Game Preview: Gophers vs. Hawkeyes

This is the part where I'd usually say something like, "oh great it's Iowa, they suck who cares no preview" and then make a classy dismissive wanking motion with my hand, but they just beat Wisconsin in Madison.  Yes, granted Wisconsin is criminally overrated this year, but winning in Madison is tough to do for any team that doesn't have Lawrence Westbrook, so perhaps Iowa is worth investigating further - the team, not the state.  The only thing could in the state is the casino's have craps - get with it, Minnesota).

The reason it was so easy to dismiss Iowa up until that upset was because they had done nothing positive all year and piled up all kinds of negative losses.  The home loss to Campbell by 16, blowouts by Creighton and Clemson, and losses to Iowa State and Northern Iowa had the Hawkeyes looking like a laughing stock but they've started to pull it together in recent weeks having won four of their last five (including that win at Sconnie) with the only loss being a three-point squeaker at Purdue.  So what's going on?

For one thing, the team has become more Fran McCaffery's team than Todd Licklighter's.  Where Lick played at a torturously slow pace, McCaffery actually has Iowa as one of the faster teams in the country.  The season before McCaff took over Iowa ranked 321st in tempo.  Last year he had them at 102, and this year they're all the way up to 40 making them the fastest team in the Big 10 by a considerable margin (besides them only Indiana ranks in the top 100 at #97).

Of course, the key to playing fast is to take care of the ball and/or force your opponent to make mistakes.  Although Iowa remains mediocre at forcing turnovers, just like last year, they have made a marked improvement in taking care of the ball.  The Hawkeyes turned it over on 22% of their possessions last year (255th in the country), and have made a massive positive swing this year, turning it over just 16% of the time (12th in the country).  No Hawkeye averages more than 1.8 TOs per game, and the guards have been excellent - Bryce Cartwright, a TO machine last year with 3.3 per game, has nearly cut it in half with just 1.8 this year (of course his playing time has been reduced as well, but percentage wise he's improved), Matt Gatens is always a rock with the ball but has been exceptional this season with under a TO per game despite handling the ball quite a bit, giving him the 25th best TO rate in the country, while two other ball-handlers (Roy Marble's kid and Josh Oglesby) are also in the top 25.

The Hawks still can't shoot very well and don't play very good defense, but they are awfully good at being smart with the basketball.  Since one of the ways the Gophers have been able to have success this year is by forcing turnovers, this particular statistical match-up will be one of the biggest keys of how the game goes tomorrow.  Of course, that explains why Iowa is better than last year, it doesn't explain what's changed over the last few games to take them from laughing stock to semi-dangerous (not dissimilar to Ronald Miller in the white version of Can't Buy Me Love).

I'm slapping the role of Miller onto Roy Devyn Marble, who has gone from after thought to focal point of the offense, taken a team that was basically completely dependent on Matt Gatens, Melsahn Basabe, and the chuck-o-rama that is Bryce Cartwright and made them a more balanced team that's harder to stop, and has suddenly become the Hawks' best player.  This post from a Hawkeye blog called The High Porch Picnic breaks down Marble's improvement for you in great detail, but essentially he's been on fire shooting, has moved away from the three-pointer and made the mid-range jumper his own, and his team has responded by getting him the ball more often and he's being more aggressive when he has it.  

So now you add an emerging star in Marble (look at these lines:  18pts, 8 rebs, 5 assist vs. Boise; 21/4/5 vs. Iowa State; 17/1/6 vs. Purdue) to the consistently steady Gatens (has averaged betwen 10.8 and 13.3 ppg his entire career) who can do a little bit of everything (12 boards against Sconnie, 20+ points three times this year), and the explosive Basabe (at least 14 pts and 8 boards in each of his last four games; 3 double-doubles this year) and suddenly you have a really nice base of a team.  If they get anything at all from Cartwright (17pts, 5 assists, 1 TO vs. Wisconsin) or the new kid, freshman Aaron White (18 vs. Wisconsin and Boise) and Iowa is a legit threat, as Wisconsin found out.

On the other hand, one big win doesn't suddenly make a bad team good, Iowa got the best game of the year from two players (Cartwright and White), out-rebounded Wisconsin by five, and the Badgers were a stupid flukey 3-28 from three-point line and Iowa still only won by seven.  Not to mention that this team's losses to Iowa State and Northern Iowa both happened post the Roy Marble breakout.  I'm inclined to believe the win at Wisconsin was more a fluky convergence of Wisconsin's worst game of the year and Iowa's best game of the year, and anything similar to this result is likely unrepeatable.

That said, I hate when bad teams have confidence and then get to play a team with a shaky offense and bad three-point defense.  What happens if Iowa gets out to a 9-2 lead?  What if the game is tied with 3 minutes to go?  I don't want to see the results.  Please Gophers, jump out early and keep an 8-10 lead the entire game.  You should be good enough to do that.  Nobody wants the torture, we all want a 20 point blow-out so we can leave early and get home before 11:30.  Please.

