Iowa ACC vs. Big-10 made for TV challenge preview
November 30th, 2009 by bourbonstreet#46 R.P.I. Virginia Tech @ #245 R.P.I. Iowa
TV coverage: 9:30pm ESPN2
Vegas Line: Iowa+2, O/U=???
Where have you gone Steve Alford?
Iowa ain’t what they used to be under Dr. Tom Davis or under Steve as Men’s hoops goes. Which means we do have a chance here.
Gotta plug the A.C.C. and Big-10 suits; plus the guys up in Bristol for their match-making cachet in sizing up the pending A.C.C. vs. Big-10 match-ups to give each side a decent enough chance at a W. Iowa is traditionally a tough place to visit; though points have been tough to come by for the Hawkeyes this year up in Iowa City. If you like baseball scores in football; this basketball game is the one for you. Points will be scarce as quite possibly the two least great offenses in their respective conferences square off in this one. First one to 50 wins.
The question now would be … who gets there first?
Iowa at a Glance:
- Hawkeye’s are 15th from last (or 315th) in Scoring Offense (59.7 per game).
- Hawkeye’s are 12th from last in 3-point% at a lowly 26.6% on the year.
- Iowa is only 39.8% or 295th in Offensive FG% on the season.
- Iowa only courts 10 scholarship ballers!
- Iowa only has 1 senior on their team. (not real experienced)
Ouch!
Talk about the gang that could not shoot straight. Iowa is having trouble making a “2″ with a pencil. They can not throw it in the Ocean off the Titanic.
Alright; arid humor aside — this is a hoops preview.
So why is Iowa so offensively challenged this year you ask? Mainly because of an epic proverbial red-flag that is fluttering up in Iowa City. The Hawkeye’s departed 4 starters from a fair to middling team that won 15 games last year. Normally we’d call that code for Graduation or at least expiring eligibility.
In Iowa City they call that a deluge of Transfers from Coach Todd Lickliter’s hoops team; and I call that a jumbo sized red-flag for Hawkeye hoops. Be the alibi’s style of play differences; homesickness; or playing-time vis-à-vis grades. Whenever that many returning players elect to transfer out; that is not a positive sign no matter how you spin it. Even Maytag does not have a spin-cycle for a 30% transfer rate. As I said above, these departed Hawkeye’s left Iowa with only 10 scholarship ballers. That’s code for being real thin in a really rough and tumble physical style of play basketball conference. This strongly avers a long campaign up in Hawkeye country.
Back however would be all-conference candidate #5 Matt Gatens. Matt has nice size (legit 6`5“) and nice range for a big 2-Guard. This will not be an easy match-up for us. The rest of the Hawkeyes are not so impressive. Starting Small-Forward Aaron Fuller has a bad ankle that he rolled recently and may not play. Devon Archie a quality big Forward is out for a couple of months with a bum shoulder that he injured in practice. He is a quality front-court player when healthy and may even have to take a r-shirt this season. #50 Jarryd Cole has stepped up nicely in the Hawkeye frontcourt in lieu of Archie and Fuller. Cole a 6`7“ 255 lb. bruiser has almost tripled his points per game and almost doubled his board work from last year. Checking in at 10 and 7 respectively; which place him second in scoring and first in rebounding.
Beyond that Iowa’s scoring drops off like an Acme anvil off of a cartoon cliff. It may appear that Iowa is balanced in scoring with six guys all tallying between 8 and 11 points per game; that’s not necessarily a good thing when four of the six shoot between 30-39% on the year. Talk about chipping orange paint off the ring.
One other major thing I see here is that Iowa is only playing a 7-man Rotation right about now. Ergo, liberal substitutions and pushing the pace or tempo are a necessity in order for Coach Seth Greenberg to try to wear a thin Hawkeye hoops team down as the evening wears on. However, should we play at a throttled down tempo; Iowa is a decent enough defensive rebounding team, and they do have a slow yet bulky front-line that can muscle you around the key. This therefore slows the game’s pace down and thereby allows Iowa’s limited offense to maintain contact in a wrestling match for points. (Sporting pun insert here; check)
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This one is a tough one to call. Inside Cassell I would prolly pick us/VT to win a ugly one. Up in Iowa City on the knock-off Boston Keltic parquet gone Mid-West; I can only pick this to indeed be an ugly one. If lowly traditional NC2A doormat(s) Duquesne and Texas of San Antonio can each hold Iowa to 50 points as they did to open this season, than so can VT. You might even dare call for a this games scoreboard to wind up stuck in the 40’s when the final buzzer sounds folks. I’ma gonna call for Overtime myself; as I am having a tough time deciding which suspect offense is actually slightly better at being bad?
I will side with MD-20-20 providing just enough offensive spark to win a feckless hoops game that will not be easy on the eyes up in Iowa.
Virginia Tech=55, Iowa=52
“LETS GO!”
“HOKIES!”
b’street
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