Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Why Iowa Hawkeyes' road struggles continue this season after no show loss at Ohio State

Starting point is 00:00:00 Another road game for the Iowa men's basketball team. Another pitiful effort. Out physicaled against Ohio State. Rapid reaction tonight. Locked on Hawkeyes. You are Locked on Hawkeyes. Your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. of the Locked On Podcast Network your team every day Hey welcome in I'm Trent Condon and this is the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast Thanks for making Locked On Hawkeyes your first listen every day. We're available wherever you find podcasts You can also watch us on YouTube while you're there hit subscribe just takes a moment and helps us get in front of more Hawkeye fans Super Bowl fifty nine is here and there's no better way to make every play more exciting than with Fandual Sportsbook new customers can bet just five dollars and if you

Starting point is 00:00:57 win you'll score two hundred bucks in bonus bets download the app or head to Fandual.com to get started. Well, here we go. More of the same for the Iowa men's basketball team. Just an ugly, ugly effort and another frustrating one. This team has been absolutely dreadful on the road. They came back against Michigan early in the season, made that one a game and had an opportunity late, couldn't get it done. But outside of that performance, and we're talking about two months ago, this team has been absolutely dreadful. Just an embarrassing

Starting point is 00:01:28 performance and a season of embarrassment for Framie Caffrey's squad. We have got to the point now where we are going to be talking much more big picture, and we've done that at different times throughout the course of this year, but this thing appears to be over. It appears at this point that Framie Caffrey's checked out, the fan base is checked out, and the players are checked out. A team once again physically manhandled by a very mid Ohio State team. A team that likely is not even going to be a bubble team. To have that kind of performance, to get out physical by not a big team, but a tougher team. It says a lot about this program and where they are right now and

Starting point is 00:02:05 when you are playing Multiple guys out of position You're playing a point guard That can't defend You're playing a guy the power forward position. They can't jump You are playing a multitude of guys out of position and a team that has talent. This isn't, I don't believe, a talent issue. It's a coaching issue.

Starting point is 00:02:31 And now we've seen this team look this dreadful this many times on the road. It's inexcusable. It really is. For the seventh time in Big Ten play, I was found themselves down 15 this year. This is not Todd Licklider. This is not Todd Licklider that didn't have the players to compete.

Starting point is 00:02:52 This is a guy that is checked out. And I think it's as simple as that. And you might say it's unfair. And I've been a friend defender. I really have. I've been a defender of him and his program throughout the last however many years. And when the, just wait, give him more time. And it wasn't more time because he deserved more time just because that's the way we do things in Iowa. That's not what it was. If we looked at the program,

Starting point is 00:03:17 we look what he built, maybe there's a couple of bad breaks, those kinds of things happen, but eventually he was going to get there. He's not. He's to the ceiling. And now, this guy that we see on the sideline, the guy that got his hands in his pockets, very stoic, it's not Freeman Caffrey. And to see this game in and game out, it drives me crazy. It really does. This is not the guy that Iowa brought to campus to bring excitement back to Iowa basketball. Iowa brought to campus to bring excitement back to Iowa basketball. People are done. We talked yesterday with Scott Dockerman from the athletic about apathy. This is incredibly dangerous. Attendance across all the

Starting point is 00:03:55 country is down. I know we see our neighbors up in Ames and you say, well, everybody must be doing that. That's not the case. College basketball as a whole attendance is down. Basketball attendance is down. You's not the case. College basketball as a whole attendance is down. Basketball attendance is down. You look at the NBA, they're running into the same kind of issues. People are able to watch the games at home with a high definition TV. Busy lives, a lot going on, all those different things and they're all excuses. Look, if you win,

Starting point is 00:04:20 people are going to make their way back into Carver Hawkeye Arena. People show up for wrestling, people show up for women's basketball. It's not that men's basketball is suddenly the one thing that people won't show up for. They want a winner and they want to see guys that are competing. And the messaging is not working. Whatever Fred is trying, if he is trying, it's not working right now. These guys are not buying in to see another no-show performance out of Josh Dix. So you have Josh Dix, who should be an alpha number two guy,