Minnesota 81, Iowa 67.

Oh and also go to hell, Iowa.

Big 10 Preview: #10 Iowa Hawkeyes

I'm probably higher on Iowa than most because I see some talent here, but it's hard to see how they can rise any higher than 10th, unless you have no faith in Indiana (but I do).  Fran McCaffery had some scratching their heads when he left the mid-major mini-dynasty he created at Siena to take the Iowa job at a time when they were almost completely barren of talent or hope or intelligence, but he's made some good strides already and has things starting to look up.

The two things I love about Iowa this year are PF Melsahn Basabe and PG Bryce Cartwright.  Basabe is a wrecking crew inside and his athleticism and effort levels remind me of a younger version of Trevor Mbakwe.  And like Mbakwe he's a bit unpolished and you're not likely to see him take a shot outside of about 8 feet, but he was terrifyingly good at times last season  (6 double-doubles with 4 of those including 20+ points).  As far as young players to rebuild your program around, you could do a lot worse.

Cartwright is a bit of a paradox because even though he's a very quick point guard who can set his teammates up with the best of them (5.9 assists per game last year, 3rd in the conference), he's also got quite a bit of chucker in him as he led the team in shot attempts despite hitting at just a 39% clip (and 27% from 3-point land).  So yes, he completely dominates the ball when he's on the court.  Now, if he could dominate more in an Ed Cota kind of way rather than a Kerwin Fleming kind of way that would go along ways towards making Iowa more dangerous.

Outside of those two Iowa has the usual collection of semi-athletic white dudes.  Matt Gatens will be back for his 8th year to do what Matt Gatens does - grab a few boards, make a smart play or two, and hit a couple of shots while scoring somewhere between 8 and 14 points per game, never more or less.  Zach McCabe and Eric May will have their moments, and Andrew Brommer will have every opportunity to show off the world's worst free throw ability because there's a dearth of big men in the Iowa stable this season.  Your best bet for a breakthrough here is sophomore Roy Marble, but I'm not sure if I'm saying that because he got a lot of run from McCaffery at the end of last year or because I was a big fan of his dad.

This year is basically irrelevant anyway if you're an Iowa fan, and you should care more about the future and also shoot yourself in the face for being an Iowa fan.  McCaffery has done some nice things already recruiting-wise, starting with this season's acquisition of Josh Oglesby, a Rivals Top 150 player he stole not only from the Gophers, but from just about every midwest team including Illinois and Butler.  He's also got a nice class already secured for next season with C Adam Woodbury (Rivals #47 overall), PG Mike Gesell (#96), and three other 3-star players already on board.

Hopefully none of them work out.  I really hate Iowa.

DWG Over/Under Conference Wins:  5.5

Game Preview: Minnesota Gophers vs. Iowa Hawkeyes

Seeing as how it's already Friday, I'm going to make this preview short:  Iowa sucks.

Ok, I'll give you a bit more.  Iowa is a decent defensive squad, but a god awful offensive team.  They rank 150th or worse in the country in every offensive metric other than offensive rebound percentage, where they're ok (57th).  They're a bad shooting team (34% from three - 165th in the country, 47.6% from two - 173rd, and 64.5% on free throws - 284th), who turn the ball over all the time (21.7% of possessions, 224th in the country).  And although they're good at forcing turnovers and rebounding, they also let other teams shoot the lights out (166th vs. 3-pointers, 211th vs. the two-pointer).  Really, they're not a good team, and the Gophers should roll.

So why wouldn't they?  Other than the obvious hangover after the biggest win of the year, Iowa does actually have some decent players who, if a couple are playing well, could make this more work than it needs to be. Matt Gatens can still light it up at times, averaging 13.2 ppg and shooting 37% from three.  He just dropped 20 on Northwestern and hit up Illinois for 21 earlier this year. 

Bryce Cartwright, their new Fresno transfer point guard, is one of the top assist men in the conference (4.6 per game) and also scores 11 per, relying on penetration to lead to his points and easy buckets for his teammates.

Melsahn Basabe is maybe their most interesting player, having signed with McCafferey at Siena and then followed him to Iowa.  Basabe has games where he's invisible, but then will have games like he had against Ohio State where he scored 22 points, grabbed 13 boards, and blocked 6 shots while battling super stud Jared Sullinger or the 12-14-7 he put up against Iowa State.  I'm looking forward to him and Mbakwe battling.

Eric May showed a ton of promise as a do-everything type of player last year as a freshman, but hasn't really improved in year 2.  He's scored just 3 points in Iowa's last two games and has seen his minutes dwindle a bit.  He might be hurt, but I don't really know because I didn't look it up.

Then they've got a bunch of dorky big guys like Zach McCabe, Andrew Brommer, and Jarryd Cole - any of whom could potentially have a big game since they are all likely to get a lot of minutes as Iowa tries to deal with Minnesota's size, but probably won't.

