Hawkeye Hoops

Iowa 75, The Citadel 53

2006-11-15T20:13:00.000-06:00

Iowa's basketball season is once again underway, and the team's opening night victory got me fired up enough that I figured I'd sneak out of my semi-retirement and bang on the ol' keyboard for a while.

Without further ado, I'll present the same points per possession grid that I used frequently last season. This might be new to some of you, but it's pretty simple after a few minutes, and hopefully rather informative. The table tells you how many points Iowa scored and allowed while each player was on and off the court, as well as how many possessions each player was either in the game or on the bench. For example, Tony Freeman was on the court for 57 of Iowa's 71 offensive possessions, during which time the team scored 55 points, which works out to a not-so-stellar 96.5 points per 100 possessions (PPP). When he was out of the game, Iowa got hot and scored 20 points on just 14 possessions.

Iowa vs. The Citadel
		Off			Def
NAME		Poss	Pts	PPP	Poss	Pts	PPP
Tony	On	57	55	96.5	56	39	69.6
Freeman	Off	14	20	142.9	15	14	93.3

Mike	On	0	0	0.0	0	0	0.0
Henderson	Off	71	75	105.6	71	53	74.6

Adam	On	62	69	111.3	61	47	77.0
Haluska	Off	9	6	66.7	10	6	60.0

Justin	On	55	54	98.2	54	37	68.5
Johnson	Off	16	21	131.3	17	16	94.1

Kurt	On	48	37	77.1	47	33	70.2
Looby	Off	23	38	165.2	24	20	83.3

Seth	On	46	57	123.9	46	21	45.7
Gorney	Off	25	18	72.0	25	32	128.0

Cyrus	On	31	45	145.2	33	31	93.9
Tate	Off	40	30	75.0	38	22	57.9

Tyler	On	15	19	126.7	15	21	140.0
Smith	Off	56	56	100.0	56	32	57.1

Brett	On	19	24	126.3	22	16	72.7
Wessels	Off	52	51	98.1	49	37	75.5

Total		71	75	105.6	71	53	74.6

General Observations
It's kind of difficult to draw too much excitement from a win over The Citadel no matter the final margin, given that they've been one of D-I's worst teams for several years and that their roster included just one player above 6-foot-6, but one game might be enough to affirm some of the suspicions I had during the offseason.

First, I think Iowa has the necessary parts to put together another strong defensive team. The losses from last year were significant, because Iowa must replace a great defensive rebounder (Greg Brunner) and an outstanding shot blocker (Erek Hansen), but I'm still optimistic.

The guys who will be filling those minutes each have something going for them. Seth Gorney, if nothing else, has good size at 7-0, 250. As I recall, that was about all Jeff Hagen had going for him when he manned the middle during Minnesota's stellar defensive campaign of 2004-05. Kurt Looby stands 6-10 with long shot-blocker's arms, and enough quickness and spring in his step to track down a few rebounds. In addition to the 14 boards he grabbed against The Citadel, Looby also led the Prime Time League in rebounding this summer. Cyrus Tate looks fairly strong - he also led Region IX (NE, CO, WY, MT) junior college players in rebounding, and he played for the regions top FG% defense. Everyone raves about freshman Tyler Smith's athleticism, and that can be very effective if properly harnessed by the coaching staff.

As you can see from the table above, Iowa's defense was better when either one of Looby or Gorney were on the court (no doubt because of The Citadel's size issues). But when both played together, Iowa's defense was particularly devastating. The pair shared the court for 26 defensive possessions, during which time The Citadel managed only 5 points on 2 of 19 shooting! Interestingly, when Looby played without Gorney, Iowa allowed 28 points on 21 possessions (133.3 PPP). When Gorney was in without the lanky Antiguan, Iowa's defense allowed a stingier 80.0 PPP. Perhaps Looby isn't strong enough to patrol the lane by himself, but give him a 7-footer to stand by and you might just have a formidable barrier to the basket!

Another thing I'm very excited about this year - Iowa's best offensive player will finally be it's primary scoring option! Two years ago, Iowa was all about he who will not be named, who took something like a third of the team's shots. Last year, everything went through Brunner and Jeff Horner while Adam Haluska was at times an afterthought. OK, that's probably overstating it, but at least admit that Haluska's combination of skills (3pt shooting, driving, foul shooting, posting up) was the most likely to succeed when used in high volume (as opposed to Horner's Hail Mary threes and Brunner's 45% shooting). Anyway, it was good to see Haluska off to a hot start Monday night when rained in 29 points with a 68.8 efg% to go with an impressive 6 dimes and 5 rebounds. Whatever happens this year, it should be fun watching him put up big numbers. He'll have the green light all year.

Unfortunately, that's all there's time for right now. . . . .

Moving Day

2005-12-16T08:21:00.000-06:00

Hawkeye Hoops is moving! The new location is www.hawkeyehoops.com. I recommend updating your bookmarks, and if you link to this blog, I'd appreciate it if you updated that too.

Gone Fishing

2005-12-14T16:41:00.000-06:00

With the abundance of finals and relative dearth of basketball games this week, these past few days felt like a good time to take a short break from blogging. I'll be back tomorrow.

Word On The Street

2005-12-09T08:21:00.000-06:00

I hear there's some kind of game going on over in Ames tonight. In case you've been cryogenically frozen for the past few years, Adam Haluska's return to his former home court will be a major storyline. Nick Richards expects an active Hilton crowd -

[Haluska] will hear a chorus of boos in the pre-game introductions, will be
booed each time he touches the ball, and will be on the receiving end of taunts
throughout the contest. "It doesn't bother me that much," he said. "I know they
are going to be on me, a little bit."

Think that's a tad bit of an understatement? Susan Harman, meanwhile, has heard enough about the situation. She would rather focus on more relevant matters, like who will pick up Jeff Horner's 33 mpg, and how the newly assembled backcourt will handle Iowa State's vaunted zone press. She says what's on every Hawk fan's mind -

It's not the optimum game to insert a freshman point guard considering this is
the most hostile gym Iowa will play in this season. ISU has one of the best sets
of guards in the country (Curtis Stinson and Will Blalock) and the Cyclones like
to press opponents into submission.

Randy Peterson agrees that the pressure will be on Tony Freeman -

Iowa's primary concern is the Cyclones' defensive pressure. Freeman, therefore,
will be a focus for defensive trappers Curtis Stinson and Will Blalock.

I'm strangely optimistic that Freeman plays big minutes and plays them quite well. There will likely be more turnovers from him than you'd expect from Horner, but I really like how he's played so far, especially defensively.

Another interesting story for this game - apparently Iowa State's Government of the Student Body reserved about 50 "prime" student section seats for legislators as part of their lobbying efforts to fight tuition increases. Many students are not happy. GSB president Angela Groh tries to mitigate the damage here.

Another Game, Another Blogger Interview

2005-12-08T19:28:00.000-06:00

In anticipation of the tomorrow's big showdown with Iowa State, I tracked down another basketball blogger and asked for his opinions on a few important topics. Today's featured guest is Alex, an Iowa State student who dabbles in all things Cyclone at his blog, CrossCyed.

Iowa State has already played close to and lost to some unheralded teams this year. Is this another slow start, like last year, or is this year's team just not as good?

Well, I personally think it’s a combination of both. ISU certainly has a history of playing down to the level of teams in all sports. I also think the team is having a really hard time replacing the scoring of Jared Homan and the rebounding of both Homan and Damion Staple. However, the post is beginning to show signs of improvement. Even with Hilton being a tough place to play, it seems like the team typically is a bit down when the students are gone, as was the case with the Iona game. However, Iona is no pushover, led by a strong senior class. It’s tough to say much about the quality of the team. Stinson and Blalock are as solid as ever, Rahshon Clark has been “wow”, and we have a bench. However, post play continues to be an issue.

What do you consider to be Iowa State's biggest strength? Biggest weakness?

The biggest strength is obvious, with the guard play of Curtis Stinson and Will Blalock. They are frequently regarded as a top backcourt in the country. The two certainly present matchup problems. The super-emergence of Rahshon Clark, who is shooting a blistering 62% this year, while leading the team in rebounds, blocks and boyish exuberance, is helping take the pressure off the guards with his 15 ppg, while at the same time playing a solid 4, despite being 6-6. He’s as much fun as anyone you may see play all year. The biggest weakness is, as mentioned before, post play. The Cyclones have been playing a smaller lineup, with Rahshon at the 4, so that only one of the new big guys is in at once. Against Fresno State, the three main bigs, Shawn Taggart, Jiri Hubalek (pronounced Yuri Who-Ball-ick – impress your friends with your knowledge), and Ross Marsden collected four boards. Curtis Stinson had seven. Each player has their issues. Taggart can shoot, but isn’t much in the posting-up department. Also can’t play a lick of defense, despite being in a 2-3. Taggart also likes to foul. Marsden may be the smartest post, noted for being coachable. However, I was also called “most coachable” on my high school team, and I averaged less than a point a game. However, the coaches feel he is adjusting, and I believe with each game, he’s getting a little better. He has potential to be a Paul Shirley-type in time. My favorite out of the bunch is Hubalek. He came out of Marshalltown Community College shooting 61%. He’s probably the best option down low, but still seems a little unsure. If he’s tentative, ISU is in trouble. If he flys around like he did against Fresno State in the first half, Drake and Mountain State, you can probably expect 10 and 6 out of him, which would be a minor victory.

What's the undercurrent on campus regarding Adam Haluska's return to Ames? Can the crowd possibly treat him worse than they did with Pierre Pierce in 2003?

Depends. I do think he will draw more ire, as there is the perception that he lied to the Cyclone fanbase and is basically a turncoat. I don’t know if the chants will be near as vulgar as they were for Pierce, but then again, he didn’t commit a crime. If anyone remembers when Raef LaFrentz, Nick Collision on Kirk Hinrich played against ISU, the treatment should be the same but louder. Remember, Hinrich had committed to ISU then switched to Kansas. ISU fans were pissed at what could have been, as the Elite Eight team would also have had Hinrich to go along with Fizer and Tinsley. That team would have caused havoc. There hasn’t been a great hate of him being expressed on campus, but it’s a college. Your star recruit transferred, after saying he wouldn’t, to your archrival. Most Cyclone fans realize this will be his only appearance at Hilton.

What one thing must Iowa State do to win this game?

This is actually kind of tough. I want to say rebound, but we can win while being outrebounded. I’d say we need to keep Iowa off the line, while also preventing big runs. (That’s two, oh well). Iowa State has had a serious foul problem this year, sending the other team to the line way too often. Of course, these teams don’t seem to miss, either. As far as the runs go, Iowa State was in control of Fresno until giving up a 15-0 run. Fresno hit 7-10 three pointers in the half, and ISU couldn’t climb any closer. It’s some pretty basic basketball stuff, but it really is what Iowa State needs.

Anthony Davis missed most of last year with a shoulder injury. What role does he fill now that he's back?

Depends on the night. He’s a physical 3 who isn’t afraid to post up. He also can hit the three on any given night, but is also just as capable of an 0-fer. He’ll most likely start, but is usually quiet on the court. He’s saved ISU once this season, but he still doesn’t seem to be a big part of the system, despite being a senior. Wayne Morgan loves him, however, following him over from Long Beach State, so he’ll get his minutes.

Which of the new post players will have the biggest impact? What specific skills do they provide? What do they need to improve?

Shawn Taggart, either positive or negative, will most likely have the biggest impact. He’s capable of 20 points on any night. He’s also capable of giving up big points.. He has a sweet shooting touch and can hit a turnaround down low. He’s impressive with his back to the basket. His rebounding is nonexistent, however. He is ready offensively, but is nowhere near ready to be a top-tier post until he can rebound or play D. My favorite is Jiri Hubalek. He’s got potential to be the next Martin Rancik. He will most likely get the start. He’s getting to the point where he’s somewhat used to the system. He is the most aggressive post player, which still leaves some to be desired. Will run the court and play active D, but is also prone to the foul.

Is Curtis Stinson really among the best basketball players in the country?

He can be. I know you think he is overrated. I do think he has improved this season. He seems to be a big game player, which does seem to hurt in games against teams like Iona. He has an ability to create shots and body up like few guards that there are out there. His three point shooting has improved this year and is still the player that any Cyclone fan wants with the ball to take the shot. The “teardrop” has somewhat disappeared, but is still accurate when he shoots it. A lot of other fans around the nation don’t realize that he played hurt much of last year, and has still had hand problems this year. Just ask Bill Self about Stinson’s effect on opposing teams.

Will this year's Cyclone squad have any consistent three-point threat?

So far, yes. Will Blalock is shooting 48% from behind the arc, while Rahshon Clark is hitting at a 42% clip. Shooting has definitely improved over last year, as ISU has been hitting just under half it’s shots as a team this year. Blalock may be the best shooter on the team, but he tends to get streaky. Clark has just gone bonkers this year. He will be the one to watch. Stinson is always a threat to hit a three, especially in clutch situations. Davis either is on fire or is icy. Tasheed Carr has been having a horrible sophomore slump. He’s capable of carrying a team on a good night (see ISU’s win @ Texas last year), but this season has been murder on him. He’s still hurt, and may not play. John Neal hasn’t hit much of anything since the last Iowa @ ISU game, but he finally hit two against Drake. The feel from Coach Morgan is that he will get more minutes if Carr cannot go. Hubalek and Taggart are also capable of hitting deep.

As a fan, is a win against Iowa more gratifying than any other team?

It’s the biggest nonconference game this year. Ohio State is close, however. The conference season means quite a bit to ISU. If Kansas was not so down this year, that’d be the game to watch. The big game is against Texas at Hilton. Beating Iowa is gratifying for Iowa State fans in just about any sport, but I also think that there is less emphasis in men’s basketball with Iowa State playing teams tough in the Big 12 in recent years. Iowa State – Kansas may not be considered a rivalry on the Jayhawk side, but ISU fans probably enjoy beating Kansas as much as they do the Hawks. Of course, with Iowa being a top 15 team, the game is not only a rivalry game, but a chance to pull an “upset”, so there will be extra hype in that regard. If it came down to beating Texas or beating Iowa this year, I’d pick Texas, if they are actually a top 5 team. Then again, I also think they are overrated.

Is there a better way to spend $3.00 than on a Clone Cone?

I don’t eat often at sporting events. I usually feel like crying after realizing the money that’s gone after I buy food at ISU games. Of course, the environment is worth it. I’ve been to both Carver and Hilton, and Hilton is the premier place for basketball in Iowa. Iowa fans who have never been to Hilton will appreciate the comfort of the arena, while also witnessing Hilton Magic. Crazy stuff can happen to opposing teams in Ames.

Whoa, no Clone Cones? You're missing out on one the key ingredients to the Hilton experience! For the uninitiated, the Clone Cone is a divine swirl of strawberry and banana flavored ice cream. It's so good, chocolate and vanilla aren't even offered at the arena (at least I looked hard enough to find any).

Anyway, thanks for the time, Alex.

I also answered a few questions about the game over at Alex's blog - they should be up sometime tonight, so go check it out. I should have a few stats and notes ready sometime tomorrow morning, then it's off to Ames to see the game. I can't wait.

Horner Out 2 to 5 Weeks

2005-12-07T23:07:00.000-06:00

Read about it in the DM Register. Sounds like he tore a knee ligament. A two week absence would put Horner back before Christmas and in time for the last two non-conference games against Robert Morris and St. Louis. Being gone five weeks would get him back a couple weeks into January, after missing two conference games against Wisconsin and Illinois.

Upcoming Schedule
12/09 @ Iowa State
12/17 vs Arizone State
12/20 vs Drake
12/21 two weeks from now
12/30 @ St. Louis
01/05 @ Wisconsin
01/07 vs Illinois
01/11 five weeks from now
01/14 @ Penn State

There's never a good time for a knee injury, but it's better now than later in the season. Maybe now Freeman and Reed can gain beneficial experience? We'll see.

Bite-Sized UNI Thoughts, Vol. II

2005-12-07T16:29:00.000-06:00

One lingering question I have about Iowa's overtime period against UNI - is Greg Brunner really our best option for the opening tip-off? The jump ball seems kind of trivial in normal games, but it's huge in overtime, where each team only gets the ball a handful of times. It was especially big in this game, since the pace was so slow, meaning each team got fewer chances to score. Allow me to explain - [Note -I extrapolated this idea from some work Ken Pomeroy did a while back.]

When you win the jump ball, you will either end the period with 1) the same number of possessions as your opponent, or 2) one more possession than your opponent (if you win the tip and have the ball at the end of the game). If we assume both teams average the same number of points per possession (which is reasonable, since they did tie through the first 40 minutes), we can use the Pythagorean formula to estimate their chances of winning.

If the teams average 1 point per possession, and they each have 10 possessions in the overtime period, they will average 10 points. In repeated simulation (or in the long run, so to speak), Team A's expected winning percentage is -

10 pts^10 / (10 pts^10 + 10 pts allowed^10) = .500

Simply put, if two equal teams are given an equal number of possesions, they should have an equal chance of winning. If we give one of the teams an extra possession, however, that team's odds are significantly improved, even though the teams are equally matched. Let's say Team A wins the tip and has the ball 8 times, while Team B only gets it 7 times.

8^10 / (8^10 + 7^10) = .792

So in repeated trials, Team A will win 79% of the time of whenever they have one extra possession.

The team that wins the tip won't always get the extra possession, but they'll never do worse than 50/50. If we assume that the average tip, then, is worth half a possession, the result is something like this (for an 8 possession period, i.e. - the same as the Iowa / UNI game) -

8.5^10 / (8.5^10 + 8^10) = .647

That means that UNI probably increased their chance of winning by 15% simply by winning the jump ball. All of which brings me back to my original question - can we do better than Brunner on the jump ball? I know he's a "savvy veteran" and all that, but jump balls basically come down to 1) height, 2) jumping ability, and 3) timing. I think Brunner is lacking in the first two, at least relative to a couple teammates. Can Brunner really outjump the 6-11, long-armed Erek Hansen, who also started overtime? Can he really outjump the taller, sky-walking Doug Thomas? I don't know the answer to the these questions, but leave a comment if you think you do (somebody with coaching experience want to chime in? BillH?).

Additional note - I'd be really interested to see someone to a study to test this theory against empirical data. It's pretty straightforward - just find the percentage of overtime games that are won by the team that won the overtime tip-off. I checked the play-by-play data for a few of this year's overtime games, and the tip-winner tends to be also be the winner at the end of the game.

Bite-Sized UNI Thoughts, Vol. I

2005-12-07T16:08:00.000-06:00

This UNI recap was getting a little out of hand, so I decided to break it down into more digestible pieces.

First, let's engage in some much-needed damage mitigation. Losing sucks, losing to an in-state rival sucks even more, but losing on the road to a legitimate Top 25 team is not the end of the world. It just affirms that we're probably more in the 15-20 range than the 5-10 we were inching toward. The collective reaction around here seems to be "The sky is falling!" or "Here we go again..." Would it be the same if we lost at Wake Forest, or at Boston College (who both rate much closer to UNI in more objective statistical measures than they do in the actual polls)? I highly doubt it. By the end of the season, this game will still be "one that got away," but a little distance will make it look like much less of a disaster.

Second, what's much more important right now than the outcome of this game is the health of Jeff Horner. If you didn't see the game, Jeff collapsed on the court while chasing Ben Jacobson around a screen. His knee gave out on him when he tried to push of his left leg. Jeff was able to limp off the court, but he missed the rest of the game. The Register reported today that Jeff has a torn posterior cruciate ligament (that picture on the left should look familiar) and will be out 2 to 5 weeks.

I'm no doctor, but the ten minutes of reading I did on the PCL suggest that Jeff damaged the ligament(s) on the play where he fell on his knee after driving to the lane and getting fouled (which happened a couple minutes before he finally left. This of course raises the question why he was back in the game a minute later, but it sounds like Jeff told the staff he was OK to go). Since the PCL keeps the femur from moving too far forward, his knee was now de-stabilized to a certain extent, which resulted in it giving out when he tried to push off of it when chasing down Jacobson. Keep in mind that this is an extremely amateur observation.

How did the injury affect Iowa in this game? For starters, Jacobson caught fire as soon as Horner left. Jeff and Adam Haluska were doing a great job of shutting Jacobson down through the first 36 and a half minutes of the game. Horner left the first time after making his free throws at the 3:30 mark of the second half. On the next trip down, Jacobson did a nice Moses impression when he cut between the parted Grant Stout and Eric Coleman on the left wing. The two big men stepped toward each other to seal off a trailing Mike Henderson, who could only watch as Jacobson nailed a three. Next trip down - Horner is back in, guarding Jacobson. He fell to the floor, grabbing the knee, leaving Ben open for another easy three. Next trip down - Henderson back on defese....Jacobson dribbles Henderson into a Coleman screen, then hits from the top of the key. And within the span of 65 seconds, a 5 point Iowa lead turned into a 2 point deficit. I gotta hand it to Jacobson, that was really impressive.

Once we got into overtime, it was pretty clear that the offense was running without it's leader. The first two offensive possessions consisted of passing the ball back and forth on the perimeter until someone felt open enough to brick a three. Two of the next three trips resulted in Henderson going one-on-one and attacking the basket. Sure, it worked, but I'd rather not rely on Mike to be the go-to-guy at the end of games. Our offense will definitely miss Horner's playmaking while he's gone.

Your thoughts on Horner's value to the team? Leave 'em in the comments.

Northern Iowa 67, Iowa 63 (OT)

2005-12-07T07:24:00.000-06:00

I have a lot of stuff to take care of today, but I'll be back this afternoon with more than my two cents worth about the loss up in Cedar Falls last night. In the meantime, you can check out -

- Rick Brown talks up Erik Crawford's overtime heroics in his game recap.

- Susan Harman thinks that UNI's offensive rebounds in overtime decided the game.

- Jason Brummond says Iowa's offense struggled after the injury to Jeff Horner (but you already knew that).

- Nick Richards thinks the Horner injury might eventually be Alford's new scapegoat (let's not go there yet).

State Championship Week

2005-12-06T13:24:00.000-06:00

That fabled time of year is once again upon us - Iowa's four D-I basketball schools meet up, round-robin style, to earn the bragging rights of the state champion. The stakes are higher than normal (ever?) this year, with three teams coming off NCAA tournament bids and projected to return.

Iowa went 3-0 to win the title last year, but they also had the two toughest games at home. This year, they must play at both Northern Iowa and Iowa State. Two wins this week will go a long way toward legitmizing this year's Hawkeye squad in my ever-pessimistic mind.

Iowa State is out to the early lead this year, having already beaten UNI and Drake. If Iowa wins tonight, the stage will be set for an intense Friday showdown at Hilton Coliseum, in a game that would essentially determine the state champ.

Here's the schedule of this year's games -

11/29 - Iowa State 68, UNI 61
12/05 - Iowa State 89, Drake 74
12/06 - Iowa @ UNI
12/09 - Iowa @ Iowa State
12/20 - Drake @ Iowa

That's not to say, of course, that Iowa should look past tonight's game. They're 0 for their last 2 trips to the UNI-Dome, and the Panthers look as tough as ever. Tonight's lineups will look like -

NORTHERN IOWA			IOWA
Player	Height	Pos	Player	Height	Pos
Brooks McKowen	6-2	G	Mike Henderson	6-2	G
Ben Jacobson	6-3	G	Jeff Horner	6-3	G
Erik Crawford	6-3	G	Adam Haluska	6-5	G
Eric Coleman	6-6	F	Greg Brunner	6-7	F
Grant Stout	6-8	F	Erek Hansen	6-11	C
Bench
John Little	5-11	G	Doug Thomas	6-8	F
Atila Santos	6-10	C	Tony Freeman	6-1	G
			Alex Thompson	6-9	F
			Carlton Reed	6-4	G

Susan Harman did a good job of pointing out the many similarities between these two teams. To that I would add - both have starting guards who can play a lot of minutes while contributing very little, and both have guys named Eric who spell their name weird. One similarity actually worth talking about - both UNI and Iowa have guards capable of shooting very well, but all are off to cold starts.

Player	04-05 eFG%	05-06 eFG%
Ben Jacobson	.581	.474
Erik Crawford	.557	.425
Jeff Horner	.526	.399
Adam Haluska	.569	.475

Iowa and UNI are both really good at limiting second-chance points and post defense in general (at least this year, anyway), so the team that wins might just be the team that busts out of its perimeter slump. Iowa showed signs of doing just that by shooting 7-16 on threes against Valparaiso on Saturday.

As far as other things to expect, it might be helpful to look at last year's stats, since both teams return all their starters. Northern Iowa's offense was fairly successful because they did two things well - shooting and taking care of the ball. Check their national rankings for offense (2004-05) -

eFG% - 20
TO% - 6
oRb% - 310
FTM/FGA - 261

The offensive rebounding numbers seem consistent with a team that would rather get back defensively to take away transition baskets. Since UNI plays at a pretty slow pace (241st in possessions per game last year, 301st so far this year), that's a likely scenario. I really haven't seen them play much since they're not on TV very often here, so maybe you can fill me in if I'm incorrect there.

Since the game probably will be slowed down, I'd again suggest that Iowa better not make some of the unforced turnovers that have plagued them in recent games, as there will be fewer than normal opportunities to make up for them. UNI isn't that deep though, so it's unlikely they'll want to pressure Iowa's guards anyway.

Last year's game went down to the wire. Jacobson missed a jumper with six seconds left that would've given UNI the lead. Just about everyone is back tonight, so I'm looking forward to another intrastate classic.

We're #1! We're #1!

2005-12-05T03:38:00.000-06:00

With all attentions focused on criticizing Iowa's offensive struggles (and there have been struggles), I doubt many Hawk-watchers are tuned in to the fact that they've been following one of the best defensive teams in the country. I'm not immune, either - images of missed open jumpers and passes thrown out of bounds tend to linger in my head and limit my ability to process the good things happening at the other end of the court.

I knew the Hawks were putting up good numbers on defense, but since I figured that that was common for most major conference teams this early in the year, I didn't give it much thought. So it was with some surprise that I found Iowa at the top of the list when I clicked over to Ken Pomeroy's rankings of points allowed per possession (through Saturday's games).

While their spot in the ranking was a bit unexpected, it's not that surprising that Iowa is quite good defensively. They finished last year ranked #29 in Ken's list, which sorts teams by defensive efficiency and adjusts for the strength of the offenses they played. The players they return from that squad include two great defensive rebounders, a terrific shot blocker, and some pesky guards, and the recruiting class added another quick on-the-ball defender.

Can Iowa maintain this strong start? Well, first we should establish what is at the root of this performance level. Here are the team's national rankings in the four most important areas -

eFG% allowed - 7
TO forced - 76
Def Reb% - 57
Opp FTA/FGA - 17

I don't think they'll be #1-good all season, but there's no reason they can't be in the top 10 or 15. For starters, it's seems unlikely that Iowa will continue to rank this high in turnovers forced. There aren't many Maryland-Eastern Shores or Texas-San Antonios left on the schedule, and Iowa doesn't usually go out of their way to force turnovers.

It's interesting that Iowa ranks so high in last category, which measures how often the opponent shoots free throws. With Erek Hansen and Doug Thomas constantly in foul trouble last year, this was a bit of a problem. Through 8 games, both guys have gotten called for far fewer fouls. Here are the main post players' fouls per 40 minutes -

Player.............PF/40, 04-05......PF/40, 05-06
Thomas.................7.0......................5.3
Hansen..................6.7......................5.7
Brunner..................3.8......................3.0

That's a very nice development, and probably has a lot to do with the first category (eFG%), at least for Iowa. Fewer fouls means Hansen can play more mintues. When he's in the lineup, opposing teams are having a very tough time getting a good shot in the paint. You might remember the shutdown job he had at the end of the Kentucky game, but the job he did against Texas stands out, too. Hansen was keeping LaMarcus Aldridge from doing much damage (despite a poster dunk or two), but then he picked up his third foul early in the second half and took a long seat. While he was gone, Aldridge put his height advantage to good use against Iowa's shorter forwards. The final numbers from that game were telling -

IA Defense, vs Texas........Pts....Poss....Efficiency
with Hansen........................32.......39..........84.2
w/o Hansen.........................36.......29........124.1

As long as Hansen can keep himself on the court, Iowa should hold its opponent to a low eFG%, which is the most important part of defense.

