It is officially May and the College Basketball season has ended. In the same vein that The Floor Slap did season previews and in season spotlights for every team in the Big Ten, now it’s time to look back on everyone’s season and reflect. Going from the Bottom to the Top in the standings, we will be releasing Exit Survey’s for all 14 teams in the conference. Today, we have the 5th place Iowa Hawkeyes.
Preseason
My preview article focused on Iowa being in a good spot thanks to Fran McCaffery.
Last year, there was a real negative slant on McCaffery after losing to Richmond in the first round of March Madness.
People minimize the results from November to February often when March results aren’t great. Despite tournament failures, Iowa is in the best shape it’s been in a while.
McCaffery had guided them to 3 straight top 5 finishes in conference. Three years ago, the Hawkeyes were a 2 seed and had Luka Garza won National Player of the Year. Two years ago they were a 5 seed, Keegan Murray’s stock skyrocketed to be a top 5 pick, and the Hawkeyes had the 2nd highest win total in program history. They even won the Big Ten Tournament for the first time ever in school history.
It has been one of the best regular season stretches in Iowa history. Would this year’s team continue it?
They were losing another All-American in Keegan Murray, 10-year vet Jordan Bohanon and starting point guard Joe Toussaint.
The expectations were to for McCaffery and Iowa to retool.
People were high on Kris Murray but it wasn’t 100% certainty that he could improve like his brother. My preseason preview didn’t know what to make of key players Filip Rebraca, Payton Sandfort and Patrick McCaffery.
I also focused on the fact that Iowa has been a top tier offensive team that can’t play any defense the past few seasons. Could this team be the team that switches that narrative? Lol, no.
Being able to retool after losing players like Garza and Murray and stay at the top of a conference is an emblem of a well run program and a good head coach.
The Season
The Season started good, not great for Iowa.
Iowa survived against an okay Clemson team, lost to a good, not great TCU team and then beat a bad Georgia Tech team to get off to a 5-1 start.
Kris Murray was indeed as good as his brother and made the leap. Patrick McCaffery seemed to have made the leap. Sandfort stumbled out the gate. Filip Rebraca was steady to start.
The rest of Iowa’s season was extreme highs and lows.
Iowa would lose a game to Duke in Madison Square Garden, where Duke controlled it the whole time. The Hawkeyes bounced right back and destroyed rival Iowa State. Next, they lost one of the best Big Ten games of the season in a thrilling OT home game to Wisconsin in their Big Ten opener.
However, the lows came to a head with Iowa making history in the worst way, by being the Biggest Upset in College Basketball betting history and losing to Eastern Illinois as 31.5 point favorites.
It kept getting worse as Iowa lost at Nebraska and Penn State in their next two games to fall to 8-6 and 0-3 in the Big Ten.
After the Penn State game, Patrick McCaffery took a break to address his mental health. It was a serious reminder of what these young adults go through and the pressure they are under.
It was also another moment of adversity for this Iowa team to attempt to overcome.
Iowa did address it and started to go on a little run in McCaffery’s absence. Payton Sandfort now coming off the bench began to take off as a sixth man. Sandfort scored double digits in 4 straight wins over Indiana (11 points), Rutgers (22 points in 22 minutes), Michigan (26 points) and Maryland (12 points).
Just like that Iowa sat at 4-3 in Big Ten play and were back in business.
Worth mentioning too that after the Duke loss, Rebraca solidified himself as the 2nd best scorer for the Hawkeyes and reeled off an impressive stretch of games.
After the four game win streak, Iowa proceeded to drop a bad game to Ohio State and lose a heartbreaker to Michigan State on the road.
Patrick McCaffery resumed game action after those losses and Iowa would go onto win the next three over Rutgers, Northwestern & Illinois. Patrick played much more of a reserve role moving forward only playing 14-20 mpg compared to the 25-30 range at the beginning of the season.
After splitting the next couple games, Iowa had the comeback of the season against Michigan State. Down 10 with 48 seconds left, Iowa hit five threes to force overtime in a Miracle in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
I mean, they scored 23 points in the final 90 seconds. Unbelievable. Yes, I bet Michigan State.
Unfortunately, the comeback against the Spartans would end up being the highlight of the Hawkeye season.
Post Season
Iowa would beat Indiana in the next game after MSU, but the Hawkeyes would then lose at home to Nebraska, lose their first Big Ten Tourney game to lowly Ohio State and then lose to 9 seed Auburn in their first game of March Madness.
Side note… if Iowa had won the game against Nebraska they would’ve been the 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament and at the same time could’ve been the 9 seed by losing and the right teams winning. The Hawkeyes split the difference and landed the 5 seed. Yeah, the Big Ten was extra weird this year.
Iowa had soap opera levels of drama to the highs and lows of their storyline this season. Still it ended unceremoniously with three straight losses and another first weekend exit for Coach McCaffery and company.
It is unfair to pile on Fran McCaffery for this year’s Iowa team not making the Sweet 16.
It was more egregious as a 2 seed with National Player of the Year Luka Garza losing to Oregon or a Big Ten Tournament Champion team with both Murray brothers losing to Richmond in the first round.
This year’s Iowa team had obvious limitations.
Once again, nobody could stay in front of their man. Filip Rebraca can do a lot of things, but rim protection was not his forte. Ditto for Connor McCaffery (who was also on this team, but in year 8 of his career I don’t have much to say about what he brings to the table).
The Hawkeyes finished 308th in Opponent PPG in the NCAA. Not good.
Tony Perkins, Sandfort, and Patrick McCaffery were all hit or miss.The freshmen in Dasonte Bowen and Josh Dix were very much freshmen and their “flashes” were few and far between. Ahron Ulis, despite getting a bump to starting role, never really made much of it (Ulis transferred to Nebraska, it will be interesting to see him return to Iowa City).
Iowa’s success came from and Fran McCaffery’s greatest skill is the offense.
Iowa finished in the top 5 of KenPom.com’s adjusted offense for the fourth straight season. No other Big Ten team has been in the top 10 more than once in that span.
The Hawkeyes will continue to win under McCaffery, but they will never take the next step until they can put at least a somewhat competent defense next to their uber effective offense. Even without a better defense, Iowa is due a tournament run with a hot shooting streak.
The Iowa program has a long history of great coaches including Lute Olson, Steve Alford and Tom Davis. McCaffery will pass Davis for the Most Wins All Time in Iowa school history with 9 wins next year.
In a completely different era than the 80s and 90s, McCaffery has more limitations at Iowa than Olson and Davis faced.
I believe McCaffery is doing a great job at Iowa. If you disagree, you might need to reevaluate your expectations for Iowa as a program.
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