Iowa
3 keys to winning in Iowa City and how to watch
Iowa City
2:00 PM
BTN
Iowa
Iowa Hawkeyes
Record: 13-10 (5-7)
KenPom Rank: 55
A Quad 1 opportunity for the Gophers and a chance to avenge their home loss to the Hawkeyes last month. Can they get a win in Iowa City where they haven’t won since 2015?
KEYS TO A GOPHER WIN
Find more scoring – The good news regarding the first Iowa matchup is that Dawson Garcia scored 30 points, there may be opportunities for him to score. The bad news is that the Gophers lost. They need to find more ways to score. I like how there has been a concerted effort to get the ball into Payne in the post, and some nice high-low action between him and Garcia. More of this will lead to balanced scoring and open threes.
Don’t wait till the 2nd half – AGAIN, this is apparently what we do, but it isn’t sustainable. Can you imagine what it would look like if we made some threes in the first half and didn’t have to come from behind in the final 20?
Rebound – Iowa has not been good at defensive rebounding, they rank 252nd nationally. We did not effectively take advantage of this at The Barn, but killing them with a plethora of offensive rebounds would help tremendously.
PREDICTION
Iowa has been a team that is different at home than they are on the road. And they are coming off of a bad loss to Penn State. I expect they will play focused this afternoon. Minnesota, on the other hand, has been playing really well over the last couple of weeks
I believe that Minnesota will win rebounding today but I also believe Iowa runs great offense that we will struggle to stop. It’s hard to win on the road in the Big Ten, and I expect Iowa will hold serve this afternoon.
Should be a great game to provide us some entertainment leading up to the Super Bowl.
Minnesota – 75
Iowa – 81