WSU versus Iowa, predictions and pregame discussion

[ripemupshocks]

The Hawkeye optimist in me wants to think maybe VCU was TOO agressive in their press. Iowa's press allows them to often recover and play halfcourt defense when it breaks down. If WSU's athleticism repeatedly shreds it, Fran will adjust I'm sure and you won't see it much.

Welcome to ShockerNet Hawkize31. If your guys are shooting well, the style of defense they play may not matter, since in the last few games our shooting has been a little off. The only box score I can find is from last night against Depaul, and it ain't pretty. But if your guys aren't shooting well, then by all means I hope they press hard and try to trap our guards the whole game. That should give us some easy lay-ups, which we might make.

[Kung Wu]

With all due respect to @Kung Wu: I have not made a specific prediction on any of our games to date and considering that we are 5-0 I am too superstitious to start now. However, I will be pretty disappointed if the Shocks do not remain undefeated after tonight. This is absolutely a game we can and probably should win. I expect a close game with a point differential of 3 to 8 points.

Hahaha -- it's the prediction AND pregame discussion thread. You aren't required to make a prediction. I was just goofballin' on all the bizwaxes that do neither really. And even then I don't really care -- I was just having an @ShockerFever: moment.

[Kung Wu]

A quick glance at records (and I wasn't very thorough) shows that Wichita State is 5-2 all time against Iowa.

My prediction is we can be thankful for being 6-2 after Thursday.

75-57 Shockers.

MORE HARDWARE!!

[Snapshot9]

I watched some of the Iowa game last night and I was not impressed. We look to be a much more athletic team than Iowa, and if the game speeds up that will go in our favor.
I especially like the comments about Hall too. They just don't know, do they? They will find out tonight... I like the leadership that the Seniors are showing, and Demetric stepped up big last night, as well as Malcomb. Look for more balanced scoring tonight, as I think more of our players will step their game up, and we have plenty to throw at them.

BTW, Vegasinsider has us as a 3 point underdog.

[WuDrWu]

Sounds like the Iowa's press may be just a nuisance press designed to force a team to take a little more time in getting into their half-court offense. Which could be effective with the Shocks unless we step up our game a little in the half-court.

If the trend for this year's team holds true we will win this game primarily based on our defense.

Very astute observation '72. That will be the goal against us tonight, if and when Iowa presses us. They can only hope to turn us over. The Hawkeyes aren't anywhere close to being as good a defensive team as VCU and they are light years away from the athletes that VCU and frankly DePaul throws at you. If their press turns us over, it's 100% on us.

Now, a nuisance press can and probably will have some effectiveness against us. We've struggled in the half court and having less time to set up our offense will probably accentuate that.

The problem Iowa (and most team on our schedule) will have is they aren't as good a defensive team as WSU. Fran is a good coach, but Marshall is better. We have better athletes. I believe we have better basketball players and we're more physical. We will have to play poorly for Iowa to beat us tonight. Our best effort beats their best effort.

[WuDrWu]

I think the reason for your calmness is that despite all the new faces, they seem to jell together quite well and they seem to not get rattled when things are not going a expected. They look suprising like last years team with a new cast of characters.

Perhaps. Certainly our seniors are doing exactly what you hope seniors do.

I will tell you this though....this team does the little things that for the most part I haven't seen a WSU team do in a long, long, long time. There is great chemistry on this team...they want to help each other, they play well together, they share the basketball and they GET AFTER IT 94X50.

I think Gregg's comment the day after Howard was very telling....he said it wasn't as bad as he first thought. That's because even though the score looked bad, there were a lot of little things the team did well that just didn't produce a good number on the scoreboard.

I believe that's the kind of effort this team is going to give every night, and that's certainly part of why I am calm.

The fact this team isn't anywhere NEAR it's collective ceiling, and remains undefeated, probably has something to do with it as well.

[another shocker]

The problem for Iowa is that Armstead is a lock down defender point guard. Their point guard (and any MVC PG) is going to be severely harassed by him in every way imaginable. That much we can count on, game in, game out.. and that's a huge factor.

'Not sure why the Hawkeye board is so disrespectful to Wichita State. Don't those people know about Ralph Miller?

[shocktheheart]

I watched some of the Iowa game last night and I was not impressed. We look to be a much more athletic team than Iowa, and if the game speeds up that will go in our favor.
I especially like the comments about Hall too. They just don't know, do they? They will find out tonight... I like the leadership that the Seniors are showing, and Demetric stepped up big last night, as well as Malcomb. Look for more balanced scoring tonight, as I think more of our players will step their game up, and we have plenty to throw at them.

BTW, Vegasinsider has us as a 3 point underdog.

