Iowa vs Minnesota Men's Basketball Preview

The Hawkeyes are headed to the Twin Cities to take on a team that they haven't beat since 2007. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to change after this game. From here on out, anytime that Iowa wins, aside from Penn State (even though they upset Illinois and Michigan State) and Indiana, it's going to be considered an upset.

Iowa's Offense:

Not much has changed with Iowa. They are still around average at shooting, and slightly below average at getting to the free throw line, sharing the ball, and not turning it over. Their offensive rebounding rate fell after getting embarrassed by Northwestern.

Iowa vs Northwestern Recap

This game doesn't deserve an intro.

Bullet points!

• Well, I said Northwestern could shoot... Wednesday night was a mixture of bad defense from Iowa and ridiculously hot shooting from Northwestern. They came into the game with a 54.52%  effective FG%. During the game, they shot a 64.52% effective FG%. Coming into the game they had made 39.39% of their three pointers. During the game they made 50%. 
• I also said Northwestern was bad on defense. Iowa had a 48.16% effective FG% coming into Wednesday night's game. In 40 minutes, they put up a 59% effective FG%. Second best this season, only to the 66.67% they put up against SIU Edwardsville.
• I also told you, that Iowa should win the rebounding battle easily. Yeah, about that. I have no idea what happened. Basabe did his job on the boards. He grabbed 8 defensive rebounds (47.62% defensive rebound rate) and 4 offensive rebounds (26.27% offensive rebound rate) in 21 minutes of play. Cole, actually grabbed around his season average in defensive rebounds, but did not grab any offensive ones. When you take into consideration time on the court, (he  grabbed 4 defensive rebounds in 22 minutes) Cole had a 22.73% defensive rebounding rate. He averages 19.57% on the year. 
• I think the rebounding gap lies with Archie and Brommer, who both played a combined 19 minutes in the game and grabbed no rebounds. This is the one good thing that Archie can consistently do, and against Northwestern he just wasn't himself. 
• Staying on rebounding. Northwestern grabbed 59% of all rebounds to Iowa's 41%. They also out-rebounded Iowa on the offensive glass 43.75% to 24.14%. Not to mention, on the defensive boards 75.86% to 56.25%. That is the worst Iowa has been in rebounding this season. Those totals are also, all way above Northwestern's season average, especially, the 43.75% offensive rebounding. Coming into the game, they had only grabbed 27.74% of all offensive rebounds available on the season.Yeah. This was a great game!
• One of the few bright spots in this game was Matt Gatens. He shot 5 of 8 from three point land, and made all 3 of his free throws. He finished with 20 points on 10 field goals attempted and 3 free throws attempted. That was good for an effective FG% of 85% (!). He has been the only consistent player on this team since Big 10 play started, shooting a 70.24% effective FG%, making 53.57% of his three point attempts, and averaging 17 points a game. At least we know what we can expect out of one Iowa player once the game starts.
• Cartwright also had an offensive explosion against Northwestern. Going off for 25 points. Even better, was that he did it on 16 shots and 8 free throw attempts. That was good for a 56.25% effective FG%, much more efficient than his season average of 42.94%. Don't expect this efficiency to be an every game thing, because most of the Big 10 doesn't play defense like Northwestern.
• Staying with Cartwright. I only caught the last 10 minutes of this game because I forgot to set my DVR, and the Big Ten Network didn't replay it that night (not that I can blame them after the massacre that took place). But, listening to the second half on the radio driving home, I heard Dolph and Bobby get excited every time the Hawkeyes would make a shot to cut the lead. However, they would immediately go from encouraged to depressed because of Cartwright's defense. They literally sounded like Cartwright's defense was driving them to drink on the air. Since Iowa is so thin at point guard, this is what we are going to get. An offensive minded, decent passing, turnover prone, inefficient scoring, matador-like defending, point guard. He has nights where he can be special, but there are nights where he will frustrate the living hell out of you. Last night was a little of both. 
• Eric May's injury has really hurt this team. I feel bad for Eric because he was in a shooting slump in December, only to get injured before the Ohio State game. May can put the ball in the basket, rebound, and play defense. Not having him do all of that at full strength, is not doing this team any favors during Big 10 play. 
• I defended Basabe and Cole on their rebounding, but I was surprised at how little they scored against Northwestern. Mirkovic is a good, tall post player for Northwestern, but he can only guard one of the duo. Basabe went 3 of 3 from the field and Cole went 1 of 2. Even more weird, when I got home, I thought I heard the Big Ten Network announcers say that Northwestern didn't even try their 1-3-1 zone until later in the second half. Hopefully, the Basabe and Cole who showed up in the Ohio State game will come back and visit soon. 
• Iowa struggled from the free throw line, making 54.55% on 12 of 22 shooting. But, when you look at who missed them, it's easy to see why. Marble went 1 for 6 and Brommer went 0-2. That is 7 of the 10 missed free throws there. Marble is shooting 50% from the line this year, and Brommer 30.43%. When those guys are taking 8 of your team's free throws, you should automatically prepare for the worst. 
• Iowa finished 16.07% of their possessions with an assisted field goal and 21.91% with a turnover. Good for a 0.73 to 1 assist to turnover ratio. 
• Northwestern ended 33.67% of their possessions with an assist and 20.49% of their possessions with a turnover. Good for a 1.64 to 1 assist to turnover ratio.
• Iowa averaged 1.04 points per possession. Northwestern averaged 1.32.
• After letting Northwestern shoot lights out on them, Iowa has now allowed Big 10 opponents to shoot a 64.76% effective FG% (!), compared to the 44.69% they held non-conference opponents too. You should expect an increase, but 20%? Let's hope this gets fixed.

