Iowa Game Thread

[Outlaw_Wales]

That is true, but Francis has stated that he is going to be playing the young guys a ton. Dix (soph), Bowen (soph) and Harding (fresh) are going to be their main bench guys and none of them have a ton of experience. Granted our bench doesn't have a ton of experience either, but King did play some big minutes in Big East play last year and Bello is a 5th year man.

FWIW, Bowen has started the first two games, so hasn't been a bench guy. Dix and Harding are getting decent minutes without a ton of experience. At the same time, though King isn't actually among our top couple of bench guys in terms of minutes. That's been Bello and Traudt.

Just hope the Jays show up tonight on the defensive end and on the boards. I don't really worry too much about our offense against Iowa, but Iowa is definitely capable of putting up points if the Jays don't defend.

[gtmoBlue]

Bowen??? Iowa has a Bowen? Surely no relation to Tugs?

[mannygakou]

Bowen??? Iowa has a Bowen? Surely no relation to Tugs?

Correct. And also no relation to Ryan Bowen, former Hawkeye and NBAer. Same goes for Bruce Bowen.

[JacobPadilla]

I'd imagine the matchups will be pretty straightforward to start, with Trey on Perkins and Baylor on Sandfort. If Sandfort gets loose, though, we could see those flipped. The tough part with that would be transition cross-matches with the way Iowa pushes off misses and makes.

Bowen is much more of a distributor than scorer. I think their best bet is to have Ashworth guard him straight up as much as possible and funnel his drives toward Kalkbrenner while staying attached to shooters, especially Sandfort. He's almost strictly a shooter; doesn't have the off-the-dribble or post scoring ability the Murray twins did filling that role in previous years. Both their bigs have scored really efficiently against lower-level competition, but they haven't seen anything like Kalkbrenner.

[go_jays]

The line now is anywhere from -11.5 to -12.5.
The OWH has their latest line at -9
Please don't sell your tickets to Iowa fans.

That's a lot of money on the Jays to make that kind of move in the points happen.

[go_jays]

I would agree, overall if there is any advantage in height it definitely is on CU's side. I think the biggest edge we have is experience. They have a ton of underclassmen. They, like us, can really shoot the ball, but where Francis' teams really struggle is defense. They don't really see a lot of teams like us in the Big 10. If we can get out and run and play some D, we should be good. There will probably be moments when they hit a few 3's in a row, but as long as we can answer and shut them down on some possessions we should prevail.

Based on the ability for us to extend our pressure in the second half of the NDSU game (while I certainly understand we're talking a different level of athlete, still...) I think we actually might be a better perimeter defense this year than last year.

Ashworth has done a decent job so far... certainly not much difference, if any from, R2. Trey is a year older and more athletic because of it... Baylor is def more athletic because of the emphasis he placed on it over the summer... Miller looks to have a better understanding of the defense and is a year older and looks more athletic... Kalk is Kalk... and the guys off the bench look to be a little more athletic and know the defense better (King, Farabello). Traudt and Dotzler are unknowns. But overall MY fears, anyway, of a decline in our ability to defend have receded somewhat. I guess we'll see tonight. But I think we're gonna be very ok.

[LJay]

I thought #10 for NDST ate Ashworth’s lunch scoring 13 in the first half. This led to Trey getting switched onto #10 in the 2nd half at which point he disappeared finishing with 15.

I am much more concerned about Ashworth’s defense than others on this site. R2 was small but pretty strong for his size. He was not a defensive stopper and that poor D on the last shot against SDSU will forever be etched in my mind but he was better than Steven from what I’ve seen so far.

[Outlaw_Wales]

I thought #10 for NDST ate Ashworth’s lunch scoring 13 in the first half. This led to Trey getting switched onto #10 in the 2nd half at which point he disappeared finishing with 15.

I am much more concerned about Ashworth’s defense than others on this site. R2 was small but pretty strong for his size. He was not a defensive stopper and that poor D on the last shot against SDSU will forever be etched in my mind but he was better than Steven from what I’ve seen so far.

It seems to me like Ashworth has done a good job of staying with people and being in the right position -- but guys are just rising up and shooting over him way too easily.

[Jaysker12]

Yes, he's an average athlete with average size at PG. It will be an ongoing concern

[BenningtonBluejay]

Lotta iowa walking around downtown