We are 3 point favorites.

http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-basketball/odds/las-vegas/

[1972Shocker]

The fact this team isn't anywhere NEAR it's collective ceiling, and remains undefeated, probably has something to do with it as well.

This. +1000

[Kung Wu]

Why would the press be a bad strategy for Iowa?

For two reasons: Malcolm Armstead and Demetric Williams.

[HawkeyeGold]

Hi, Hawkeye fan here but long time Shocker admirer as well. I won't predict a winner or final score - of course I'm a homer and my heart thinks Iowa's going to win every game. But truthfully, I don't think any of us really knows what to expect, just what we want to expect :D - everything I know about your kids is what I saw last night and what I've read in this thread. But I'll make some game predictions. First I'll give you a flyby of our squad.


Right up front, Fran is going to press on some level. He'll do it smart. My guess is that he tries to press you hard early in the game. If you prove you can beat it, he won't stubbornly stay in it. We probably won't turn you over much but we're definitely going to try to make you run a few seconds off the shot clock before you get into your sets most times, assuminng we're scoring. Hard to press effectively when the offense is struggling.


Don't expect slow ball from Iowa. This team is built to go up and down the court. Even our 7'1" freshman center has gotten behind the defense a time or two in the break. That being said, our strength so far this year has been our defense. Expect a mix of matchup zone and man defenses. What we lack in athleticism we make up for in length. We sometimes break down a bit on help side rotation, but our inside guys are not always beat when they look like they're beat. Expect a lot of blocked shots - we're getting them at a rate of about 7 a game.


Offensively, we'll run motion and try to find cutters. We'll feed the post and look for cutters or kickout for jump shots. Marble is generally our go to guy when we need someone to create their own shot. Gesell, McCabe and Marble - even White, though not yet this year - can all hit the three but the guy you're going to want your D to recognize is Oglesby - he can change games if he gets hot. Expect White to get a junk basket here and there. Basabi is strong of the low block. Woodbury is young but he's a gamer - will play limited minutes (probably) but has good footwork and offensive polish for a freshman 7 footer. Can go with either hand and will be a problem for any one defender while he's in the game.


My predicition for the game.


If you're playing odds, play the over. I know Iowa likes to run, but I suspect BOTH teams like to get up and down and I expect them to feed off each other from a tempo standpoint. Depending on how true that is, it could even get sloppy fast at times. It should be a fun game to watch. Whichever team is better able to handle the transition game - execute on offense and recover on defense - is likely to have a big advantage in this game. Neither team is going to be intimidated and I expect both to bring it. Should be a really good game and I wouldn't be surprised at all 150+ points go on the board.


Best of luck tonight, win or lose.

[CBB_Fan]

I'm looking forward to this game. All due respect to our previous opponents, you guys are the first really quality team Iowa has played, so it will be a good measuring stick for us. We have 2 talented freshmen as key contibutors, Mike Gesell PG and Adam Woodbury C. We've yet to see how these guys will handle a tough opponent, so tonight we find out I suppose.

I've seen a lot of WSU board comments that the press would be ineffective against Wichita St. I've unfortunately not see too many WSU games. Why would the press be a bad strategy for Iowa? McCaffery runs it quite a bit, so something's gotta give.

I say that a press would be ineffective because we've already gone through a team with a very strong press; we probably spent a lot of our offseason preparing for it. Because we have two fairly steady senior PGs with good ability to break the press, we tend to score more against the press than against a normal defense.

As a team, we haven't found a consistent offense yet. Carl Hall is our inside scoring, but he has a tendency to miss easy shots in the heat the game (at least the last couple of games). Early can score almost effortlessly, but likes to rely on a very bad perimeter shot, though he is an excellent free throw shoot. Our two local starters, Ron Baker and Evan Wessel, can shoot from outside but don't create their own shots very much.

Because of who we play and our strengths, a press is probably a bad idea. In most games, it lets us get to the basket and score at the rim, which Hall, Early, Armstead, and Williams all do very well (and all of those guys can shoot free-throws well). If you don't press, you force us to beat you with our half court offense, which is underdeveloped at this point.

[Kung Wu]

My guess is that he tries to press you hard early in the game. If you prove you can beat it, he won't stubbornly stay in it. We probably won't turn you over much but we're definitely going to try to make you run a few seconds off the shot clock before you get into your sets most times, assuminng we're scoring.

Wait wait wait.

He's gonna press us hard until we beat it, then pull out for a few seconds, and then commence ass mining while you're scoring? Did I read that right?

This is very much like another thread we have going on this board at the moment. I didn't expect it to bleed over into this thread.

LOL Welcome to Shockernet.