As for the remaining category - defensive rebounding - Iowa looks to be in good shape. Brunner and Thomas were both among the Big Ten's best defensive rebounders last year, and Hansen has been contributing more on the glass this year than ever before. It's no sure thing that he'll maintain that feistiness against some of the tough Big Ten guys, but several of the opposing centers this year haven't exactly been pushovers.

Now let's just hope the guys can get their offense back to last year's level so they don't have to always play lights-out defense to win.

Weekend Wrap-up

2005-12-05T00:13:00.000-06:00

Iowa won two games this weekend to win another Hawkeye Challenge, but the Hawks lost some of the buzz that they created in the previous week against three ranked teams. After good showings against Kentucky, Texas, and North Carolina State, the games with Fairfield and Valparaiso were a little more competitive than many expected.

Iowa opened the weekend with a 75-59 victory over a tiny Fairfield team. Though they started no one taller than 6-4, the Stags hung around with a mixture of scrappiness and strategy. Their presses and zones frustrated the Hawks into 20 turnovers, and some hot three point shooting kept them within five points until the 3:30 mark of the second half. The Hawks poured it on the rest of the way, but they failed to meet the raised expectations of a top 15 team.

There were bright spots, of course. With the considerable height advantage, Iowa was able to dominate the paint at both ends of the floor. Greg Brunner made all eight of his field goals and shot eight free throws, and the team finished 20 for 30 (67%) inside the arc. That made up for several missed outside jumpers and fueled a season-high .573 eFG%.

At the other end, Brunner, Doug Thomas, and especially Erek Hansen dominated inside. Iowa finished with 11 blocks, though Fairfield only attempted 38 two point shots. With Hansen increasing the difficulty of almost every shot he didn't get his hands on, the Stags made 16%(!) of those two's. With essentially five guards in most of their lineups, they kept both their players and the ball moving, which resulted in quite a few good looks (and 12 makes) from long range. While the overall defensive effort was good, the perimeter letdown might raise concerns for future opponents like Northwestern and Ohio State.

Given the huge disparity in this game's shooting performances (.573 eFG% to .358), it's surprising the score was even close. The aforementioned turnovers were the culprit here, as Iowa's ballhandlers struggled when faced with a little pressure. They have a few days to get everyone back on the same page, so let's hope they get it figured out before Friday, when they head to Ames to face a far more athletic group in a much more hostile environment.

Saturday's game put Iowa up against Valparaiso, who beat Tulane in the first round. Their offense was centered around one versatile player, Dan Oppland, and their defense featured a strong 6-11 center in Mohamed Kone. Though Valpo presented a different challenge, the end result was a similarly un-lopsided 72-59 victory.

Kone and company were tough on Iowa's post players. Brunner, Hansen and Thomas combined to shoot 7 for 22 (32%) with 8 turnovers. This continues something of a trend for the Hawks, who have struggled inside against teams with tall, strong centers. The following are Iowa's two-point percentages in a few recent games.

Kentucky, 42.2%
Texas, 44.7
NC State, 33.3
Valparaiso, 40.5

It's arguable whether Kentucky meets the criteria, since their 7-footers only combined for 17 minutes, but they're another data point in the pattern - Iowa has a hard time scoring against bigger post defenders.

Another disturbing trend is the recent explosion of Hawkeye turnovers. Through five games Iowa was turning the ball over slightly less than 20% of the time, which is reasonable for early season games. In the last three games, though, the team's turnover rates have been 27, 28, and 24%. Yikes. A lot of that seems to be dumb stuff like dropped passes and miscommunication, which I would think will drop as everyone plays more together, but it's definitely something to keep on eye on. We are eight games into the season, after all.

In most of Iowa's games this season, poor shooting inside would doom the offense, but not Saturday. The guards finally put together the game that fans had been waiting for, hitting 7 of 16 threes (44%). It was the first time Iowa broke even 30% in their last six games (ugh). Tony Freeman knocked one down after hitting two on Friday, which is encouraging for a team in need of perimeter scorers.

All in all, it's two more wins, even if they were less than outstanding. The defense continues to impress, and is actually ranked #1 in the country in points allowed per possession. Texas is still the only team to score above a meager 85 PPP, so the guys deserve a lot of credit for bringing the intensity every night. If / when the offense turns the corner, Iowa will look much more like a team worthy of the top 10-15 ranking it will draw on Monday.

Random Stuff

Jeff Horner was named MVP of the Challenge, despite shooting only 30% for the weekend. His two game averages were 15.5 pts, 5.5 reb, 8.0 ast, 2 TO, and 2 stl. Brunner finished with 16.0 pts, 12.0 reb, and 4.0 TO with a .58 FG%.
The weekend crowds were a far cry from the masses that attended the NC State game, though it did snow quite a bit both nights.
I was pretty excited to see Freeman take shots whenever he had an opening. The offense can really use some extra firepower, especially from the outside, so I hope Tony will continue to shoot like he did this weekend.

Weekend Reading

2005-12-02T14:02:00.000-06:00

With baseball in the rear view mirrow and college football slowing down, Scott Long of The Juice Blog put together a college basketball preview series this week. He interviewed two notable fellow bloggers, John Gasaway (the Big Ten Wonk) and Ken Pomeroy, and even sought the opinion of yours truly. He concluded the series with his own tournament forecast. It should be noted that in last year's preview (written on December 1), Scott listed three of the Final Four teams (Illinois, UNC, and Michigan State) among his top six. Read up.

Also, there's a new poll at the right. Do your part.

Hawkeye Challenge Starts Tonight

2005-12-02T08:31:00.000-06:00

Iowa vs Fairfield
8:11 pm CST

Iowa's annual home tournament gets underway at 5:45 tonight with a matchup between Tulane and Valparaiso. The lucky winner will know a day earlier that they'll leave Iowa City with only one loss. C'mon, we've all come to learn that major conference teams don't lose at their own tournaments (*cough, cough*), and this weekend will be no different.

Coach Alford, like any other coach, takes a more modest approach, bringing up Fairfield's recent three point loss to the Big East's Providence and the tournament history of both Tulane and Valparaiso. Nice spin coach, but PC isn't exactly a power team this year, Valpo's vaunted tourny history includes one win (but what a win it was....remember Bryce Drew in 1998?), and Tulane's last NCAA tournament victory came in 1995. Tradition is nice, but it doesn't do a lot for any of these teams this weekend. [But I'll give Tulane a free pass from criticism this weekend - they were one of the New Orleans teams displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Susan Harman has more.]

Back to Fairfield, Iowa' opponent tonight. They're coming off a decent run in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, finishing in the top three for three straight years. Unfortunately, the outlook isn't so rosy this year. They lost Deng Gai, the nation's top shot blocker (per game) last year and the MAAC's defensive POY for each of the past three seasons. He leaves a big hole to fill, as Fairfield's biggest regular this year, Marty O'Sullivan, stands 6-7, 230. Fairfield has responded by jacking up more threes - 30% of their attempts were threes last year; the figure is 38% through three games this year.

If O'Sullivan is the biggest guy on the team, the rest can't exactly be giants either -

G - Terrence Todd, 6-0
G - Jonathan Han, 6-0
G - Michael Bell, 6-4
F - Alvin Carter, 6-4
F - Marty O'Sullivan, 6-7

The bench doesn't look much bigger. Danny Oglesby (6-3) and Michael Van Schaick (6-2) are the only others averaging 10 mpg. As expected, Fairfield is getting beaten pretty badly on the boards - Providence grabbed 48% of their offensive rebound opportunities against the Stags.

Anybody remember Michael Bell? He played at Marshalltown and was first team all-state in 4A back in 2002. I'm sure Larry Morgan and Mac McCausland will bring him to your attention tonight, should you be watching from home. Bell's reputation is the designated shooter, and he has a decent 37% career 3pt%, though he's off to a Horner-esque start at 6 for 21 (29%) so far.

Facing an undersized squad should give Iowa a great opportunity to re-establish their inside game tonight, which has been noticably absent in the games against ranked teams. Kentucky, Texas, and NC State held Iowa to 42, 45, and 33% shooting on their two-point shots, respectively. There were a lot of shots swatted by that trio's assortment of trees, as well as a lot of bunnies missed by Iowa. It's hard to imagine the former will be a factor tonight. I'd expect Greg Brunner to improve on the .310 FG% he posted over his last three games.

The bigger issue on many fans' minds seems to be the dismal three-point shooting of Adam Haluska and Jeff Horner. Maybe they'll get a chance to work on that tonight, but my guess is that Iowa will just pound away inside against Fairfield's dimunitive roster.

One final thought (and feel free to comment on this) - anyone have a guess as to what the crowd will be like this weekend? It was awesome having the Hawks Nest filled from top to bottom on Wednesday, and I'm hoping the crowd's intensity of that game's final few minutes, combined with the win, left a good taste in everyone's mouth and encourages them to come back for some of these less exciting games. I know I'll be there.

Oh Happy Day

2005-12-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ken Pomeroy broke out his comprehensive possession-based stats page for the 2005-06 season. Stats nerds (myself included) rejoice from coast to coast. Now you can check each team's offensive and defensive efficiency and see how they compare to every other team in the country. The offense and defense summary pages break down the two categories into Dean Oliver's Four Factors (click on Articles, it's at the top of the list)- shooting efficiency, turnover rate, offensive rebounding, and free throw frequency.

A little sampler.....
[the stats and abbreviations are explained in my Stats Primer]

Iowa, through 6 games
Offensive Efficiency - 96.7, 154th nationally
eFG% - 45.5%, 232
TO% - 20.6%, 105
oRb% - 36.7%, 77
FTM/FGA - .232, 186

Defensive Efficiency - 74.3, 5th nationally
eFG% - 39.9%, 14
TO% - 27.2%, 26
dRb% - 73.0%, 57
FTA/FGA - .241, 29

In short, Iowa's offense has been painful to watch at many times (the last ten days certainly come to mind), but they've been making up for it with a top ten defense. It's hard to place much stock in season statistics this early on, as many teams have only played two or three times, and against widely varying levels of competition, but given that Iowa has already played three ranked teams, their defensive numbers look downright gaudy.

Their game-by-game defensive efficiency (or points allowed per 100 possessions) -
UMES - 51.7
Colgate - 79.4
Kentucky - 85.2
Texas - 104.9
Tex-SA - 68.1
NC State - 60.4

According to Ken, the national average for PPP stands at about 96.0. So, against a fairly tough schedule, Iowa's offense has been about average, while the defense has been outstanding. A couple cake games this weekend should help to improve that poor shooting and the overall outlook of the offense.

Iowa 45, NC State 42

2005-11-30T23:49:00.000-06:00

Hawks score 45........and WIN! That was easily one of the most fun basketball games at Carver-Hawkeye in the last year and a half, despite the low score. The guys just put forth a hell of a defensive effort to pull it out. Unfortunately, I'm one of those early-to-rise types, and it's well past my bed time. Back tomorrow.

Last Minute Look - NC State

2005-11-30T14:46:00.000-06:00

If you haven't heard already, North Carolina State should provide a strong challenge for Iowa's perimeter defense tonight. Their lineup is filled with versatile guys who can knock down jumpers, and they take a lot of them. The team plays a patient style that usually results in good shots for the offense.

NC State returns seven of their top nine guys from a team that excelled at shooting threes last year. 42% of the team's shots were from long range, and they connected on 37% of them (which is the equivalent of 55.5% on two point shots). Through five games, this year's team is shooting even more threes - a full 46% of their field goal attempts.

Four returners made threes with both quantity and quality last year.

Name	Height	3FG	3pt%
Ilian Evtimov	6-8	66	42.6
Engin Astur	6-4	67	38.3
Cameron Bennerman	6-4	42	39.3
Tony Bethel	6-1	39	33.6

They give the Wolfpack a balanced attack that could be difficult for Iowa to fully defend.

Cedric Simmons will be the man in the middle for NC State tonight. He's off to a good start - he leads the team in scoring at 13.4 ppg and is shooting 63%. He's also been a frequent visitor to the free throw line, shooting almost eight times from the stripe per game. At 6-9 and 233, he's not that big, so hopefully Iowa's post guys can contain him and allow the team to focus on NC State's stable of shooters.

Other notable Wolfpack characteristics - they don't rebound well, they don't turn the ball over much, and they force quite a few turnovers.

Even against a tame early schedule, NC State rebounded only 30% of their missed shots, while their opponents got 37% of their's. Given the way Iowa handled rebound-savvy Texas on the glass, Iowa should have a big advantage at rebounding tonight.

It looks to me like we'll have a close game on our hands. It might be slower than a lot of fans like, but it's exciting to have a quality opponent play here in a non-conference game. If Iowa doesn't get burned too badly by NC State's threes, they'll be in good shape. Insightful, huh?

Go Hawks!

Note To Students

2005-11-30T14:32:00.000-06:00

Big game tonight! Iowa hosts North Carolina State, a nationally-ranked team that advanced to the Sweet 16 last year, in a game that will be nationally-televised (ESPN2). Best of all, there's free pizza before the game for student season ticket holders! It'll be behind Section I at 7:45, courtesy of Coach Alford.

By the way, for you students trekking to Carver-Hawkeye tonight, plan to show up early. Fans attending the 5:30 women's game will be allowed to stay for the 8:30 men's game. A ticket for the women's game will be treated as a general admission ticket to the men's game, or the equivalent of a student ticket, so there will be plenty of people at CHA willing to take your seat.

Morning Links

2005-11-30T08:06:00.000-06:00

Just a few Iowa-NC State links to pass along as you get your day started -

Previews
Susan Harman
Jason Brummond
Jim Young, News-Record (NC)

Interviews
Steve Alford
Horner, Brunner
Herb Sendek, Engin Astur

Studying and Basketball
Andrew Logue

Next Up - #24 North Carolina State

2005-11-29T10:58:00.000-06:00

Iowa faces its third ranked opponent in only its sixth game of the season when they play North Carolina State tomorrow night. The game is the final matchup of the annual Big Ten - ACC Challenge that our conference gets dominated in every year.

Since I tend to focus on Big Ten teams, I thought it would help to delve into the mind of an NC State fan and learn a little more about our opponent. Steven, the man behind Section Six, an avid Wolfpack fan, and a very capable stathead, was cool enough to answer a few questions I had about his favorite team. My questions are in bold, his responses are not. Easy enough.

Last year's team was clearly centered around Julius Hodge, a first round NBA draftee. Has a new leader emerged this year, or will the team be much more balanced?

Out of necessity more than anything else, I expect more balance. I don’t think there is anyone on the roster that is talented enough to carry the load like Hodge did last season.

That said, Gavin Grant is doing his best Hodge impression. Like Julius, Gavin has been productive in three major categories (points, rebounds, assists); and like Julius, Gavin has been using a lot of possessions. Grant has a lot of work to do, though. He’s not nearly as efficient as Hodge was.

With the maturation of the Wolfpack’s sophomore class (Brackman, Simmons, Grant), NC State should have more reliable scoring options than it had last year, and that should also lead to more balance.

Which players should we know heading in the game? What do they do well?

In addition to Gavin Grant, who I mentioned above…

Ilian Evtimov is one of the most important pieces to the Wolfpack’s offense. He is an excellent passer and a good outside shooter. As I’m sure you’ll see on Wednesday, he isn’t shy about taking a deep three-pointer. Evtimov also likes to post up near the baseline, about 10-15 feet from the basket and penetrate/distribute the ball from there. He is a non-factor on the glass because he plays more like a guard than a forward. Plus he’s had like fifty knee operations. He will also commit his share of turnovers, but that’s because distributing the ball is a big part of his game.

Cedric Simmons is arguably off to the best start of anyone on the team, leading the Pack with nearly 20 points/40 minutes. Long and lean, he is NC State’s only “true” post player—he won’t be shooting from outside 15 feet too much. Although he’s quite good at blocking shots, his low post defense still needs work.

NC State had one of the country's better offenses last year, and is off to a great start this year, but few people realize that because of the team's slow pace. How are they so efficient?

The slow pace is a big part of the Wolfpack’s success. NC State doesn’t rebound very well (at either end of the court), so the Pack employs a style that helps it maximize its possessions. NC State does that by shooting well and shooting a lot from outside, and by maintaining a low turnover rate. The pace naturally causes some bellyaching among the fans, but I think it’s less frustrating this way. NC State is extremely patient, which makes for a lot more good shots than bad ones.

What other strengths and weaknesses will be apparent Wednesday night?

I like the Wolfpack’s perimeter defense. NC State has big guards that can make open jump shots more difficult to find. But I noticed that Horner and Haluska aren’t lacking height, so we’ll see how that goes.

At the offensive end, NC State is more comfortable operating against a man-to-man defense, as that allows the Pack to be more versatile and to take advantage of 1-on-1 matchups. The offense can bog down and become more tentative when a team goes to zone defense, especially if the three-pointers aren’t falling. Regardless of what the opposition is doing, NC State sometimes relies on the perimeter shot too much.

Rebounding and interior defense are also issues. I’ll get into those things below.

Cedric Simmons and Andrew Brackman were both good shot blockers last year, but aren't very sizeable. Do they make points in the paint hard for all opponents, or can they be neutralized by thicker players, like Iowa's Greg Brunner and Doug Thomas?

Although both put on some muscle during the off-season, I fear that Brunner and Thomas will neutralize them. Simmons and Brackman are sophomores who still need plenty of work against good post players. Against Notre Dame on Saturday, they struggled to defend Torin Francis, who had 13 points on 6-8 shooting and collected 11 rebounds (4 at the offensive end).

Simmons and Brackman both have a couple of inches on Brunner and Thomas, which I’m hoping will help. Even if Brunner and Thomas struggle to score, they will almost certainly win the rebounding battle.

Iowa is a decent rebounding team - does that worry you?

I worry about rebounding every time NC State plays someone not named Stetson. Rebounding has been the Pack’s biggest weakness in the past, and so far this season it doesn’t look like that has changed. Simmons is probably the team’s best rebounder (he should be, anyway), but his rebounding percentage through five games is just 11.5%. That’s well below the numbers that Brunner and Thomas have been putting up in their careers.

Does NC State get overlooked with the other basketball powers in the state?

Definitely. Duke and North Carolina cast big shadows; they’re hard to avoid when you’re just 30 miles away. I think a lot of the older Wolfpack fans have a difficult time because it didn’t used to be this way. I grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, so it’s been easier for me to come to terms with the situation.

Don’t get me wrong, though: the unceasing brilliance of Duke and UNC makes me want to hurl.

How do you like the Wolfpack's chances against Iowa? In the ACC?

I expect the game to be close, but I don’t expect the Wolfpack to win. Even though NC State did play a major conference team over the weekend, I don’t really have a feel for how good the Wolfpack is. Playing a road game against a ranked opponent should be instructive. I am looking forward to one of the better games of the challenge.

I’m optimistic about how NC State will fare in the ACC. Georgia Tech and North Carolina are going through massive rebuilding years, and Wake Forest hasn’t looked particularly strong in the early going. Relative to some teams in the league (like those just mentioned), NC State didn’t lose very much. I think a top-4 finish is realistic.

Thanks Steven!

While I Was Away

2005-11-29T08:13:00.000-06:00

Welcome back - hope you had a great holiday weekend. I certainly enjoyed spending some time back at home. I took an extra day off from blogging yesterday, but I'm back and getting excited for a big Top 25 showdown tomorrow night.

There was a game in town while I was out, though. Iowa put a pounding on Texas - San Antonio with another impressive defensive effort, 79-46. They're a little past due, but here are a few notes anyway -

Iowa's frigid three-point shooting continued. They made 3 of 13 Saturday and are shooting just 28% from behind the arc this year.
The Hawks did most of their damage inside - the team shot 31 free throws and grabbed 46% of its offensive rebound opportunities.
Alford was frustrated with his starters for not coming out strong in the second half, so he sent five subs to the scorers table just a few minutes into the half.
Alex Thompson had something of a breakout game, with 11 points (including a three) and 8 rebounds in 18 minutes of play.
The Hawks are a little dinged from the game - Jeff Horner has a thigh bruise, Greg Brunner has a bruised knee (from the Texas game), and Erek Hansen has a minor ankle injury. They'll all be ready to go tomorrow.

In Today's News
- Steve Batterson reports on Jeff Horner's injury status. He's been icing his thigh after playing most of the T-SA game with the injury, but he'll be back in the starting lineup Wednesday night.

- Susan Harman talks about Horner's struggles from behind the three point line this season. Iowa's primary deep threat has made only 8 of his 29 (28%) threes this season, after shooting over 40% for each of the previous two years. As many fans would tell you, Horner shooting has been much poorer when he's off-balance, and Alford agrees.

- Nick Richards of the Daily Iowan highlights Iowa's busy upcoming schedule, which has the team playing five games in ten days, including three games against 2005 NCAA tournament teams in North Carolina State, Northern Iowa, and Iowa State.

- Matt Coss previews what should be a great year for Iowa's intrastate rivalry games between the Hawkeyes, UNI, Drake, and Iowa State. The three big schools return most of their starters from tournament teams, while Tom Davis's Drake squad figures to be much improved, and is coming off a three point loss to Boston College.

More to come later today. . . . . . .

Next Up - Texas-San Antonio

2005-11-26T11:21:00.000-06:00

Texas-San Antonio vs Iowa
12:05 pm

With today's game sandwiched between games agains ranked opponents (Kentucky, Texas, and North Carolina State), and with the student body home for Thanksgiving, it would be easy for Iowa to mail it in and play poorly. We'll find out shortly if Coach Alford can motivate his team to play with intensity anyway.

Hawks Fizzle Down The Stretch

2005-11-22T23:52:00.000-06:00

Texas 68, Iowa 59
ESPN recap

Iowa led one of the best teams in the country with as little as 5:00 remaining, but only scored four points after that point. Adam Haluska rebounded from his poor game against Kentucky and dropped 23 points, but Jeff Horner and Greg Brunner struggled mightily, combining to shoot 4-22. It might be a good sign that Iowa hung on as long as they did with such a poor shooting night, but they'll clearly need better and more balanced offensive play to be a contender in the Big Ten.

I'm heading home sometime tomorrow, but I'll try to get a few thoughts down before I hit the door. Feel free to leave any of your thoughts on Iowa's performance in the comments section.

Next Up - #2 Texas

2005-11-22T14:16:00.000-06:00

#18 Iowa vs #2 Texas
TV: ESPN2
Time: 9:00 pm, CST

Iowa gets another chance to run with the big boys tonight when they meet Texas in the championship game of the Guardian's Classic. While Kentucky's strength was mainly its guards, Texas possesses one of the best frontcourts in the country, and will present a different challenge for the Hawkeyes to overcome.

Texas and Iowa were essentially even last year in terms of offensive and defensive effectiveness. Ken Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency ratings ranked Iowa as the #38 offense and #29 defense in the country, while Texas was #33 and #36. With their offense and defense so similarly productive, the two teams had nearly identical expected winning percentages.

That's the good news - Iowa and Texas were at the same level at the end of last season, and Iowa even beat the Longhorns back in November. Fast forward eight months - Iowa is without a very good defender, who contributed to their numbers for over half the year, but returns everyone else; Texas regains two of its best players who missed a significant portion of the schedule. As Luke Winn wrote two months ago, Texas was much better when they had both LaMarcus Aldridge and P.J. Tucker, and their return should make Texas a contender for the NCAA title this year.

Texas's starting five will look like this tonight -

G - Daniel Gibson, 6-2
G - Kenton Paulino - 6-0
F - P.J. Tucker, 6-5
F - Brad Buckman, 6-8
C - LaMarcus Aldridge, 6-10

That's a very balanced and talented offensive unit. The frontline provides scoring and good offensive rebounding, while Gibson (40%) and Paulino (48%) were reliable three point shooters last year.

Texas also excelled at getting to the free throw line last year, shooting .408 free throws for each field goal attempt, which worked out to about 23 FTA per game. Take a look at how each of the starters performed -

FTA / FGA
Gibson - .436
Paulino - .371
Tucker - .671
Buckman - .632
Aldridge - .779

Comparables from Iowa include Greg Brunner (.500), Doug Thomas (.598), and Mike Henderson (.424).

Texas could change the course of the game early on by feeding the big guys and getting Erek Hansen, Thomas, or (gasp!) Brunner into foul trouble.

Things I Like
Each member of Texas's starting five played at least 34 minutes last night, and only one bench player broke 10 minutes. I'd rather be playing a six-deep team tonight than reliving last year's Maui game against North Carolina, where the Heels used their depth and ran us until we dropped.

Texas did not force many turnovers last year, finishing near the bottom of the national heap in defensive TO%. Instead, their focus was on preventing easy shots, as they finished 16th in opponents' eFG%. Turnovers can be Iowa's nemesis offensively, keeping an otherwise efficient squad from reaching its potential. If Jeff Horner and Adam Haluska can bounce back to post decent shooting nights, Iowa could hang around for a while.

Things That Scare Me
Texas makes very good use of their shots, especially the starting five. Here are the five's True Shot % (shooting efficiency on FGA and FTA) from last year -

Gibson - 57.8%
Paulino - 61.7
Tucker - 58.0
Buckman - 60.0
Aldridge - 66.9

Yowie. Iowa's Big Three of Brunner (57.2), Haluska (61.4) and Horner (56.3) just aren't as impressive. If Texas is going to shoot as well as normal (and that's no guarantee if Hansen stays out of foul trouble), Iowa will have to limit the shots they get by forcing turnovers and preventing second chance points. West Virginia showed that the former can be done when they forced 24 Texas TOs last night. Hopefully Henderson and Tony Freeman (T-Free, anyone?) can replicate that performance. Texas was one of the better offensive rebounding teams in the country last year, and Tucker, Buckman and Aldridge were all very good offensive rebounders, but Iowa can be quite good on the defensive glass, especially when Thomas is on the court.

Other Stuff
Burnt Orange Nation, a Texas fan site, has a preview of the game here. Andy Katz profiled Texas center LaMarcus Aldridge here. He also thinks Texas can win it all this year.

In my estimation, Iowa will need to get several things to go right to have a chance at the end - Horner and Haluska need to play like Horner and Haluska, Iowa needs to limit its turnovers and dog Gibson into a few of his own, and ideally, Iowa would get one of Texas's big guys in foul trouble and off the court. That's a lot of ifs.

Last night's win over Kentucky was fun, though not entirely unexpected. Tonight would be much more of an upset. If Iowa pulls this one off, I'll run naked through the streets*.

How do you see Iowa's chances tonight? Feel free to leave a comment.

Go Hawks!

*dramatization. Professional blogger on a closed course.

Iowa 67, Kentucky 63

2005-11-22T11:26:00.000-06:00

That was fun.

Iowa and Kentucky battled back and forth in a game that was close throughout. The Hawks hit enough free throws in the final minute to eke out a four point win and legitimize their top 25 ranking. Their efforts will be rewarded by a matchup on Tuesday night with #2 Texas, who played a barn-burner of their own in beating West Virginia.

Cold shooting was the story of the night, though Kentucky did score on four straight possessions early in the game. That 10-0 run built a seven point lead, which was biggest margin either team could build. Kentucky hit nine threes in the game, but missed just about everything else en route to a 40.2 eFG%. Iowa wasn't much better, finishing with a 41.7 eFG% and hitting only 4 of 15 threes. Point guard Rajon Rondo entered the game as Kentucky's leading scorer, but he was held to 1-of-9 shooting by Iowa's defensive tag team of Mike Henderson and Tony Freeman.

Henderson's play was a pleasant surprise for most Hawkeye fans, including this one. He repeatedly penetrated the defense, which resulted in shots close to the basket and nine free throw attempts. Mike's 15 points were second-most on the team, and he added seven rebounds and four steals. He was also frequently responsible for bringing the ball up against Kentucky's press. I've given him a lot of heat in the past, but he finally looks like a guy who adds value to the team, especially on defense.

It's a good thing Henderson did step up, however, because the rest of the backcourt was in a funk. Jeff Horner and Adam Haluska combined to shoot 3 for 19, including 2 for 11 on three-pointers. Some of those shots were fairly open, too. Let's hope they make adjustments today, because their shooting will be needed in tonight's game against Texas.

Horner once again showed why he's one of the best passers in the Big Ten. He hit Doug Thomas with a near-perfect alley-oop from half court that the big guy couldn't quite finish. He also found guys for easy layups - the transition pass to Alex Thompson stands out in my mind - and finished with eight assists.