Starting point is 00:04:52 because he has the talent, but he doesn't have the temperament to be that. And then you got this to be a number four or five in Peyton Sanford, but thinks he's a one, and he keeps hoisting up shots, even when the shot's not there. He's an above-average shooter that thinks he's a one and he keeps hoisting up shots even when the shots not there He's an above-average shooter that thinks he's a lead shooter. You know, he is He thinks he's Roger Miller He's more like Allen Iverson from three That's what you get out of Peyton Sanford. And yes, the percentage is not fair. You know what I'm saying though

Starting point is 00:05:19 You get where I'm going You built this team with this. You built this team with Patency effort. And here we are. This team has played like complete garbage on the road for the better part of a month and a half. Have you done anything to change it? No. This team gets absolutely physically dominated on the boards once again. Some damning, damning numbers about rebounding. Rebounding is about effort. Rebounding is about positioning. Rebounding is about going out there and getting the damn ball.

Starting point is 00:05:50 Iowa right now, nationally, in rebounding, offensive rebounding rate, they're 320th in the country. Okay, they're a small team. Don't go to the offensive boards that often. Fine, if you want to make that excuse, they're 320th in the country. Okay, they're a small team. They'll go to the offensive boards that often. Fine, you want to make that excuse, they're 320th in the country. On the other side, giving up offensive rebounds, 100 defensive end of the floor, which they suck at on top of it, they're 293rd in the country. So they can't get offensive rebounds, they can't stop the other team from getting

Starting point is 00:06:20 offensive rebounds effort. And yet you have this and we know, we've known from the beginning of the year, first week of the season, we talked about this. When they're playing, who are the dregs everybody? East, what the hell is this? East Texas A&M, oh yeah, it was Texas A&M Commerce. They changed their school name in Southern and South Dakota. And we knew at that point, this team was bad,

Starting point is 00:06:43 bad rebounding team. You do anything? No, let's just keep trotting Peyton Sanford out there at the power forward position. It'll work, right? No, it hasn't. And here they are, 13 and 8, 4 and 6 in the big 10. They even hit the difficult part of the schedule. This is when they were going to be making hay. Now look out. You take on Purdue and Wisconsin. Wisconsin absolutely made a joke of you just a month ago. You get those two teams at home, two teams that have to pants to you for the better part of two decades now. You got to go on the road, two Rutgers, two Maryland. You're home for Oregon. There's Washington. There's a win. Before you wrap up, three of your last four on the road. We just talked about how hideous this team is on the road.

Starting point is 00:07:30 At Illinois, loss. At Northwestern, loss. Hope for Michigan State. I mean, the way that Michigan State rebounds, plays, physicality, they are going to absolutely make a joke of this Iowa team. And then you go to Nebraska to lose. I don't think it's a stretch right now. That this team very easily could miss the Big Ten tournament. And I know there's some people out there saying, Trent, what are you talking about? In the new 18 team, Big Ten, the decision was made this past season

Starting point is 00:08:00 that only 15 teams are going to make the Big Ten tournament. Meaning three teams will be left out. And likely one of those teams are going to make the Big Ten tournament, meaning three teams will be left out. Likely one of those teams is going to be Washington. But then after that, it's going to be a battle. Iowa has a tiebreaker against Penn State. That's good. They might need it. But other teams, Minnesota, they're red hot. They won three in a row. Rutgers may maybe starting to figure a few things out with the young talent that they have. Northwestern, I think they're better than their three and six big 10 record. There's Nebraska down there. But again, three of those teams are going

Starting point is 00:08:32 to miss the big 10 tournament and Iowa could be among them. That's where we are. Just an awful, awful effort. I don't get it. You got Sadu Traori sitting over there Working showing signs of at least something the upside that we hope we were gonna see from Sadu Traori Eight minutes in the first half plays a lot more in the second half after the game got out of hand He at least has some athleticism some leaping ability Worth a shot at the power forward position. And you have Drew Thelwell, just absolutely playing. He is, I love the guy. I mean, the gap between him and everybody else on this team

Starting point is 00:09:19 and in terms of likeability on the basketball floor is immense. You look at the rest of the regulars. Fellwell, absolutely. He tries, he works, he plays both ends of the floor. He does exactly what you want. And then he looks at the rest of the group, and the no-shows, and the awful play. I talked about Peyton Samford. This year, senior. This year, leader. That's what you're at least expecting when he came back after going through the draft process. Well, this is what he's done throughout the course

Starting point is 00:09:52 of this year. And this game looked better. He finished five of 16 from the floor. First half, awful again. No show. Three turnovers. Lost against Minnesota. One of eight from three.

