Iowa Basketball

The upcoming schedule for the hawks is 2 home games. We play Drake and South Carolina State at home these are games we have to win then we play Purdue on December 29th at home so we have a stretch of 3 home games. Now the question is, is this team getting better I believe they are yes athletically they are going to be behind most teams but if you can play smarter then the other team you can win games. Yes this could be a long frustrating year for us and at times we are probably going to get blown out of some games but the key to this season is to push through the adversity and always compete as long as the team doesn't quite.

The ISU game I thought we played very well they just played better we got open looks we were getting into the paint and getting easy baskets to recap that game we lost 81 to 71

We shot 46% from the field
They shot 58% from the field which is lights out.

From 3 both teams shot 42%
They were 19 -28 from the foul ine
We were 8-11 from the charity stripe

We out rebounded them 34-30

We only had 12 turnovers which isn't a great number but it isn't that bad usually the 8-12 range isn't a bad number of turnovers.

Player stats
Cole 16pts 5 rebounds 6-9 from the field
Gatens 20 pts 6-14 from the field 4-8 3pt's
Tucker  8 pts 3-13 shooting 2-10 3pt's
Payne 15 pts 6-10 shooting 3-5 3pt's
Cougill 12 pts 10 rebounds 5-5 and 2-2 3pt's

Yes it's frustrating to lose to ISU and UNI but I think this team has improved offensively the bottom line is they got almost no help from the bench May attempted 3 three pointer and missed them all and Bawinkle never had a shot attempt which with his streaky ability is dissapointing we couldn't get him one shot.

Big 2 road games for Iowa Basketball

These next 2 games are going to show us if this team has improved I think we can see that they have played better at home vs VA Tech and Praire View it will be interesting to see how they respond on the road this week as they travel to UNI and IA State.

 I think both of these games are winnable but we are going to have to shoot the ball well and run the offense threw the post with Cougill and Cole For the UNI game defensivily the keys to win are to keep Ahelegbe out of the paint, cover the open shooters and contain Cook and Egleseder down in the paint I would expect to see us double team if he gets low post position but Cole should be strong enough to handle him just not tall enough so he will need some help.

 I would say the biggest thing for Iowa to do offensively is shoot the 3 ball well, work the ball down low and get to the foul line. Also they need to rebound because they can't afford to give up second chance points.