Henderson might have been the breakout player, but Greg Brunner was still the man who carried the team to the winner's circle. His five straight points ended Kentucky's early 10-0 run and quieted the blue-clad section of the crowd, which had been getting pretty loud. He broke a tie with just under four minutes to go with a spinning baseline layup that also drew a foul. He also grabbed 12 rebounds despite often giving a few inches to the players around him. On top of that, my eyes tell me that he might just be the best passing big man in the Big Ten. That pass to Freeman for a layup in the second half was beautiful.

Erek Hansen got into early foul trouble and hit the bench before the 17:00 mark for the second time in three games. He came back in the second half with some monster defensive plays. Any Wildcat who found his way into Hansen's lane was likely to get his shot sent back or at least altered. Erek had five blocks in only 15 minutes of action, and they all came at crucial points. I'm sure Hawkeye fans everywhere cursed him out for the two traveling calls, but he did add a putback and a jump shot and finished with six points. I'm really starting to like our defense when Hansen's on the court.

Thunder Doug's dunkless streak is up to two games, but he contributed in other areas. His line included six points, seven rebounds, and three blocks in 21 minutes. He even added a Thunder Dime ®. He already looks less awkward and more capable of fitting into the offense than he did at any time last year.

Stats of Note
The game had roughly 74 possessions, meaning Iowa's offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) was about 90.6. That won't get it done most nights, but a defensive efficiency of 85.2 will help you out anytime the offense hits a rough patch. I still feel like this has a lot to do with Kentucky's holes on offense, but we'll take the W.

Iowa turned it over 14 times, or on about 20% of their possessions. That's pretty average on most nights, but against Kentucky it should really be considered a success. A lot of those turnovers were stupid travels and not the result of being overmatched, so I'd expect less of them as the season goes on.

The Hawks actually got beat pretty badly on the boards. They rebounded only 27% of their own misses, mainly because Rondo was grabbing everything in sight. He had 17(!) defensive rebounds, and 19 total. Kentucky rebounded 35% of their missed shots.

From what I've read elsewhere, everyone seems to perceive this game as an upset. Was it really, though? Is this really a Kentucky team that will earn another low seed in the tournament? Who's going to score points for them all year, especially if Rondo has another off night? Defense wins games, but it's still only half of the equation. I think this win will look less and less impressive as the season goes on. Tonight is the real test.

Other Recaps

2005-11-22T10:22:00.000-06:00

Hawkeye Hoops isn't the only game in town....yet. Check out what others had to say.

Andrew Logue
Susan Harman - good play-by-play of the last few possessions
Pat Harty - cautiously optimistic
Andy Katz - profile of Texas forward LaMarcus Aldridge

Next Up - #9 Kentucky

2005-11-21T18:34:00.000-06:00

#20 Iowa vs #9 Kentucky
Time - 8:05 pm
TV: ESPN2

Iowa gets their first big test of the season tonight when they meet Kentucky in the semi-finals of the Guardian's Classic. Kentucky's aggressive defense should be a nice challenge for Iowa's reputed lack of athleticism. If the Hawkeye guards can handle that pressure, Iowa should have a good chance to pull off the "upset."

Initial Thoughts
If you haven't read it already, check out Ken Pomeroy's offseason rundown of Kentucky's team. Like he says, Kentucky was a decent offensive team last year (#25 nationally), but their success was very much propelled by an excellent defense (#6). With the losses of three of their biggest offensive contributors in Kelenna Azubuike, Chuck Hayes, and Randolph Morris, the current Wildcat team is much more tame offensively. They've only managed to score 104 points per 100 possessions in their two games against South Dakota State and Lipscomb, or about the same scoring rate Iowa posted against a fairly tough schedule last year.

Point guard Rajon Rondo has picked up a big share of this year's offensive load, and at 18 ppg is the only Wildcat averaging double digit points (though he's also averaging about 10 mpg more than any teammate). He was very good at getting near the basket last year, as evidenced by his high 2pt% (55%) and FTA/FGA rate of 0.515 (quite high for a guard). Mike Henderson and Tony Freeman will have primary defensive responsibility on Rondo, and their performance will go a long way in determining Iowa's fortune tonight.

Defense is where Kentucky gets it done. They forced turnovers on 25% of their opponents' possessions last year, which was the third-highest rate among major conference teams (they were #1 if you exclude C-USA). Rondo's presence was the driving force there - he stole the ball on 6.0% of the team's defensive possessions, which is a phenomenal rate and no doubt among the top handful of players in the country. By contrast, Rico Tucker led Big Ten regulars at 5.0%, and Pierre Pierce was second at 4.2%. Iowa's offense can get a little stagnant when Jeff Horner is out of the game, so I'll be a little concerned if Rondo can basically "take him out" while Horner is still on the court.

Rebounding is one area where Iowa should be able to make up some ground. Even with the full team they had last year, Kentucky was a very average defensive rebounding team. They ranked 174th nationally and 7th in the 12 team SEC in defensive rebounding (or offensive rebounding % allowed). Their offseason defections cost them their two best rebounders (Hayes and Morris), and the difference has been noticable so far this year. In their first two games, Kentucky's opponents have grabbed 28 offensive boards to 48 Wildcat defensive boards, or 37% of their chances. Greg Brunner and Doug Thomas could find some extra put-back opportunities.

All in all, this should be a very good matchup, and I really don't view Iowa as an underdog. Kentucky is a great defensive team, and will provide an early test for the Hawkeyes, but their offense still has some holes.

Maui Update

2005-11-21T14:24:00.000-06:00

Shannon Brown scored five minutes in the last minute of the first half to open a 40-34 halftime lead for Michigan State against Chaminade. Paul Davis already has three fouls. More trouble in paradise for the Spartans?

Update - Nope. MSU dominated the second half. Paul Davis finished with a double-double, and the Spartans won 89-67.

Morning Reading

2005-11-21T06:15:00.000-06:00

Here are a few articles to browse through as you get ready for tonight's game between Iowa and Kentucky.

- Today's must read is Ken Pomeroy's overview of Kentucky, which was written about two months ago but still looks spot-on.

- Andrew Logue and Pat Harty take a look at Iowa's recent history of upset wins in November, and the Hawkeyes' chances tonight. I'll try to avoid the same cookie cutter when I write my own preview today.

- The Lexington Herald writes that while Rajon Rondo is the star for Kentucky, Iowa is not overlooking Patrick Sparks.

- Also from the Herald - a rundown of the wealth of great guards playing in the Guardian's Classic, including Iowa's Horner, Kentucky's Rondo, and Texas's Daniel Gibson.

News and Notes

2005-11-19T00:08:00.000-06:00

It's finally starting to feel like basketball season, what with the temperature plunging, the plethora of games just a remote click away, and the expert predictions already falling apart. It's also the time of year when remarks like "Hey buddy, let's go see that new movie," and "Here's my phone number, we should go out some time," start to get answered with "Yeah, I'll get back to you.....[in April]." I'm sure you can relate.

I didn't have anything specific lined up to write about today, so I'll just throw together a list of thoughts and observations from the games I watched over the past few nights. You're thrilled, I'm sure.

It's been kind of cool to see the newer basketball stats slowly get their foot in the door. One of the ESPN announcers used "efficient" and "inefficient" to describe some players (probably Taurean Green and Justin Gray, heh). One graphic showed how many points and possessions each team had up to that point (though the teams were about four possessions apart, not sure how they calculated their numbers). Fran Fraschilla even threw out a "Joey Dorsey averaged 16 rebounds per game per 40 minutes last year." We knew what you meant, big guy. Keep reading your Ken Pomeroy; you'll get the hang of it.
Did anybody see Steve Lavin's All-America team on Tuesday night? Dee Brown, Gerry Mac, Adam Morrison, Nick Fazekas, and Eric Williams. All good players, to be sure, but is there any logical way one can leave off both Redick and Shelden Williams? Good luck landing that next coaching job, Steve.
Well, I've seen enough. Gonzaga struggled with Idaho Friday and is offically O-VER-RA-TED! You heard it here first. I gotta admit, though, that I'm excited to see Morrison try to bring back the moustache.
Did the Michigan coaching staff stumble across the mgblog or Hawkeye Hoops preview of the Wolverines? Both suggested that Daniel Horton needed to tone it down and emphasize involving his teammates, and that plan worked perfectly in Michigan's opener. Daniel Horton took only four shots in 27 minutes, while teammates Courtney Sims, Lester Abram, and Dion Harris combined for 52 points on 20-28 shooting, leading to the team's 69 eFG%. They won't have the same degree of success against tougher opponents, but I'd still follow the same strategy.
With Curtis Sumpter out after tearing an ACL, Villanova went with an interesting lineup. They started four guards, each at 6-3 or shorter, and teamed them with Will Sheridan, a 6-8 forward. The Wildcats used a similar lineup against North Carolina in last year's NCAA tournament. 'Nova was one of the country's best defensive teams last year, and should be again, especially if Jason Fraser can handle a few more minutes. Sumpter's absence will be more apparent at the offensive end - even in the 43-point opening night win, Villanova had only three players attempt more than three shots.
Is Justin Gray the new Pierre Pierce? Watching the Wake Forest guard redeem himself with the clutch threes against Texas Tech while shooting 5-18 with 10 turnovers took me right back to Pierce hitting the game winner against Texas in last year's Maui tournament. As for the other similarities, Gray is 21-58 (36 fg%, 43 eFG%) and has 29 turnovers in four games.
I know I'm firmly in the minority on this one, but it's time to come out of the closet - I'm actually a Dickie V fan. Sure, his phrases get a little tiresome, and he's pretty blind when he strays too far from the ACC, and he brings up Duke during every game he broadcasts, but he embodies the qualities that people love about college basketball - passion, enthusiasm, excitement. [Speaking of Vitale, this parody of ESPN personalities by Cracked is hilarious. Props to Bonny for pointing that one out.]
Florida might be a fun team to watch, huh? They're 4-0 after knocking off Wake Forest and Syracuse in the Coaches vs Cancer Classic. Taurean Green had 23 points and 5 assists in both of those games. The Gators been getting it done on defense, holding their opponents to 93 PPP and forcing a 26% TO rate. They'll no doubt get a few more votes in the next poll.
With so many new faces in this year's lineup, it was hard to project Illinois's season, but their offense will be a lot better than I expected if Rich McBride and freshman Jamar Smith keep up the hot shooting. When counting the two exhibition games and Friday's opener, the two are 7-14 and 7-15 from downtown. Since the defense is already expected to be quite good, Illinois could be a force in the Big Ten once again.

Iowa 73, Colgate 51

2005-11-17T13:34:00.000-06:00

Game Thoughts and Notes: Judgment-clouded-by-eternal-optimism Edition

Erek Hansen came to play Tuesday night! He actually fought for (and grabbed) a few rebounds in traffic, and he set career marks with six defensive and eight total rebounds. [Yes, non-Iowa fans, our starting center never grabbed more than seven rebounds before this game.] Hansen also knocked down some short jumpers and finished with 11 points in just 20 minutes. It should be noted that none of Colgate's regulars were taller than 6-9, but let's enjoy the buzz on this one for a few more days.
Mike Henderson took offense to my criticism of his passing and probably had the pass of the night. He drove hard to the baseline, drew a help defender, and split two Colgate players with an assist to a big man (Hansen or Brunner, I think). He was also one of four Hawkeyes to hit a three-pointer, and continues to impress observers with his harrassing on-the-ball defense. Let's hope he's ready to handle Rajon Rondo when Iowa plays Kentucky on Monday.
Iowa's offense was smoking coming out of the gates. They scored on 10 of their first 13 possessions, and ended the first half with 42 points on only 31 possessions, or 136(!) per 100. Then it was Colgate's to start the second half. The Raiders scored on 9 of their first 11 trips down the floor and trimmed an 18 point halftime deficit to a 49-43 margin with about 13 and a half minutes left. Hawk fans were a little anxious by this point, but Iowa went on a 19-2 run of their own to put the game out of reach.
Iowa "only" had 14 turnovers in this game, but with Colgate running the shot clock down on most of their possessions, Iowa only had the ball 66 times, which means they turned it over 22% of the time. That raises their season total to 21 turnovers per 100 possession against two less-than-stellar defenses. This is a red flag heading into Monday, since Rondo and Kentucky were among the country's best at forcing turnovers last year.
It was nice to see the Hawks make a few more threes on Tuesday, though Jeff Horner and Adam Haluska only combined to hit 5 of 14. The pair is 9-23 (39%) for the year.
Greg Brunner won Iowa City regional MVP honors for averaging 16 points and 7.5 rebounds in Iowa's first two games of the Guardian's Classic, and rightly so. I'm working on some plus/minus numbers for Iowa this year, which simply tell you how well the team does when a certain player is either on or off the floor. With Brunner, for example, Iowa's offensive efficiency is 113, but only 99 when he's on the bench. The defense allowed 60 points per 100 possessions (PPP) when he played, and 73 when he didn't. The sample sizes are of course very small at this point of the year, but I'll be updating this as the season progresses.
With little doubt about the outcome of the game, many TV-viewers had their attention diverted by a female fan enjoying her friend's ice cream cone. The cameraman, apparently aware of his station's target market, filmed the scene for a full ten or fifteen seconds. Message boards were in an uproar. We sent the research staff to work and came up with this.
Brunner had a monster put-back dunk but missed when he tried later in the game, and has made only one of his three dunk attempts. The season dunk tally is now - Thomas -2, Brunner - 1, Thompson -1, Gorney -1. Horner took a charge for the second straight game, and leads the team with two. Thomas and Brunner each have one.

Later this week/end - I'll take a look at the Iowa / Kentucky matchup, and hopefully finish my in-depth Iowa preview by the end of the weekend.

Morning Links

2005-11-16T08:31:00.000-06:00

Iowa withstood an early second half rally and rolled past Colgate last night, 73-51. You can find recaps at the following links.

DM Register
QC Times
IC Press-Citizen ("Iowa Pastes Colgate"? Havnen't we heard enough lame toothpaste puns already?)
Box Score

I'll add my own thoughts when I get a chance later today.

Gameday: Colgate

2005-11-15T13:59:00.000-06:00

Ask and you shall receive.

Not knowing my small-conference east coast basketball that well, I sought out someone who did, in order to determine what to expect from these Colgate Raiders. My search ended quickly as Matt B of the Patriot League Hoops Blog obliged my request for assistance. Here are his thoughts on Colgate -

A bit of background on who Colgate is and what their past was. They are
most well known for their football and hockey programs, but produced an NBA
player in Adonal Foyle, who more or less went there only
because his parents were profs or something at the school. Since Foyle,
they haven't had a lot going on. The school is in Hamilton, NY, which is
actually one of the few places colder than Iowa during the winter. I have
been to Hamilton exactly once and almost died. It is in the middle of
nowhere, about 1.5 hrs south of Syracuse.

Last year, they finished
in the middle of the league, and didn't really beat anyone of special
note. Their biggest win was over my alma mater, American University, so
that ought to tell you something. They dropped their first round Patriot
League Tournament game to Lehigh.

They are probably the fourth or
fifth best program in the league, usually finishing between 9-7 and 7-9.
This year no one expects them to make the postseason, but it could be a
possibility since they have a lot of unknowns going on that could help them make
that push.

Their best offensive weapon, Kendall
Chones, sat out last year because of academic ineligibility, as did his
triplet brother Kyle. I think they have another brother
attending Princeton, but I could be wrong. Kendall and Kyle will get lots
of minutes up front and have the ability to push the ball as big men, something
that you don't see every day in the Patriot League. They also both do that
stupid Darius Miles head banging "in the zone" thing sometimes. Feel free
to boo them if they have continued that tradition.

They also have
a decent backcourt, with Alvin Reed and Kyle
Roemer anchoring. Neither one is spectacular, but they don't turn
the ball over much and have some slashing ability.

In all, if Iowa
can contain Roemer and Kendall Chones, there isn't a whole lot that Colgate will
be able to do on the scoring end. Iowa would probably be well served
to use their size down low to get some easy buckets as well. Fast breaks
might not be as successful, as Colgate is a decent athletic squad.

Iowa plays Colgate after the conclusion of Maryland-Eastern Shore vs Utah Valley State, which means tip off is set for about 7:30.

Iowa 86, Maryland-Eastern Shore 41

2005-11-14T21:56:00.000-06:00

The journey to Kansas City begins with a single step. Or a major stomping. Or something like that.

The Hawkeyes got their season started on the right foot with an easy win against a team that was one of Division I's worst the past two years, and will advance to the second round of the Guardian's Classic. They'll play Colgate tonight, and a win will earn them a trip to KC to face #9 Kentucky.

Iowa's offense came out slow last night, but the defense played strong enough all game that the Hawkeyes didn't need much scoring punch anyway. Iowa only came away with four points on its first nine trips down the floor, but their defensive intensity and UMES's inexperience ensured that Iowa never trailed.

Senior forward Doug Thomas and freshman guard Tony Freeman came off the bench early in the game and sparked a 19-8 run and opened a lead that continued to grow throughout the contest. The two hooked up late in the first half on the play game. Freeman stole a pass, then led a 4-on-2 fast break the other way. Seeing that he had Thomas trailing, Freeman underhanded a pass off the backboard from the right elbow, which Thomas caught in midair and hammered home. I've never heard that small of a crowd (announced as 8,000+) make so much noise. Iowa took a 44-20 lead into halftime.

The shooting only got better in the second half, both offensively and defensively. Iowa hit 60% of their field goals and held UMES to 27% shooting in the final 20 minutes. The big men were a major reason for the efficiency - Greg Brunner, Thomas, Erek Hansen, and Seth Gorney combined to shoot 15 of 21 for the game. With the outcome never in doubt, Coach Alford was able to give double-digit minutes to nine of his players, and five of them scored at least 10 points.

Notes and Thoughts

Iowa's offense struggled early on, but it wasn't for lack of good looks. They missed a lot of bunnies, which one would hope start to fall as the season progresses. What was a little more concerning, though, was the turnovers. UMES was one of the worst teams in the country at forcing turnovers last year, but Iowa still lost the ball on about 20% of its possessions. Many of the mistakes were completely unforced, too - Adam Haluska dropped a pass out of bounds, Jeff Horner lost control of a dribble without any pressure, Hansen travelled once, the team got called for a 3 second violation, etc. Iowa will need to see progress in this area as the season advances.
Many fans are excited by the debut of Tony Freeman, including myself. His line included six assists, three steals and a three pointer. He should give the Hawkeye backcourt another capable defender and ballhandler. One of my biggest beefs with Mike Henderson is that his passes never set his teammates up for good shots, while Freeman accomplished that several times in his first game. If he can hit the three like he did this summer, Iowa will be in position to make big improvements on offense this year.
Foul trouble was a major issue keeping Erek Hansen and Doug Thomas from playing time last year - they finished first and second in the Big Ten in fouls per minute. Monday night was no different. Iowa's lanky center drew his second foul 2:30 into the game and came out to make way for Thomas. Hansen sat for ten minutes, then picked up his third foul after playing only another 1:30. That's a total of three fouls in four first half minutes. Thomas picked his fouls up after halftime, and had four in his 19 minutes of PT.
Iowa's student section looked a lot bigger than this time last year, yet they've been allotted far fewer seats than last year. What gives? Sections L and M were GA for students last year, but now we only get the first few rows of those two sections, and the overflow is forced into the corner and behind the basket. Boo.
Doug Thomas takes the early team lead for dunks on the season. He has two, and Alex Thompson and Gorney each added one. Thomas also leads the team with one charge taken. We'll keep an eye on those two stats this year.
Horner and Brunner were their solid selves. Bru's spin moves were just about unguardable, and Horner's passing was, on the whole, very good. The seniors tied to lead Iowa with 16 points each.

Links
Other recaps available at the DM Register, IC Press-Citizen, QC Times, and Daily Iowan.
Box score.

Gameday: Maryland - Eastern Shore

2005-11-14T11:27:00.000-06:00

Here we go - the first official game of Iowa's 2005-06 basketball season tips off tonight at 7:35. They start with two home games as part of the Guardian's Classic, and will likely face Kentucky in Kansas City one week from today.

First, they'll have to get through Maryland-Eastern Shore and the winner of Colgate vs Utah Valley State, which precedes the Iowa game and starts around 5:00 tonight. It will be easy for the Hawkeyes to look past M-ES, as they were the worst team in D-I basketball last year, according to Ken Pomeroy's Pythagorean winning percentage, which compares a team's points scored and allowed to estimate how many games it should win. M-ES's offensive efficiency ranked 329th of 330 teams, and their defense was more porous than any team in the country, which explains why most of their 26 losses weren't even close.

Last year's stats are almost irrelevant, though, as the Fighting Hawks come to Iowa City with 10 new faces on their roster, eight of which are freshmen. 6-9 Tim Parham returns after entering and withdrawing from last year's NBA draft. He's a solid rebounder (16.4 reb% overall, 18.2% in conference), but his 47 FG% and 55 FT% certainly don't look NBA-worthy.

Parham will welcome the addition of Qavotstaraj Waddell, a 6-11 redshirt freshman center. Reports seem to indicate that he's the athletic-but-unrefined type. According to the Blue Ribbon Yearbook, M-ES coach Larry Lessett is already getting calls from NBA teams about his new big man.

The three other players who started in the team's exhibition game were 6-2 freshman Ed Tyson, 6-1 freshman Jesse Brooks, and 6-5 junior college transfer Antonio McMillion. M-ES was sorely lacking in outside shooters last year, but Brooks hit 5 threes in the exhibition.

Links
- Shawn Yonkers of the Salisbury, MD based Daily Times wades through the deep pool of new talent at UMES. Coach Lessett seems confident that his team's scoring will be improved (though it would be difficult to be worse than last year).
- Susan Harman has a preview of the game.
- Andrew Logue and Steve Batterson weigh in on Iowa's declining ticket sales. Logue focuses on the doubling of student season tickets, while Batterson paints a fuller picture.

Borrowing An Idea

2005-11-13T15:07:00.000-06:00

As you might have noticed, Sports Illustrated.com's basketball preview includes a fun profile of certain "prototypes" of college basketball. The series of articles highlight schools that repeatedly produce players with similar characteristics, and who continue to do so today. Articles include The Hated Dukie (Danny Ferry, Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, J.J. Redick, etc), The Arizona Point Guard (Damon Stoudamire, Mike Bibby, Gilbert Arenas, Mustafa Shakur, etc) and The Michigan State Athlete (Magic Johnson, Jason Richardson, Shannon Brown, Maurice Ager, etc), among others. Lacking any creativity of my own, I decided to produce my own Iowa-based spin-off. And so I introduce to you.....

The Western Iowa Marksman

Player	College	Years	High School
Fred Hoiberg	Iowa State	1991-1995	Ames
Kirk Hinrich	Kansas	1999-2003	Sioux City West
Kyle Korver	Creighton	1999-2003	Pella
Ben Jacobson	Northern Iowa	2002-2006	Sioux City East
Nate Funk	Creighton	2002-2006	Sioux City Heelan

As you head west across the state of Iowa, you invariably notice two things: flatter ground and decreasing population density. Perhaps it is this dull, repetitious environment that breeds the day-in and day-out, hard-working mentality requisite of the college basketball sharpshooter, or perhaps it is just random chance, but one thing is certain - some of the Midwest's best shooters of the past 20 years were developed between I-35 and the Missouri River.

This is a brief look at the college and professional accomplishments of some of those great shooters.
eFG% is regular FG% adjusted for three pointers.
TS% is a measure of shooting efficiency from field goals and free throws.
3a/fga measures the percentage of shots which were three pointers.
Stats Primer

Fred Hoiberg - Iowa State, Indiana Pacers, Chicago Bulls, Minnesota Timberwolves

Year	MPG	Pts/40	eFG%	TS%	3pt%	FT%	3a/fga
91-92	30.5	15.8	59.6%	63.0%	26.0%	80.6%	17.8
92-93	32.8	14.1	59.7%	64.3%	36.7%	81.6%	26.0
93-94	36.0	22.5	62.4%	67.5%	45.0%	86.4%	39.6
94-95	36.8	21.6	53.2%	59.5%	41.2%	86.1%	45.7

The Mayor was certainly among the best basketball players to pass through Iowa State University. His uber-efficient scoring came closer to the basket early on, as he only made 35 threes his first two seasons. He took (and made) many more threes in his final two seasons, and finished his ISU career with a 40% mark from downtown. Hoiberg was taken in the second round of the 1995 NBA draft by Indiana. He found his niche in Minnesota recently, becoming one of the NBA's best shooters. Hoiberg finished #4 in 3pt% in 2004 and led the league last year, hitting 48%. His NBA career marks include 40% on threes and 85% at the line.

Kirk Hinrich - Kansas, Chicago Bulls

Year	MPG	Pts/40	eFG%	TS%	3pt%	FT%	3a/fga
99-00	21.4	10.4	50.6%	53.1%	31.3%	73.5%	49.7
00-01	32.7	14.0	61.9%	66.7%	50.5%	84.3%	47.0
01-02	30.9	19.1	63.1%	65.7%	47.8%	80.8%	37.7
02-03	33.5	20.7	56.7%	58.6%	40.6%	70.4%	44.9

Hinrich posted two outstanding shooting seasons when he still had Drew Gooden and Jeff Boschee on the team, but the numbers came back down to earth his senior season when he had to take a lot more shots. Looking back on it, some of those Kansas squads were loaded. The 2002 team included Gooden, Nick Collison, Hinrich, Boschee, Wayne Simien, Keith Langford, and Aaron Miles. Not a bad seven man rotation.

Hinrich was drafted seventh overall by Chicago in 2003. He made the All-Rookie team, and was the starting point guard last year for the first Bulls team since the Jordan era to make the playoffs.

Kyle Korver - Creighton, Philadelphis 76ers

Year	MPG	Pts/40	eFG%	TS%	3pt%	FT%	3a/fga
99-00	18.2	19.4	63.0%	65.5%	43.4%	89.5%	71.1
00-01	29.4	19.9	62.9%	66.0%	45.2%	86.7%	70.2
01-02	31.6	19.1	62.2%	67.2%	42.9%	89.0%	67.2
02-03	31.8	22.3	63.3%	67.4%	48.0%	90.8%	68.8

If you're not too busy, take a minute to let those numbers sink in. Korver's 371 made threes rank 8th in NCAA history. None of the players ahead of him can match his career 45% three point shooting, which ranks 14th. Korver was also historically dependable at the line - his career 89% free throw shooting is 10th all-time. If that weren't enough, over 2/3 of his shots were coming from behind the arc, so his career eFG% and TS% are flat-out stupid.

A 6-7 guy who can stroke the three seems like a reasonably valuable NBA commodity, and Korver was no exception. He was selected late in the second round of the 2003 NBA draft, and is in his third season with Philadelphia. He's made 40% of his NBA threes, and led the league with 226 made last year.

Ben Jacobson - Northern Iowa

Year	MPG	Pts/40	eFG%	TS%	3pt%	FT%	3a/fga
02-03	30.9	14.5	48.5%	52.4%	41.8%	74.7%	21.1
03-04	34.0	16.4	49.6%	53.2%	39.2%	76.8%	36.1
04-05	34.1	21.0	57.1%	59.8%	45.2%	80.6%	36.3

Jacobson isn't quite as gung-ho from downtown as some of the other guys in this group, as he gets a higher percentage of his points from two-pointers (51%) than anyone else. Still, his 45% three point shooting helped him elevate his scoring last season, and he looks poised for another big year. He's been picked as Missouri Valley Conference preseason POY, and looks to lead UNI back to the NCAA tournament for the third straight year.

Nate Funk - Creighton

Year	MPG	Pts/40	eFG%	TS%	3pt%	FT%	3a/fga
02-03	16.8	11.2	57.1%	57.9%	35.7%	62.5%	44.4
03-04	26.6	16.7	50.4%	53.4%	42.9%	77.4%	41.2
04-05	30.8	23.1	60.0%	63.3%	46.9%	82.5%	35.2

Funk's junior season was similar in many respects to Jacobson's, though the Creighton star's scoring was a bit more efficient. It seems that every publication has Jacobson slotted as MVC MVP, but Funk should make voting difficult by season's end, as his shooting accuracy was almost Korver-good last year. Funk has been to the big tournament two of the last three years, and is in good shape to make another strong run.

Note - Make sure you vote in the poll over in the top right corner of the blog - we're off to a slow start so far (though it never helps to start those on a weekend).