Starting point is 00:10:04 Got hurt in the UCLA game. We're not going to put that on them. How about against USC? That was okay. Score 20. Of course it took them a while to get going. First after end full. Wisconsin, he went one to nine, including O of five from three. Iowa State, he went five of 15. Against Michigan, went six of 20. Against Utah State in that loss, 1 of 13 from 3.

Starting point is 00:10:30 And there he is, playing power forward on top of it. I don't get it. This program is in deep trouble. Let's go big picture and talk about where we go from here. They're still going to play the games. Balls still going to go in the air. The ball will be tipped. I don't know how many games are going to be won.

Starting point is 00:10:55 Big picture with this program and Beth gets, does she rip the bandaid off? It's a question that I don't think we have an answer for, but we will speculate. What is the new athletic director at Iowa going to do with this disappointing basketball season? We'll talk about that as we continue Lockdown Hawkeyes. Today's episode of Lockdown Hawkeyes

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Starting point is 00:12:41 . . . ..... little bit later on in the week we will break down number one versus number two saw a opening line is out at Circa Sports Penn State a 20 point favorite in that one so obviously that will be one to keep an eye on gave Arnold's comments we'll talk about that more with Zach also going to get in a little bit more we'll talk about tonight's matchup with the Iowa women as they get ready to face off against Northwestern and what is a must win for the Iowa women said yesterday, it felt like this Iowa team had to go at

Starting point is 00:13:11 minimum two and one during this three game stretch tonight against the Buckeyes. And then the two next two matchups at home against Purdue and Wisconsin look, it seemed to likely even two and one, maybe even three and no is needed. Regardless, they get trounced. Do you see this team with a week off coming out there? That's another thing. So normally, after a stretch like this,

Starting point is 00:13:34 you'd anticipate next Tuesday when they get to see Purdue, that it'd be a team with renewed focus, a little bit of energy. But they're going to walk into a dead building with absolutely no enthusiasm. That is at best a third full. They'll walk into that on a Tuesday night. The environment will be terrible. The team will be flat.

Starting point is 00:13:58 They'll probably go on a run and we'll get excited for a few minutes and then they'll fall in their face because that's what Iowa basketball has turned into. You know another thing I wanted to get into and we talked a lot about the Iowa team and outside of Traore in the first half certainly Drew Thelwell and throughout the Queen, Owen Freeman in the first half wasn't the same for him in the second half. The individual game in the grand scheme of things doesn't matter, right? This, the game was frustrating. Ohio State didn't shoot it very well. They beat him up on the boards, without physical as we talked about. You go up 82 to a terribly average Ohio State team offensively. It shows you what this is. They give 52 points in the second half.

Starting point is 00:14:47 Let's move on from the game and go big picture. Brand's team hung around last year and I thought it was commendable a season ago with that squad to be on the bubble until the end. And the way that it ended, again, was not fun. It was ugly. It was another type of fade at the end of the season. But they were there. And the last two games against Illinois, you wanted to be better. You wanted that team to push through the finish line a little bit more and we didn't get it. So be it. Lose to Illinois, lose to Ohio State in the first round of the tournament, but we're used to those early exits. But they hung around. But now we go through this year and going back to the Michigan State comeback victory that they had, that

Starting point is 00:15:36 win February 25th with the stare down 2023. We're talking about 23 months ago. And after that, something has changed with Graham McCaffrey. And this leads to the conversation that we've been having for the last month. So they go out and get a four star from Florida. The second highest recruit in the last 25 years for Iowa basketball. Boy, you have to be excited about that, right? I mean, this is something that Brandon McCaffrey hasn't done. This is something that

Starting point is 00:16:11 we just don't see very often. And because of that, we have to, right? Not so much. Because unfortunately, we've seen too much of this. We've seen too many times seen too much of this. We've seen too many times programs make a decision on potential recruits in order to keep a coach around and it doesn't work. This thing's broke. The fan base is broken. Now what we're seeing from this team, they're broken. You just can't do it because there might be some recruits. Remember after the Licklider era, he had a good recruiting class coming in. Was it Ben Brust, who had a nice career at Wisconsin? Cody Larson, who went to Florida and bounced around a little bit.

