hawkeyecub

This is where I have a problem with "luck" factor and pythagorean records. By the numbers Illinois is one of the unluckiest teams in the country and their record should be better. But when you have a major flaw (free throw shooting) that inherently puts you at a disadvantage in close games, I'm not sure how much of it is bad luck. It's like in baseball when a team has a poor pythagorean record but also has a terrible bullpen. Sure there's some luck involved, but there's also a reason you tend to lose more close games.

Wow, hell of a game. Gordon was coming close to a 10 second violation all night long. There were a few times where the shot clock was at 25 right before he crossed the line. I have no idea why Sampson stayed in zone for so long when it was clear that McCamey was unconscious tonight.

Jason Ford is a really solid back, but if he had stayed with Iowa we wouldn't have gotten Jeff Brinson from Florida. I think it worked out well for both parties. The quote of the day came from Joe Tiller, regarding Rich Rod grabbing one of his commits in the last week: "If we had an early signing date, you wouldn't have another outfit with a guy in a wizard hat selling snake oil to get a guy at the last minute, but that's what happened." I have a feeling a lot of Big Ten coaches will feel that way about Rich Rod.

Iowa lost 60-54 to Wisconsin tonight. Led by 3 at the half and just took too many bad shots in the last 10 minutes, couldn't get enough stops and they couldn't miss a free throw. How has Ed Hightower not been assassinated yet? I hate him with a passion.

There's been more than a foot of snow here since last night and it's going to continue throughout the afternoon. After that it's going to blow around with some decent wind. It's an absolute mess out there. As a result I hope we can just get 5,000 in there tonight, but I doubt it. I wish they would postpone the game but since Wisconsin is here it sounds like they'll play it.

Ive seen Wienke play, and I really wasnt that impressed. He comes from a very good program, but its also very very QB friendly. There is a big time difference in playing 1A-2A in Illinois, and playing in the Big Ten. Yeah it seems pretty mixed on him. I know a couple of guys who saw him in the playoffs and didn't think he was worthy of a Michigan offer. But he's a 6'4 200lb. QB with a big arm and some guys apparently thought he was good enough to go to the Elite 11 camp and get some nice offers. I've heard one of his biggest weaknesses is that he can have clumsy footwork. I think he'll definitely have a couple of years to develop. Absolutely everyone I know in Illinois and the evaluators raved about Jake Christensen coming out of high school. It wasn't all his fault last year, but he hasn't shown what everyone was expecting.

By the way I'm not just ranting because Iowa's class is ranked 51st in the nation by Rivals and 38th by Scout. I said the same things in '05 when we had a top 10 class. 11 of those 23 are no longer in the program either for injury or disciplinary problems. About half of the class has contributed on offense/defense but there's been no stars at all. On the flip side our '06 class was ranked 40th. 19 of those 21 are still on the roster. Almost all of the 19 have contributed and despite being a year younger they've performed better as a whole. Of course there's always the debate that's been on our board 100,000 times about Dallas Clark, Bob Sanders and the vast majority of our stars from our '02-'05 run being 2, 3 or no star guys. Iowa has 25 committments already and Mark Ingram a 4-star RB will decide between us and Alabama this afternoon. It will be the worst ranked class in years for Ferentz, but it's also the biggest and gives us depth at needed spots. We signed 2 true QB's, 4 RB's, 4 DE's, 5 DB's. Jeff Brinson (RB from FL who turned down FSU), John Wienke (Elite 11 QB who was a Michigan commit), and a JUCO RB who was going to K-State.

True, but for some people (like myself) who has limited knowledge on prep football players, it's nice to have a general measure of how a team is doing recruiting-wise. I like looking at the rankings too, but have to keep in mind that they change some guys' ranking depending on who's recruiting him. If a two star is being recruited by FAU, FIU and Central Florida and then UF jumps in on him, his ranking likely goes up to three or four star. Then, if UF loses interest somehow, if no other major team gets involved, the kid could fall back to a two star. Rankings are definitely cool to keep track of and an easy way to have an idea of the talent of a kid, but they're not the be all end all many fans think they are. Keep in mind, Ed Orgeron always had highly ranked recruiting classes... Exactly. Plus in football there is so much more that goes into development that just can't be predicted. At least in basketball you're talking about only something like 40-50 players coming into a conference like the Big Ten each year. Half of them will probably play right away. Most of the evaluators and coaches have seen every one of those guys play live. In football you're talking about over 200 more players coming into a conference each year. Outside of the top 100 guys nationally that everyone can come to some agreement on, it's mostly a crapshoot. How do you really tell between the 24th best guard and the 39th best guard? From the 62nd inside linebacker to 104th. It's so incredibly subjective and most of it is just piggy-backing on each other. Beyond that, they're skewed so that the power schools will always have the top classes. Last year LB Brian Smith was committed to Iowa and was ranked a 3-star all the way through the process and their updated rankings. In January when Notre Dame offered and he decided to go there, he became a 4-star. This year Jermil Martin picked Iowa over offers from West Virginia and Wisconsin but was ranked a 2-star. Those are some big-time programs. Then in the middle of January Ohio State offers, he commits there and overnight he becomes a 3-star. I understand part of that rationale, but it's just so blatant that it's impossible for me to take the rankings seriously.