Weekend Walk-Through

2005-11-12T13:20:00.000-06:00

I guess Cedar Rapids was the place to be last night, as Bruce Weber, Steve Alford and several scouts stopped by to take in the Kirkwood Classic. Tony Freeman, Greg Brunner, and Jeff Horner also attended in order to watch possible future Hawkeye Jamarcus Ellis. You can still see Ellis play tonight at five o'clock against Illinois Central.

Congratulations are in order for the Iowa men's cross country team. They finished in second place at today's Midwest Regional meet in Iowa City, which qualifies them for Nationals on November 21. Iowa started with a strong pack among the race's top 15-20 runners. They gradually slipped back but hung on long enough to edge out third place Kansas by 2 points. Iowa State freshman (and former DM Roosevelt standout) Kiel Uhl led late in the race and finished second overall.

Only the top two teams at each of the country's nine regional meets automatically qualify for Nationals, and it was a close fight for that second spot today -

Oklahoma State, 48
Iowa, 72
Kansas, 74
Minnesota, 77

Teams that finish third or worse are eligible for a handful of at-large bids.

Stop by later this weekend - I have a handful of basketball-related ideas that might eventually turn into writing.

Morning Notes

2005-11-11T07:30:00.000-06:00

Tom Kakert updates the Hawkeye community on the state the program's recruiting after yesterday's signings. Iowa still has two scholarships available for next year's recruiting class. (If you're a visual learner, you might also like the HH Long-Term Roster).
Coach Alford shared his thoughts on the 2006 class in the Press-Citizen.
Jamarcus Ellis, a strong candidate for one of the two scholarships, will play twice this weekend in the Kirkwood Classic in Cedar Rapids. His Chipola College team is scheduled to play Southeastern at 6pm tonight, and Illinois Central at 5pm tomorrow night.
Iowa City is hosting the Midwest Regional championship meet for men's and women's cross country tomorrow. This is actually a pretty big deal, since teams need to run well here to advance to the national championship meet - it's kind of like conference championship week and Selection Sunday rolled into about half an hour. The Iowa men are currently ranked #20 in the country and #3 in the region. Their race starts at 11am. It would be nice to see some locals there to support the home team, but I know enough about cross country to not get my hopes up. The course is hidden back behind the intramural fields off Mormon Trek / 1st Ave if you actually have some interest in attending.
Ben, Bonny, Swany, BJ - shhhhhhhh. Cross country is indeed a sport.

Quick Notes

2005-11-10T20:16:00.000-06:00

I updated the Long-Term Roster to include the signing of Justin Johnson, et al.

Vote in the new poll at the right. Do it. Do it.

Dropping The Ball

2005-11-10T19:26:00.000-06:00

While my primary sports obsession is college basketball, I also have an interest in the NBA, particularly in following the careers of college players I admired. Since my thought process has shifted largely toward statistical analysis over the past year, I'm also starting to track the professional successes and failures of those statistical freaks that stand out in college ball. Take Andrew Bogut for example. His rebounding, statistically, far surpassed anyone in the country last year, but many questioned whether he had the toughness to be worth the number one pick in last summer's draft. Through four NBA games, he's grabbed a solid 9 rpg in about 33 mpg, and is shooting 53% on top of that. I'll be keeping an eye on his progress.

Not every great college player can play well in the pros, clearly, but when guys possess both the size and the statistical resume to thrive in the league, I expect them to be at least respectable pro players. With that in mind, it's fun to look back on past NBA drafts and see which players met those criteria but were overlooked and eventually made their mark in the league anyway. One prime example is former Purdue Boilermaker Brad Miller.

Miller manned the post for Purdue from 1994-95 to 1997-98, and was rather productive for Gene Keady. His four years looked like this -

**Per Game**
Year	Min	Pts	Reb	Ast	Blk	Stl	FG%	FT%
94-95	17.9	6.5	4.8	1.2	1.1	0.6	58.2	66.0
95-96	21.3	9.6	4.9	1.4	0.8	1.0	51.8	73.8
96-97	31.0	14.3	8.3	2.9	1.5	1.8	53.6	77.7
97-98	29.2	17.2	8.9	2.5	1.6	1.2	63.2	78.0

A senior season of 17 points and 9 rebounds per game might not jump off the page, but that output came in only 29 minutes a game. That means Miller was scoring 23.5 points and grabbing 12.2 rebounds for every 40 minutes of playing time, both of which are very productive. On top of that, he was a career 57% shooter and hit 78% of his free throws for his last two years, both indicators of his outstanding efficiency.

One illuminating stat I didn't include was how often Miller got to the free throw line.

FTA / FGA
Fr - .820
So - .751
Jr - .921
Sr - .844

A go-to-guy who draws fouls that frequently and hits nearly 80% of his foul shots is certainly valuable. Miller was shooting over seven free throws a game as a junior and senior, despite the low playing time. A guy who can who can do that and shoot 60+% from the field knows how to get his name in the scoring column, and should be an asset to any offense.

But Miller was more than just an efficient scorer - he managed to get his teammates involved. He has earned a reputation as one of the best passing big men in the NBA, and judging by his college assist totals, it's a skill that he has long possessed. Assists are far from a perfect stat, but it's hard to ignore a center who averages over three assists per 40 minutes over his entire college career.

So a center who can effectively score, pass, and rebound would be pretty draft-worthy, no? Here's a list of all the centers who were drafted in 1998.

1. Michael Olowokandi, Pacific
3. Raef LaFrentz, Kansas
6. Robert Traylor, Michigan
12. Michael Doleac, Utah
13. Keon Clark, UNLV
17. Radoslav Nesterovic, Italy
22. Brian Skinner, Baylor
27. Vladimir Stepania, Slovenia
29. Nazr Mohammed, Kentucky
33. Jelani McCoy, UCLA

***yawn***

35. Bruno Sundov, Croatia
36. Jerome James, Florida A&M
37. Casey Shaw, Toledo
43. Jahidi White, Georgetown
44. Sean Marks, California
48. Ryan Stack, South Carolina
50. Andrew Betts, Long Beach State

Notice a name that was not on this list? Teams thought so lowly of Miller that he couldn't even make the second round. Granted, he was only about 240 pounds at the time, but it's not like Ryan Stack or Andrew Betts ever lit the world on fire.

Miller wound up starting the 1998-99 season in Italy before Charlotte gave him a chance in January of 1999. He endured a couple rough shooting seasons in Chicago, but even then he was shooting (and making) so many free throws that he was still a good scorer. With the entire package of skills that he brings to the court, Miller has consistently ranked as one of the NBA's top five centers for the last five or six years, according to John Hollinger's Player Efficiency Rating. Not bad for an undrafted player, but not surprising for a guy with his college stat line, either.

Iowa 75, Wartburg 48

2005-11-10T14:59:00.000-06:00

Iowa put forth another great defensive effort, but its offense took long enough to take over that Wartburg kept the score close well into the second half. The Hawks only managed 28 points in a first half marred by turnovers and poor shooting, which they attributed to not spending much time against a zone defense in practice.

It also seemed like Wartburg outhustled Iowa early on, which makes at least a little sense. I hate to make excuses for Iowa's lethargic play, but this is one of the bigger games Wartburg will play all year, while Iowa treated it more like an extension of their training. It sounded like they went hard in practice before this game to simulate the two-games-in-two-days situations they'll face two to three times in the next month. That said, they'll have to play with more energy than they did in the first half tonight if they want to be successful in the Guardian's Classic.

Back to Iowa's defense - it was stifling. They held IIAC Player of the Year Nate Schmidt to 13 points on 5-17 shooting. He might be skilled enough to handle the Coe's and Simpson's of the world, but he seemed rather overmatched by Iowa's size inside. He struggled to get a good shot off unless he was 16 feet from the basket, which I can be happy with. Iowa also held second-leading scorer Jason Steege to 7 points on 1-12 shooting, and forced 4 turnovers. Most of the credit goes to Mike Henderson, whose pesky step-for-step defense hounded Steege for 3/4 of the court. His physical play seemed to frustrate Steege, though it did cost Mike a couple of blocking fouls near midcourt. Overall, Wartburg managed only 48 points on roughly 71 possessions, which is a ridiculously low 68 per 100. They turned the ball over on about 34% of their possessions, which is also very poor. Give the Hawks some credit.

Offensively, Iowa was pretty dull at the outset. Call it tired legs or underestimation of the opponent, but they didn't have it together. How to remedy such a situation? Either (1) bring your most athletic player off the bench, or (2) bounce your head off the floor to inspire your teammates. Doug Thomas provided the spark from the bench that he so often brought last year, finishing with 14 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 steals. Meanwhile, in what was certainly the most talked about play of the game, Jeff Horner chose option two. Hoping to bring the team out of its lull and inspire some hustle, Jeff dove headfirst for a loose ball near midcourt. Sometimes players in a similar situation can slide on the wood, but friction got the better of Horner, and his forward momentum got transferred to his head, which bounced hard and sent a tooth flying. There was a short pause as people searched the floor for the tooth, which was found some 40 feet down the court under the basket. Ouch. That's probably where I call it a night and head to the dentist, but Horner was actually back in a matter of minutes.

This, naturally, led to some good-hearting ribbing from the rest of the team.

"After three years of living in his shadow, I guess I get to be the cute one, finally." - Greg Brunner

"He lost a tooth. I think a cheerleader found it. He'll get that under his pillow tonight - the tooth, not the cheerleader." - Coach Alford

As for the rest of the team - Adam Haluska was cold again from the outside. I'd really like to see him get the ball inside more often like he did at the end of last year, because he just looks unstoppable in close. He'll be one of the better scorers in the conference if/when that jumper starts to drop.

Tony Freeman snuck inside for a couple layups and hit a long two-point jumper, and was strong defensively on Steege when Henderson was out of the game. It troubles me some that neither Freeman nor Henderson have anything close to the court vision of Horner, but that's probably too high of a standard by which to measure a freshman.

Erek Hansen played well defensively again, including a block on a three-point attempt, but his lack of hands and athleticism cost Iowa a couple times on the offensive end.

Nothing else too remarkable. Next game is Monday night against Marlyland-Eastern Shore in the first round of the Guardian's Classic.

Morning Links

2005-11-10T08:03:00.000-06:00

Here are a few articles to check out as you get your day started -

Iowa beat D-III Wartburg last night, 75-48, though the offense wasn't strong enough to put it away until the last 10 minutes or so. Andrew Logue, Jason Brummond and Ryan Suchomel have recaps. I'm a little late to the party, but I'll have my own recap later this morning.
Rick Brown penned a decent piece about the abundant guard talent at Iowa's three state universities, focusing on Jeff Horner, Curtis Stinson of Iowa State and Ben Jacobson of Northern Iowa. That wealth of backcourt skill was apparent this summer when I tried to make my all-Iowa-state-school team.

Morning Notes

2005-11-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ryan Suchomel profiles Kurt Looby, whose last chance to play this season will come tonight. Looby will be redshirting this year, so he's only allowed to play in exhibition games.
Steve Batterson says that Coach Alford plans to continue scheduling lower-level Iowa schools for its future exhibition games. This trend started last year with the game against D-II Upper Iowa and continues tonight against D-III Wartburg. I'm all for this move - most of those teams are made up of former Iowa high schoolers, and it'll be fun to see them get a chance to play at Carver-Hawkeye. And I'd much rather play an actual team than a touring group of guys who just met each other a few weeks ago.
Suchomel and Susan Harman report on Iowa's signing of Tyler (TX) Community College guard Justin Johnson. I hadn't heard a lot about him prior to this week, but so far so good. He's a 6-6 guard and should add some needed athleticism to the team. His current coach had some nice words, too -
"We sent six guys to Division I off last year's team and he was still the
leading scorer," Tyler coach Mike Marquis said. "He just has a very good knack
of putting the ball in the hole, and he's just such a great kid."
The Rivals network commented on the recruitment here and here.
Today is the start of the fall signing period, which runs until November 16. If high school seniors do not sign their letter of intent by next Wednesday, they'll have to wait until mid-April to do so. Forward Cyrus Tate, center Jamie Vanderbeken, and Johnson are expected to sign with Iowa.

Next Up - Wartburg

2005-11-08T14:33:00.000-06:00

Iowa plays game two of its exhibition schedule tomorrow night when they meet the Wartburg Knights. Wartburg is a Division III team whose recent five-year run includes five 20-win seasons and two conference titles, with one coming last year. They return five of last year's top six scorers, which is leading to recognition from a few basketball publications. And to top it off, they even had a Kobliska on their roster as recently as 2002. Can this year's squad give Iowa a challenge? Can they at least put up a better fight than Brock did?

Wartburg has been a solid shooting team for the past few years. Last year they were anchored by Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference POY Nate Schmidt in the middle. He shot a robust 56% and could give Iowa another decent center to practice against, though he stands only 6-7 and does not rebound very well. Jason Steege is a 6-0 guard who hit 37% of his threes and excels at getting to the free throw line. These two provided the bulk of the offense (along with departed Jordan Atchison) last year and should again this year, though neither averaged 30 mpg. In fact, Wartburg tends to play pretty deep into the bench, regularly running out 9-10 players per game in recent years. I'm a little excited by that, in that Iowa will actually get to play against some live bodies, which were noticably absent in the Brock game.

The big problem area for Wartburg's offense has been turnovers. In the last three years, they put up the following TO% -

2005 - 22%
2004 - 23%
2003 - 26%

If you've followed this blog very long, you know that those are some pretty sad figures. Atchison was a big source of the turnovers last year, but he's also taking some very efficient shooting with him. Iowa's bigger, quicker guards should be able to exploit any dribbling/passing deficiencies that Wartburg might present tomorrow.

Wartburg's biggest defensive strength has been forcing turnovers. In the last three years -

2005 - 23%
2004 - 24%
2003 - 23%

Those figures are quite good for a defense, but Wartburg still allowed a decent shooting percentage each year. They've been especially vulnerable inside, and they allowed opponents to hit 52% of their twos last year. Maybe this will allow Greg Brunner to bounce back from last week's less-than-stellar performance.

Given Iowa's experience and skill in the backcourt, I doubt the Knights can provide much of a challenge on defense. The more interesting test will be to see if Iowa's ridiculous defense against Brock was the result of a poor, tired opponent or quality pressure. Wartburg should provide more of a challenge at that end of the court.

Morning News

2005-11-08T10:48:00.000-06:00

- The DM Register reported that, as expected, Coach Alford will redshirt Kurt Looby this year.

- The first round of polls came out yesterday. Iowa was ranked #20 by both the AP and the Coaches polls. That seems about right to me. Other Big Ten teams getting votes -

**Ranking**
Team	AP	Coaches
Michigan State	4	5
Illinois	17	17
Indiana	23	22
Ohio State	30	27
Wisconsin	31	30
Michigan	36	33

- Frank Burlison released his personal top 25 at Fox Sports. Notables include Iowa at #7, Wisconsin at #13, Ohio State at #17. I agree with him on OSU, and I don't see why more people don't (no interior depth, maybe?), but I'm still a little too skeptical to project Iowa as a top ten team.

Rough Start For State

2005-11-07T12:12:00.000-06:00

In case you missed the headline this weekend, Iowa State lost its exhibition opener to mighty EA Sports, 64-57. Freshman Shawn Taggart and guard / forward Anthony Davis (injured last year) sat out with injuries, so ISU moved uber-athlete Rashon Clark to power forward and started Ross Marsden at center.

You kind of figured ISU would have some struggles early on with all the new faces in their frontcourt, but I'd say this loss caught everyone off guard. However, their issues in this game were consistent with the problems they exhibited last year. The most obvious was the inability to put the ball in the basket. In Big XII games last year, ISU was the conference's worst shooting team (with a dreadful 45.7 eFG%) and finished with the third worst overall offense in the league (only Missouri and Baylor were worse). It was shooting that killed the 'Clones this weekend too, as they only managed to hit 27% of their shots, including 3-17 from Mr. Overrated himself, Curtis Stinson. Will Blalock also contributed a 7-18 night. I wrote during the summer that Iowa State would need to develop some shooters if they were to have a respectable season, and it looks like they still need a lot of progress there.

Also like last year, ISU's defense was very good. They forced 25 turnovers and held EA to 44% shooting. That will continue to be the case this year, with the defensive talent they have in the backcourt, and as they get players back from injury.

So the prescription for success looks similar today to the one I wrote several months ago. Even if Iowa State's defense is as dominating as it was a year ago, they still need an occasional basket at the other end for the team to win some games. Until they prove they can hit some jump shots, the Cyclones won't have any business being ranked among the nation's top 25.

Scanning the Box Scores

2005-11-03T23:45:00.000-06:00

Illinois 82, Illinois Wesleyan 60
Illinois led the #1 D-III team (according to Street & Smith) by only six points at half time before pulling away. Freshman guard Jamar Smith, praised for his shooting ability, hit 3-5 threes and scored 16 points in 26 minutes. Only Dee Brown spent more time on the floor. He missed all six of his threes but did have seven assists. Shaun Pruitt made a nice bid for a starting frontcourt spot with 8 points and 7 rebounds in 17 minutes.

Starters - Brown, Rich McBride, Brian Randle, Warren Carter, James Augustine

Penn State 89, Lock Haven 43
Penn State played a young D-II team coming off a four win season and took them behind the wood shed. Lock Haven could only muster an eFG% of .319, and had an ugly 27 turnovers. They also got destroyed on the boards, 53-29. Serbian freshman center Milos Bogetic had 8 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 steals off the bench. Sophomore Geary Claxton and juco transfer guard David Jackson led the way with 15 points each.

Starters - Ben Luber, Jackson, Claxton, Jamelle Cornley, Brandon Hassell

Iowa 97, Brock 36

2005-11-03T22:49:00.000-06:00

Wow, that was easy. I guess when Jeff Horner has a left-handed dunk and Erek Hansen has a defensive rebound within the first two minutes of the game, the outcome should not be in doubt.

It was fun for the fans, too. Especially if you like those fight scenes in movies where the victor is on his knees straddling a guy on his back and continues to punch him in the face after he's clearly passed out. (Not that I'm pointing any fingers - I still count Fight Club among my favorite movies.) Coach Alford put the starters back on the floor to start the second half, and I remember thinking later that it was sadistic of him to leave them in for so long because they were so thoroughly demolishing Brock. Then I looked at the clock, and it wasn't even time for the first TV timeout. Ug-ly.

The final margin should have almost been expected, though, considering Brock was playing its fifth game in seven days, including one at home (near Toronto) just yesterday. Since they could only go six deep, they never had a chance, and their guys were clearly gassed by the second half. Things got really brutal after intermission, when Brock could manage just four (4) field goals and ten total points.

Brock's main offensive gameplan was to isolate the point guard and center on the same wing/block, then pass the ball into the big guy (also known as Kevin Stienstra). If he couldn't get a shot off himself, he'd kick out to someone for a deep three. Erek Hansen started out on Stienstra, and pretty much dominated him defensively. Hansen did allow a lay-up where he got beat off a dribble-drive, but from what I recall, he didn't allow any easy shots after that, and even blocked a couple of Stienstra's shots. Greg Brunner guarded him when Hansen went out, and the Gorn Dog (aka Seth Gorney) helped out after that. The trio forced Stienstra into a 7-19 shooting night and eight turnovers, making his 17 points and 11 rebounds look very empty. Well done, bigs.

As for the rest of the defense, one descriptor kept popping to mind: active. Yes, calling them active is probably equivalent to standing me next to Michael Moore and calling me sexy, but just know that the guards didn't let Brock have anything easy. Horner and Mike Henderson didn't let any lazy passes float by, and Henderson especially made sure his man had a hell of a time dribbling in the halfcourt offense. Iowa's 30 forced turnovers were the reason they could score 97 points while shooting only 44%. Ballhawks, well done.

Offensively, things weren't quite as dominant. For starters, Iowa hit only 4-19 on their threes. I hope we can chalk this up to rustiness, because Iowa will need at least a couple deep threats this year if they're going to possess the offense of a quality tournament team. (Addendum - the 4-19 was weighed down by a lot of garbage time misses. Horner and Haluska combined to shoot 3-10, so I'm nitpicking over nothing, as usual.) Inside the arc, Iowa was OK, but not great. Haluska couldn't get the midrange shot to fall, though it didn't look far off. Henderson got himself a couple nice looks in the middle of the lane that didn't hit. Alex Thompson got off plenty of his own shots, and finished a not-too-terrible 3-8.

The short list of guys who hit most of their shots includes the ones who got out in transition. Horner got some easy baskets off of steals, and Doug Thomas added two or three monster facials to his reputation. He added some easy putbacks and a jumper to finish 7-8 from the field. Thuner Doug, well done.

Iowa also dominated the glass, as expected. They actually had more offensive rebounds than Brock did defensive, meaning Iowa grabbed over half of its own misses (yes, that's ridiculous). Brock could only track down 10 of its 43 missed shots.

All in all, a fun night, though I wouldn't be me if I didn't throw in at least one complaint. Why make students pick up their (season) tickets at the North entrance, but only allow them to enter through the South entrance? Since tickets weren't available until sometime this week, there weren't a lot of people who could make it in to pick them up before tonight. I think you could alert the two ticket checkers at the (isolated) North entrance and tell them to prepare for a handful more than the 15 people they actually had to let in. Whatever.

Checking the Stats - Brock

2005-11-03T13:24:00.000-06:00

It may only be an exhibition game, but you know I can't turn down a chance to look over a few stats. Since Brock has already played nine games this year, there's a decent amount of data to tell us what to expect from them.

Like Northwestern and the Canadian team Iowa played last year, Brock is what the Big Ten Wonk would call a perimeter-oriented team (POT). They've taken 39% of their shots from outside the arc this year. Consisten with most POTs, Brock does not excel at offensive rebounding or getting to the free throw line. They rebound about 32% of the shots that they miss, and they attempt about .292 free throws for each field goal, which would be below average in the NCAA. The strategy has backfired so far, as Brock is only making 31% of those outside shots. If it weren't for center Kevin Stienstra's 60% shooting, the offense would be pretty pathetic.

Public Service Announcement - If any of your friends have been
hiding under a rock or have already slipped off to a cave to begin winter
hibernation, you need to alert them that the Big Ten Wonk has returned from his
off season hiatus and resumed daily posting. If you're not yet familiar with his site,
it's the internet nirvana for all Big Ten hoops fans. Check it out. Do it. Do it.

As for the defense, Brock has been OK. Stienstra has been playing 38 mpg, which is probably a big reason why Brock's opponents have only shot 47% on their two-point shots, despite taking most of their shots there. Teams playing Brock have only taken 22% of their shots from deep. It'll be interesting to see if Hansen can muster any offensive game against them on the inside. Outside of Stienstra, Brock lacks any size, and it has shown in their defensive rebounding, where they have grabbed only 62% of their opponents' missed shots. Look for either Brunner or Thomas to have a big game fueled by offensive rebounding.

So if Hansen holds his ground against Stienstra, and Brock doesn't suddenly get hot from downtown, it should be your typical exhibition game blowout, instead of last year's uncomfortably close outcome against Laval.

Bonus Halloween Weekend Tales
Since Halloween fell on a Monday this year, most of us non-Trick-or-Treater types decided to celebrate it over the weekend. I happened to have two East Coast friends visiting for the weekend, so there was extra cause for giddiness. We engaged in some standard PG-rated reunion activities, including watching movies during mandated periods of convalescence. The titles included classics like Dodgeball and Starsky and Hutch, which led to us dressing as the Average Joes for costume parties later that night (kudos to my sister by the way - awesome party). It also led to "Do it, do it" and "Bacardi and Coke, do it" being among the most common phrases of the weekend.

Anyway, one of the funner parts of the night turned out to be walking around downtown and checking out everyone else's costumes. There were ghostbusters (complete with decked-out white hearse), Stuart from MadTV, popped-collar frat boys (what fun is that, anyway?), and a variety of appreciably and creatively under-dressed co-eds. Our crew of dodgeball players wasn't always recognized, but was definitely appreciated by those who did. The double-take, walk-by, turnaround, and "Hey Average Joes!" sequence was a common occurrence as the evening wore on. It even led to some spontaneous mid-ped mall rubber ball exchanges. Outstanding.

Anyway, we were walking home later when we met up with a guy dressed as Morty Finkle, easily my favorite costume of the night. He was decked out with the gray wig and green suit, and had all the lines ready to go - "Morty Finkle of Finkle Fixtures, biggest light fixture chain in the Southland" and "Hey, [insert command], do it, do it." If you're reading this, Morty, well done sir.

I realize this probably bored the #*&#! out of 97% of my readers, but if you enjoyed Starsky and Hutch, you can appreciate how hilarious this actually was. Finkle was a character Starsky used as a disguise on one of his undercover missions at the end of the movie, so it was a pretty obscure costume idea. Throw in the fact that my friends and I had been celebrating his lines forever, and the random crossing of paths it took to meet this guy at the very end of the weekend, it was definitely a memorable moment. Fun weekend.

Opening Day (Sort Of)

2005-11-03T12:06:00.000-06:00

This post is a little late, as it's already game day, but I figured I should break my posting fast with baby steps, rather than try to take on too much immediately. You have, after all, heard the fable of the snake that tried to swallow the alligator?

After several months of waiting for basketball to resume and ignoring the existence of the football team (maybe that's just me), it's finally time to see Iowa take on a squad of players in something resembling an official game. Not a moment too soon, I might add, as I've actually been taking an interest in the NBA in recent weeks.

Iowa opens its exhibition season tonight at 7:05 in Carver-Hawkeye against Brock University from Ontario. Much is expected of Iowa this year, as you no doubt know by now - most pundits have them tabbed as a top 25 team who should challenge for the upper tier of the Big Ten and a decent seed in the NCAA Tournament. The exhibition games, along with the other cupcakes typically in the early going, are a good chance to feel out the team. You can see who has improved, which lineups are most effective, what roles certain guys can handle, how the team responds to certain offensive/defensive sets, etc. Since Iowa returns four starters and a veteran team, they have fewer questions than most, but tonight will still provide an opportunity to observe several topics worth examining.

Can Iowa stop a good post player? Iowa's starting frontcourt was vulnerable to all kinds of big men last year. Brunner lacked the height to challenge tall guys, and at 260 lbs, he didn't have the quickness to keep up with more nimble players. Erek Hansen could block a shot from anyone, but couldn't keep anyone with bulk off of the boards. The big guys should get their first decent test tonight in Brock's leading scorer, Kevin Stienstra. He's only 6-8, but has used his 250 pound frame to his advantage in shooting 60% and grabbing 10 rebounds per game in Brock's first nine contests (though his reb% of 13.6 is less than gaudy). With names like Paul Davis, Marco Killingsworth, D.J. White, Terence Dials, Courtney Sims, James Augustine, etc, etc, etc, waiting further down the line, it's important for Iowa to establish some method for slowing down the big guys early in the year.

How much can Tony Freeman contribute? Iowa has three very talented players on offense in Jeff Horner, Adam Haluska, and Brunner, but no other options emerged last year, which won't be good enough for Iowa to play deep into March this year. Mike Henderson is expected to start the year in the backcourt with Horner, but he was little better than a black hole on offense last year. For you baseball geeks, Henderson was the Christian Guzman of possession users (as in no bang for your buck). He was like a Pierre Pierce-lite - good defense, lots of turnovers, decent rebounding, but without the actual made shots. Granted, there were signs of improvement by the end of the year, and last year was Henderson's first shot at big minutes, so I should cut him some slack, but it will be nice if Freeman can challenge him for some of those backcourt minutes. Iowa could really use a penetrator in this spot, but since Henderson's passing generally renders his driving useless, it would be nice for Freeman to step up before Big Ten play starts. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Will Greg Brunner look for points further from the basket? As Iowa's only post threat on offense, Brunner generally stayed close to the basket last year. He displayed the ability to consistently hit the three-pointer during summer play, and his size dictates that he needs to improve his perimeter skills to have any shot at a professional basketball job next year, so it's likely we'll see more outside jump shots from Greg this year.

What role will Alex Thompson fill? Multiple roles? The sophomore is expected by many to see more minutes at both forward spots this year. He's tall enough to help out inside, and has touch to handle the perimeter. Improvement from Thompson will go a long way toward providing the depth that concerns so many preseason analysts. How fun (and slow) would an all-Iowa 1-4 lineup of Horner, Haluska, Thompson, and Brunner be?

Other Big Ten Openers
There are two other games happening in the Big Ten tonight.

Illinois vs Illinois Wesleyan
Penn State vs Lock Haven

Both of those teams have several roster questions as well. Penn State is mixing in a few relatively unknown foreign recruits, and Illinois will experiment with ways to make up for 3/5 of the lineup that got it to the national championship last year.