Look, Iowa isn't as bad as I thought they were going to me, but that's still a far cry from being a good team.  I am expecting a bit of a slow start out of the Gophers, however, since they're going to be flying a bit too high and will likely take the Hawkeyes a bit too lightly, but their too talented to be seriously threatened here.

Minnesota 76, Iowa 62

Escape!

Despite playing the worst game in Gopher history (including the Monson years) our beloved Gophers managed to escape from the shithole that is Hawkeye arena last night with a 52-49 victory, mainly due to the Hawkeyes sudden inability to hit open shots in the second half. I don't have much time to write, thanks to my stupid job, but here are a few observations I had, other than if that was the first basketball game I had ever watched, I would never watch another one again.

- I believe Al Nolen is morphing/needs to morph further into TJ Ford/Jacque Vaughn. Despite the huge three he hit in the second half, he seems to not only be generally unable to hit an outside shot, but also unwilling at times. He can certainly help the team with his defense and I maintain that he's nearly unguardable when driving to the rim. He seems, at times, to embrace that and at this point I'd be happy with a creating, driving and dishing point guard. We have Hoffarber, Joseph, and Westbrook (ok fine, and Shamala) to hit the threes, so maybe this is the right direction for the team. Funny thing is, I had my phone off because I had to watch the game on a slight tape delay because of stupid Wonderbaby, and when I turned it on after the game I had a text from Snake which said, "Al Nolen needs to turn into Jacque Vaughn." So it's unanimous.

- I don't understand the seeming unwillingness to dump the ball into the paint against the smaller Hawkeyes, particularly after Tate went out with that injury. Sampson looked awkwardly unstoppable, hitting 3 of his 5 shots, and Iverson only ended up with one attempt on the night and only played 11 minutes. My only thought here is maybe Tubby thought they needed a smaller lineup against the tiny Hawkeyes, but I didn't notice any worse defense when the big guys were in there than not. And that doesn't excuse the refusal to get the ball inside. Iowa is one of the most three-pointingest teams in the nation and attempted 23 three pointers last night; the Gophers chucked up 22. Falling in love with the three for the Gophers is not the way to win, and is troubling against a team that small.

- I love Westbrook, truly I do, but at times his "I scored 40 points a game in high school" mentality shows through. Sometimes I think it's a good thing, such as in the second half against Michigan State when nothing was working and somebody needed to try to take over the game; it didn't work, but I understood it and liked it. But at other times it boggles the mind. Last night at one point a loose ball kicked over to the corner where he grabbed, and pretty much shot a turnaround jumper from three point land. I have no idea why he thought that was a good shot - but it wasn't unless you played for Loyola Marymount in the late 80s. I'm not particularly concerned, as I think Tubby has him reigned in pretty good and like I said, sometimes you need a guy like that, but this one was so out there I had to mention it.

- Man or Zone or switching defense, I thought the defensive effort the Gophers gave was absolutely brutal last night. The only difference I saw was that the shots weren't falling in the second half, despite being open (although yes, in the first half they were able to get to the rim more successfully than in the second). One thing that frustrated me was after Anthony Tucker came in Willis Reed style, the defense seemed to focus far too much on him. On consecutive possessions he started to drive and got maybe a half step when a perimeter guy would leave their man to help. Perhaps fundamentally correct, but in both cases the guy they left was Matt Gatens, the leading three point shooter in the big ten who, of course, knocked down both open threes. There was really no need to help that far out on the perimeter when help was available further down in the paint, especially to leave a shooter like the next Chris Kingsbury. The other thing about Gatens I noticed is that he probably needs to get more aggressive if the Hawkeyes are going to have any success. He shoots 54% from three and was 4-5 last night, but I noticed he only shoots if he's very open. He might need to be willing to bring his percentage down a bit and take more chances shooting. He's good enough that if he can get his shot off, he should probably be taking it, even if he doesn't have that extra second to totally set himself.

- A commenter somewhere down below said, "The Gophers don't beat Louisville without Travis Busch" which I thought was laughable. But I'm going to say "The Gophers don't beat Iowa without Travis Busch" which truly hurts my soul to type, but I believe it today. Maybe somebody else steps up by the end of the game and takes the Gophers to the win, but I didn't see any likely candidates out there. Busch hit some big shots, and as much as I'd like to I can't ignore that. Let's just move on.

- Paul Carter made his biggest impact of the season last night, despite playing just nine minutes. He scored five points and three offensive rebounds on the night, and his athleticism will come in handy as the season advances. Bostick looked good as well, playing 15 minutes and picking up six points and a couple of steals. There really is a lot of talent on the team this year, hopefully Tubby can find the right combinations.

- Finally, the biggest highlight of the night was ESPN2 announcer Doug Gottlieb giving a shout out to our friends at From the Barn and complimenting their article on the Minnesota/Iowa rivalry. Very cool. On a related note, my mom recently told me I need to "clean-up" my blog, so I'd say things are moving in the right direction for both of us.