Iowa State vs Iowa
- Thread starter Pope
- Start date
It's annoying but it helps a bit that Iowa's at least likely a tourney team ('good' loss) and ISU has more ahead of it. Also it doesn't seem that Iowa has as many bratty fake tough guy behaviors although they may make their appearance tonight.
Repeating but I'd guess they try to go after Osun and Gabe to throw things off.
If the injury is what is being rumored, he is not going to play. Its a longer term thing
Iowa is favored because of the metrics (some of which has last year data in it) and because almost no one watches either team.
Was told by a friend it is allegedly Plantar Fasciitis, if true they probably will need to sit him for a couple of weeks.
They play Badgers on Sunday but after that they don't play a Big 10 team til the 29th.
If they sit him, that would give him 3 weeks to rest it til their 2nd Big 10 game.
I guess he could still play, but I would think they want to have him ready for conference season.
Will see if rumor is correct.
If you look at Wards analytics he is the best rebounder on the team and I believe is tied for PER with Osun.
If that’s true the kid should shut it down this year.
If that's what he has, he needs to ride the hot start he had (albeit against poor teams) and his twin brother to a 1st round pick.
is this one of those games where Murray is hurt/DNP and the McCafferies and Sandfort go off for 15 three pointers?
If Iowa shoots well from deep and we miss bunnies at our normal rate (we miss a lot), it's going to be hard for us to win.
I really hope Ward has an offseason like Jones just had. If Ward can develop post moves and alittle touch from the elbow, he'd be an all-conference player with starter's minutes.
I'm the opposite. Feeling better and better as the week has gone on. Especially now with rumors circulating Hawkeye boards that Murray is out a couple weeks. Which is actually kind of a bummer; I'd have liked to kick their ass at full strength.
With or without Murray, Iowa having to endure 40 minutes of getting the crap beat out of them 48 hours after getting handled by Duke in New York, I like our chances. Iowa does not have the deadeye shooters or imposing post players they've had the past few years with JBo, Fredrick, Weiskamp, Nunge, Garza all gone. If their offense doesn't run through Murray, I don't see them being anywhere close to an elite test for ISU's defense.
I wouldn't be suprised if ISU comes out real juiced and the first 4 or 8 minutes they miss some bunnies, airball a 3, and pick up some cheap fouls and find themselves down 8. But I think they grind it out, it's close to tied at half, and ISU wins by 6-9
It's probably just me but I struggle to have any ill feelings towards Patrick. Margaret, Francis and Connor (and I'm sure eventually Jack) absolutely but Patrick seems like a decent kid that's overcome a lot...
Used these metrics for the UConn and UNC games:
UNC:
- No (only made 3)
- No (37% ORB)
- No (18 made FTs)
- No (14 TOs)
UConn
- No (made 7) [this surprised me]
- Yes (60%!!!)
- Yes (20 made FTs)
- No (17 TOs)
Looking at last year's 13 losses:
- Lost both games we gave up 10 3s last year (never gave up more than 10) - also lost both games we gave up 9
- Occurred ZERO times last year!!
- 2 had 20 or more FT makes [may need to rethink this one, we went 5-2 in these games]
- 6 had 12 or fewer TOs [3 of 22 wins]
Absolutely amazing just how much of an outlier our poor rebounding in the UConn game was, giving up 60% offensive boards. The previous worse OBR% for a Otz ISU team was 43%. The season high, other than that game, for UConn is 35%.
The last time UConn had a 60% OBR game was against Maine in 2011
The last time ISU gave up a 60% OBR game was ... nevermind we won't talk about that