Sick Days

2005-10-31T19:39:00.000-06:00

A quick update for those of you wondering what happened to posting at this blog over the past week - I came down with my annual fall-is-transitioning-into-winter sickness a few days ago. I should be back at 100% before Iowa's exhibition opener, but I'm taking some extra bedtime until I do.

Are You Ga-Ga Over 'Zaga?

2005-10-24T22:17:00.000-05:00

Admit it. You fawn over Adam Morrison's flowing hair and retro striped socks. You picked the Zags to make at least the Sweet 16 in your tournament pool for the last three years. You even know that they're really called the Bulldogs, but prefer the funner, hipper "Zags."

And you're not alone. Gonzaga has become the country's favorite college basketball underdog after three straight Cinderella runs in the Dance at the turn of the century (see Ken Pomeroy's summer post for more on that). The reputation held up well throughout the offseason and carried the team toward the top of this year's preseason polls. Yoni Cohen averaged the early rankings from several well-known sources, and Gonzaga came in at #7. No one ranked them lower than 10th, and two pollsters placed them as high as #4. Are the Zags really that good? Are they really a Final Four caliber team?

Let's break down Gonzaga's important numbers from last season, starting with the offense.

Stat	Value	Nat'l Rank
eFG%	54.8	18
TO%	18.9	65
oRb%	38.2	22
FTM/FGA	.346	2

PPP	115	8

As you can see, the offense was very well-rounded. When you shoot well, don't turn the ball over, rebound your own misses, and shoot a lot of free throws, you tend to score a lot of points, and Gonzaga's top ten offensive efficiency reflected that. Now let's turn to the defensive end of the court.

Stat	Value	Nat'l Rank
eFG%	48.6	128
TO%	17.2	318
oRb%	27.9	31
FTA/FGA	29.9	40

PPP	97	119

In recent years, Mark Few has favored the defensive philosophy of foregoing turnovers in order to keep everyone back in position to defend and rebound. Gonzaga forgets about steals so they can be better prepared to contest shots and minimize easy putbacks from offensive rebounds. It might seem difficult to have a good defense while being among the worst teams in the country at forcing turnovers, but the approach was successful last year for schools like Wisconsin, Connecticut, Utah, and Nevada, as all finished among the top 20 defenses in points allowed per possesion.

Gonzaga didn't join those elite defenses because it wasn't successful at keeping down opponents' shooting percentages, and their perimeter defense was especially vulnerable. The Zags allowed teams to shoot 35% from downtown. That doesn't seem overwhelming at first, but it is the scoring equivalent of hitting 53% on two-pointers (since the shots are worth 1.5 times more). Even more troublesome was that Gonzaga opponents took 40%(!) of their shots from behind the arc. That's a pretty big red flag that a team is having trouble guarding the perimeter.

Outlook: 2005-06
Gonzaga returns every significant player except starting big man Ronny Turiaf. The offense should again be deadly - Adam Morrison is a legitimate All-American, Derek Raivio is a three-point marksman, J.P. Batista shot over 60% and hit the offensive glass very hard last year, and Sean Mallon should be decent in Turiaf's old position. Ronny took 259 free throw shots, so it's hard to imagine the team finishing near the top in FTM/FGA again, but they have the pieces in place for a very efficient offense.

Defense provides the most room for improvement, but it looks like it'll be a big concern again this year. Turiaf was the team's only shot blocker and its best defensive rebounder (with a very very nice 24% defensive rebound rate), so it's hard to see them being as tough on the interior. Raivio and Morrison will both be playing a lot of minutes again, so I'm skeptical that the perimeter defense will be much improved, either. Gonzaga does welcome freshman Jeremy Pargo, who they claim is a great athlete, but I doubt he'll see enough minutes to have a big impact on the defense.

Does this story sound famaliar? Rewind to the preseason poll from last year. Wake Forest was ranked #2 in the nation. Their outstanding offense was led by an NBA lottery pick (Chris Paul), but their middle-of-the-road defense prevented them from even approaching the early expectations. If Gonzaga continues to let opponents fire at will from the outside, they'll share the same fate.

Black and Gold Blowout

2005-10-23T10:47:00.000-05:00

Despite walking against the curb-to-curb pedestrian traffic flowing out of Kinnick Stadium on my way there, I managed to slip into Carver-Hawkeye Arena just in time for tip-off of the Black and Gold Blowout. Here are a few notes -

Adam Haluska was pretty much unstoppable inside 10 feet. It's always hard to get too excited over exhibition games, but this was a nice carry-over from the end of last season. When Adam gets the ball on the block, you're pretty much guaranteed that turnaround off the backboard or two points at the line. His craftiness around the basket is part of what makes him so effective overall - when he's not shooting threes, he relies on high-percentage twos instead of 18-foot jump shots.

Greg Brunner wasn't a major factor. He's still susceptible to getting stripped when he drives the lane. It makes you wonder if his teammates just know his moves by now, or if he makes the ball that inviting to all his opponents. He did hit one three, which we should see more of this year, and he also exhibited some nice court awareness with his passing, much like he showed this summer.

Jeff Horner had the outside touch going for him, and I think he led all scorers with over 20 points (I haven't seen a box score yet). He had some really nice passes, too, so I'm sure he finished with a handful of assists. There were also none of the 25-foot heaves he favored so often last year.

Alex Thompson played as well as anyone on the gold team (him, Reed, Henderson, Thomas). The ball movement was generally pretty pathetic on that team, and players often had to rely on one-on-one moves to score any points. Alex had plenty of offense to offer - he had the moves inside and the jump shot outside, and was automatic at the line. He also plays with a fire that reminds fans of that Ryan Bowen-type scrappiness. If Saturday was any indication, he should be in line for a lot of minutes at both forward spots this year.

Doug Thomas had his two signature dunks and a baseline jump shot, but the novelty has kind of worn off for me. He's still one of the Big Ten's best rebounders, so he'll find his way onto the court.

Erek Hansen actually looked marginally thicker when he took the court, but he still looked as uncoordinated as ever, dropping passes and booting balls out of bounds.

Mike Henderson probably ended up with a decent point total, but his point guard skills are still rather unremarkable. He rarely puts his teammates in a good/better position for a shot, and the offense stalls when he gets the ball on the perimeter and starts dribbling. His ballfake seems to work, though, as it got him an open jump shot at least twice.

Tony Freeman didn't have a lot of opportunities to contribute, since he played with Haluska, Brunner, and Horner, but he did put in a few fastbreak layups. I remember one bad pass where he tried to hit a wing that was too far away, so the defender stepped in a took it the other way, but there weren't a lot of mistakes from the freshman.

Carlton Reed is probably as quick as anyone, but he just doesn't seem like he'll be an effective scorer anytime soon. He never gets a shot inside 15 feet, so his game will be reliant on his streaky shooting.

Seth Gorney looked winded pretty early on and couldn't do much of anything offensively.

And if you're still reading, the Black team won, though that was pretty much assumed going in. Next game is the exhibition opener on November 3 against Brock University of Canada.

Update - I guess Brunner and Thomas played better than I first thought. A quick scan of the box score reveals that both had double-doubles, though Doug did have five turnovers. Alford had plenty of postive words for Thompson and Thomas after the game, via Hawk Central.

Countdown. . . . .

2005-10-22T00:13:00.000-05:00

The return of live college basketball to Iowa City is mere hours away, with the Black and Gold Blowout set to follow that other sporting event in town today. I'm sure I'll have some thoughts on the scrimmage later tonight (and I might share them, too!).

The lineups will start out as follows -

Black	Gold
Jeff Horner	Carlton Reed
Adam Haluska	J.R. Angle
Greg Brunner	Doug Thomas
Tony Freeman	Mike Henderson
Erek Hansen	Alex Thompson
Kurt Looby	Seth Gorney
Justin Wieck	Ryan Kennedy
----------	Brett Wessels

I have to admit I'm more than a little excited to see freshman Tony Freeman get a chance to run with the regular starters, as I'm still not convinced that Henderson has any business playing 30+ mpg in the Big Ten. I was hoping Freeman would get a chance to prove himself in the early part of the year, and this looks like a good start.

Preview - Michigan Wolverines

2005-10-19T15:05:00.000-05:00

Looks like it's gonna be a two-on-one, a menage a trois of pain. - Cotton McKnight
Usually you pay double for that kind of action, Cotton. - Pepper Brooks, Dodgeball

Michigan's total collapse last year was likely the most gruesome story of any of the Big Ten teams. By returning all but one of the significant players from a young NIT-winning team, they started the year with legitimate NCAA tournament aspirations. Those dreams had to be postponed, because a seemingly endless string of injuries and a suspension kept several important players on the sideline and forced Michigan to rely far too heavily on players that were rarely expected to leave the bench.

Trouble started early when Lester Abram, the team's best scoer, re-injured a shoulder in the third game of the year. He needed surgery and missed the rest of the season (but was granted a medical redshirt). Point guard Daniel Horton missed six games with a sprained knee, then missed 12 more while serving a suspension, including 11 conference games. Big man Chris Hunter missed a total of eight games after spraining his ankle on two different occasions, and forward Graham Brown joined the party with two absences of his own - he missed one game following a concussion and eight more after hernia surgery. Brent Petway was out for two games with a shoulder injury. Yeow. These five players combined to miss 37 Big Ten games (see Table 1). That's about the equivalent of taking your starting five off the court for seven full games, which makes Michigan's struggle seem rather reasonable. I shudder to think how Iowa would've survived the post-Pierre Pierce days if Adam Haluska had been out for the year.

Important Info, 2004-05

Conf. games only

Offensive Efficiency: 93.3, tenth

Defensive Efficiency: 107.9, ninth

Expected Record: 3.0 - 13.0, tenth

Actual Record: 4 - 12, ninth

To add insult to injury (whoa, bad pun alert), coach Tommy Amaker didn't have (m)any good options to turn to when the players he counted on couldn't suit up, and Michigan's performance suffered severely. Consider - Michigan essentially finished in a three-way tie for second in points allowed per 100 possessions (PPP) in 2004, but tanked last year when names like Sherrod Harrell, John Andrews, J.C. Mathis, and Dani Wohl entered the box score. These guys had previously done little to warrant playing time, but the foursome picked up 17 conference starts, almost by default.

**Table 1**
Big Ten Games Missed
Name	2004	2005
Lester Abram	0	16
Daniel Horton	0	11
Chris Hunter	6	7
Brent Petway	1	2
Graham Brown	0	1

The most glaring defensive reversal was in Michigan's defensive rebounding. The Wolverines led the conference by grabbing 71.2% of its opponents' missed shots in 2004 Big Ten games. Those figures slipped to 62.0% and last place in 2005. The easiest place to point the finger is at the post players - a tall and established group of rebounders like Courtney Sims, Brown, and Petway shouldn't finish last in rebounding, right? I think that's where most pundits placed the blame, too. That's unfair to the big guys, though - almost all of the team's post players were better rebounders in 2005 than the year before. The 1-3 positions were manned by average to excellent rebounders in 2004, while the stop-gap replacements last year were atrocious, which created the main problem. In particular, Bernard Robinson, Jr.'s work on the defensive glass (16.9 dRb%) was outstanding for a SF, but his replacement (for last year anyway), Ron Coleman, was one of the worst rebounders in the Big Ten (6.8%). Check Table 2 for a more detailed breakdown. With all the important big guys back, and given a healthy Abram, Michigan should fare far better in this category in 2006, though I wouldn't expect a repeat of 2004. The difference between the 2004 and 2006 lineups will basically be a swap of Robinson for Harris, so there is quite a downgrade, but at least Coleman won't be expected to see nearly as much playing time.

**Table 2**
Defensive Rebounding %
Pos	2004	dRb%	2005	dRb%
G	Daniel Horton	9.2	Dion Harris	7.9
G	Lester Abram	12.3	Sherrod Harrell	9.8
F	Bernard Robinson	16.9	Ron Coleman	6.8
F	Graham Brown	14.1	Graham Brown	17.7
C	Courtney Sims	15.3	Courtney Sims	17.1
B	Brent Petway	19.7	Brent Petway	19.7
B	Dion Harris	6.6	Dani Wohl	6.9
B	Chris Hunter	16.2	Chris Hunter	14.8

At the other end of the court, the effect of sudden playing time for career bench players could be seen in Michigan's massive rate of turnovers per possession (TO%), which was the biggest factor in their lower offensive efficiency. Trying to suddenly blend guys who are (a) inexperienced and (b) not very talented into your lineup is bound to be a major problem where turnovers are concerned. It was for Michigan, too, as their TO% of nearly 26% was last in the league and dwarfed the average of 21%. Again, that was to be expected for a team that lost its starting PG and filled other gaps with bench fodder.

It's reasonable to expect some bounceback here as well, given that Harris will be back to SG and that a lot of possessions will be run through Abram, the team's most efficient scorer, but don't get too optimistic. In the two years that Horton started at PG, Michigan finished sixth and seventh in TO%, with a rate below the league average each season. Middle of the pack looks about right for 2006, too.

I'll agree with most assessments that Michigan has the individual talent to compete with most other Big Ten teams. Abram is a very capable scorer, Harris should be much better off not having to shoot every time down the court, Petway is a defensive force, Sims can provide points in the paint and send back a few shot as well, and Horton will keep defenses on their toes. The freshmen should give the backcourt the depth that last year's team so badly needed. Can Amaker assemble the pieces in a way that maximizes productivity?

Brian at mgoblog wrote a Michigan preview that predates mine by a full six months, but his prescription for the offense still looks golden - make Horton the fourth scoring option and force him to concentrate on creating shots for other players, at least until he proves he can score without burdening the offense with his missed shots and turnovers. If Horton is allowed to shoot whenever he pleases, Michigan will be a middle-of-the-road offense despite having several solid players. If he defers to his teammates, there's potential for a very nice offense to emerge. The similarities to Iowa's 2005 team are striking - both give free rein to overrated scorers (Horton, Pierce) while more efficient guards (Harris, Horner), versatile and very effective wings (Abram, Haluska), and productive post players (Sims, Brunner) stand idly by. If Amaker's job is indeed at stake, one hopes that he can learn from Steve Alford's mistakes.

Assuming that Amaker uses Horton in a similar manner as he has the past three seasons, it looks like Michigan's offense should be slightly better than average in the Big Ten. That could blow up in my face, of course, but I have enough faith in Horton's inefficiency to stand by the prediction. As for the defense, there's plenty to like. The rebounding should be better (it'll be hard not to improve, really), and a more veteran lineup should cut down on the foul issues (Michigan finished tenth in FTA / FGA, defensively). Still, it probably only adds up to a little better than conference average, as there look to be several other good defenses in this year's Big Ten. Michigan has one of the tougher conference schedules, in that they only get to play Northwestern and Penn State once each, so I'd look for about a .500 conference record from the Wolverines, which should put them on the fringe of making the NCAA tournament.

INDIVIDUAL BREAKDOWNS
New readers might wish to refer to the Stats Primer.
All ages are as of January 1, 2006.
As usual, FT/FG and 3/FG are actually abbreviations for FTA / FGA and 3A / FGA.
Blk2% is an estimation of the other team's 2-point attempts that a player blocks while he's in the game.

Daniel Horton				Senior			Guard			Age: 21		Height: 6-3		Weight: 205
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
02-03	30	90.2	97	26.3	46.3	.261	76.4	53.2	34.3	23.1	1.6	5.9	15.6	2.3	1.3
03-04	34	78.7	95	24.4	45.9	.306	70.5	54.4	34.2	23.5	1.4	9.2	15.6	3.3	0.8
04-05	13	33.4	95	26.6	46.0	.343	74.5	40.9	35.7	24.6	1.9	9.2	16.9	3.3	0.5

The Michigan refrain has been the same for the past two offseasons - "If Horton just gets back to where he was his freshman year, we'll be in great shape." This raises at least two interesting questions.

(1) Was that freshman season really any better than the other two? Horton's year-to-year consistency has been amazing. The range between his best and worst 2-pt%, 3-pt%, eFG%, and TO% are essentially negligible. Most people got caught up in the 15 ppg he scored as a freshman, and assumed Horton was a star. They overlooked the 36 mpg it took to reach that level, and then wondered what happened when he could score "only" 12 ppg the next year (in a proportionately lower 31.6 mpg). Same player, varying levels of PT.

(2) Why would you want Horton to repeat that level of performance? His shooting (eFG%) and ballhandling (TO%) are far worse than what you should hope to get from the player leading your team in shot attempts. It becomes very difficult to have a good team offense when a fourth of your possessions go to a player as inefficient as Horton. One of his most telling stats - half of his shots are taken inside the arc, but he only hits 40% of them. Unless his shot selection significantly improves, it's hard to see Horton as a net positive for this team.

Graham Brown				Senior			Forward			Age: 21		Height: 6-9		Weight: 245
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
02-03	30	50.1	109	16.0	60.6	.725	51.9	0.0	0.0	19.3	11.8	15.6	5.2	1.3	0.9
03-04	34	49.3	93	15.5	51.7	.467	57.1	0.0	0.0	27.5	10.5	14.1	4.8	2.3	1.5
04-05	22	42.9	102	14.1	55.2	.414	66.7	0.0	0.0	24.4	9.3	17.7	7.4	2.3	0.6

Brown has been a reliabe starter for three years, giving the Wolverines about 20 minutes of interior toughness each night. He doesn't add much to the offense, other than setting screens and grabbing a few rebounds, and only takes about 13% of the team's shots when he's on the court. His turnover rate looks high for a player in his role (putting back rebounds, passing off to players more likely to shoot), but he'll at least make more shots than he misses. Defensively, Brown's aggressiveness leads to an above average foul rate, but given his offensive limitations, it shouldn't cost him any playing time.

Chris Hunter				Senior			Center			Age: 21		Height: 6-11		Weight: 225
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
02-03	30	51.1	96	16.7	44.9	.598	63.2	1.6	0.0	19.9	8.6	11.6	5.0	1.3	6.3
03-04	22	24.3	109	18.0	52.9	.676	80.4	16.2	36.4	23.0	10.2	16.2	6.2	2.0	5.1
04-05	23	34.6	98	29.0	52.7	.497	78.4	20.8	35.5	25.8	8.2	14.8	5.0	1.2	2.9

Who lit the fire under Hunter? He played two seasons while taking eight shots every 40 minutes, then put up 14 per 40 last year. Hunter no doubt tried to force the action a little too much, as his increased shooting was accompanied by a big jump in his turnover rate. Throw in the fact that he got to the free throw line at a decent clip, and you have a guy who ended 29% of Michigan's possessions when he played, a rate that trailed only Pierre Pierce and Bracey Wright among Big Ten players. The return of Abram and Horton means Hunter shouldn't have to shoot nearly as often this year, so I'd expect his rate stats to settle in between his sophomore and junior performances, which makes for a nice offensive weapon off the bench. His ability to score near the basket, outside the arc, and hit his free throws make him a difficult matchup for opposing big men. The rebounding is clearly not what you want to get from your 6-11 center, but playing alongside Brown and Petway should help hide that deficiency.

Lester Abram				Junior			Guard / Forward			Age: 22		Height: 6-6		Weight: 200
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
02-03	30	80.3	114	16.5	53.0	.479	85.6	24.9	40.7	18.5	5.2	11.0	7.9	1.9	1.3
03-04	31	66.9	118	20.3	56.8	.521	84.3	37.7	41.2	17.8	4.7	12.3	7.2	2.0	1.1
04-05	3	6.9	82	18.7	22.7	.500	90.9	36.4	0.0	15.8	3.1	17.2	8.7	0.7	0.0

If Michigan's offense is to reach its potential, Abram will have to assert himself and take ~~a few~~ more shots, preferably at the expense of Horton. His sophomore campaign exhibited several trademarks of quality scoring, as he was very effective on 2's (54%), 3's (41%) and FT's (84%), all without a lot of turnovers. His numbers as a freshman were about the same, just with fewer shots. Abram's overall line is very similar to Adam Haluska's, who, as you might remember, exploded for a very efficient 17 ppg when Iowa finally cut Pierce. If Abram can steal a few shots from Horton, I can definitely see him being a similarly effective high-teens scorer. Losing his offense was the main reason for Michigan's year-on-year decline in offensive efficiency in Big Ten games.

Dion Harris				Junior			Guard			Age: 20		Height: 6-3		Weight: 200
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
03-04	34	70.0	103	20.1	49.5	.277	77.2	59.6	34.1	20.6	2.5	6.6	13.1	2.1	0.4
04-05	31	90.5	96	25.5	44.8	.226	75.5	49.8	33.3	19.8	1.5	7.9	13.2	1.9	0.5

Last year wasn't too pretty for Harris, but it's hard to expect a guy to take over the point and be the focal point of the offense while providing efficient scoring. Still, his line was remarkably similar to Horton's freshman season, which appears to be the new measuring stick for Michigan point guards, so it wasn't a total bust. He did a nice job of keeping his turnovers down at his new position, and that added experience should only benefit him this year, when he can exercise more discretion in his offensive participation. Harris's offense in 2004 was really pretty good for a freshman, and you would think he'll be able to improve on that this year, since he'll be back in his more natural role and sharing the court with competent scorers. Since so many of his shots are three pointers, an increase of a few percentage points there would really help his overall offensive numbers. Rebounding remains his major weakness - only three returning Big Ten players (with at least 25 %min) had a lower Rb%. Playing Harris and Horton together for significant minutes will likely cost the Wolverines on the glass.

Courtney Sims				Junior			Center			Age: 22		Height: 6-11		Weight: 240
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
03-04	34	54.9	102	19.5	54.9	.469	57.8	4.2	12.5	20.9	10.2	15.3	4.1	1.0	10.2
04-05	31	57.6	107	22.7	59.3	.485	70.1	2.5	20.0	22.2	11.0	17.1	3.4	0.9	8.2

He only improved marginally as a sophomore. - Athlon Sports
Promising big m[a]n. . .Courtney Sims. . . fell apart. and Should bounce back after rough soph. year. - Lindy's
Sims. . .must be more consistent. - Street & Smith's

I think the last comment is the only accurate one here, and it seems to me that Sims received a lot of undeserved criticism this offseason. How can you not like a post player who increases his shot attempt rate while hitting 60% of his shots, gets to the line fairly often and makes 70% there, improves his rebounding, and is one of the better shot blockers in the conference? The only "marginal improvement" for Sims was in his playing time - 22 mpg as a freshman, then 23 mpg as a sophomore. It reminds me of Horton's "disappointing" sophomore year - people too often let per game averages be the major factor in how they perceive a player. "Oh, only 9.8 ppg and 5.2 rpg this year. . .what happened to this guy?"

Sims deserves a quick comparison to highlight how un-rough his numbers really were. I'll compare the 04-05 seasons of Sims and Terence Dials (Ohio State), when both players were 21.

Player	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Blk2%
Sims	107	22.7	59.3	.485	70.1	22.2	11.0	17.1	8.2
Dials	109	25.1	57.4	.530	61.7	15.6	10.5	18.5	1.3

Dials clearly deserves some credit for maintaining his performance level at a higher possession usage, and for the lower turnover rate, but why is it that players with such similar numbers are viewed so differently? Dials is seen by many as first team all-Big Ten this year, but Sims is more or less a bust. Considering that the two centers were also very similar (statistically) as 20 year olds, I won't be surprised if Sims can match Dials again this year, though his playing time will dictate much less gaudy per game numbers.

I shouldn't neglect the consistency issue - Sims scored 12 or more points 12 times, but had 13 games where he scored 6 or fewer. That's the definition of up and down. Brian tells me that Sims is often rendered ineffective against more physical defenders, and ends up on the bench for long stretches against teams that possess them. But when I looked a little closer, I had a hard time being persuaded. I divided the conference into teams that I thought were either bad or good post defenders, based mainly on who the starters were. The bad teams were Iowa, Northwestern, Penn State, and Purdue. In eight games against that group, Sims scored 15.5 pts / 40 min. In nine games against the rest, he averaged 17 pts / 40 min. That leads me to think that a major factor in his "inconsistency" is simply playing time.

OK, moving on. . . . .

Brent Petway				Junior			Forward			Age: 20		Height: 6-8		Weight: 210
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
03-04	33	32.7	119	13.3	66.3	0.386	56.3	0.0	0.0	17.2	10.1	19.7	3.9	0.9	7.1
04-05	29	49.6	111	18.7	57.6	0.309	66.0	3.3	20.0	19.2	12.5	19.7	7.8	2.7	8.6

Petway is one of the conference's better rebounders and shot blockers, which is a combination that is less likely than one might realize. He finished sixth in Rb% and fourth in Blk2% - no one else among the top ten rebounders was close to his block rate, and no other top ten shot blocker (save James Augustine) had a rebound rate even in the neighborhood. Many shot blockers compromise their rebounding position when they go after someone's shot; Petway has the quickness and extraordinary leaping ability to man both stations. Offensively, he contributes mainly by rebounding, and his dunking skills ensure that he's a high percentage shooter. If he stayed out of foul trouble, I'd be tempted to feed him some of Brown's minutes. Petway will be academically ineligible for the fall semester, and I'm interested to see what impact that has on Michigan's defense.

Ron Coleman				Sophomore			Guard / Forward			Age: 19		Height: 6-6		Weight: 210
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
04-05	31	69.0	99	16.3	48.1	0.144	83.9	60.0	30.2	19.4	4.7	6.8	8.1	0.8	0.4

I'm sure Tommy Amaker never expected a scenario where Coleman would finish second on the team in minutes played as an 18-year old freshman, but he had no alternative after the losses of Horton and Abram. The experience shouldn't hurt Coleman, but he needs to make some major progress if he wants big minutes on this year's team. The three point shooting was pretty poor for someone specializing in the shot, and the rebounding was among the worst in the conference.

Jevohn Shepherd

Freshman

Guard / Forward

Age: 19

Height: 6-5

Weight: 205

Kendric Price

Freshman

Forward

Age: 19

Height: 6-8

Weight: 200

Jerret Smith

Freshman

Guard

Age: 18

Height: 6-3

Weight: 185

Shepherd has gotten some attention for his size, athleticism, and scoring ability, and should compete with Coleman to provide depth at the wing. Price sounds like he needs time to gain some mass before contributing, and Smith could fill in at point guard when needed. Again, I recommend mgoblog for information on the incoming class.

Checking The Calendar

2005-10-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

It's been a few days since I finished my last team preview. They seem to be well-received so far, and have been fun to work on, so I plan to have another done tomorrow and hopefully one more before the end of the week. The original goal was to get through the conference before exhibition games started, but it appears that my preview-every-three-days or so pace isn't going to allow me to finish before that first week of November. If I maintain this twice-per-week schedule, I'll at least be done before any regular season games start. Other upcoming events worth marking your calendar for -

October 22 - A lot of Hawkeye fans are getting pumped up for Black Out Saturday (the home football game with Michigan), but my anticipation is instead building for the Black & Gold Blowout. To me, it's the official start of the basketball season, because it's the first chance to see the team running up and down the court in 5-on-5 action. It's also where I took the picture that sits atop this blog.

October 25 - While Lindy's, Street & Smith's, Athlon Sports and innumerable amateurs provide interesting previews for the season ahead, they are a mere warmup for the annual Blue Ribbon Yearbook, which ships one week from today. Given my insatiable appetite for all things college basketball, and after reading Chris West's assessment of basketball annuals, I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. You can pre-order yours here.

November 3 - The season finally kicks off with the first of two exhibition games. It's only 16 days away. . . . .

Preview - Ohio State Buckeyes

2005-10-13T18:08:00.000-05:00

Alright guys, you heard Billie Jean King, no crying in the breast milk. We got plenty of work to do, let's go! - Patches O'Houlihan, Dodgeball

The motivational words of a dodgeball legend echo the sentiment that new head coach Thad Matta was able to communicate to his players while turning around Ohio State's basketball program last year. It would have been easy for his players to give less than a full effort after learning they had no opportunity for post-season action, but Matta managed to consistently inspire tournament-quality play from his team, including the dramatic victory against an undefeated and top-ranked Illinois team.

Matta is also building excitement for the future by drawing commitments to what appears to be the country's most talented recruiting class for 2006. It's a good time to be a Buckeye fan, and with the 2005 squad's most important players back for another run, this season should only expedite Ohio State's return to national prominence.