[WuDrWu]

Here is a prediction by an Iowa fan. http://iowa.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?f...id=940&style=2


:highly_amused:

Fans are fans. Our fans, collectively, are more confident than theirs. I would say this...I don't know what Iowa has done over the last 2 seasons, but WSU, in their last 75 games covering 2+ seasons, has lost exactly 2 games by double digits....@ San Diego State by 14 two years ago (I think they were undefeated at the time and ranked) and in the preseason tourney against a ranked Bama team by 10 last year in a game a lot closer than 10. In those same 75 games, we've beaten our opponents by double digits 46 times. Of the 14 games we've lost, we had the ball with a chance to win or tie in the last 10 seconds at some point in 10 of those games.

Iowa may win, and I suppose it's possible they'll win easily, but it's damned unlikely. WSU is better.

[CBB_Fan]

Right up front, Fran is going to press on some level. He'll do it smart. My guess is that he tries to press you hard early in the game. If you prove you can beat it, he won't stubbornly stay in it. We probably won't turn you over much but we're definitely going to try to make you run a few seconds off the shot clock before you get into your sets most times, assuminng we're scoring. Hard to press effectively when the offense is struggling.<br>


Don't expect slow ball from Iowa. This team is built to go up and down the court. Even our 7'1" freshman center has gotten behind the defense a time or two in the break. That being said, our strength so far this year has been our defense. Expect a mix of matchup zone and man defenses. What we lack in athleticism we make up for in length. We sometimes break down a bit on help side rotation, but our inside guys are not always beat when they look like they're beat. Expect a lot of blocked shots - we're getting them at a rate of about 7 a game.


Offensively, we'll run motion and try to find cutters. We'll feed the post and look for cutters or kickout for jump shots. Marble is generally our go to guy when we need someone to create their own shot. Gesell, McCabe and Marble - even White, though not yet this year - can all hit the three but the guy you're going to want your D to recognize is Oglesby - he can change games if he gets hot. Expect White to get a junk basket here and there. Basabi is strong of the low block. Woodbury is young but he's a gamer - will play limited minutes (probably) but has good footwork and offensive polish for a freshman 7 footer. Can go with either hand and will be a problem for any one defender while he's in the game.


My predicition for the game.

If you're playing odds, play the over. I know Iowa likes to run, but I suspect BOTH teams like to get up and down and I expect them to feed off each other from a tempo standpoint. Depending on how true that is, it could even get sloppy fast at times. It should be a fun game to watch. Whichever team is better able to handle the transition game - execute on offense and recover on defense - is likely to have a big advantage in this game. Neither team is going to be intimidated and I expect both to bring it. Should be a really good game and I wouldn't be surprised at all 150+ points go on the board.

Best of luck tonight, win or lose.

If Iowa presses, it will probably be to slow Wichita State down and reduce the time on the clock. That could be very effective. The posts I've made in this thread (and that other people have made) are based around a press designed to make the opposing team turn the ball over. So far, that has been one of this Wichita State team's greatest strengths, because they've managed to keep even or beat every team we've played that has tried to make us turn the ball over (even VCU).

We seem like similar teams, though Wichita State tends to win in the halfcourt, especially on defense. We have two guards, Demetric Williams and Malcolm Armstead, that are averaged more than 2 steals a game. Armstead was originally the starting PG at Oregon, where he broke the single season steals record twice before transferring. Additionally, we have lot of paint protectors. Orukpe, our 7 footer, is the major one, but his role is mainly to intimidate the other team on defense (he averaged about 5 blocks per 40 minutes last year, but didn't play much); Offensively he challenged, to say the least. Carl Hall and Cleanthony Early are our scorers, but both have the coordination and athleticism to block shots. Hall has blocks 3 shots against VCU, Depaul, and North Carolina Central. &nbsp;Most of the time, we tend to block shots that are already well in the air, so you won't see a lot of post blocks or blocked layups.

As a team, we've had problems shooting the 3. We are currently averaging a ghastly 26% as a team, while our team last year had crazy numbers of shooters. We had 6 players last year that shot over 30% last year, including our center, and our PG had the second highest 3PT% in the nation (52% if I remember correctly). &nbsp;We score mainly around the rim and through offensive rebounds, which is why a press actually helps us. Again, only Wessel and Baker are threats at this time, though Armstead made a game-winning 19ft jump shot to beat VCU.

So far, Wichita State hasn't looked pretty in any real game. However, they are absolutely deadly defensively, and have the potential to score at a much higher rate than they currently are averaging. We've held VCU and DePaul to &lt;30% from the field and the same from the 3PT line, and our defense tends to wear out the other team enough that the FT% drops. The problem is that haven't been doing much better. &nbsp;If we get out and run (and we should be able to), we will get more points than we did against DePaul, but our biggest strengths right now are beating the press and our half-court defense.