these tough teams, whereas OB at Dayton didn't have that opportunity to play on the national scale to see some of the national analysts see him play against some really tough competition.

So had he performed well, I think that would have made a case for him as opposed to Luka. Whereas now, without having that tournament, I think you have to give that award to Luka Garza. And everything I'm seeing on Twitter is similar to that, where it looks like it should be trending in Luka Garza's direction. That being said, we saw how this worked out with Keith Duncan last year. We really thought that he was a shoo-in for the Lou Groza Award, and due to ignorant voters, they gave the award to Rodrigo Blankenship, who I thought was not even on the same level of Keith Duncan last year. What he did for his career, absolutely, but not last year.

So it can never count on the voters to be reliable and honest at times, but I do think that Luka Garza should be considered the favorite still. And actually, I think this definitely helps his case going forward, um, without having, you know, the national scale for OB to, to play on for, for Dayton. So, um, interesting stuff. I think, um, obviously more to come on this. We're going to get more news and news is being released, um, by the minute, by the day, as these groups review what the hell is happening. Like I said, we're going to be covering the Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Sports Network

every single day this week and going forward. Like I said, kind of the stuff we're looking to do going forward is obviously putting out good content. Obviously, we don't want to be putting out content that is garbage or stuff that you don't want to listen to. We want to be putting out stuff that is relevant and worthwhile for you to listen to and enjoyable and entertaining as it should be for a daily podcast. So that means we're looking to get some more players on here, looking to review some historical stuff, right? Maybe do a little bit of a recap of some of the top moments in Iowa history,

doing some March Madness-themed type of brackets, listing all the football teams together and seeing who would win and letting the fans vote on that. We're also going to be focusing a lot more on NFL coverage with free agency happening, with the NFL draft still at this point happening. There's a lot of stuff that does impact Iowa Hawkeyes, especially on the NFL draft side. Without the ability to do a pro day now that the pro day is canceled,

that hurts some of these Iowa guys who didn't get a combine invite. That hurts a guy like Michael Sleep Dalton. It hurts a guy like Christian Welch, especially. It hurts the defensive tackles, Cedric and Riley. It's just a big impact to the Iowa guys to not be able to do that. I think it even doesn't hurt AJ Epinesa, but it definitely doesn't help him. I think it would have been great to see him run again at Iowa and maybe improve on his combine performance and kind of squash some of those doubts that have creeped into teams. And as we've talked about with Nick Kendall and with Benjamin Solak from Lockdown NFL Draft, regardless of what you think about his times and what you think about AJ Epinesa as a player, his times kind of hurt him for some of those teams that really do rely

on thresholds. As much as you hate to think it, teams do have thresholds for these players. And if you don't meet those thresholds, you're not going to be on that team or you're not going to be valued nearly as high. So it does have an impact. I think it does impact AJ Paneza as well. But like I said, we're going to be covering all that over the coming weeks. But stay right here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast because we have a lot of great content coming at you, like I said, over the next couple of weeks.

If you are looking for more NFL draft coverage, obviously without the live sports happening, you're probably looking to get some of your sports fixed. I highly recommend checking out Locked On NFL Draft, and I highly recommend checking out our Locked On Big Ten podcast that covers all the Big Ten sports. They're going to be breaking down this stuff as well, giving you a little bit different of an opinion from a different host. I think you'll really enjoy the show. I like listening to the Locked On Big Ten podcast, despite the fact that I already cover a Locked On show on the network. So I highly recommend checking those episodes out as well as you try to get your collegiate sport fixed

without any of the live sports going on. If you did like what you hear today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe. If you liked what you've heard before and you haven't done this yet, definitely subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at. Like I said, not as enthusiastic

or up-tempo of a show today. Honestly, that first 10 minutes was kind of hard to do. It's, you know, being a huge sports person, that's a big part of your life. It's kind of just gone. And to me, one of my favorite times of the year, I was really looking forward to the NCAA tournament. I was really looking forward to the wrestling championships, a lot of great stuff on the horizon. Hell, the baseball team was putting together a good season. The softball team was

having a phenomenal season. The, you know, indoor track squad did a really good job. Like there's a lot of stuff that, um, I think Iowa was putting together one of the best seasons ever, uh, for their winter and spring sports. And it's just a shame that we can no longer see that. So it was a little bit tough to get through that first part. My apologies there. But like I said, lots of stuff coming up. Also make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, I appreciate your love and support.

And I'm really happy to continue doing this show despite not having as much live content to cover. So with that being said, I'm going to love you Hawkeye Nation, and let's go Hawks.