Important Info, 2004-05

Conf. games only

Offensive Efficiency: 101.0, sixth

Defensive Efficiency: 98.2, fourth

Expected Record: 9.1 - 6.9, fifth

Actual Record: 8 - 8, sixth

How did the Buckeyes go from a sub-.500 team to winning 20 games in one year? Better defense, plain and simple. By allowing 109 points per 100 possessions (PPP) during the 2004 Big Ten season, Ohio State challenged Penn State for the title of conference's worst defense. Last year's team was significantly better, finishing fourth after giving up just 98 PPP, four below the league average.

I think Matta deserves a lot of the credit for that improvement. In my current view, offense is largely dependent on individual talent, but defense can be influenced by strategy to a greater degree (see: Bo Ryan). The Ohio State case study reflects that theory, because the superior 2005 defense contained most of the players on the previous season's roster (see Table 1). You wouldn't get many arguments if you said that replacing Jim O'Brien with Matta was the most significant change to the roster.

**Playing Time, as %Min**
Name	03-04	04-05
Tony Stockman	.81	.68
Velimir Radinovic	.69	-
J.J. Sullinger	.68	.65
Terence Dials	.67	.80
B. Fuss-Cheatham	.61	.55
Ricardo Billings	.38	.03
Shun Jenkins	.29	-
Nick Dials	.28	-
Ivan Harris	.24	.48
Matt Sylvester	.14	.49
Je'Kel Foster	-	.63
Jamar Butler	-	.47

Some of the new faces deserve a mention, though, since the biggest gains on defense were made by shutting down the perimeter. While Ohio State got torched from downtown in 2004 (Big Ten teams hit 39% against them), new additions Jamar Butler and Je'Kel Foster helped shore up this major weakness last year. The tighter defense yielded a lower percentage (33%), but more importantly they allowed far fewer attempts. Opponents took 36% of their shots outside the arc in 2004, but only 28% in 2005, which was easily the lowest rate in the league. With Terence Dials back to clog the lane for 32-34 mpg, this year's team can again afford to overplay outside.

Matta's style of offense was also a bit of a contrast from the prior year. Instead of pounding the ball inside nearly every time, Ohio State usually surrounded Dials with four guys ready and willing to shoot. As a result, the Buckeyes went from last to first in 3A/FGA, jumping from 28% in 2004 to 40% last year (Big Ten games only). This didn't pay immediate dividends, as the team's offensive rating was only 1 PPP better last year, but the offensive system should be a good fit for the stable of shooters that will be on hand this year. The players that return this season combined to shoot 38% on threes last year, and will be joined by NJCAA All-American Sylvester Mayes, who hit 68-164 (42%) of his threes as a sophomore. Check Table 2 for more.

**Table 2**
All Games, 2004-05
Player	3pt%	3ptA
Sylvester Mayes	41.5	164
Je'Kel Foster	42.8	145
Ron Lewis	33.6	134
Ivan Harris	42.7	103
Matt Sylvester	32.5	80
J.J. Sullinger	44.6	56
Jamar Butler	23.0	61

Matta's offense produced some other interesting stats. With Dials often the only legitimate post player on the court, Ohio State's offensive rebounding and free throw attempts dropped significantly. Only Northwestern was poorer at the former, while Ohio State had the Big Ten's lowest FTA / FGA rate. This came after finishing first and second in the respective categories in 2004. Illinois showed that these stats aren't very important to an offense if you can (a) shoot well and (b) avoid turnovers. Since the Buckeyes seem primed for a high shooting percentage this year, and they already had the second-best TO% behind Illinois last year, they should get away with the weak rebounding. The low turnover rate should continue to be a strength with Butler running the show. As for the free throws, Bowling Green State transfer Ron Lewis should make an immediate impact. The junior guard averaged 7.5 FTA per game in his last season, which is high for any player, let alone a guard.

Frontcourt depth could be a concern for Ohio State. Dials is the only proven rebounder, so it would help if freshman Brayden Bell is ready sooner rather than later. I don't follow recruiting too intensely, but Bell's profile on Scout.com doesn't immediately fill me with optimism - "defense and rebounding need improvement" - though that is from a year ago. He's another big body if nothing else. Matt Terwilliger will also compete for more minutes.

Put it all together, and I think you have the makings of a very solid team. Last year's group was already tournament-quality, and the most important pieces all return. The additions of Lewis and Mayes should boost an offense that's ready for a big year, and Dials will anchor one of the Big Ten's better defenses. Ohio State gets to play Purdue, Northwestern, and Penn State twice each, so 10-12 conference wins seem very attainable.

INDIVIDUAL BREAKDOWNS
New readers might wish to refer to the Stats Primer.
All ages are as of January 1, 2006.
As usual, FT/FG and 3/FG are actually abbreviations for FTA / FGA and 3A / FGA.
Blk2% is an estimation of the other team's 2-point attempts that a player blocks while he's in the game.

Terence Dials				Senior			Center			Age: 22		Height: 6-9		Weight: 255
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
01-02	32	41.2	119	18.8	62.3	.514	59.2	0.0	0.0	13.8	12.3	19.8	5.3	2.0	5.1
02-03	6	10.5	99	20.4	46.9	.594	63.2	0.0	0.0	20.0	14.1	17.3	5.7	2.3	6.6
03-04	30	66.9	102	23.6	50.5	.577	71.7	0.0	0.0	23.3	12.0	18.8	5.8	1.5	3.0
04-05	32	80.4	109	25.1	57.4	.530	61.7	0.3	0.0	15.6	10.5	18.5	3.9	1.4	1.8

Dials put up some ridiculously efficient numbers as a freshman, when he was often the fourth or fifth option on offense and could pick his spots for easy baskets. Four years down the road, his stats are climbing back into similar territory, despite taking a lot more shots and being the primary target for opposing defenses.

A lot of the improvement in Dials's scoring and rebounding was due to increased playing time, but he did get better in two important areas. He bumped his shooting percentage up to 57% while sharply cutting his turnovers, which is very impressive considering he was the team's lone post threat and using a fourth of the team's possessions. It would be nice if Dials could improve his passing out of the post, but being surrounded by reliable three point shooters should relieve some of the congestion around him this year. He'll be among a deep list of players contending for first-team Big Ten.

Dials does have a bit of an injury history. He missed half of his senior year of high school with a knee injury and most of his sophomore year at Ohio State with a stress fracture in his lumbar spine. Does that explain his decling offensive rebound and block rates? I'm not sure, but I do know that any time Dials misses this year would be pretty devastating to the Buckeyes, since there are no experienced players ready for big minutes down low.

Je'Kel Foster				Senior			Guard			Age: 22		Height: 6-3		Weight: 210
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
02-03	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
03-04	33	75.0	125	23.5	56.3	.325	83.7	55.7	41.2	13.0	4.5	14.1	22.3	4.5	-
04-05	32	63.1	114	16.0	59.6	.135	65.4	75.1	42.8	18.0	2.7	12.5	21.2	3.2	0.5

* Played first two seasons at Chipola Junior College
** Some sophomore-year stats were estimated by assuming 30 mpg

Foster transitioned very nicely from his leading man role at Chipola to being more of a three-point specialist at Ohio State. A full 3/4 of his shots last year were outside of 19 feet, 9 inches. That's probably a good thing when you can hit them as consistently as Foster does. While he doesn't often create his own shot, being on the floor with Dials, Lewis, Mayes, etc. should ensure plenty of good looks at the basket. Backcourt minutes might be a little harder to come by on this year's squad, but Foster's superior shooting, passing and defense will earn him plenty of minutes in his final season.

J.J. Sullinger				Senior			Guard / Forward			Age: 23		Height: 6-5		Weight: 210
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
01-02	29	52.9	102	23.6	44.9	.446	72.0	28.6	20.3	14.1	5.6	10.3	12.3	2.4	1.3
03-04	30	67.6	97	22.2	49.0	.472	52.1	27.0	34.3	18.3	4.8	16.4	6.8	1.5	1.8
04-05	32	65.0	115	18.5	58.8	.392	63.5	25.8	44.6	14.2	6.2	18.3	12.2	2.9	2.0

*Played at Arkansas his freshman season

Sullinger dramatically improved his shooting for the second year in a row, which resulted in a very nice junior season. Ohio State's offense could be really dangerous if he maintains that 59% eFG mark. J.J.'s willingness to battle inside made him the team's second-leading rebounder at over five a game, and his defensive rebound rate (dRb%) was essentially equal to Dials's. That kind of athleticism and versatility from a guard is invaluable to a team that looks to be rather thin up front. The next spurt of improvement needs to come at the free throw line - his and Dials's sub-par year there made the Buckeyes a 65% free throw shooting team.

Matt Sylvester				Senior			Forward			Age: 23		Height: 6-7		Weight: 220
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
01-02	3	1.3	97	15.8	40.0	.200	0.0	20.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	14.8	26.4	3.5	0.0
02-03	32	53.9	89	18.1	45.4	.224	59.0	29.3	23.5	23.5	4.5	11.2	11.5	1.3	1.1
03-04	16	13.7	86	22.7	41.7	.111	83.3	35.2	26.3	26.7	4.5	12.4	12.8	0.4	2.2
04-05	31	48.5	103	22.7	51.5	.252	76.5	39.6	32.5	18.6	4.2	10.4	14.5	0.9	1.7

Teaming Sylvester with Dials and Sullinger gives the Buckeyes a trio of well-seasoned veterans. While Sylvester lacks the quickness and leaping ability to be an impact player, his experience helps him to at least be effective. Few Big Ten teams can boast of a bench player with a league-average offensive rating. He also passes well for his size and position. Ideally he'd shoot more free throws and make a few more of his threes to help make up for any defensive shortcomings, but his game-winning shot against Illinois probably earned him a free pass from criticism for his final season.

Like Dials, health is a concern here, as Sylvester has already missed significant time from a variety of injuries. Problems with his back and calf wiped out his freshman year, and he missed half of 03-04 with an arch injury in his foot.

Ivan Harris				Junior			Forward			Age: 21		Height: 6-8		Weight: 215
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
03-04	27	23.8	104	17.8	50.0	.181	66.7	19.3	43.8	15.9	9.0	10.7	3.3	0.9	1.3
04-05	32	48.2	115	17.3	59.1	.041	75.0	53.4	42.7	11.7	6.2	13.5	7.3	1.4	1.4

Sure, Harris was supposed to be a top level recruit out of high school, and his performance to date hasn't been quite what everyone expected. While lamenting his shortcomings seems to be pretty popular, don't you at some point have to turn the finger on the "experts" who incorrectly built up the expectations in the first place? Maybe it's just me.

Yes, his rebounding was weak for a starting power forward, and it seems impossible to shoot only eight free throws in 626 minutes on the court. But sometimes you need to focus less on what you want and more on what you have - what the Buckeyes have is a 6-8 forward with a career mark of 43% from three point range. Only eight Big Ten players shot more efficiently from the floor (eFG%) last year. That seems like a rare commodity to me.

Ron Lewis				Junior			Guard			Age: 21		Height: 6-4		Weight: 190
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
02-03	29	77.4	97	24.0	45.3	.839	79.7	27.4	26.2	25.8	4.1	15.5	11.8	2.4	1.2
03-04	31	83.8	106	27.0	45.8	.637	82.0	36.6	33.6	18.5	4.3	11.9	11.3	1.3	1.5

*Played first two seasons at Bowling Green State

As mentioned earlier, Lewis possesses the ability to shoot a ton of free throws, and he capitalizes by hitting over 80% of them. His 233 FTA as a sophomore has to be one of the higher totals for a guard in recent years, though I can't confirm that. Matta's open offensive set should benefit Lewis's slashing style, and Lewis should in turn help Ohio State out of the Big Ten's free throw shooting cellar. Keep in mind, though, that he has yet to shoot very well from the field - that 45% eFG rate looks pretty meager coming from the MAC. His shot selection might be to blame, as he only hit 43% of his two-point shots as a sophomore. If his jump shot is improved, though, he could make a big impact immediately. The early returns look positvie - Lewis was the leading scorer in Ohio State's summer league. [I also profiled Lewis this summer.]

Sylvester Mayes				Junior			Guard			Age: 22		Height: 6-2		Weight: 195
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
03-04	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
04-05	30	-	-	-	59.2	.456	76.8	41.3	41.5	-	-	-	-	-	-

*Played at Redlands Community College his first two seasons

Mayes comes to Ohio State with as much tournament experience as anyone on the roster - he teamed with Oklahoma's Taj Gray to take Redlands to the 2004 NJCAA championship game. He was forced to take on a lot more of the scoring load his sophomore year, and he proved quite capable by hitting 42% of his threes. Mayes is lauded for his quickness, and if his 3 steals per game are any indication, he should give Ohio State another solid defender.

Jamar Butler				Sophomore			Point Guard			Age: 20		Height: 6-3		Weight: 190
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
04-05	32	46.9	98	14.5	39.8	.296	87.5	56.5	23.0	21.2	1.2	10.2	31.4	2.1	0.2

It's hard not to be impressed by a kid who turned the ball over this infrequently as a freshman point guard. It would definitely be nice to see him shoot a little better, but the Buckeyes will live with his steady hand and solid defense.

Statistically, Butler's freshman season is very comparable to Drew Neitzel's at Michigan State. Both were also big scorers in high school, and became the starting PG for their team midway through the year. As for which player has the greater upside, I'm not the guy to ask.

Matt Terwilliger				Sophomore			Forward / Center			Age: 20		Height: 6-8		Weight: 225
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
04-05	15	5.8	94	18.7	45.8	.083	50.0	0.0	0.0	12.7	11.1	7.8	0.0	0.8	2.8

Terwilliger's lack of size was one reason for his lack of playing time last year, so he tried to add a few pounds during the offseason. He'll have plenty of opportunity to play if he proves he can hit the boards. He put up 5 ppg with the Big Ten's foreign touring team over the summer.

Brayden Bell

Freshman

Forward / Center

Age: 19

Height: 6-9

Weight: 240

Bell will compete with Terwilliger over backup minutes behind Dials. Ideally one of them can provide some rebounding to reduce the team's major weakness. Bell likes to pop a few treys, but this team really doesn't need another Harris or Sylvester.

Another Preview......soon

2005-10-12T22:30:00.000-05:00

My next team preview should be ready for consumption sometime Thursday.

FYI - I decided to copy mgoblog's replication of the old Bill Simmons model of matching each piece in a series with an appropriate line from a single movie. In this case, each preview will start with a quote from Dodgeball, one of my favorite comedies from the past few years.

Quick Hits

2005-10-12T11:49:00.000-05:00

The start of the season is almost here! Iowa's annual media day is set for tomorrow, and Friday night's practice will be open to the public.

In another sure sign that it's almost basketball season, an Iowa newspaper wrote an article about the team that didn't focus on Pierre Pierce! Andrew Logue explores parallels between Greg Brunner's basketball career and his obsession with movies.

Brunner drew quite a bit of attention in the offseason for dropping about 20 pounds, and was not at all hesitant to shoot threes during the summer Prime Time League. So, here's the question of the day - Do you think his smaller size and diversified offensive game will hamper his effectiveness as a rebounder?

Preview - Minnesota Golden Gophers

2005-10-10T23:26:00.000-05:00

Do you believe in unlikelihoods? - Cotton McKnight, Dodgeball

At this time last year, success was a distant memory for the Minnesota basketball program. Their last NCAA tournament appearance was in 1999; their last top five conference finish was in 1997. On top of that, they had just learned that point guard Adam Boone would miss the entire year with an injury. The three other returnees were seniors who had never averaged more than 16 minutes a game. Little was known about last year's team, and even less was expected.

Head coach Dan Monson somehow meshed his lesser-known holdovers with several unkown newcomers and formed one of the country's surprise team. His squad overcame a 2-3 start to finish with 21 wins, a fourth place conference finish, and that elusive NCAA appearance. Seniors Jeff Hagen, Aaron Robinson and Brent Lawson all performed well in their newly enlarged roles, while junior college transfer Vincent Grier emerged as one of the Big Ten's leading scorers and most exciting players.

Despite all the overachieving, Minnesota finds itself in a familiar situation this offseason - trying to overcome low expectations. Given the depth of the Big Ten and the loss of the aforementioned seniors, few crystal ball-wielders see this team finishing in the top half of the conference.

Does Minnesota deserve more respect after last year's showing? A look back at that season can give us a feel for the team's strengths and weaknesses, and inform us where it might be headed this year.

Important Info, 2004-05

Conf. games only

Offensive Efficiency: 93.6, ninth

Defensive Efficiency: 93.2, first

Expected Record: 8.2 - 7.8, seventh

Actual Record: 10 - 6, fourth

Minnesota's media crew will glady tell you that their turnaround from three conference wins in 2004 to last year's ten was the second biggest season-to-season improvement in conference history. What's even more impressive was that the jump was due entirely to their revamped defense, since their offense was actually worse than the season before. The 2004 squad allowed 108 points per 100 possessions (PPP), better than only Penn State. The 14+ point trimming to get down to 93 PPP was the biggest Big Ten improvement in at least the last five years.

While I raved incessantly last season about Illinois's unmatched shooting and ballhandling, Minnesota's similarly impressive feat on defense went largely unnoticed. The Illini had the Big Ten's best effective field goal percentage (eFG%) and turnover percentage (TO%), and in turn, the best offense, while Minnesota's defense sported the conference's best figures for the same stats (see Table 1). Unfortunately, the offense was almost as ineffective as Minnesota's opponents'. Were it not for the often dazzling play of Grier, or the close battles Minnesota was often engaged in, Gopher games from last year were probably some of the ugliest college games on TV. Due to their poor offense and excellent defense, the games were marked by lots of turnovers and missed shots at both ends of the court. (Remember that first-round game with Iowa State, where they combined with a similarly defense-heavy team to shoot 38%?)

**Table 1**
2004-05, Conf. games only
Team	eFG% against	Team	TO% forced
Minnesota	47.3	Minnesota	24.6
Ohio State	48.0	Northwestern	23.9
Iowa	48.2	Illinois	22.9
Average	50.6	Average	20.9

Another major factor in the improved conference record was "luck." We can argue whether that's the appropriate term, but suffice it to say that a team that scores only five more points than its opponents will generally not go 10-6. Minnesota's actual winning percentage exceeded its expected winning percentage by more than any other team in the Big Ten (conference games only), so they played a little "over their heads." They were able to attain 10 wins by playing well in close games - the Gophers were 4-1 in games decided by five points or less. Performance in close games is usually not considered a skill because coaches and teams don't show consistency in their ability to win them.

Looking Ahead
When scanning this year's team, one immediate question jumps to the forefront - who will score the points? Grier is the obvious answer to that, as he led all scorers in Big Ten games last year. So I should rephrase the inquiry - who will score efficiently? Minnesota had the conference's third-worst offense last year, largely due to their second-worst eFG% (shooting efficiency from the field). The question looms larger when you consider that the departed seniors were easily the best shooters on last year's team (see Table 2).

**Table 2**
All Games, 2004-05
Player	eFG%	FGA
Brent Lawson	58.2	159
Aaron Robinson	57.5	208
Jeff Hagen	53.0	236
Vincent Grier	48.6	425
Dan Coleman	47.6	254
Spencer Tollackson	46.6	103
J'son Stamper	45.8	118
Rico Tucker	44.4	170

Robinson's departure could highlight a similar weakness. He was the only reliable three point threat on a team that was last in the league in threes attempted per field goal attempt (29%) and last in three point accuracy (30%). It's hard enough to have a good offense with just one good outside shooter; scoring points can be very difficult when the defense can simply crowd the interior. Help may or may not be on the way with the return of Boone and senior Maurice Hargrow. Both players shot quite well as sophomores (Boone - 43%, Hargrow - 39%), but were less effective during their junior years. Coleman (34%) and Tucker (33%) were passable as freshmen, and improvement from them would really help this team.

Turnovers were the other thing holding back the offense - their 23.2 TO% was third-worst in the Big Ten. It's quite reasonable for a team with such little experience to be so turnover-prone. Lawson, Robinson, and Hagen were seeing their first major minutes in four seasons, while none of the other five regulars played D-I basketball the previous season (Grier played at Charlotte his freshman year). Given that everyone will be a year older and that the point guard duties will belong to Boone, a 24-year-old sixth-year senior, turnovers should be less of a problem for this year's team.

While the offense wasn't pretty last year, Minnesota excelled defensively, and should have the pieces in place to be at least above average this year. Hagen might have been one of the least appreciated players in the Big Ten, though, and his contributions will surely be missed. Though he lacked any quickness, he was the only Big Ten player to combine for over 100 steals and blocks (104), all without much foul trouble (his blocks / PF ratio was also the conference's highest). His 7-foot presence in the lane and increased minutes certainly helped Minnesota become such a great defense. Options for his replacement include sophomore Spencer Tollackson and redshirt freshman Jonathan Williams. They won't block as many shots as Hagen did, but both have the size to clog the lane.

Forcing turnovers was the primary strength of last year's team. With Grier capable of playing 35+ minutes a game, and Tucker coming off the bench, Minnesota should again come away with plenty of steals. Tucker's steal % of 5.0 (meaning he recorded a steal on about 1 of every 20 defensive possessions he played) was among the highest of any major conference player. Grier's size, long arms and quickness enable him to shut down opponents and record his own fair share of steals. Boone's and Hargrow's past seasons indicate that they won't steal as often as Robinson and Lawson did, though, so I'm guessing this year's team won't quite match last year's defensive TO%.

In sum, I can't see the Gophers as much better than a .500 Big Ten team. Their offense needs to get a lot better, and will really be hurting if no one emerges to knock down a few threes. Grier may be a solid offensive talent, and Boone should really help stabilize the turnover situation, but it's difficult to build an efficient offense with just one good scorer. Defensively, Minnesota should regress from the previous season's monstrous improvement, as is generally the case with such season-on-season turnarounds. Lawson and Hagen had big senior seasons for the defense, and the Gophers just don't appear to have adequate replacements on hand.

INDIVIDUAL BREAKDOWNS
New readers might wish to refer to the Stats Primer.
All ages are as of January 1, 2006.
As usual, FT/FG and 3/FG are actually abbreviations for FTA / FGA and 3A / FGA.
Blk2% is an estimation of the other team's 2-point attempts that a player blocks while he's in the game.

Vincent Grier				Senior			Guard / Forward			Age: 22		Height: 6-5		Weight: 207
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
02-03	29	44.6	102	17.1	52.4	.382	48.9	2.4	33.3	19.7	7.5	13.3	14.3	3.7	1.5
03-04	28	87.1	107	26.4	51.5	.606	71.7	13.8	20.0	22.1	7.7	11.3	10.2	3.8	0.7
04-05	32	89.6	106	26.1	48.6	.513	73.9	12.2	25.0	16.8	4.9	14.0	8.9	3.2	0.7

*Played at Charlotte his freshman year
**Played at Dixie State junior college his sophomore year

With Hagen out of the middle and Bracey Wright out of the league, Grier could easily lead the league in scoring. Regardless, he's one of the best all-around talents in the Big Ten. Like most great scorers, he doesn't turn the ball over much and gets to the free throw line often. The biggest knock on Grier right now is that he can't hit an outside shot. A consistent jumper would make him just about unstoppable, and would really help his chances of making the NBA. At least he recognizes that and only takes about 1/10 of his shots outside the arc.

Grier is very good defensively, too. He had one of the higher defensive rebound rates (dRb%) among Big Ten guards, and led the league in steals. He'll definitely be a contender for Player of the Year honors.

Adam Boone				Senior			Point Guard			Age: 24		Height: 6-3		Weight: 197
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
00-01	32	25.2	-	-	40.0	.240	75.0	62.0	32.3	-	-	-	-	-	-
01-02	28	61.3	-	-	57.6	.306	81.8	54.9	43.0	-	-	-	-	-
03-04	30	78.8	98	17.5	44.2	.256	76.7	54.7	28.9	23.4	2.0	10.4	23.0	1.9	0.7

*Played at North Carolina his first two years

Grandpa Boone is a little tough to get a good read on, because his numbers are so up and down, and because he's been in two different programs. He could really be a make or break player this year. If he can shoot like he did as a sophomore, he'll give Minnesota the outside shooter it desperately needs and give the offense a shot to exceed mediocrity. If his jumper tanks as bad as it did the next year, the Gophers will really struggle offensively. If nothing else, he should have enough experience and passing skills to lead an offense that improves on last year's turnover problems.

I didn't see much Minnesota basketball in 2003-04, so this is pure conjecture, but I'm curious if Kris Humphries had a negative effect on Boone's shooting. It seems that most players who played for Minnesota in 2002-03 and 2003-04 shot better in the first year. Humphries took a ridiculous 35% of the team's shots when he played, which might mean that he was taking shots when his teammates had better opportunities to score. Of course the flip side is that Kevin Burleson was the point guard the first year and Boone took over in 2003-04, so you could just as easily pin the blame on Boone for not distributing the ball as well as his predecessor. Burleson consistently put up a pass rating in the mid-30s. At any rate, here are the numbers -

**Offensive Ratings**
Name	02-03	03-04	04-05
Maurice Hargrow	104	96	-
Jeff Hagen	101	95	104
Aaron Robinson	91	88	104
Brent Lawson	90	111	112
Michael Bauer	113	96	-
Ben Johnson	103	116	-

Maurice Hargrow				Senior			Guard / Forward			Age: 22		Height: 6-5		Weight: 195
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
01-02	28	22.6	99	20.0	47.5	.383	74.2	23.5	26.3	22.7	3.8	9.7	11.6	1.4	0.9
02-03	33	80.6	104	21.8	49.1	.551	68.4	28.0	38.9	19.4	5.1	10.5	12.8	2.1	0.7
03-04	17	40.7	96	23.0	42.7	.412	61.8	18.2	36.7	17.7	6.0	10.7	12.3	1.4	0.9

Hargrow = Grier Lite? It's a bit of a stretch, but there are some similarities. Both are big guards who can provide scoring punch without a lot of turnovers, and would rather go after the basket than camp out at the three point line. He won't gather rebounds or steals like Grier, but he's much more capable of hitting a few threes, which, again, would greatly benefit Minnesota. His pass rating suggests that he's a pretty decent passer, too. Like Grier, Hargrow is regarded as a tough perimieter defender, so the two should make things difficult for opposing wings. His declining FT% might be cause for concern.

J'son Stamper				Senior			Forward			Age: 20		Height: 6-6		Weight: 233
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
02-03	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
03-04	-	-	-	-	49.5	.483	52.0	6.9	21.4	-	-	-	-	-	-
04-05	32	42.8	89	20.5	45.8	.644	63.2	0.8	0.0	28.9	14.0	19.8	6.5	1.9	0.8

*Played first two seasons at Independence Community College
** Sophomore stats estimated from incomplete season stats

Give this kid some goggles and the ability to hold onto the ball and you've got an Aaron Johnson (Penn State, New Mexico, purgatory) clone. Stamper gave up a few inches to Johnson, but both were poor shooting power forwards who could rebound like hell and draw a few fouls. Among Big Ten players, Stamper finished second to Johnson in oRb%, sixth in defensive rebounding and fourth overall. He seems like a perfect fit for a team that frequently misses and forces misses, but he limits his playing time by (a) fouling a lot and (b) turning the ball over a lot. His PF/40 min of 5.9 was fifth highest in the Big Ten. And for a guy whose main focus is to turn offensive rebounds into points, a 28.9 TO% is simply unacceptable. Perhaps some of the butterfinger-ness can be blamed on youth - Stamper won't even turn 21 until the end of his senior season.

Dan Coleman				Sophomore			Forward			Age: 20		Height: 6-9		Weight: 220
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
04-05	32	57.3	98	19.8	47.6	.138	62.9	29.9	34.2	16.7	6.2	13.8	6.6	0.9	1.7

Coleman doesn't fit the mold of a traditional power forward, as he seems much more comfortable on the perimeter. His rebounding is below average and he rarely gets to the free throw line, but he was able to get off a lot of shots while limiting his turnovers, which counts for something. It'll be interesting to see if Coleman tries to get tougher inside or improve his three point shooting, but his game doesn't seem well-suited for banging in the paint. On a side note, it's got to suck when your biggest claim to fame is being a former high school teammate of Kris Humphries.

