Iowa basketball is following the lead of Iowa football this season: winning big, surpassing expectations, and doing it all very much under the radar. Both the football and basketball Hawkeyes have shocked prognosticators everywhere by winning with a certain unexpected Gestalt.
America has slept/is sleeping on both teams too. Nationally, word association with Iowa in 2015-16 has been “caucus” more than “college athletics.” This despite the Iowa caucus actually being much ado about nothing. (Hey, the votes don’t actually count for anything at all, people. The caucus is just media generated drivel)
Iowa football made the country take notice as they just kept on winning, despite no one really believing in them. If they were the same exact team producing the same exact results, but named Michigan or Ohio State, perceptions would have been quite different.
Preseason forecasts had the gridiron Hawkeyes around 5th-9th overall in the Big Ten, or just about the same area prognosticators had Iowa basketball back in November. However, both teams became nationally relevant, and rose all the way to #3 in the polls. Both were/are in the national title conversation.
Iowa point guard Anthony Clemmons explained some of the football team similarities.
“I remember talking to (Hawkeyes CB/Winner of the Jim Thorpe award as the nation’s best defensive back) Desmond King about all his individual success,” said Clemmons.
“And his first words to me were it’s not about me it’s about our team, and to hear that from him, one of the star players, I really took that into consideration into what makes teams great, when everyone is combined as one.”
Clemmons is second in the Big Ten in assist to turnover ratio, and tenth in steals. King is a consistent staple in the first round of 2017 NFL mock drafts everywhere.
Iowa basketball (19-4, 10-1 in league play) is led by power forward Jarrod Uthoff, a Wisconsin transfer who is the front-runner for Big Ten Player of the year right now.
Uthoff (we have a lot more on him here), does it all- score, rebound, block shots, shoot threes.
He sees the football connections too.
“I was a huge fan, and what they did was remarkable,” said Uthoff.
“This is a special team, in how close we are and how we play together, sort of like the football team.”
Uthoff also has a really good sidekick in Peter Jok (here’s more on him). While Uthoff is having a Big Ten MVP like season reminiscent of Evan Turner with Ohio State in 2010, Jok is right there having a “best second banana in the league” kind of campaign like William Buford did with the Buckeyes that year.
The main difference between the football and the basketball teams, and this is a huge difference, is the quality of the wins. Iowa football had a soft slate because of the way the Big Ten schedules, and they didn’t get the signature wins. Iowa basketball, on the other hand, has been beating a lot of good quality teams.
Hawkeye hoops is #4 this week in the AP poll, having garnered 11 first place votes. Of course, polls are pretty insignificant when compared to the NCAA Tournament, and what really matters is your tourney resume, not your ranking.
Iowa basketball currently sports an RPI of 8, with a SoS of 13. They have two signature wins over Michigan State (RPI 16), and two more over Purdue (RPI 22), as well as two more really nice wins over Wichita St. and Michigan. Their worst loss is to Notre Dame, which obviously means that they have no bad losses on the season.
The Hawkeyes are currently #1 in KenPom, #3 in Sagarin. Numerous bracket projections have UI a #1 seed and deservedly so. Still, no one outside of the people who cover the sport everyday for a living or Iowans themselves are really talking about this team. That would not be the case if it were Michigan State or Indiana producing the same exact record in the same exact manner.
Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery on the key to his team’s success this year:
“Just make sure we keep sharing the ball. I think that’s been the staple of our team.”
He admits there’s still plenty of room for improvement though. He was “asked” by a “reporter” if this the best defensive team he’s ever had, and McCaffery said yes, statistically, it is, but again there’s still a ceiling to be reached.
“We need more consecutive stops defensively. We want to rebound better. Our turnovers have been good, but we had more turns than assists against Maryland. You don’t want to have that.”
When you look at how good this Iowa basketball team is playing right now, and how far they have come, it’s astonishing. They actually lost their one preseason exhibition. You’re really not supposed to do that when you’re the big school, but somehow tiny, lower division Augustana found a way. That’s astonishing, given how Iowa is only Big Ten team to have suffered just one loss in conference play this season.
Thursday, they’ll visit 9-2 Indiana in what will be a huge tilt.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram
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