Huge win for the Hawks over Ohio State tonight, 53-48. Justin Johnson went 8-13 from 3 for 24 points plus 7 boards and 3 assists. Seth Gorney had 10 points, 7 boards, 4 assists. We held them under 40% shooting. When we don't turn the ball over we can beat anyone in the league at home as evidenced by MSU and OSU. Wisconsin coming up on Wednesday at home. We're sitting at 4-6 in the league now. We should be able to win 3 home games against Northwestern, Michigan and Illinois which would get us to 7 wins. We definitely have a decent shot to win at Northwestern and Penn State. MSU will kill us. Wisconsin at home and Minnesota on the road are likely losses, but could possibly steal one. I don't think anyone thought we had a shot at a .500 record in the Big Ten this year. Lickliter is the man. It's amazing how much more he's getting out of some of these guys than Alford ever did.

CubColtPacer you're right on with a lot of that. Some of the low point totals are a result of the slow pace, but this group of Big Ten coaches does put a major emphasis on defense. I just wish the officials would let it be known that they aren't going to tolerate that level of physicality. It doesn't help the league. You can play tough defense without all of the contact.

I'm obviously an Iowa fan and like watching the Big Ten but in my opinion it just isn't an aesthetically pleasing conference right now, especially if you aren't a fan of a Big Ten team. It's probably the most physical league in the country and it's the slowest paced power conference. Lickliter and Beilein won't help at all in regards to pace, but they don't play nearly as physical defensively and they both had beautiful offenses to watch with their last teams. Thankfully neither hired Chris Lowery. You've got to think it will hurt Purdue in the NCAA's when they won't get away with it as much.

You guys got hosed on that last foul call that produced the winning free throw. But then again, I guess getting the 3 point play out of that drive to the basket was kind of fortunate so maybe it all balances out? Lickliter is doing a hell of a job getting that team ready to play, just a shame they don't have the personnel to win some of these games yet. I can actually not hate Iowa now that Alford is gone. :mrgreen: Yeah he definitely got a lot of ball. In Iowa City that's probably a no-call or a jump ball, but you get that call when you're the better team and playing at home. We were definitely lucky on the 3 point play. Kelly made a terrible decision and they bailed him out. I'm getting more faith in Lickliter game by game. The turnovers are just maddening and they're driving him nuts. We've had 60 turnovers in the last 3 games. His team at Butler last year averaged under 10 per game. The way that we're playing defense without having a lot of talented defenders is impressive. Our offense only has a few pieces that he would ideally like in his system but again you can see how efficient and productive we would be if we even approached the turnover numbers his teams consistently had. Side note, I absolutely hate watching Purdue at home. Their defense hand checks, grabs, holds, pushes and fouls on every hedge more than any other team in the league. In the Big Ten that's saying something. Yet any time they get a call, their crowd reacts like they've been robbed. I really wish Big Ten officials would consistently disallow that kind of defense.

UGH! We lose 51-50 at Purdue. We were down 50-47 with 10 seconds left, Jake Kelly inexplicably drives baseline but gets fouled and a goaltend after they interfered with the hoop. He hits the free throw to tie it with 5 seconds left. For some reason we didn't pick them up until halfcourt, Grant beats Freeman off the dribble, Tony reaches in and gets his hand on the ball but they called the foul with 1.4 to go. Grant hits the first free throw, intentionally misses the second, game over. 22 turnovers and we lose a game on the road against a good team by 1 point. Manage to keep that to 18 friggin turnovers (still way too many) and we win. Damn.

When talking about it at halftime of the basketball game on ESPN they said the dates that the Mets play the Yankees this year. They've gone so far, they can't even be parodied anymore.

Gammons just said on ESPNEWS that he expects by this time next week the Santana trade to be official with the Mets, Bedard to be traded to the Mariners and Roberts to be traded to the Cubs.

I heard Gammons talking about this on ESPNEWS. He said it wouldn't be done until they agreed on a contract but by this time next week he expects Santana to be official the Mets, Bedard to be traded to the Mariners and Roberts traded to the Cubs.

Did anything come out as to why he was suspended? Attitude problems?

Penn State was just plain bad without Claxton. Iowa didn't even play very well and still led by double digits for 35+ minutes and won by 15. Freshman PG Jeff Peterson had 19 points, 5 assists and didn't miss a shot all night. 4-4 from the field, 2-2 from 3 and 9-9 from the free throw line. Cyrus Tate had 7 points, 13 boards and Seth Gorney had 11 points and 8 boards.