Starting point is 00:16:58 I think he ended up in South Dakota State where he was originally from. Roy Devin Marble was in that class and there was one other, I can't remember off the top of my head, but regardless, it was a good recruiting class, but you couldn't keep him in, and it was the right choice to fire Todd Licklater. You go back to the end of the Steve Alford era, it was the right choice to move on because finally he got noodles in there. He was getting some dudes. Got the highest ranked guy the last 25 years, Tyler Smith. And he was in on, was it, Biais, Hamba? And a bunch of those Indiana elite kids and they were finding bags and they were getting some dudes and making some inter roads with that AEU program. Things were looking good. They made the right choice even though Licklider was a disaster. And the same thing here, you can't make a decision of keeping a coach

Starting point is 00:17:59 coupled with what Iowa wants to do. We know that Carver Hawkeye Arena needs a renovation, not a facelift, not some paint. It needs an overhaul of the way that the structure is. A big bowl was cool in the early 1980s. It doesn't work and with the aging fan base, I have to go all the way down. If you got good seats, and then make that trek right back up, and you want to make money on the popcorn and a beer and a soda and a hot dog. People aren't doing that. They're not going up and down. You get a Carver Cone called good. Maybe not even that. Or if you want to have a couple of cold ones at the game, maybe at least you got to go to the bathroom a time or two. I'm going to go up and down those stairs again. It needs to be fixed, coupled with what they need to do in terms of boxes,

Starting point is 00:18:45 luxury boxes. That's where the money is. That's where everybody is going. So Beth Getz wants to get this done. The blueprints are there. The ideas are there. How they're going to do it is there. How they're going to finance it, that's a different question.

Starting point is 00:19:01 And what they coach, that looks like this, a coach that has let this program slip to this level. And look, there are a lot of things that you can point to frame a Caffrey that he's let go. The prime time league, in a way, was an absolute joke. It was not great basketball. But what it was, it was an opportunity for you super fans to go out there and watch, for people like me

Starting point is 00:19:27 in the media to talk. No, we're not going to try to equate a guy going off for 50 points in a summer league game and he's going to do it in the Big 10. But it was a starting point. If you're somebody like me talking, if you're a newspaper writer, you're somebody that works for the many Hawkeye websites,

Starting point is 00:19:42 those kind of people, we're looking for content. We want to talk about things. We had something to talk about. We talked Iowa basketball during the summer all the time. And guess what's happened the last five years after the PTL's gone away? Iowa basketball conversation. Each and every summer has gone away. Ray McCaffrey did that. Argue about the in state games against Drake and you and I. However, they created conversation. They got us to basketball seasons. We're making our way through the end

Starting point is 00:20:13 of football season. It was yet another step of getting people re engaged once again. I didn't realize what a big deal it was here in Des Moines until I moved here when Drake was able to host them. Knowing what it was like up in North Iowa where I'm from when you and I had the opportunity to play Iowa and Iowa State. Get them in their building each and every year. It was important for those schools but more importantly there has never been a year ever where Iowa or Iowa State missed the NCAA tournament because of those home and homes. I know they play more conference games now But it was something that was special for our state gone PTL gone in state gone

Starting point is 00:20:57 All right, here's Alabama State enjoy that one Know that Texas A&M Commerce. Yep. That's great Everybody plays by games. I plays a ton of them. There was a spot. And that's been lost. What people believe in Iowa basketball, and it being, it was just a part of being an Iowan. Maybe in general that's been lost too. Maybe I'm too nostalgic for the way things were once before. But when I see what this basketball program has become and see where the fans are, and

Starting point is 00:21:40 not see a guy out there fighting for his team. It upsets me. It upsets me as a fan. It upsets me as a media member. It upsets me as an Iowan. It upsets me as somebody that went to Iowa and had season tickets and loved going to Iowa basketball games. And I remember walking into Carver for the first time. It was like I hit the Mecca.

