The Iowa Hawkeyes, are sitting at 16-5 & 6-4 in conference play after a convincing win at Oregon. Though the Ducks were down their two leading scorers, the Hawks played a solid game wire-to-wire, trailing just 1:39.
Ben McCollum has done something through 3 games out west, where we have seen other Hawkeye outfits struggle. Football is 0-2 in their two trips to LA while the women’s team is 0-4 across two seasons. Fran McCaffery lost two games in blowouts amidst the Palisades fire last year.
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Yet Ben McCollum has them 3-0 with a solid chance at 4-0 tonight against the Washington Huskies (12-10, 4-7). Their record belies their advanced stats as both KenPom & Bart Torvik rate them in the 40s. Iowa is rated 19th by KenPom & 20th by Bart Torvik, which puts their chances tonight at ~57%.
That segues nicely into a deeper look into Iowa’s stats and how they stack up halfway through the Big Ten season. Let’s start with the most shocking stat: at 63.0 points allowed per game, Iowa ranks 4th in the NATION & tops in the conference. A big reason for that is pace – both advanced analytic sites rank them in the bottom 20 in that respect.
But it goes further than that, as Iowa has been excellent in two areas: three-point defense & turnover %. They’re allowing opponents to make just 30% of threes on the season (28.9% in conference play). They rank 29th in the nation in that respect, and tops in the conference. Additionally, opponents are taking 37.7% of their shots from deep, which ranks in the top 3rd nationally. In conference play, their rank is 2nd at 37.3%.
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Iowa’s turning teams over 22.1% of the time – 7th in the country. Their in-conference rate is 19.9%, and tops here. Iowa’s forcing live ball turnovers 11.3% of the time in Big Ten games (once again tops in the league) and 12.1% overall.
What this combination of stats supplement when watching the games is that the Hawks simply guard harder than they have in nearly two decades. Everyone is fighting, they’re handing off screens well, they’re jumping passing lanes. Each of Bennett Stirtz, Tavion Banks, and Isaia Howard rank nationally in steal percentage, paced by Howard’s 4.3% which is 34th in the country.
A portion of this is because they have to: Iowa lacks a true rim protector right now and it shows. Teams are shooting 55.5% from 2 in conference play, ranking 16th. The activity on the perimeter is also opening Iowa up to opposing guards attacking driving lanes with aplomb. The overall mindset is all resulting in a ton of fouls – opponent free throw rates in conference is 40.7% FTA:FGA, bottom in the league. Yuck.
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Despite all that, Iowa’s defense is a top 20 outfit – at 97.3 per KenPom & 96.7 at Bart Torvik. Only twice did Iowa’s defense under Fran McCaffery finish in the top 30 and this group would be the best according to KenPom since they finished first in the nation in 2006.
Offensively, there is little drop-off from recent Fran-led teams, with Iowa sitting at 27th in adjusted efficiency according to KenPom. Recent Fran units finished 16th and 18th after a run of top 10 units from 2019-2023.
Of course, the tip of the spear is Bennett Stirtz. He’s the type of guard Iowa has not had in a good long time. Maybe I squint and see Adam Haluska? Andre Woolridge, maybe? He’s 6th in conference both in scoring at 19.0 points/game and assists at 5.0. He’s the only guy in the top six of both category and has been an Iron Man despite fighting through some illness as the conference season ramped. His 90.1% of minutes played ranks 15th. He’s coming off his best game and if he continues playing like this…I like Iowa’s chances against damn near anybody.
But it’s more than him – early in the season Ben McCollum referenced the importance of paint touches and I kind of can’t stop myself from getting excited any time someone gets in the lane. It’s almost like the equivalent of a 4-5 yard carry every run play where the offense is piling up the body blows. It’s resulted in an effective field goal percentage of 58.5% and 60.2% from 2 (9th in the country). Stirtz & Banks – Iowa’s highest volume shooters from 2 – are at 58.6% and 54.2%. Only Kael Combs, at 55.4% joins them under 60%. Everyone else in the rotation is above 60%.
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The other value of paint touches is that it leads to kickouts on open 3s. Iowa is hitting 37.4% from deep, 29th in the nation. Howard is the lagger there, at 27.5%, but everyone else is above 37%.
Overall, it’s led to a very consistent team game-to-game. I’ve kind of marveled at Iowa’s “Game Score” graph at Bart Torvik.
They’ve got just one game below 50 – an early season win over Western Illinois – and a second right at 50 when they went on the road to Michigan State. Only three other games below 80, losses to Minnesota and Illinois and then the win versus Rutgers. Just a team who is very comfortable doing what they do agains almost anybody.
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This was just not a level of consistency we had seen from Iowa under late stage Fran. They were far too reliant on the natural variation of basketball – makes and misses – and did not have the rallying cry this group does of “Impose Your Will.”
Of course, there are still 10 conference games left – McCollum, the maniac referred to the games after USC as an 11-game conference tournament – and things could fall apart. But Iowa is performing about as well as could be expected as they’re sitting in the top half of the conference at 6-4. A win tonight would put them in a tie for 7th with UCLA and a game behind Purdue and Wisconsin.
It’s a tall, and late, task but if there’s a group who will come out and play as expected – it’s this one.
