Iowa Basketball: What is wrong with the Hawkeyes?

The start of the 2017-18 season has been disappointing to say the least for Iowa basketball. Why have they struggled and what can they do to get better?

Entering the season, the Iowa Hawkeyes had dreams of going back to the NCAA Tournament. After coming off of an NIT berth, Iowa had almost everyone returning from last year and added two highly-regarded freshmen to the mix. All signs were pointing to a big year in Iowa City and a potential trip to the NCAA tournament.

As the season has unfolded, the Hawkeyes have been nothing short of a disaster. Iowa looks undermanned and underprepared thus far In the season. Head coach Fran McCaffrey is an emotional coach who puts all of himself into each game and often can be seen on the sidelines shouting at his players.

Iowa basketball under their current regime has always played with grit and heart, and that appears to be lacking this year. Iowa has always had really good big men and has prided itself on the hard-nosed, old-school style of pounding the ball inside and getting to the free throw line.

While Iowa does like to utilize their big men, they are missing one of the best guards to play in the Big Ten from the previous 4 years. Losing Peter Jok to graduation has really hurt Iowa this year. The Hawkeyes are missing the scoring punch that Jok provided. Iowa does have some decent scorers on the roster but nothing like Jok. Iowa does have a player who is putting up some great offensive numbers who, in true Hawkeye fashion, is not shooting from deep. That player is Tyler Cook.

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Cook seems to be the only player on the team who is consistent on offense and at times looks unstoppable. One of Iowa’s biggest problems on the offensive end of the floor is their penchant of turning the ball over. Iowa averages 14 turnovers a game. That is just to many if you already have enough deficiencies on the offensive end of the floor. Iowa will need to cut down on the turnovers and try to maximize their possessions. Iowa is also a dreadful free throw shooting team. They are shooting free throws at 66.8% as a team, 290th in the nation.

The offense is not the biggest problem facing Iowa this season, though. The reason for Coach McCaffrey’s sideline reactions this year seem to be driven mostly by their defense and more specifically by Iowa’s refusal to play much of any. Iowa doesn’t appear to be fully committed on defense and looks uncomfortable. Iowa is allowing teams to shoot 42.9% from the floor this year, 146th in the nation. According to KenPom, Iowa is allowing 101 points per 100 possessions on defense this year. That is good enough for 129^th in the country and one of the worst in the Big Ten.

How does Iowa fix this? At this point, nothing short of a buy-in on the defensive end by every single player on the roster will be able to fix this. Coach Fran may also need to go back to the drawing board and try to put his team in the best position to succeed on that end of that floor, based on playing to their strengths, which could mean playing a zone. This should help them force the opposing offenses into jump shots and usually Iowa should be able to rebound.

On the offensive end of the floor, Iowa needs to find some more consistent options other than Cook. Iowa has a very talented big man in Luka Garza who they could be trying to utilize more. Garza does average just over 10 points a game. The one problem is that Garza often forgets the memo that free throws are free. He shoots five free throws a game on average and makes barely over half of them, 59.5%. That is not good enough, and if those numbers continue, Garza is going to find minutes hard to come by at the end of games they are winning.

Iowa has a gauntlet of a schedule ahead of them in the coming weeks. If they can get a few things figured out they still have the talent to take a game or two from some of the mid-level teams in the Big Ten. It doesn’t appear Iowa is going to have a very successful conference year, but all teams are going to have to beat Iowa because they have the talent to beat anyone in the league not named Michigan State or Purdue.

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