IOWA vs IOWA STATE
- Thread starter Wings
- Start date
I hope you're right. We'll see in a week. I happen to think we're slightly better, plus Hilton is a big help as well. My point is that these two teams aren't worlds apart. Last year Iowa won by 9, but I happen to think that if we would have played 10 times at a neutral court, we would have won 6-7 of them, and they still beat us by 9.
Woodbury... this guy will be rendered ineffective against ISU. Quite frankly he can't even keep up with the pace his own team wants to play at so there is no way he will be able to keep up with ISU's pace of play.
Stop making so much sense!
But you're right about Iowa's alleged depth. The way some Hok fans talk about depth you'd think they have ten potential all Big Ten guys on the roster. It's just not true. The five guys coming off the bench are decent complementary pieces but all have some big holes in their respective skill sets.
Tim Floyd is probably Hoiberg's biggest mentor. Floyd played 6-7 guys in meaningful games on that Willoughby/Cato team. These guys are 18-22 years old and in extremely great shape. It's not that ISU has a lack of talent or depth it's just a coaching preference to have your best players on the court winded or not. Do you seriously think Peter Jok is a better player than Sherron Dorsey-Walker? That's ridiculous. Does Adam Woodbury have that much more of an impact out there than Daniel Edozie? No. Both SDW and Edozie will see their minutes but in the big time games Hoiberg will have his best seven out there. I for one agree with the philosophy.
I like Woodbury's basketball IQ and overall feel for the game. But his athleticism is severely lacking. Several times in the Battle for Atlantis tourney I saw him make the right read on a defensive rotation; he just can't get there quick enough. With the way ISU plays I don't see him logging a ton of minutes in this one.
Iowa's actually been playing even faster than ISU on offense this year. They are 3rd in the country in offensive possession length at 13.8 seconds, we are 8th at 14.3. There's going to be a lot of possessions in this one.
How far was that brought down by creating turnovers in their 3/4 court press against some of those bad teams? Iowa's defense does create a lot of turnovers in that press that lead to uncontested layups. It seems their "offensive possession length" is a bit skewed due to getting turnovers in their half of the court.
Go check the box score for that game last year and tell me how you think ISU played. Lucious played the least efficient game I have ever seen a PG play because he was trying to do way too much (3-13 from the floor, 7 assists, 1 rebound, 7 turnovers). Clyburn disappeared in that game taking only 5 shots and missing them all. That was his worst performance in a Cyclone uniform as he basically threw in the towel early. Niang was playing in only his 9th college basketball game. Ejim played 13 minutes total due to foul trouble.
In basic terms... ISU had one of the worst performances of the entire season against their rival on the road and still playing as awful as they did only lost by 9 points. If Iowa had been any good they would have won that game by 20 or more easily. There is a reason they didn't.
AND we led at halftime. It was amazing that we were even in that game with how bad some of our players played.
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You make some good points,especially in points 1 and 2, but 3 is where we don't agree. I'm not saying we don't have depth, I'm saying we don't have quality depth. We only played 7 against Michigan, and 9 against BYU although Bluford played less than a minute. When we play Iowa we are probably only going to go 8 deep with Morris, Naz, and Edozie coming off the bench. Players like Gibson, KJ, and SDW are not going to play against Iowa, but against teams like UMKC and Auburn they will. People need to look at our depth against Michigan and BYU, because that is caliber of team Iowa is. The depth were used against UMKC and Auburn doesn't matter. I said Villanova and Notre Dame were similar in us in that they spread the floor with a lot of good shooters and guards. I never said they were identical to us. Do they have bigs that can step out and shoot? No. But we don't have 6-10 posts that can score around the rim like they do.
ND's Sherman is a downgrade from Cooley and we did fine against both Cooley and Sherman last year.
ding ding ding, winning post re: deepest team in history
Honestly, looking at how low Woodbury's production has been and how many minutes he's had, I'm surprised Iowa has been so competitive last year and this year. It's not like Gibson, Edozie and Booker have given ISU any less than Woodbury per minute, they just don't get the minutes from Fred that Woodbury does from Fran. Great point about SDW vs. Jok, there is absolutely no way Jok would significantly outproduce SDW given equal minutes this year, yet one is considered part of "depth" and one is considered a guy near the end of the bench.
Overall team length is the area where I think Iowa is legitimately scary in terms of matchups with almost anybody, their depth is way overblown.
Not much, they fell from 2nd to 3rd after playing Xavier-UTEP-Villanova-Notre Dame. Their press really doesn't force a ton of turnovers, it's more designed to slow down the opponents offense and force them to burn a 1/3 of the shot clock before they even start their offense. Their defensive possession length is ranked 333rd in the nation at 19.2 seconds, we are 218th at 17.7 seconds for comparison.
Just remember that Iowa started 3 true freshman against us. It was their 9th game too just like Niang.
ND's offense isn't great and what did they get, 93? Whatever they were doing against the press must have been fine.
Notre Dame's offense is ranked 14th in the country in offensive efficiency, so yeah they are pretty good.
They are, absent Cooley, the same team we played last year. I can't remember, didn't we hold them under 60? Babb is good but is he that good?
I agree, but I'll add my concern that depth is a factor in preparation because you have 9-10 players to scout and the combinations from that. There were long stretches in the Nova game where Iowa had none of the original starting 5 - and that could create some challenges in preparing defensive schemes.
That said, Iowa hasn't seen the likes of players with the skills of: Ejim, Kane, Houge and Niang.
