hawkeyecub

NESS

Wiskys best player Hughes picked up two fouls in the first three minutes. Typical 8-5 match up. The opposing teams best player in foul trouble immediatly against Duke? noway that never happens.... I know and the point guard to boot. I am also a little sick of hearing about how duke has never lost in the challenge. Maybe if they played a true road game in it. We went to Duke and played, they then came to chicago. :roll: They played Iowa in Chicago in '01 also. I think they've only played 2 actual road games in this entire series. If Purdue can pull this out the Big Ten may only lose 6-5 but that's as close as it can get.

That first half was some of the worst basketball I've seen in a long time. They didn't look good against Bradley in South Padre but it was better than tonight especially considering Bradley is better than Wake and we were home tonight. Second half was decent and if they had hit their free throws it would have been close. At least there is some hope for the future with the young guys though. Cole is an absolute beast. A lot like Brunner but he's better as a freshman. They need practice time, they need to get Peterson's hand fixed and they need to get Freeman back. Oh and they need to get shooters and ballhandlers to run Lick's offense. They have played better defense than I expected though and they were good tonight. You can't complain about giving up 56 points in a 69 possession game. Scoring 47 is a problem.

How is Bohannon fitting in this year?

I just heard an update on The Score where Offman said that the Cubs "aren't on the verge of signing Matsui but are moving closer" whatever that means. He's probably just going off of the Denver Post article. I really don't get it in any sense. He better have some blockbuster deal lined up with some of these middle infielders and get Fukudome signed at a reasonable price for any of this to work.

So is there basically no hope that he can play SS?

Iowa beat Northern Colorado 59-47. The game was closer than that for most of the second half. Just a brutal game by the officials led to 45 total turnovers. They combined for about 10 (maybe more) carrying violations and 6 moving screens. Just killed any flow that the game may have had with the constant whistles. Freshman PG Jeff Peterson was the star of the game again. 20 points on 7-10 FG, but he did have only 2 boards and 2 assists to 6 turnovers (2 carries) to go along with it. He might have shown more skills tonight than he did in the 12 point, 9 assist, 0 turnover game the other night. When Northern Colorado made it tight in the second half he repeatedly got into the lane when he wanted and finished nicely in traffic. Kurt Looby had 4 points, 7 boards, 4 blocks and 4 steals.

I can't see Hendry trading Marmol this offseason. Lou was infatuated with using him last year, Hendry makes relief pitching a priority and he just announced that he would move Dempster back to the rotation. I wouldn't be surprised if he gave up Hill and I wouldn't be surprised if he gave up too much. I just think he'll make Marmol almost untouchable.

Thats irresponsible reporting if they report Monroe is the head of any trade package. Anyways, I'd rather have Fukudome than Crawford any day of the week. -Fukudome is better in the area we need more help in, OBP -Fukudome doesn't cost anything in terms of players -Fukudome will probably be making less than Crawford by the end of his contract. Fukudome is older and most definately cost more. Crawford is due 23.5 mill over the next 3 years. If Fukudome doesn't at least get 8-10 mill per over 4 years I'd be surprised OK, I didn't realize Crawford was extended. I thought he was still doing arby. But still Fukudome will put up better numbers than Crawford. He's 30, not 38. People are looking to give 8 year deals to a 32 year old ARod, but are concerned with giving a 4 year deal to a 30 year old. Granted Fukudome is not nearly in the same class as ARod, but I would not be concerned about regression between the ages of 30-34. It's not regression so much that people are worried about, it's more about how his skills will translate to the U.S. Most people I think believe that he'll be productive, but it's hard to say how productive. Personally I don't see how someone can say that Fukudome is going to put up better numbers than Crawford. Maybe comparable numbers, but better? Crawford's OPS the last 2 years is .830 and .821. Now maybe Fukudome can put up similar numbers OPS wise with better OBP, which of course would be a little better. How high is his upside though? Can he be a 900 OPS player? At the same time, Fukudome could easily be somewhere around a 750-775 OPS. Fukudome has the advantage in defense, but Crawford's 154 SB's over the last 3 years at an 85 percent clip is a nice weapon as well. Crawford's definitely the less risky option IMO. He's younger (and still theoretically hasn't entered his prime), he has less variability in projections, and his contract is better. It will all depend on how much the Cubs would have to give up in trade to see if Crawford is the better option or not, but I just don't see how you can look at the contract and numbers and say that Fukudome will be better. He has a chance to be better, but more likely not. Correct on all fronts. It all comes down to the players we would have to give up. Crawford will be cheaper and a good bet to be at least as productive (especially when considering baserunning success). He has higher upside and will turn 27 after the All-Star Break next year.

Except for adjusted efficiency. Really my intent wasn't to say that Indiana wasn't a good defensive team last year. All I was trying to say was that it was a surprise their offense ranked a lot higher in the Big Ten than their defense, especially considering Sampson's resume. That's all.

I think you and I were high on Infante when I first started posting here. I was trying to figure out what kind of package we could put together to get him when Nomar went down in '05.

