Understatement of the year. Some of our fans really do not understand how this team works.
GAME 21 IOWA: Everyone has their kryptonite
- Thread starter bac2therac
- Start date
They are no where close to an SEC team or BIG 12 team as they do not have that athleticism. What happens to them is the athleticism of the NCAA team prevents them from getting open threes like we gave them today and they get exposed on the defensive end. That really good team 2 years ago got owned by an athletic Oregon team that was up 25-30 points before winning by 20 . We are more athletic than Iowa but for some reason Pike doesn’t want to press them like he presses other teams . We don’t get up in their grill like other teams to pressure their guards . We were too worried about Labraca after the first game thinking Cliff was going to need help but he didn’t so we sagged for no reason. Confusing to say the least.
8 or 10 of those were from intenionally fouling at the end
Great write up. Thankfully, most teams can’t replicate Iowas strategy because it requires having all 5 guys on the floor be capable of stroking it from 3
Another great recap Bac.
I would like to see Paul penetrate into the lane like he does, but sometimes kick it back to Cam for a fairly open 3 point shot.
We have to work too hard for our 2 point shots. If we moved it around more we would have more open 3 point shots like we had in some other games. Even though we are not great shooters, the % goes way up when they are wide open shots......
Best of Luck,
Groz
I would like to see Paul penetrate into the lane like he does, but sometimes kick it back to Cam for a fairly open 3 point shot.
We have to work too hard for our 2 point shots. If we moved it around more we would have more open 3 point shots like we had in some other games. Even though we are not great shooters, the % goes way up when they are wide open shots......
Best of Luck,
Groz
I would rather take away the easy open 3s from them and make them beat us off the dribble. We know they can beat us if we give them a lot of open 3s. We don’t know if they can beat us if they are forced to try to drive to the basket with a man on them.
Regarding "Iowa presents some unique matchup issue for Pike's style":
We've done very barely worse than metrics predict against Iowa during Pike's tenure. There's really no evidence for this hypothesis.
| Game | Bart Predicted Pt Diff | Actual Pt Diff | Diff of Diffs |
1/8/2017 | -7.9 | -6 | 1.9 |
1/31/2017 | 0 | -20 | -20 |
1/17/2018 | 1.6 | 16 | 14.4 |
2/16/2019 | -4.1 | -2 | 2.1 |
3/2/2019 | -10.1 | 14 | 24.1 |
1/22/2020 | -3 | -5 | -2 |
1/2/2021 | 0.9 | -2 | -2.9 |
2/10/2021 | -6.3 | -13 | -6.7 |
1/19/2022 | -4.5 | 2 | 6.5 |
3/11/2022 | -8.7 | -10 | -1.3 |
1/8/2023 | 10.2 | -11 | -21.2 |
1/29/2023 | 1.3 | -11 | -12.3 |
| Average | -2.55 | -4 | -1.45 |
We've done very barely worse than metrics predict against Iowa during Pike's tenure. There's really no evidence for this hypothesis.
I would say that the current iteration of Iowa is a bad matchup. We actually did pretty well against the Garza teams. I disagree with the 2022 Bart numbers, I do think it's fair to say something changed with that team from November to March so that'd make our BTT against them look worse.
Even so six of the past seven were underperformances. It's not nothing.
Random thoughts:
This Iowa team looks better than past teams. They play better defense , rebound better , and give as much as they get. They are not soft. They've exposed two keys in beating Rutgers --hitting threes with crisp passing to beat Rutgers defense and stopping Cam's outside shooting. When Cam is neutralized opposing teams can sag underneath and disrupt Rutgers offense.
This Iowa team looks better than past teams. They play better defense , rebound better , and give as much as they get. They are not soft. They've exposed two keys in beating Rutgers --hitting threes with crisp passing to beat Rutgers defense and stopping Cam's outside shooting. When Cam is neutralized opposing teams can sag underneath and disrupt Rutgers offense.
In presser Pike emphasized turnovers and fouls. Valid, but he missed the elephant in the room: open threes to a team that can make them.