Spencer Tollackson				Sophomore			Center			Age: 20		Height: 6-9		Weight: 275
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
04-05	32	32.1	84	18.0	46.6	.233	25.0	1.0	0.0	24.8	7.8	12.3	10.4	1.1	4.3

Tollackson draws comparisons to Hagen for his large body, but he needs to improve a lot if he's to fill Hagen's shoes. As a freshman, Tollackson's rebound rate was very low for a center, and he didn't shoot many free throws. He'd better improve on his 6-24 performance at the line, too. His passing was pretty nice, though - few big men break double digits in pass ratings. Gopher fans might find some comfort in noting that Hagen was also a weak rebounder as a freshmen before he improved a great deal as a sophomore.

Rico Tucker				Sophomore			Guard			Age: 20		Height: 6-0		Weight: 190
Year	G	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	FT/FG	FT%	3/FG	3pt%	TO%	oRb%	dRb%	Pass	Stl%	Blk2%
04-05	32	42.6	88	23.4	44.4	.271	73.9	48.8	32.5	28.7	2.9	7.5	15.3	5.0	2.0

Simply put, Tucker is an outstanding athlete. Given starters minutes, he could average over 2.5 steals a game, and he had the hops to block 10 shots despite standing only six feet tall. His speed fits well with Monson's desire to push the tempo, but he really needs to improve his jump shot in order to help the offense. His high TO% looks typical for a freshman point guard, and should drop this season. You might expect someone with his athleticism to be a little more aggressive in getting to the rim, but Tucker took half his shots from three and only shot 40% on 2-point baskets. Still, that same athleticism can make him an effective playmaker.

Jonathan Williams

Freshman

Forward / Center

Age: 21

Height: 6-9

Weight: 275

Williams played in two games last year but was granted a redshirt year after spraining his knee in the preseason. He'll jump right into the thin frontcourt rotation with Stamper, Coleman, and Tollackson. He's regarded more for defensive efforts, though I'm curious if all the weight he gained in the past year or so won't limit his ability to jump and block shots. He can help fill the hole Hagen left in the defense if he lives up to his shot blocking and rebounding hype. Williams turns 21 this week, so he'll be very old for a freshman player.

Kevin Payton

Freshman

Guard / Forward

Age: 19

Height: 6-6

Weight: 205

Damian Johnson

Freshman

Forward

Age: 18

Height: 6-7

Weight: 192

Brandon Smith

Freshman

Guard / Forward

Age: 19

Height: 6-5

Weight: 195

I won't pretend to know much about these incoming freshmen, but I think it's safe to say that playing time will be hard to come by with Grier and Hargrove filling the wing slots. They'll have plenty of opportunity to play as sophomores. An injury to the four-man frontcourt would create playing time somewhere in the lineup, but I'm sure Monson would rather that didn't happen.

I Hate Spam!

2005-10-10T21:22:00.000-05:00

I may wear a (fashionable?) SPAM t-shirt, but that's just because my dad used to work in a Hormel processing plant. Internet spam, on the other hand, really irritates me. Any suggestions on how to deal with the spammers that are starting to leave comments on my site?

It's Preview Time

2005-10-09T14:01:00.000-05:00

With official practices set to start later this week, it's time for me to get going on my team by team Big Ten previews. I'll start with Minnesota in the next couple days, then sporadically work my way through the conference until I hit Iowa sometime near the start of the season. I'm excited for the season to start, and I think the previews should be a fun exercise in how little I know, so I hope you can stop by in the next few weeks and check things out.

Painter Takes A Hit

2005-10-03T21:36:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's because I was out of town for several days, or because Purdue was awful last year, but I haven't heard much mention of Tarrance Crump's arrest on September 25. Crump is accused of hitting a pedestrian with his vehicle while driving intoxicated, then leaving the scene of the accident. I'm guessing three felony charges in one night isn't how head coach Matt Painter interprets the term "triple-threat."

Crump is a junior point guard set to join Purdue this season after two successful years at Shelton State Community College. He was the center piece of a Boilermaker recruiting class that some called the best in this year's Big Ten. Lindy's basketball annual ranked Crump as the #4 juco PG and the top ballhandler of all juco players, and he was expected to step in and run an up-tempo offense.

Losing Crump would be a big blow to Painter's chances of quickly turning around a team that went 3-13 in the Big Ten last year. I was thinking that this team would really surprise a few people, because they weren't quite as bad as last year's record indicated, and because point guard was probably the position most in need of an upgrade.

Not As Bad As It Looks
According to the Pythagorean model, the spread between a team's points scored and points allowed can be a better indicator of a team's quality than their actual record. If you'll recall from your intro to statistics days, the mean of a sample is more likely to be near the mean of the population when the sample size is larger. [I'm surprised I remember anything beyond the 24 year old Swedish grad assistant we had, but I'm drifting off topic.....] In other words, when flipping a coin, you are much more likely to get close to 50% heads when you flip a coin 1,000 times than if you flip it just 10 times. The same is true in basketball - it's a little easier to tell how good a team is by looking at points per possession (since there are around 1,000 possessions in a conference season) than just their record (16 games in a season).

Purdue scored 1004 points and gave up 1089 on about 1023 possessions in last year's Big Ten games, or 98 and 106 per 100 possessions. If they played 1,000 games, you'd expect them to win about 310 of them. If they played 16 games, you'd still expect them to win 31% of them (for a 5-11 record), but the smaller sample size dictates that hitting that 31% figure is less likely to happen. If you look only at Purdue's first 13 games, since Carl Landry missed most of the Minnesota game and the rest of the season after his injury, the team looks a little better. Their point totals were 845 to 882, for an expected record of about 6.3-9.7, which looks a lot more promising than 3-13. Throw in this year's easiest Big Ten schedule, and Purdue looked primed for a turnaround.

Moving On Up
The other reason I looked for Purdue to rebound was that Crump would be replacing Brandon McKnight, who was probably one of the worst players in the conference to play over 30 minutes a game. His shooting was plain awful, and his passing wasn't a lot better.

Here's a quick look at players who saw big minutes at point guard last year, paired with their season eFG%. (eFG% is regular FG% adjusted for three pointers. Average is about 50%.)

**eFG%**
Aaron Robinson	Minnesota	57.5%
Jeff Horner	Iowa	52.6
T.J. Parker	Northwestern	51.9
Deron Williams	Illinois	51.6
Sharif Chambliss	Wisconsin	49.1
Drew Neitzel	Michigan State	45.1
Dion Harris	Michigan	44.8
Marshall Strickland	Indiana	44.3
Jamar Butler	Ohio State	39.8
Brandon McKnight	Purdue	39.4
Ben Luber	Penn State	36.3

If your eFG% is under 40% and you don't play for Penn State, it's a good idea to just stop shooting the ball. This idea was lost on McKnight, who finished second on his team and 13th in the conference in FGA's in conference games. He took about 24% of his team's shots while he was on the floor. That might be acceptable when you're the main threat on your team, but I have to think that working the ball into Landry and his 60+% shooting might be a better idea.

The next table sorts the Big Ten PGs according to a pass rating that borrows heavily from the work of Dean Oliver and estimates points produced through assists per 100 possessions. Keep in mind that assists, FGA's, offensive rebounds, and turnovers are all part of the denominator, which can cloud the picture.

**Pass Rating**
Drew Neitzel	Michigan State	37.8
Deron Williams	Illinois	33.6
Jamar Butler	Ohio State	31.4
Jeff Horner	Iowa	23.2
Ben Luber	Penn State	23.1
Sharif Chambliss	Wisconsin	22.2
Marshall Strickland	Indiana	20.4
Aaron Robinson	Minnesota	19.2
Brandon McKnight	Purdue	15.4
T.J. Parker	Northwestern	14.1
Dion Harris	Michigan	13.2

Teams can put up with a poor-shooting point guard as long as he does a good job of distributing the ball. Unfortunately for Purdue, McKnight ranked very low at both skills, and with his 37.4 mpg of playing time, it's no wonder that the team struggled to score enough points to keep up with its opponents.

The point of all this isn't that McKnight should've been sitting on the bench. Gene Keady's other PG options weren't much better shooters and were very turnover-prone. I just wanted to suggest that removing McKnight and adding Crump would make the 2005-06 version of the Boilermakers a lot better than the previous season. Now we'll have to wait to see if he can play at all.

Steal of a Pick?

2005-09-23T10:25:00.000-05:00

Danny Granger of New Mexico was my favorite player that I never watched last year. That's right - I didn't see him play a single minute, but I'm still fascinated with his game. Lucky for me, several scorekeepers and statisticians did see Granger play and they kept a log of his performance. The picture they paint is certainly an entertaining one.

I'll throw a couple stat lines out so you can see what I mean. First are the standard per game averages.

Min	Pts	Reb	Ast	TO	Stl	Blk
30.0	18.8	8.9	2.4	2.4	2.1	2.0

If you were picking a Mountain West Conference fantasy basketball team last year, I think you could make a good argument for taking Granger ahead of Andrew Bogut. Granger's production was just solid across the board. That's even cooler from an efficiency standpoint because he compiled those numbers in only 30 mpg for a slower-paced team. Ken Pomeroy's stats page estimates that New Mexico's possessions per 40 minutes ranked 211th out of 330 D-I teams last year.

Next are the numbers that I spend a lot of time with, and are the reasons why Granger impresses me so much.

O Rtg	%Poss	TS%	TO%	Reb%	FTA/FGA	Blk/40	Stl%
124	29.4	64.4	16.6	17.8	0.585	2.7	4.3

Explanations for these stats can be found in the Stats Primer. Steal % is one I haven't used much - it estimates the percentage of a team's possessions that a player gets a steal on, while he's in the game. Over 3 % seems good, and being over 4 % is pretty select company, though guys like Eddie Basden and Rajon Rondo were in the 5-6 % range last year.

Granger was the primary offensive weapon for a New Mexico team that won the MWC tournament and went 2-1 against Utah (Granger missed the game they lost) and came close to erasing a huge first half deficit before losing to Villanova in the first round of the NCAA tourny. His possession usage was about as high as you'll see in the NCAA, but he still managed to shoot very well, including 43% from downtown, without coughing the ball up much. His rebounding was also excellent, and included a 24.7% rate at the defensive end, which means he rebounded 1 in 4 of his opponents' missed shots when he was on the court.

What really grabs my attention, though, is that Granger averaged over 2 steals and 2 blocks per game. I don't know how accurate this is, but it seems to me that college players who average over a steal and a block per game generally turn out to be decent defenders when they go pro. I guess it suggests that they possess the jumping, timing, quickness, etc to make it in the NBA. In short, they're great athletes.

Dan Rosenbaum has done some interesting research on individual defense in the NBA, and in the past he stated that the effects of steals and blocks (and players who accumulate them) tend to be underrated. In one paper, "Measuring How NBA Players Help Their Teams Win," he wrote -

Perhaps more importantly, with these adjusted plus/minus ratings I am able to
estimate what game statistics predict better performance on the court; these
results help explain why certain players have such high adjusted plus/minus
ratings. It appears that rebounds are less valuable than typically assumed
and steals, blocks, and avoiding turnovers are more valuable. It also
appears that having three point shooters on the floor helps teams and that
players that can do it all – score, rebound, and assist – are more valuable than
simply the sum of those game statistics.

Steals - check. Blocks - check. Avoid turnovers - check. Do it all - check.

I found it interesting how much New Mexico missed Granger when he was hurt for three games. Against Air Force, BYU, and Utah, the Lobos allowed 114 points per 100 possessions (PPP). When they later played the same three teams with Granger in the lineup, they allowed only 100 PPP. It's clearly a small sample size to draw conclusions from, but Granger appeared to have a big effect on the defense.

Before you say that Granger's numbers need to be downgraded because he played in the MWC, I should point out that the conference was #7 in Ken's rankings last year, and each of the eight teams finished in the top 150. The MWC might not be elite, but it's certainly not a mid-major, either.

To wrap up, I want to compare Granger to a similar player who made the jump to the NBA from the same conference (technically it was the WAC back then), and has made a name for himself on a great team.

Name	Height	Weight
Granger	6-8	225
Player X	6-7	220

Name	Age	MPG	Pts/40	Reb/40	Stl/40	Blk/40	eFG%
Player X, Jr	20	32.9	22.8	11.3	3.1	2.3	55.3
Granger, Jr	20	32.0	24.4	11.2	1.7	1.8	53.4
Granger, Sr	21	30.0	25.1	11.8	2.8	2.7	58.9

Player X spent his first two years at a junior college before transferring to UNLV for the 1998-99 season. Granger played a couple seasons at Bradley (MVC) before heading to New Mexico.

Think you got it?

* * *

* * *

* * *

I can't fool you - Player X is Shawn Marion, a starter for the Phoenix Suns. He averaged 19 pts, 11 reb, 2 stl and 1.5 blk per game on a team that went 62-20 last year. It's interesting that neither player shot many threes as a junior. Marion went 20-67 and Granger was 24-72. When he got to the NBA, however, Marion developed a nice outside shot, and has hit well over 1 three per game for the last three seasons. Granger is already starting to show a nice jumper, as he hit 45 of 104 (43%) last year.

Marion was already pretty good his rookie season with Phoenix, but he didn't get starter-minutes until his second year in the league. Granger stayed an extra year in college, and improved nicely on his junior season, so perhaps he'll be ready to break out for the Indiana Pacers, who took him 17th in this summer's draft. If his career turns out anything like Marion's, he'll be the steal of the draft. Check back in two years.

Update - Now I have seen Granger play. New Mexico's website has a sweet highlight video from last year. [Granger is #33. Or you could just look for the guy dunking on people's heads, nailing contested threes, and swatting shots off the backboard.] Why don't more schools do this? Tell your local SID to add one to your school's website!

The Overhyped Club Is Now Seeking Members

2005-09-22T16:12:00.000-05:00

You know what really grinds my gears, America? Players and teams that get way more hype than they deserve. Any discussion of that topic usually centers on Red Sox and Yankees coverage, but college basketball is certainly not immune. Dick Vitale's passion for the ACC is borderline obsessive, and Duke is always a lock to have an ESPN game every week.

My current target for the Overhyped Club is Syracuse's Gerry McNamara. This otherwise cool photo series by SI.com that listed him as the country's #4 point guard probably set me off, but it's been building for a while. Remember the big debate last year about whether Duke's J.J. Redick or Arizona's Salim Stoudamire was the better shooter, and how Dickie V kept trying to include McNamara in the discussion? I was as baffled as anyone.

Don't get me wrong, McNamara is good, and he's certainly had his moments. He really made a name for himself when he hit the six threes to help Syracuse win the NCAA title his freshman year, and that 40+ point tournament game as a sophomore didn't hurt his reputation, either. He's just not great, or at least not as great as so many people seem to think.

Yoni Cohen, whose site is the center of the college basketball blogging universe and whose writing now appears at Fox Sports, recently called McNamara "as a good a shooter as you'll find north of Durham, North Carolina." Dickie V thought he was one of the three best shooters in the country last year. And SI tells us he's the fourth best PG in college basketball? I'm not buying it.

First off, here's a quick comparison of Redick, Stoudamire, and McNamara from last season.

Player	O Rtg	%Poss	3 pt%	3A / FGA	eFG%
J.J. Redick	124	24.8	40.3	0.606	53.0
Salim Stoudamire	129	21.9	50.4	0.571	64.7
Gerry McNamara	114	23.7	34.0	0.727	49.3

There's a little unfairness in comparing McNamara to Redick, since Gerry handled the ball a lot more, and the resulting TOs brought down his Offensive Rating, but I think the shooting numbers speak for themselves. His effective FG% (traditional FG% adjusted for the extra points from threes) is very pedestrian. Redick's was pretty plain, too, but his knack for drawing a ton of fouls (and shooting 94% at the line) created a very nice offensive rating. For my money, Stoudamire was the best shooter anywhere last year, and one of the most exciting players to watch, too.

So what justification does SI have for ranking McNamara at number 4 in their point guard list? They say

"McNamara started all 34 games a year ago and all 100 in his career. He averaged
15.8 points per game last season and had 168 assists, by far the most on the
team. He's the Orange's all-time leader in 3-point attempts with 823 and
3-pointers made with 297."

They also mention that he was all-Big East, but that's subjective anyway so I'll toss that aside for now.

Can you think of a shooting point guard who (1) started all of his team's games last year, (2) had a decent scoring average, (3) led his team in assists, and (4) will soon break his school's records for threes made and attempted?

Hmmmmmmm. *Deep thinking...........*

Jeff Horner
1 - started ~~33 of 33 games~~ 32 of 33 games last year (almost forgot the post-Northwestern debacle)
2 - 14.0 ppg on the season, but he averaged 14.8 in the 13 games after Pierce left
3 - passed his way to 180 assists
4 - is not far from breaking Chris Kingsbury's old shooting records

I'm not going to suggest that Horner is better than McNamara, or even that he's quite on the same level. But I don't think they're that far apart. Consider this........

**Gerry McNamara**
Season	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	Pass	TO%	Reb%	FT/FG	eFG%	3pt%
2002-03	88%	115	18.7	20.8	20.8	3.9	0.272	51.8	35.7
2003-04	90%	117	22.8	14.1	18.5	3.8	0.355	51.8	38.9
2004-05	88%	114	23.7	19.5	20.9	3.7	0.293	49.3	34.0

**Jeff Horner**
Season	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	Pass	TO%	Reb%	FT/FG	eFG%	3pt%
2002-03	88%	96	17.0	22.4	24.9	6.5	0.307	41.8	27.7
2003-04	92%	117	17.5	19.7	23.3	8.0	0.469	57.4	42.5
2004-05	91%	114	20.9	23.6	19.6	7.0	0.301	52.6	40.8

Some quick notes - that "Pass" rating is a very rough estimate of a player's points produced through assists, per 100 possessions. It can fluctuate considerably when players are put in different roles, but Horner and McNamara played similar roles for their teams, so I threw it in. "FT/FG" is actually free throw attempts per field goal attempt, which is one way of measuring how often a player gets to the line.

I find it quite interesting that McNamara has never broken 40% from downtown, despite his reputation as a sharp shooter. His eFG% has been very normal, too. The national average is something around 50%. If there's one thing you can say for him, though, he has been very consistent. He had a very good year for a freshman, but he hasn't progressed much since then. He's more or less replicated the same production each year.

Horner, like McNamara, has played a ton of minutes ever since his freshmen year (90% would be 36 min in a regulation game). He had a rough going his freshman year, but since then he's found his shooting touch and cut down his turnovers each season. He also grabs considerably more rebounds than McNamara, both offensively and defensively.

One big difference you might have noticed is McNamara's edge in possession usage. Horner has been as low as Iowa's fourth scoring option, with Pierce, Brunner, and Haluska all available to take shots, while McNamara has been Syracuse's second-leading scorer behind Hakim Warrick for the past two years. It's generally considered tougher to maintain a higher efficiency level when using more possessions, so you have to give Gerry some credit there.

Can Horner be effective when using a higher percentage of possesions. I think so - we got a little taste of that after Pierce was kicked off the team last year. In the 12 games against Big Ten opponents sans Pierre, Horner used 24.1% of the possessions with an offensive rating of 108. Pretty decent. I think that'll look even better this year when it's balanced out over a full season schedule that includes some OOC cupcakes.

So all in all, I'll give McNamara the slightest of edges for last season, but if I had to choose a floor general for this year, I'll stay loyal to Horner for sure. And if you're going to rank McNamara as the fourth best point guard in the country, at least give our guy Jeff some recognition too.

Frontcourt Defense

2005-09-21T13:10:00.000-05:00

Last week I started speculating about the importance of having tough post players to anchor a team's defense. It seemed to me that last season's leaders in overall defense (ranked by points allowed per possession) had imposing big men who were tall and could block shots and/or rebound well. No, it's surely not rocket science to those of you who have watched basketball for a few years - good defensive centers stop easy baskets near the hoop, which makes it hell for the offense to score points (see: Iowa vs Cincinnati last year).

Basketball minds like Dean Oliver and Dan Rosenbaum have agreed with the theory, at least as a general principle. In a recent article on individual defense in the NBA, Rosenbaum concluded -

Defensive ratings, on average, are highest for centers, then power forwards,
then small forwards, then shooting guards, and then point guards.
Offensive ratings go the other way. This squares with the conventional
wisdom that defense is anchored by big guys.

If post players are generally the most important players to the defense, I want to explore some of the better frontcourt defenders from last year, and get an idea for which teams will be strong this year. There are of course no publicly available plus/minus data available for college teams, so Rosenbaum's technique is out (not that I'd go that in-depth). Instead, I'll take a far simpler approach. I'm just going to look at how well each team prevented its opponents from shooting on 2-point field goals, relative to each team's conference.

Clearly, this is no exact measure of the strength of a team's defensive frontcourt. Perimeter defenders can prevent and allow 2-point baskets as well. Not every 2-point attempt comes near the lane where a center might affect the shot. Likewise, some teams allow a lot of fast break points that are contested by no one.

In general, though, having good post players should lower the 2-point % a team allows, just as poor players would raise it. With zone defenses allowed, centers and big forwards spend a lot of their time on defense near the basket. They guard opposing centers when they post up, they can prevent the other center from getting good enough position for an entry pass in the first place, they help out when perimeter defenders get beat, and they challenge the shots of opposing players who grab offensive rebounds. Also, they prevent opponents from getting easy putbacks by boxing out and grabbing defensive rebounds.

For this little project I recorded each major conference's shooting percentage on 2-point field goals, then compared each team's 2-pt% allowed to their conference average (conference games only). The following table lists each conference's 2 -pt%, its leader in 2-pt% defense, and any other team that held its opponents at least 5% below the conference average.

Note - I often like to restrict these data sets to conference games so I can feel confident when comparing teams within each conference. When comparing teams from different conferences, be aware that not all are equal. Holding opponents to 40% shooting is probably easier if you play in the MAC than in the ACC.

Conference	2-pt% Avg	Team	2-pt% Def	Vs Avg
Big Ten	49.6	Illinois	46.7	2.9
ACC	48.2	North Carolina	42.8	5.5
ACC	48.2	Duke	43.2	5.0
Big East	47.4	Connecticut	42.3	5.1
Big XII	49.4	Texas	43.7	5.7
Big XII	49.4	Kansas	44.3	5.0
C-USA	45.8	Cincinnati	39.6	6.2
C-USA	45.8	Memphis	39.7	6.1
Pac-10	49.4	Stanford	43.5	5.9
SEC	49.5	Alabama	42.2	7.2
A-10	47.0	St. Joseph's	37.4	9.6
MVC	48.3	Southern Illinois	45.2	3.1
WAC	48.5	Nevada	42.2	6.3
MWC	50.2	Utah	45.2	5.0
WCC	47.6	Gonzaga	45.0	2.6

Does this pass the laugh test? I'd say so. Each of these defenses was anchored by a center or power forward (or both) with a national reputation for defense. There's at least 12-15 current/future NBA players who manned the post for those squads.

The more I watch basketball and follow the stats, the more I agree with Dean Oliver, author of Basketball on Paper, that basketball isn't composed of offense, defense and rebounding, but rather just offense and defense. He wrote that offensive and defensive rebounding are two different skills, and I agree. An offensive rebound is a contribution to the offense because it keeps a possesion alive, while a defensive rebound prevents scoring by ending a possession. Dean's idea became a little clearer to me when I realized that most team's that keep other teams' 2-pt% low also have good defensive rebounders. Additionally, post players make opponents miss by simply blocking their shots.

Here's some key contributors for each team, including their playing time, blocks per 40 minutes played, and defensive rebounding percentage. Asterisks (*) denote returning players.

Note - If the average team rebounds about 2/3 of the other team's missed shots, then each of the five players on that team would have a defensive rebound % of 13.4, if they rebounded equally.

Illinois
James Augustine*, 26.6 mpg, 1.8 bp40, 22.4 dRb%

Big Ten fans hoping for Illinois to disappear this year will likely be disappointed. Not only were the Illini the conference's best offense last year, they were also its second best defense, allowing only 95 PPP (points per 100 possessions). Augustine was overshadowed by the NBA-quality guards around him, but his presence in the middle solidified a tough defense. Illinois won't repeat last year's offensive showcase, but the return of Augustine and last year's Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Dee Brown will make scoring difficult for anyone else.

North Carolina
Sean May, 26.8 mpg, 1.5 bp40, 26.3 dRb%
Marvin Williams, 22.2 mpg, 0.9 bp40, 21.8 dRb%

Building a college defense around two NBA lottery picks sounds like the way to go. (By the way, if was a GM with a high pick, there's no way Charlie Villanueva comes before May. He was simply a phenomenal rebounder last year.) It's hard to predict UNC's defense for next year with all the new faces, obviously.

Duke
Shelden Williams*, 33.6 mpg, 4.4 bp40, 22.1 dRb%
Shavlik Randolph, 18.9 mpg, 3.2 bp40

It's a testament to Williams's defensive ability that Duke's defense was this good, considering that J.J. Redick finished second on the team in total defensive rebounds. Adding the 6-10 McD's All-American Josh McRoberts should help considerably. Duke could easily be the nation's toughest defense, even with two freshmen seeing big minutes.

UConn
Josh Boone*, 29.5 mpg, 3.9 bp40, 15.0 dRb%
Charlie Villanueva, 25.8 mpg, 2.9 bp40, 20.3 dRb%
Rudy Gay*, 28.8 mpg, 2.6 bp40
Hilton Armstrong*, 12.4 mpg, 3.9 bp40

Hmm, I had no idea Gay had so many blocks last year. Look for him, Boone, and Armstrong to put the Huskies among the country's leaders in blocks once again.

Texas
Brad Buckman*, 25.5 mpg, 2.5 bp40, 22.4 dRb%
Lamarcus Aldridge*, 22.2 mpg, 2.7 bp40, 15.4 dRb%
P.J. Tucker*, 29.4 mpg, 16.3 dRb%
Jason Klotz, 28.9 mpg, 1.5 bp40

Luke Winn aptly pointed out how important Aldridge and Tucker were to the Longhorns last year. Lining them up beside Buckman will make Texas one of the country's toughest defenses, as well as one of its better rebounding teams.

Kansas
Wayne Simien, 34.3 mpg, 23.8 dRb%

Simien's injury history probably knocked him down a few pegs in the draft, but he was still one of the NCAA's best rebounders and a very efficient scorer. Did he really get picked after Linas Kleiza?

Cincinnati
Jason Maxiell, 31.4 mpg, 3.5 bp40, 13.9 dRb%
Eric Hicks*, 31.4 mpg, 2.9 bp40, 16.6 dRb%

I doubt one of these guys would seem all that tough alone, but in tandem they make for a ferocious defense, as Iowa found out in the first round of the tournament. It's interesting that neither was a big defensive rebounder, but they each blocked a lot of shots while committing relatively few fouls, which is probably an underrated skill. In fact, each their blocks/foul ratios are probably among the highest that I've seen, along with Shelden Williams and Josh Boone.

Memphis
Duane Erwin, 26.5 mpg, 2.3 bp40, 16.6 dRb%
Joey Dorsey*, 15.1 mpg, 3.1 bp40, 24.5 dRb%
Rodney Carney*, 29.8 mpg, 1.0 bp40

Memphis seems to be the hot pick to climb into next year's top ten. A defense built around Dorsey would be a good start, if he can bring down his astronomical 8.1 fouls per 40 minutes. His rebounding numbers were terriffic at both ends of the court - 18.6 oRb%, 24.5 dRb %, 21.6 Rb%. That's Sean May territory.

Stanford
Matt Haryasz*, 31.4 mpg, 1.5 bp40, 21.8 dRb%
Rob Little, 24.0 mpg, 17.6 dRb%

Did you know that Stanford had the second best PPP defense in Pac-10 play? Neither did I. They bring back their top three and seven of their nine top scorers.

Alabama
Jermareo Davidson*, 25.9 mpg, 2.3 bp40, 23.3 dRb%
Chuck Davis*, 33.0 mpg, 2.4 bp40, 14.5 dRb%

Neither of these guys were too foul-prone, which allowed 'Bama's defense to lead the SEC in opponents' eFG% and FTA/FGA. Only Kentucky allowed fewer PPP. Alabama didn't force many turnovers, so I'm thinking the defense won't miss Kennedy Winston that much (not that he had any steals anyway).

Nevada
Nick Fazekas*, 31.5 mpg, 2.0 bp40, 24.8 dRb%
Kevinn Pinkney, 29.2 mpg, 1.1 bp40, 18.7 dRb%

The defense should be solid again, with two seven-footers fighting for Pinkney's minutes. But who will score this year? Nevada's offense was only average in the WAC last year (102 PPP), and Fazekas is the only returning player with an offensive rating over 100 and at least 30 shots last year.