You would think so, but last year was a bizarro year for Sampson. They were toward the bottom of the league in defense but they had the best offense in the conference. I would guess whether that repeats itself or not will depend on their freshmen because their offense will be damn good. Those stats are a lot more indicative of the way the Big Ten plays than IU's lack of defense. How so? Everyone in the Big Ten plays good defense. Right, but among those teams they ranked 7th in defense, 1st in offense. I'm not saying they played terrible defense overall, it was just a twist on what you would have expected from Sampson. I honestly don't know why they played that way in the Big 10. Their defense was definitely better than their offense though. To illustrate, here are some key non-conference games from last year: Duke- 54-51 Kentucky- 59-54 Southern Illinois-57-47 Gonzaga-70-57 UCLA- 54-49 There's their 5 big non-conference games, and the most points IU scored was 70 once (2nd best was 57) and the most points they allowed was 59 (2nd was 57). That's definitely a mark of a better defense than offense. You're right early in the season they played like Sampson's Oklahoma teams. They just couldn't make a shot against UCLA, but that's to be expected somewhat. Conference games are just usually the best way to evaluate a team's strengths. They make up a bulk of their season and you exclude anomalies from playing major cupcakes so usually they give you a good indicator of how they played all year. In the Big Ten, their offense was much better than their defense.

You would think so, but last year was a bizarro year for Sampson. They were toward the bottom of the league in defense but they had the best offense in the conference. I would guess whether that repeats itself or not will depend on their freshmen because their offense will be damn good. Those stats are a lot more indicative of the way the Big Ten plays than IU's lack of defense. How so? Everyone in the Big Ten plays good defense. Right, but among those teams they ranked 7th in defense, 1st in offense. I'm not saying they played terrible defense overall, it was just a twist on what you would have expected from Sampson. Everyone in the Big Ten plays good defense. The more you score, the more you give up. The quicker you shoot, the more possessions the other team gets. Ohio State was only seventh in scoring defense, think they weren't good defensively? In overall games, IU gave up 61.8 ppg, allowed opponents to shot only .416, and allowed only .310 shooting from 3 (best in the Big Ten). Those are good numbers. IU's defense wasn't as good as Illinois, but it was good. I do agree the offense was surprisingly efficient, but it wasn't great. It should be much, much better this year, though. That's why I'm judging them based on efficiency. They were first in the conference in points per possession at 1.12. Ohio State was 2nd at 1.10, Wisconsin was 3rd at 1.07, Iowa was 4th at 1.05. Everyone else in the league was at 1.02 or lower. Defensively they were 7th in the league at 1.03. The top 5 teams in defense were at .98 per possession or lower. Ohio State whom you referenced was at .94, almost a tenth of a point per possession better than Indiana.

You would think so, but last year was a bizarro year for Sampson. They were toward the bottom of the league in defense but they had the best offense in the conference. I would guess whether that repeats itself or not will depend on their freshmen because their offense will be damn good. Those stats are a lot more indicative of the way the Big Ten plays than IU's lack of defense. How so? Everyone in the Big Ten plays good defense. Right, but among those teams they ranked 7th in defense, 1st in offense. I'm not saying they played terrible defense overall, it was just a twist on what you would have expected from Sampson.

You would think so, but last year was a bizarro year for Sampson. They were toward the bottom of the league in defense but they had the best offense in the conference. I would guess whether that repeats itself or not will depend on their freshmen because their offense will be damn good. Those stats are a lot more indicative of the way the Big Ten plays than IU's lack of defense. How so?

You would think so, but last year was a bizarro year for Sampson. They were toward the bottom of the league in defense but they had the best offense in the conference. I would guess whether that repeats itself or not will depend on their freshmen because their offense will be damn good.

Yes. To steal a line from the Big Ten Wonk, asking who will be this year's Kevin Durant is like asking who will be this year's George Mason? Both cases are extreme rarities and not likely to be repeated anytime soon.

Iowa beat Idaho State 58-43 last night. Defense held them to 16 in the first half as Idaho State kept chucking bad 3's repeatedly. Justin Johnson was 7-12 from 3. Freshman Jeff Peterson looked very good at PG. 12 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals and 0 turnovers in 38 minutes. He came in with the rep as a smart floor general but he's quicker than I expected and really can handle it. Unfortunately there's no one else to share the duties while Freeman is out.

The Lickliter era begins tonight! Unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised with a loss to Idaho State. Freeman is out 4-6 weeks. So we now have 10 players on our roster and 4 guys who can legitimately play the 1, 2 and 3 spots. Two of the four are freshman and the other is a former walkon. Yikes.

296!!!!! That was against the #7 rush defense in the league by the way. Absolutely incredible. Go Vikes!

UGH! Tony Freeman who was clearly the best player on Iowa's already undermanned roster, broke his foot last night in an exhibition game and will likely be out 6-8 weeks.

I'm pumped about Lickliter. Can't wait for the season, even without expectations. I think they'll be around .500 because of an extremely weak non-conference schedule. It will be nice to see an actual system and a team that takes care of the basketball.

This week he talked about how the Diamondbacks beat the Cubs by having 9 guys play like Ryan Theriot. Meanwhile the Cubs only have one Ryan Theriot. He's been gushing about the Red Sox group, how they play and how they should be the model for the Cubs. Interestingly his biggest peeve about the Cubs was the sluggers posing at home plate or trotting when a ball didn't leave the yard or only ended up in the first two rows. Apparently he decided to overlook that with Papi and Manny.

Keep dreaming. It's not a realistic possibility. We don't have enough and no package you come up with will be able to land him.

dumb. I don't understand comments like this. It's not like the organization doesn't want him to be a second baseman or is only moving him because he's blocked by someone. They understand his value is higher at 2B than in LF. It's pretty clear that there isn't much hope of him being an adequate 2B. Just because we wish we could have his bat in the middle infield, doesn't mean the scouts and coaches are wrong. Also this wasn't just directed at you.