Cutting it off at 7 when the three before that were overperformances seems pretty cherry-picky
It's certainly possible the current Iowa teams are bad matchups but it certainly doesn't seem like the coaching style is a significantly bad matchup since those are all the meetings between the same two coaches/schools
As I said we did a good job against the Garza teams, which are meaningfully different because his usage was so high imo. It's fine to say the 2020 and 2021 (with Garza) matchups are basically a wash and not an underperformance. But since then it's been the 48-46 game and a whole lot of rough outings. I would say the March 2022 Bart number is off because a) Rutgers was better than their rating at that point and b) Iowa was on a back-to-back. Which, I mean, they won 4 games in 4 days so it wasn't that much of a hindrance but still.
I do think it's interesting that we can do all these different things defensively -- man, zone, different kinds of full and half court presses -- but we don't have anything in our arsenal that says "stick to your man on the perimeter and don't let them shoot threes."
Right. I think this is a perfectly fine thesis and I don't have any real argument against it. But there are others on the board that seem to argue it's about the coaching matchup which is what I am arguing against.
I can certainly see this argument as well
I feel like we do... I kind of remember seeing it in the past (not this season) though I can't remember what game. But it's certainly not one of our baseline defensive strategies.
Honestly we kind of did it against Notre Dame and Atkinson torched Cliff inside. I wonder if there's some carryover from that?
My only quibble is that our guys play well uptempo offensively , where we struggle sometimes to get into our sets and get an efficient shot. Now I place a lot of the blame on the players particularly the seniors and upperclassmen, who failed to correct the problem. Like who the hell do you have ? Seems simplistic but we lost the man or men we were covering on at least 5-10 possessions. That is why they scored 93, not to mention the foul line. They don’t make 12-24 from three if we did not leave them open. They get defended on 4-5 of those and that is 12-15 points less and 8-24 is more like it considering it is Iowa and they are going shoot a lot of threes. They score high 70’s or low 80’s and game is there to win uptempo. Uncharacteristic bad defensive performance for a lot of the game. Look what happened when we came back from 11 or 10 to 1. We had 3-4 stops after our made baskets and did not lose our man and played defense. Why that was not the case most of the day is the question ? Not the uptempo.
The free throw differential is because Iowa does NOT play physical defense, at all. In fact, we Iowa fans complain about that all the time. Often, Iowa will allow virtually uncontested layups if the offensive player gets the corner on them. Conversely, teams like Rutgers, MSU and Indiana are more rugged and physical. This helps them on defense to be disruptive, but also leads to more fouls.
Keep in mind Rutgers also committed about a half-dozen intentional fouls in the last 1:30 of the game that added to the disparity.
That ref crew is not a good one --- Little Larry Sciorrata (sp?) in particular is brutally inconsistent and thin-skinned. But speaking as someone who was at the game in person, the officiating was not one-sided. It was just typical Big 10 bad, lol.
I really like the Rutgers basketball program and love seeing you guys do well --- need a solid East Coast team in this conference and Pike has Rutgers trending well. When Iowa hits 40% or higher from the three-point line, there is no team in America the can't beat. But Iowa also lives and dies by the three --- outside shooting was brutal against Richmond in the NCAA last year and an Iowa team that probably had Sweet 16 talent took the early exit. College basketball is a cruel sport.
Good luck down the stretch.
Did someone say Iowa played “pretty good” defense? We shot 50.8% from the floor, and 40% from 3.
We’ve only scored more than 82 points 5 other times this season - Sacred Heart, CC, Coppin and Bucknell.
Wake Forest is the only other major conference team we’ve broken 70 against, let alone 80.
It was a fast paced game, but tough to say Iowa played solid defense. They beat us in a shoot out, as would be expected.
We’ve only scored more than 82 points 5 other times this season - Sacred Heart, CC, Coppin and Bucknell.
Wake Forest is the only other major conference team we’ve broken 70 against, let alone 80.