Starting point is 00:22:03 And see what it is today. A punchline. The morgue. It went from jokes about, yeah, old ladies sitting there knitting, when they were, to what it is now and at least it'd be another warm body in the building. Let's get Mildred back in there, right? It's tough. It's tough to see a program. Every dayers, you know it. I say it a lot, because it's the truth. Iowa basketball made me a sport fan.

Starting point is 00:22:38 Without Iowa basketball, I don't know if I'm the sport fan I am today. I'm certainly probably not doing what I do today for a living without Iowa basketball. And I just watch and I get frustrated. There's no sport that frustrates me more than Iowa basketball. The highs and the low of Iowa basketball

Starting point is 00:22:56 are as high and as low as I go as a sport fan. The Bears don't do that. The Twins don't do that for me. Iowa football doesn't even do that for me. It's Iowa basketball and Then just get beat up physically and doesn't seem like anybody really cares Chuck up bad shots. I have one guy play hard and drew Thelwell other guys going through the motion Two starters go over from the field. Score 65 points when you're an offensive team. Get out rebounded by 20. I guess it was a

Starting point is 00:23:36 dozen. Doesn't matter, no. Let's talk more positive. We got a must-win for the Iowa women. They have to win tonight. I'll tell you why when we continue on the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast. This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax. Taxes was waiting and wondering and worrying if you're going to get any money back and then waiting wondering and worrying some more now taxes is matching with a turbo tax expert who can do your taxes as soon as today an expert who gives your taxes

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Starting point is 00:24:55 TurboTax.com slash guarantees. One final time back with you, Lockdown Hawkeyes. Thanks for One final time back with you, Lockdown Hawkeyes. Thanks for being here with us on a frustrating evening in Iowa basketball. Well, let's hope that's not the case for the Iowa women. So they get Northwestern, who is bad. And there are three games remaining on the schedule for the Iowa women that are just that, bad teams. Not only do they have three games against bad teams But all three of those games are at home You lose any of these three games. They're gonna be quad three losses

Starting point is 00:25:39 for each and every one of them Maybe there's a quad for loss in there. But regardless, that's where they are. They have to get this done. And it has to start tonight. With the five game losing streak that was ended after the win against Walton, they have now dug themselves the type of hole that they can't afford any more bad losses. And none of those losses out of those five, none of them would be considered bad. Want to put that in there. None of the losses that they had before were bad. However, when you put them all together,

Starting point is 00:26:14 well, this is when you get to this kind of conversation. They have to get these victories. Here, against Northwestern at the end of the year, against Wisconsin, those are the ones that you absolutely those games. And the other games are going to be a bear. And as we look forward to this weekend, there's also a great team coming in. you you With her shot, she was struggling with her confidence, struggling at the free throw line. There was so much there that left you thinking there has to be more, that something else is going on. One game maybe does not solve all the problems. Hannah Stalky looks like she's going to be able to go. That's going to be a huge impact. We've seen some good things out of a Grady.

Starting point is 00:28:31 We've seen good things out of the Freshman. We've talked about all this. Talked about this with the men's side too, right? It's not a talent problem. Getting all these pieces to fit. You didn't expect a five-game losing streak out of this group. In each one of those games individually, there are things that you can point to that they absolutely could have won any of those five games. Maybe the Maryland loss would be the one that would

Starting point is 00:28:53 be the most difficult, I think, to come up with. But certainly three of those five incredibly winnable games. They just didn't. So now you made your bet. Win those three automatic home wins, get those done and then find two more. And then they will go into the Big Ten tournament. They will make the Big Ten tournament. Unlike the men, who are going to have some work to do and they will be in good shape. That'll do it for today. We will be back with you after that one. Mention we got the preview for Iowa Penn State on the wrestling mat coming up a little bit later on. Wanna talk some football as well. We have some football recruits. We're gonna get into that a little bit later on this week as well.

Starting point is 00:29:31 We're with you each and every day talking Iowa Hawkeyes. Make sure you hit the subscribe button if you're watching us on YouTube. Just take a minute. It really does help us out getting in front of more Hawkeye fans. If you're listening on the podcast side, five star review and that will help us each and every day. Thanks for being with us and making Lockdown Hawkeyes your first listen every day. We will talk to you again tomorrow. Until then, go Hawks!

Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Why Iowa Hawkeyes' road struggles continue this season after no show loss at Ohio State

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