This game doesn't deserve an outro either.

Iowa's Defense 2003-2010 (The Rest of the Leftovers)

If you've read the the accompanying posts, you know how this goes. Since I'm snowed in today, I have time for more analysis than I did in the offensive one.

First, defensive points allowed per game:

The 2006 version of Iowa's defense was the only team to ever give up more (just slightly) than Big 10 average points per game. If you're looking up points per game and these don't match, it's because I took out points given up on kick returns or any other plays that the defense was not on the field. 2003, 2008, and 2009 were really stingy on points. 2010 was really good at this through the first eight games, the last four games raised their average to about 16.

• Iowa's eight year average: 16.17 defensive points per game allowed
• Big 10 eight year average: 21.94 defensive points per game allowed

Iowa vs Northwestern Men's Basketball Preview

Northwestern is coming into Carver Wednesday night, after just picking up their first conference win of the season against Indiana. They are a pretty interesting team. My opinion on them, is that they had a pretty cupcake non-conference schedule, but have struggled anytime they have faced a good opponent. For a team that is looking to finally make an NCAA tournament, their signature wins this year are probably against Creighton, Georgia Tech, and Indiana. They did only lose by 3 to Michigan State at home, but on the road they lost to Illinois and Purdue by double digits. Interestingly enough, in this series over the last two years, the home teams are undefeated. Even better, Northwestern hasn't won in Carver since the Alford Era (or since I was a Sophomore in high school, I'm getting old), January 10, 2004. Also, in that time frame, Iowa has only won once at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The home team has won ten out of the last twelve meetings. In other words, Iowa could easily get their first Big 10 win Wednesday night.

Iowa's Offense 2003-2010 (Leftovers from the Last Post)

In the first post I only gave you the percentages because I felt that it was already long enough, and there was no need to go overboard with information. In this one, I wanted to put the actual numbers because it is interesting to see things like in what years the Big 10 was especially tough. Also, I calculated more than the five stats I used for the earlier post, and I figured they might as well not go to waste. There will be less analysis in this post, but plenty of graphs to look at.

Offensive Points Per Game:

Three seasons above average.