Yeah it's basically Gatens and some role players at this point. Anthony Tucker is a 6'4 guard from the #1 team in Minnesota is probably the next best one. Great shooter but probably only a decent athlete, decent ballhandler and decent defender. Brommer is a 6'8 PF who was committed to Minnesota before Monson was fired and has more of an outside face-up game than a real post. He's pretty thin though and may need a redshirt year. Jermain Davis is a JUCO guard who is supposedly a super athlete and defender, only an average scorer, ballhandler. They're trying to find one or two more JUCO big men to help out next year. Things are looking a little better in the '09 class at least. They're sitting okay with much better talent. Of course if you put together a team with the recruits we finished 2nd or 3rd for over the last 10 years they'd be our best team in 20 years. Give us Jon Scheyer, Eric Gordon, Derrick Rose, Scotty Reynolds, Willie Kemp, and Sherron Collins and let me know where we finish this year. I'm not saying it doesn't happen with every team. The problem is (until recently) Illinois missed on some top talent and still brought in a good class. We would be 2nd or 3rd for a top 50 or 100 guy and end up with a total project or guy that can't qualify or doesn't stay on campus to replace him. Smith was the only consensus top 100 guy we landed since Horner/Brunner. I can't remember the last out of state top 100 guy we got who stayed 3-4 years.

Yeah we just don't have many guys who fit what he wants and with a 7-man rotation there's no one to put in when he wants to send a message. Gorney is the closest thing to what he wants in a big man and when he shows up aggressive and confident he's put up nice numbers. When he doesn't he's a mess. Johnson has disappeared since the first IU game, our freshman are pretty nice fits but very inconsistent and when things start going bad Freeman gets out of the system and freelances. Against Indiana at home the offense looked really crisp and we moved the ball so well. Plus we only had 12 turnovers in a 74 possession game. Last night we had 20 in a 64 possession game. IU looked much better last night, especially defensively. A lot of it was just unforced errors on our part that led to run outs, but White and Gordon were just unstoppable. There's no question that you need some depth; Iowa's talent level is decent and Lickliter's system works well, but the depth just isn't there and you really need a body inside. More time in the system will also help a lot. I liked what I've seen from Iowa so far this Big Ten season, and I think -- given a couple years of solid to good recruiting -- Iowa will be a contender for the Big Ten title. They have Matt Gatens coming in next year. A very solid player. They should have had Beas Haegma this year, but Alford really hurt em on that one. They are doing pretty good job considering they are short on talent this year. Yeah it's basically Gatens and some role players at this point. Anthony Tucker is a 6'4 guard from the #1 team in Minnesota is probably the next best one. Great shooter but probably only a decent athlete, decent ballhandler and decent defender. Brommer is a 6'8 PF who was committed to Minnesota before Monson was fired and has more of an outside face-up game than a real post. He's pretty thin though and may need a redshirt year. Jermain Davis is a JUCO guard who is supposedly a super athlete and defender, only an average scorer, ballhandler. They're trying to find one or two more JUCO big men to help out next year. Things are looking a little better in the '09 class at least. They're sitting okay with much better talent. Of course if you put together a team with the recruits we finished 2nd or 3rd for over the last 10 years they'd be our best team in 20 years.

Yeah we just don't have many guys who fit what he wants and with a 7-man rotation there's no one to put in when he wants to send a message. Gorney is the closest thing to what he wants in a big man and when he shows up aggressive and confident he's put up nice numbers. When he doesn't he's a mess. Johnson has disappeared since the first IU game, our freshman are pretty nice fits but very inconsistent and when things start going bad Freeman gets out of the system and freelances. Against Indiana at home the offense looked really crisp and we moved the ball so well. Plus we only had 12 turnovers in a 74 possession game. Last night we had 20 in a 64 possession game. IU looked much better last night, especially defensively. A lot of it was just unforced errors on our part that led to run outs, but White and Gordon were just unstoppable.

And yet we managed to play even worse in the second half. Hideous.

That's the dumbest this team has played since turning it over 29 times to LA-Monroe. 11 turnovers in the first half, a bunch of missed assignments defensively and our big guys are back to playing soft.

Adding Tyler Smith was huge for them. I never felt like people (media included) understood just how important that addition was. Iowa fans did. He's got that tough to find blend of great athleticism and high basketball IQ/court sense. He was the perfect piece to that puzzle.

Well Hello! I haven't seen one of you outside of Des Moines in over 30 years! Seriously though if you are a longtime Drake fan, congrats and keep it rolling. I have nothing against Drake at all. Just the hundreds of people who are suddenly Drake fans who couldn't name more than two guys on their roster a few years ago.