If he keeps up his numbers and the Hawkeyes keep doing fairly well, it could theoretically happen.
Big 10 is stockpiled this year with a lot of solid teams. Right now there isn't one great team that stands out as the overall best, but there are quite a few teams that look capable of making a run in the tournament. Hell, even Rutgers is solid this year. Sitting at 12-4 with losses @ Pitt, @ Illinois, @ MSU, and on a neutral floor to St. Bonnies (11-5).
Losing Bohannon and now Fredrick for a unknown stretch may really hurt him. The outside shooting threats are needed to stretch the defense so he can dominate. Some teams will just pack it in like Nebraska and dare the Hawks to shoot over top of them.
Im fairly confident in predicting that Wieskamp wont go 1/10 from 3 point range the rest of his Iowa career and we wont see an Iowa team shoot 12% from 3 for an entire game for a long, long time.
Oh absolutely. And honestly it's also tough for guys that aren't "well-known" to get 1st Team AA. That's not me discrediting Luka or anything, it's just a product of him not being on a blue blood team. Sometimes, even though they had a great year, they'll snub him for someone that might not have had as good of stats, but is a name brand type guy.
Yeah, the "structure" of the conferences is just very different.
The Big 12 has three dominant teams and a bunch of okay teams.
The Big Ten has no real standouts from the rest of the pack (though a few of its best teams are indeed very good) and, until the bottom drops out with Northwestern and Nebraska, basically everybody is pretty good and can beat anybody.
Yeah Weiskamp most likely won't shoot that poorly and 12% is terrible, but when you only have one true shooter on the floor, he's going to have to shoot absolutely lights out and the team's going to have to play pretty much perfect in order to beat really good teams.
I am interested to see how far the two headed monster of Wieskamp and Garza can take Iowa.
Its really important for Iowa to get Fredrick back sooner rather than later pretty much for the point you made above that I put in bold.
Yeah essentially Garza and Weiscamp are going to have to score between 40-50 points a game between the two of them and sprinkle in points here and there with the other guys. But as we both have said, teams are going to stay glued to Weiscamp, maybe even face guard him. I would also expect teams to double Garza down low and force him to pass out of it. If teams run it correctly, they'll be on Weiscamp at the catch and deny a shot attempt, and make other guys knock down the shots to beat them.
Luckily for Iowa, there are winnable games coming up and the back half of the conference schedule is tougher than the front half. Hopefully Fredrick is back by the time we go to College Park on January 30.
The problem is when you have to play very capable teams winning on the road is very tough. I think OSU, MSU, Michigan and Maryland are top teams, but they already lost games on the road to teams like Purdue, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and will lose some more as well. They they also have to contend with themselves as well.
Kansas, WVU and Baylor likely won't lose on the road to teams not named Kansas, WVU and Baylor, as the other Big12 teams just aren't capable of beating them. Well maybe TCU or Texas Tech, but I just don't see OU, OSU, ISU, Texas, and KState beating Kansas, WVU or Baylor even at home. That is pretty nice have 9-10 sure W's all lined up for you, as at least 5 of the teams just aren't good enough to beat you more than likely. The top teams in the Big10 don't have this kind of luxury.
Well Michigan St shot 12% from 3 at Purdue yesterday and Maryland shot like 18% at Carver Friday. Wieskamp likely doesn't go 1-10 again but counting on good 3 pt shooting on the road won't win the Hawks a lot of games from here on out. We need Fredrick back and someone else to step up from the outside to keep the pressure off of Garza.
I would argue this by saying TCU, Tech, Texas, and OU all have the same or better records than Iowa, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Those Big 12 teams listed above are not even close to being automatic wins and there's no doubt in my mind they will pick up a win against 1 of those 3 teams. So no, there aren't 9-10 wins already sharpied into the schedule for Baylor, KU, or WVU.
NET Rank of those teams:
TCU- 50
Texas-36
Tech- 66
OU- 46
Iowa- 31
Purdue- 34
Wisconsin- 25
Minnesota- 41
And to your point above that I put in bold text:
SOS for each of those teams:
TCU- 148
Texas- 98
Tech- 157
OU- 11
Iowa- 10
Purdue- 15
Wisconsin- 13
Minnesota- 6
Yes those are absolutely true, and I'm not saying that those Big 12 teams are great and those Big 10 teams are bad. I'm saying that the Big 12 teams that were listed are still teams made up with real good players and have real good coaches. In conference play you can't just waltz into Texas, Texas Tech, or OU, or even Iowa State and play bad and get out with a win. It just doesn't happen. You have to be ready to play every single night.
It's a possibility if he keeps those numbers up through the conference slate, however if they drop noticeably against conference teams it'll hurt a lot. Then it'll just look like stats padded against bad teams early on.
As stated, those numbers will be hard to replicate if teams just give up defending 3s on you guys and remove him instead.
It is definitely too early for me to throw down absolutes. You are right, Kansas, Baylor and WVU could certainly lose more than 1 of those 10 games. I might just make a note and keep track as it will be interesting to see actually. I don't remember the last time the middle of the Big12 has been this soft (allegedly right now, as things can change). Yet I would bet I'm not that far off on how many times the top 3 lose to the bottom 5, as the bottom 5 of the Big12 certainly have not impressed to date.