Gonzaga
Ronny Turiaf, 30.8 mpg, 2.4 bp40, 22.1 dRb%

Just the opposite of Nevada. The offense should be excellent, again, but it'll be interesting to see if they can improve on last year's league average defense (102 PP in the WCC) after losing Turiaf. Might be the most overrated team (top 5, really?) this side of West Virginia.

Well there you have it - some of the best frontcourt defense in the country from a year ago. Please email me if you have any questions, or just want to tell me I went about this all wrong. I'm stopping a little abruptly, but I'm sure this won't be the last time I pick up this topic.

Maybe The Sky Isn't Falling

2005-09-20T11:57:00.000-05:00

Iowa got a verbal commitment from Jamie Vanderbeken, the Canadian center who visited campus last weekend. Read about him from Blair Sanderson and Van Coleman.

Sanderson also reports that Iowa has a good chance to land Jamarcus Ellis, a 6-5 wing player from a Florida junior college. He's originally from Chicago and would have three years of eligibility remaining.

And no, I'm not turning into one of those bloggers who just posts a smorgasboard of links - I'll get something original up this week.

Recruiting Links

2005-09-18T21:44:00.000-05:00

Tom Kakert of HawkeyeReport.com has an article up about two basketball players who visited Iowa City this weekend. One was current verbal commit Cyrus Tate, the other was Jamie Vanderbeken out of Canada. It sounds like Vanderbeken liked what he saw at Iowa -

"[M]y impression thus far is very good. I came here with an open mind and really
did not know what to expect. Thus far it has exceeded my expectations."

The 6'10" center will choose to play at Iowa, Oregon State, or UCLA (which has yet to offer a scholarship).

Links
Tate background (April 26)
Vanderbeken ranked 13th in Canada by Hoop Life (December 31)

Add This One To The Pile. . . . .

2005-09-14T19:27:00.000-05:00

of write-ups that are sure to surface this year (if they haven't already) comparing Duke's Shelden Williams to former UConn big man Emeka Okafor. Yes, both are high percentage shooters who block a lot of shots for major college programs. But the similarities run even deeper. . .

**Comparison of Junior Seasons**
Player	Height	Weight	O Rtg	%Poss	TS%	TO%	FT/FG	oReb%	dReb%	Reb%	Blk/40
Okafor, 03-04	6'10"	250	115	24.6	59.7	17.1	0.500	13.1	22.1	17.9	5.0
Williams, 04-05	6'9"	250	117	22.4	61.8	19.9	0.604	13.1	22.1	17.9	4.4

O Rtg measures a player's points produced per 100 possessions.
TS% measures scoring efficiency based on points, FGA and FTA.
TO% = turnovers per possession.
Reb% = ratio of rebounds grabbed to rebounds available.
[Need more? Check the always handy Stats Primer.]

Williams's stat line is basically a carbon copy of Okafor's junior year. Williams turns it over a little more, but he gets to the free throw line often enough to arrive at about the same offensive rating. However, as Ken noted, Okafor drew far more attention in his junior season. He left after that year to be the #2 pick in the 2004 draft, while I don't think Williams would've been taken as seriously if he had come out this year. One mock draft site lists Williams as only a fringe lottery pick for next year.

I became interested in these two players because I was testing a little hypothesis. It seems that teams with a center who can block a lot of shots and grab defensive rebounds tend to have very solid defenses. This might sound like common sense to you, the reader, but I'm never satisfied without at least a few numbers for validity. A look at Ken Pomeroy's defensive leaders from 2005 gives the theory some support - most of the teams near the top meet the criteria of having a player who can block and rebound. Big guys like Williams, Jason Fraser (Villanova), Jared Homan (Iowa State), Josh Boone (UConn), and Jeff Hagen (Minnesota) made life difficult for opposing teams in the paint, and the resulting defensive efficiency numbers look very nice.

Both Williams and Okafor follow the trend - their blocking and rebounding skills are at the core of top-notch team defenses. The 2004 Huskies were the country's third-best defense, while Williams anchored last year's second-best. Okafor already led his team to a national championship. Can Williams maintain the pattern?

More Collins

2005-09-13T16:53:00.000-05:00

Luke Winn at CNNSI wrote a good article today detailing the recruitment of high school point guard stud Sherron Collins. He writes that it's basically down to Illinois and Kansas -

Iowa was one of Collins' earliest suitors, but the real clash for the Crane
jewel is likely to pit Illinois against Kansas, with the stakes infinitely
higher in the Illini's camp.

Sadly, that's the reality. It seemed way back that the articles gave Iowa a decent shot with Collins (back when they might actually bring in some other recruits next year), especially since they were one of the earliest teams to start courting him. But now, what can Iowa really use as a seling point? Let's see, Collins can......

a) Go play for Kansas, one of the country's most historic programs with a rabid fan base and four top 25 recruits entering this fall

b) Stay in his home state and play for Illinois, with a coach who just made a national championship and launched NBA careers for two guards

c) Play at Iowa in an empty arena, likely with no other talented players for most of his career

I can find one option on the list that's pretty easy to cross off.

By the way, with coaches now able to directly contact recruits, Bill Self made the first move by visiting Collins at his home yesterday.

Barring the tiny chance that Iowa manages to land Collins, I'm actually pulling for him to end up with the Illini. There are some top level players set to join the Big Ten next year, and adding another stellar point guard to the mix should only further the conference's return to national prominence.

Recruiting - Sherron Collins Update

2005-09-11T07:19:00.000-05:00

Steve Alford is still working hard to land a big name player for next year's recruiting class, and this effort led him to Illinois to watch the first half of a football game that Sherron Collins played in. Illinois's Bruce Weber and Kansas's Bill Self were also at the game. Collins has narrowed his college choices to these three schools.

Collins is the most talented among several recruits pursued by Alford for next year's class. Scout.com ranks him as the second best point guard and ninth best prospect overall, while Rivals.com puts him at fourth and 31st. Landing Collins is important for Alford and next year's team after his other top three guard recruits chose other schools.

Collins plans to attend Midnight Madness at Kansas on October 14.

On Pace

2005-09-08T13:27:00.000-05:00

After yesterday's disappointment, it's probably a good idea to look ahead to some brighter points. As was often the case in recent years, that means focusing on the play of native Iowans Jeff Horner and Greg Brunner. Despite all the injuries, departures, and felony charges of their teammates, these two have remained steady forces on and off the court. Their excellence was recognized by inclusion on last year's All-Big Ten team and with invitations to try out for the USA World University Games team this summer. By the end of this season, their Hawkeye legacies should be displayed in a more permanent arena - Iowa's career record book.

Assuming neither misses significant playing time this year, Horner and Brunner will leave their mark in several areas - career points, rebounds, assists, three point shooting, steals, and blocks. Erek Hansen will also finish second or third on the career blocks list. The discussion of these records will assume that Iowa plays 33 games this year (same as last year), 30 regular season and three post-season.

SCORING

**Current Leaders**
Place	Player	Points
1	Roy Marble	2,116
2	Acie Earl	1,779
3	Greg Stokes	1,768
4	B.J. Armstrong	1,705
5	Ronnie Lester	1,675
6	Jess Settles	1,611
7	Dean Oliver	1,561
8	Andre Woolridge	1,525
9	Don Nelson	1,522
10	Ed Horton	1,372
27	Jeff Horner	1,095
37	Greg Brunner	1,035

Since Iowa played 33 games last year and this year, the easiest way to project where these two will finish would be to add last year's points to their career totals. If Jeff scores 463 points again, he'll end his Hawkeye career with 1,558, in 8th place between, fittingly, two of Iowa's best point guards. If Greg again scores 485, his career total of 1,520 points would put him 11th place (assuming Jeff is ahead of him). However, this method might shortchange each player a little, since they played 20 games alongside a big-time scorer in Pierre Pierce. Both of them increased their scoring after Pierce left the team, and since this year's team will basically be the same team that ended last year, we should probably take that into account.

Horner scored 14.8 ppg in the final 13 games of last season. That rate would give him 488 points this year, and his 1583 points would move him past Oliver. Likewise, Greg's 15.9 ppg would give him 525 points over a full season and move him to ninth all-time with 1,560 points.

Note - If Pierce played the 13 games he missed last year, and all 33 games this year, while scoring at last year's 17.8 ppg, he would finish second on Iowa's scoring list.

REBOUNDING

**Current Leaders**
Place	Player	Rebounds
1	Kevin Kunnert	914
2	Ed Horton	877
3	Michael Payne	857
4	Bruce King	852
5	Acie Earl	811
6	Greg Stokes	807
7	Ryan Bowen	804
8	Reggie Evans	794
9	Don Nelson	784
10	Jess Settles	747
--	Greg Brunner	676

This table is primed for a big run by Brunner. Just matching last year's 8.3 rpg would make him Iowa's all-time leading rebounder with 951 boards. He only needs to average 7.2 rpg to eclipse Kunnert. Considering that Greg's in better shape than ever before and could play more than last year's 31.8 mpg, 1,000 rebounds isn't out of the question, though he would need to average 9.8 rpg to get there. A deep run in the NCAA tournament would really help Greg's quest for triple digits.

PASSING

**Current Leaders**
Place	Player	Assists
1	Andre Woolridge	575
2	Dean Oliver	561
3	B.J. Armstrong	517
4	Ronnie Lester	480
5	Jeff Horner	443

Can I get a "wow" for Andre Woolridge? He's the only player among the top ten in assists who didn't play at Iowa for four years (he played three), and he still runs away with the record. He'll get a challenge from Horner this year. Jeff needs to average 4.0 apg to take first place. He averaged 5.5 apg last year. Matching last year's total of 180 assists would give Horner 623 for his career. Not bad.

Barring some catastrophe, Horner will also finish with more three pointers made and attempted in a career than any other Hawkeye. He needs to make 34 and attempt 133 to claim the records currently held by Chris Kingsbury. There's also room on the steals list. Matching last year's total of 47 would give Horner 172 for his career and move him into seventh place.

Erek Hansen is already in fourth place on the career blocks list. He won't be passing Acie Earl without another year of eligibility (woo hoo!), but he can pass Greg Stokes for second place by blocking 107 shots this year. Getting to Stokes is just a matter of playing time, as Hansen swatted 5.2 shots per 40 minutes last year. He had 83 blocks on the season.

Brunner can also climb the blocks ladder. He's on pace to finish sixth in school history.

Well, there you have it. Iowa fans might not have a lot to cheer about in a couple years (we'll see), but this year's squad includes several players who will go down among Iowa's all-time best. You will likely have two of the top ten scorers, the all-time leaders in rebounding and assists, as well as the most prolific three-point shooter and shot blocker playing together. To me, that is a team that should make some noise this winter. Is it November yet?

Iowa Loses Another One

2005-09-07T13:33:00.000-05:00

Back in May it was Jason Bohannon, who lives near Iowa City and whose dad played quarterback for the Hawkeyes, choosing Wisconsin over Iowa and a couple other schools. Then Trevon Hughes followed suit by committing to the Badgers program after narrowing his choices to Iowa and Wisconsin. Steve Alford's 2006-07 recruiting class took another major blow this morning when Isaiah Dahlman decided to play for Michigan State next fall, shortly after his official visit to East Lansing.

What could have been a promising backcourt for several years has suddenly turned into nothing, as junior college PF Cyrus Tate is the only player set to join Iowa in 2006. After Iowa lost out on Bohannon, which was generally attributed to Wisconsin "wanting him more," recruiting analyst Van Coleman had the following to say -

"[Iowa is] recruiting four kids that right now are rated among the top 60
in the country in the guard court. So they were not in a position to want
to push at this point. They might be in great shape in two weeks or they might
be scratching their head going 'Darn, they got away.' That's the risk you run
whenever you pass on somebody and don't stay right there and stay involved."

Sherron Collins is the fourth guard mentioned by Coleman, but since he's a higher profile player than the other three, and since his list of suitors includes Kansas and Illinois, I won't be holding my breath. My main concern is Iowa's 2006 class, especially when compared to the major talent that will be joining the Big Ten at other schools. Here's a look at the bigger names set to join some conference schools.

**Recruiting Classes, 2006**
School	Player	Position	Scout	Rivals
Ohio State	Greg Oden	C	*****	*****
	Mike Conley	PG	*****	*****
	Daequan Cook	SG	*****	*****
	David Lighty	SF	*****	*****
	Josh Chichester	PF	***	***
Wisconsin	Trevon Hughes	PG	****	****
	Jason Bohannon	PG	****	***
	J.P. Gavinski	C	***	****
Michigan	DeShawn Sims	SF	*****	****
Michigan	K'Len Morris	SG	***	***
Illinois	Brian Carlwell	C	****	****
Illinois	Richard Semrau	PF	***	***
Michigan State	Isaiah Dahlman	SF	****	***
Minnesota	Bryce Webster	PF	****	***
Iowa	Cyrus Tate	PF	***	***
Indiana	Deonta Vaugn	PG	***	***

Ouch. Indiana and Michigan State have much less need for a strong class because they still have several talented young players, and won't be as reliant on the 2006 class right away. Looking at Iowa's roster in a couple seasons, you see how much they need to bring in some upper level talent soon - the only players who appear to have All-Big Ten potential graduate this year or next.

At any rate, this is another pretty disappointing day in Hawkeye basketball fandom.

Recruiting - Dahlman Decision Expected Soon

2005-09-01T07:57:00.000-05:00

Isaiah Dahlman, widely considered the best prep basketball prospect in Minnesota, makes his official visit to Michigan State this weekend. He will choose either the Spartans or Iowa soon after.

Rivals.com ranks Dahlman at #106 in the class of 2006, and #27 among shooting guards. Scout.com lists him as the #15 small forward and #70 overall.

Who would Dahlman's teammates be down the road, should he choose Iowa? Check out the new HH Long-Term Roster.

Roster Continuity and the Iowa Hawkeyes

2005-08-31T17:52:00.000-05:00

It seems that every off-season you repeatedly hear some variant of "this team should be good because they return everyone from last year's squad." Since Iowa will be one of "those teams" this year, I'm curious if there is a strong relationship between roster continuity and year-to-year improvement, and if so, how big of an impact does it have?

What I'm Doing
To approach this topic, I selected teams that, coming into the 2004-05 season, returned every player who scored at least 5 ppg the previous year. For example, Iowa's 2003-04 squad included three seniors who averaged at least 8 ppg, so this study does not include their program. The 2003-04 Syracuse team lost only the 3 ppg of Jeremey McNeil, so the Orangemen will be examined. Due to my own limited resources, I'm only looking at teams from the following conferences - Big Ten, Big XII, ACC, SEC, Pac-10, C-USA, and Big East.

[Update, 6:05 pm - I ended up with a pretty small sample, so I'll probably try something similar to this in the near future, but with easier requirements to meet. I'll let you know if I come up with any different conclusions.]

I will then see how much (if at all) each team improved according to a stat I call Efficiency Margin (EM), which is simply the difference between a team's offensive and defensive ratings. I prefer to use only conference games when calculating EM, and that's what I did here. (Learn about efficiency ratings in the HH Stats Primer.)

Dirty Work
When they started the 2004-05 season, the following nine major conference teams still had all players who scored 5+ ppg for them the previous year.

North Carolina
Wake Forest
Syracuse
Villanova
Illinois
Michigan State
Oregon State
Washington
Florida

This first table shows each team's Efficiency Margin (again, that's points scored - minus points allowed, per 100 possessions) for 2003-04 and 2004-05, as well as the net gain from the first year to the second.

**Efficiency Margin Gain**
Team	EM Yr 1	EM Yr 2	EM Gain
North Carolina	2.9	23.5	20.6
Wake Forest	2.5	16.5	14.0
Syracuse	2.4	7.8	5.4
Villanova	-0.8	11.5	12.3
Illinois	14.0	24.6	10.6
Michigan State	10.0	18.5	8.5
Oregon State	-7.7	-4.9	2.8
Washington	5.4	15.0	9.6
Florida	4.8	13.2	8.4
Average	3.7	14.0	10.2

Wow. Although the sample size is small, every team that returned essentially all of its players improved in the second season, and most of those teams were a lot better. Yes, the average is pulled upward quite a bit by North Carolina's improvement, but I would suggest dropping both them and Oregon State (which turns out to be convenient since they're also the sample's extremes). North Carolina welcomed an NBA-lottery-ready Marvin Williams, while Oregon State gave significant minutes to a transfer (former Hawk Nick DeWitz) and two freshmen. Neither of those teams possessed quite the roster continuity we originally set out to explore. Even with those teams removed, the group's average EM improvement is a robust 9.8.

How Did They Improve?
After seeing that all of these teams got better, my reaction was to find out if the gains were due to better defense, offense, or both. Are point guards more aware of where their scorers like the ball? do players get more comfortable with their coach's defensive system? Maybe shooters just improve with the additional year of practice? Well, you get the idea. Here's the breakdown of how each team got better in 2004-05. OE is improvement in points scored per 100 possessions, DE is improvement in points allowed per 100 possessions.

**Breakdown of EM Gain**
Team	OE Gain	DE Gain
North Carolina	6.8	13.8
Wake Forest	11.1	2.8
Syracuse	9.9	-4.5
Villanova	6.5	5.8
Illinois	6.6	4.0
Michigan State	2.3	6.2
Oregon State	2.3	0.5
Washington	6.0	3.6
Florida	1.4	6.9
Average	5.9	4.3

Well, that's not all that conclusive. Six of the nine teams improved more through offensive gains. It is interesting to note how much better North Carolina got defensively during their championship season. Check out how their D compared to the rest of the ACC in my PPP graph from the off-season. Is that defensive dominance due to the addition of Marvin Williams? The coaching influence of Roy Williams? I don't know the answer to that one, but it's a fun debate.

Does the Conclusion Make Sense?
We came into this post with the notion that teams generally get better when they bring back all their players. Today's data seem to reinforce the idea, though small sample size caveats obviously still apply.

At the individual level, I'm convinced that players generally see decreases in their turnover rate and foul rate as they get older. These improvements, all else equal, would lead to better team offense and defense when you're looking at the same group of players from one year to the next.

Other factors, like familiarity with teammates' tendencies and comfort with coaches' plans/ideas, are much less measurable. All in all though, it seems very reasonable for teams to improve when they don't lose any players.

What Does All This Mean for Iowa?
Iowa obviously fits the same description as the nine above teams, since Jack Brownlee is the only player missing from last year's team (he of the 1 ppg). Their EM of 1.5 (104.0 OE, 102.5 DE) puts them in a similar starting spot as North Carolina, Wake Forest, Syracuse, and Villanova from last year. They definitely don't have the athletes that some of those teams did, but they won't be facing them in their conference, either.

If Iowa gained the group's average spread of 10.2, their 2005-06 EM would shoot to 11.7. Of the 17 teams with a double digit EM last year, 10 advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, with two of the others (Cincinnati to Kentucky, Florida to Villanova) losing to double digit EM teams before they could make the second weekend. That's pretty good company.

Time to Get Confusing
A team with an EM of 11.7 would be expected to win right around 12 of their 16 conference games (assuming Iowa uses the same number of possessions as last year, and using the ol' Pythagorean Theorem to calculate expected winning percentage. I can email you the math if you're really interested [read: as nerdy as me]). That's pretty good, and probably higher than most Hawkeye fans' expectations for this year. The next table shows the "expected" record of a team with certain characteristics.

Gain - improvement over last year's EM of 1.5 (remember the 10.2 avg from the first table?)
EM - the resulting efficiency margin for 2005-06
80 W, 80 L - the expected record of a team that scores 80 ppg, assuming Iowa maintains its 65.6 poss / G avg
65 W, 65 L - the other end of the spectrum

**Expected Win Matrix**
Gain	EM	80 W	80 L	65 W	65 L
3	4.5	9.5	6.5	9.8	6.8
4	5.5	9.8	6.2	10.2	5.8
5	6.5	10.1	5.9	10.6	5.4
6	7.5	10.5	5.5	11.0	5.0
7	8.5	10.8	5.2	11.4	4.6
8	9.5	11.1	4.9	11.7	4.3
9	10.5	11.4	4.6	12.1	3.9
10	11.5	11.7	4.3	12.4	3.6
11	12.5	11.9	4.1	12.7	3.3
12	13.5	12.2	3.8	13.0	3.0
13	14.5	12.5	3.5	13.3	2.7
14	15.5	12.7	3.3	13.5	2.5

Hope I didn't lose anyone along the way. According to the table, if Iowa gains a meager 3 on last year's EM, they'd score about 4.5 more points per 100 possessions than they allow, and they'd be a 9-10 win team (just in the Big Ten). If they improve as much as the teams from last year, say by increasing their EM to 11.5, they should win 11 or 12 of their games. And if the improvement is really dramatic, like Wake Forest and UNC last year, Iowa would be expected to win 13 or more games.

I'm sure no one is going to hold their breath for that last range of figures. Any Hawk fan who watched last year's Capital One Bowl knows that it's a tad early to be asking for miracles. But the point is clear - teams who return all their players tend to improve quite a bit. Iowa returns all their players, so it's not unreasonable to expect this year's team to be a lot better and in the top tier of the Big Ten.

Hedging My Bets
Just don't blame me at the end of the year for getting your hopes up.

Names To Know, Part II - Ron Lewis

2005-08-29T14:40:00.000-05:00

With the college basketball season a mere two months away, we continue profiling the new faces most likely to impact teams in this year's Big Ten. Indiana's Marco Killingsworth led off the series last Thursday.

Thanks in large part to its self-imposed post-season ban last year and the nation's most talented 2006 recruiting class, Ohio State's current squad has managed to slip below the radar, despite returning seven of nine players from a 20 win team. Next year's Thad Five will have to wait, because talented junior transfer Ron Lewis can only improve what should be one of the Big Ten's better teams.

Lewis came to the Buckeyes from Bowling Green State, where he played two solid seasons before transferring and sitting out the 2004-05 season. In his sophomore year, he finished sixth in the Mid-American Conference by averaging 17 points a game. (In case you're curious about the level of competition, the MAC was a top-15 RPI conference in the two seasons Lewis played there - 2003, 2004.)

At first glance, his numbers might not suggest overwhelming success in the Big Ten -

Year	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	FG%	3pt%
02-03	12.1	5.0	2.5	1.2	41.7	26.2
03-04	17.0	4.7	2.9	0.8	39.6	33.6

His shooting percentages alone would typically be enough for me to label this guy as a high-volume, low-efficiency scorer - i.e., someone cut from the Pierre Pierce, Daniel Horton, et al mold. But Lewis has one saving grace - his ability to get to the free throw line ridiculously often, especially for a guard. Witness his FTA / FGA rate from his first two seasons -

Year	FTA	FGA	FTA/FGA
02-03	187	223	0.839
03-04	233	366	0.637

Some interesting free throw trivia to chew on - Lewis shot 10+ free throws in 18 of BGSU's 31 games in 2003-04, including one 18-18 performance; he set MAC tournament records for FT and FTA by shooting 22-25 in a postseason game during his freshmen season.

Not only can Lewis draw a lot of fouls, but his 81% career mark at the line ensures that he picks up a lot of easy points, too. These abilities offset his poor shooting from the field and led to the following respectable lines -

Year	O Rtg	%Poss	TS%	TO%	Reb%
02-03	101	23.7	57.5	26.8	10.0
03-04	110	26.5	56.1	19.2	8.3

O Rtg measures a player's points produced per 100 possessions. Last year's Big Ten average was 104.
TS% measures scoring efficiency based on points, FGA and FTA. Big Ten avg = 54.4%.
TO% = turnovers per possession. Big Ten avg = 21.4%.
[Need more? Check the always handy Stats Primer.]

Comparables
Similar to the first post in this series, I want to look at some Big Ten players whose game resembles that of Lewis. In this case, I searched for guards/wings who made frequent trips to the line, rebounded fairly well, and were less than fantastic from the field. I found that Lewis's 2003-04 numbers matched up well with what Bracey Wright (Indiana) and Vincent Grier (Minnesota) did last year.

Player	O Rtg	%Poss	TS%	TO%	Reb%	FT%	3pt%
Lewis	110	26.5	56.1	19.2	8.3	82.0	33.6
Wright	109	29.1	54.9	16.5	8.5	78.3	32.9
Grier	109	25.8	55.1	17.3	9.5	73.9	25.0

That's not to say that Lewis will be as good as either of these two all-conference players; simply put, his numbers against MAC competition were very similar to what Wright and Grier did against the Big Ten. These players share the same skill set, but producing against the Big Ten won't be as easy as the MAC.

-1 + 1 = 2?
Though Lewis might not be one of the Big Ten's best players, his season is one that I'm very eager to follow, for two related reasons.
1) He should improve The OSU's biggest offensive weaknesses
2) He should be a big improvement over the guy he is replacing

Ohio State finished in the middle of the Big Ten offensively (103 points per 100 possessions), despite shooting fewer free throws than any other team (last in FTA / FGA, 0.275) and grabbing fewer offensive rebounds (25.4% oRebRt) than all but Northwestern. Lewis's propensity for shooting free thows should provide immediate help to the Buckeyes, who had only one player shoot more than 85 free throws last year (Terence Dials). His impact on the team's rebounding fortunes will be less noticeable, but his above average skills on the glass certainly won't hurt the team.

In his Big Ten preview, college basketball's blogfather, Yoni Cohen, wondered whether the loss of Tony Stockman would hurt Ohio State. With Lewis ready to take over, I say the answer is a resounding NO. Honestly, Ohio State could probably improve their team by replacing Stockman with the ball boy. It's funny how a playing-time-fueled scoring average as a freshman can mask certain weaknesses and lead to a player never living up to the resulting expectations (see again: Pierre Pierce, Daniel Horton). Stockman never shot better than 40%, but certain media proclaimed him to be The OSU's most important player. Considering the team's weaknesses, which player looks like a better fit for the squad?

Player	O Rtg	%Poss	FT/FG	oReb%	dReb%
Stockman, 04-05	95	25.7	0.115	1.5	10.3
Lewis, 03-04	110	26.5	0.637	4.3	11.9

Moving Forward
Though he's yet to play an official game as a Buckeye, Lewis is already impressing Buckeye followers. Andy Katz hinted that he might have been "one of the best talents on the practice courts last season." He also made his mark on the current-and-former-Buckeye-laden McDonald's Summer League, leading his team to the tournament finals while earning league MVP (according to Patrick Dolan) with a 29.6 scoring average. With Lewis's entrance and Stockman's departure, there's no reason for Ohio State fans to adopt a "Wait 'Til Next Year" slogan.

Hawkeye Hoops

Iowa 75, The Citadel 53

Moving Day

Gone Fishing

Word On The Street

Another Game, Another Blogger Interview

Horner Out 2 to 5 Weeks

Bite-Sized UNI Thoughts, Vol. II

Bite-Sized UNI Thoughts, Vol. I

Northern Iowa 67, Iowa 63 (OT)

State Championship Week

We're #1! We're #1!

Weekend Wrap-up

Weekend Reading

Hawkeye Challenge Starts Tonight

Oh Happy Day

Iowa 45, NC State 42

Last Minute Look - NC State

Note To Students

Morning Links

Next Up - #24 North Carolina State

While I Was Away

Next Up - Texas-San Antonio

Hawks Fizzle Down The Stretch

Next Up - #2 Texas

Iowa 67, Kentucky 63

Other Recaps

Next Up - #9 Kentucky

Maui Update

Morning Reading

News and Notes

Iowa 73, Colgate 51

Morning Links

Gameday: Colgate

Iowa 86, Maryland-Eastern Shore 41

Gameday: Maryland - Eastern Shore

Borrowing An Idea

Weekend Walk-Through

Morning Notes

Quick Notes

Dropping The Ball

Iowa 75, Wartburg 48

Morning Links

Morning Notes

Next Up - Wartburg

Morning News

Rough Start For State

Scanning the Box Scores

Iowa 97, Brock 36

Checking the Stats - Brock

Opening Day (Sort Of)

Sick Days

Are You Ga-Ga Over 'Zaga?

Black and Gold Blowout

Countdown. . . . .

Preview - Michigan Wolverines

Important Info, 2004-05

Daniel Horton

Senior

Guard

Age: 21

Height: 6-3

Weight: 205

Graham Brown

Senior

Forward

Age: 21

Height: 6-9

Weight: 245

Chris Hunter

Senior

Center

Age: 21

Height: 6-11

Weight: 225

Lester Abram

Junior

Guard / Forward

Age: 22

Height: 6-6