It was a fast paced game, but tough to say Iowa played solid defense. They beat us in a shoot out, as would be expected.
agree...what Iowa was good at was pressuring the ball handlers and double teaming...did it more effectively in the first half....dont mistake that for great defense. What was happening is RU was not responding quick enough to what was going on...either a lazy pass for a turnover or instead of passing out they would play right into the hands of the Iowa defense. The looks RU had all day were largely open..Hyatts 3s, nice jumpers by Mag. You beat Iowa by being aggressive on offense because you can beat them. Instead we didnt move the ball as quick as we should have. Im not saying you get into a shootout with them and its hard to criticize our overall numbers which were the best of the season. Our offense was not effective in the first half when it counted and thats where the game was lost.....all those turnovers and bonehead mistakes in the last 3 minutes of the first half saw the lead go from 2 to 11 and the game was basically over in that we were have to play incredible defense to actually win. Mag missing the one and one was huge there...chance to tie and then they come down and drain 3. The inability to sustain over an important 3 minute stretch is inexcusable for a veteran team like this....but i mean so many turnovers before this stretch puts us in that situation. We should have been up more early while Iowa was struggling to find their shot.
Yeah - I thought we mostly beat ourselves with the turnovers but I guess they deserve some credit.
Overall, Iowa was amazing on offense and we didn’t capitalize on as many opportunities as we could’ve on offense and made some bad mistakes that cost us a lot of points in transition.
Our halfcourt offense and transition games were as effective as they’ve ever been. And that’s partly because Iowa isn’t a good defensive team.
If you are talking about the three he passed up to get to Hyatt on his left, that was a great extra pass. Hyatt was on fire. Please ignore if you are referencing a different shot
They cannot beat us from 2 as the stats show , nor could MSU. Curious game plan on both games. Now I do think that our players especially our seniors and upperclassmen were to blame as we never picked up a man after we made a basket and they had 5-8 open 3’s just because somehow we were confused. That cannot happen with an older smart team. Very disappointing.
It has become very obvious that the way to beat us is to play an up-tempo style where the ball is brought up the court quickly and moves quickly to find the open shooter. Now on Pike & co to adjust.
Yes, but that’s easier said than done. Iowa does it well because that’s how they play. I don’t think a team that doesn’t usually do that is going to be able to replicate those results.
It’s Michigan states mo most years. We need to slow their transition
I don't want to get into a debate on semantics but my comment on "better defense" dealt with the current Iowa team compared to previous editions. And from my aging eyesight and somewhat failing memory, this team looks to be more physical and aggressive on defense. And they rebound . Past editions seemingly were all offense and "ole" defense with marginal rebounding effort. Perhaps my memory is still fogged from nightmares related to Weiskamp's three from the corner at the buzzer in 2019. I still haven't figured out how he made that shot.
Oh agree completely. Wasn’t suggesting it’s just an easy adjustment. I’ll put my faith in in Pike.
Now the question is most of us knew that Rutgers press is devastating so pushing the ball was always a coaching decision that should have been made but not easily executed. However , Pike also knew Iowa’s tendencies from the first game , and just a little perplexing no adjustment or rather correction of slowing them down by pressing more ( didn’t do it enough ) nor did his guys cover the guys on the court leaving at least 1 guy wide open after a made basket 5-10 times during the game. That is my confusion.
Well, we employed this defensive strategy against PSU, and it generally worked, with the Nits going just 4-26 from deep, primarily because they were taking mostly CONTESTED threes.
Pike wasn’t trying to leave guys open. Iowa gets the ball up the court quick and the defense just wasn’t communicating well enough in unsettled situations
That is my point and mentioned by Geo in an earlier post. The amount of miscommunication for a bunch of seniors and upperclassman was unacceptable. I said the blame goes to those players and the experienced upperclassman. Now Pike knew Iowa was going to do that so why the miscommunication ? Call a timeout and correct the problem early , like after it happens 1 time. It kept on happening , which is why I said Pike had to adjust something.
Penn State couldn’t do it. Maybe their shots will fall at their place. Nobody is beating us without shooting well unless we both crap the bed on offense and turn the ball over a ton like vs. Seton Hall.
Iowa shot well and we turned the ball over. We shot well but couldn’t overcome those two things. If we’d only turned it over at our normal rate the game would’ve gone down to the wire.
We overcame all of it but truth be told we could not overcome the ridiculous foul shooting difference.
?? How would you tell the difference lol? What is the difference between “we overcame the three point shooting but not the foul disparity” and “we overcame the foul disparity but not the three point shooting”?
Northwestern is also a defense-first team and Iowa just put 86 points in 66 possessions on them (1.3 per possession, even better than their 1.21 against us)
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