Another top 25 match up against an experienced team for the young Tar Heels against #3 Iowa. Iowa starts 2 seniors, 2 juniors and 1 sophomore. 4 of these starters are guards. This works out in UNC’s favor on the offensive end because their smaller guard is going to have to guard one of our post players. I would suspect Iowa to give significant help to the post and maybe even double, considering we haven’t proven we can consistently make outside shots. This could be a problem on the defensive end because one of our post players is going to have to guard, a quicker guard. I would like to see us switch up our defenses and maybe play at 2-3 or 3-2 zone when they have 4 guards on the floor. I still think we play to our strength and pound the post. Outside of Garza who is 6ft 11in tall, they have one other forward that comes off the bench that is 6ft 11in tall, other than that the tallest player who sees significant time is 6ft 9in. Iowa lost the rebounding battles against Southern and allowed more offensive rebounds against W. Illinois. Sometimes our best offense is a missed shot and there will be rebounds to be had against Iowa. The obvious key to the game is containing the 6ft 11in, All-American Garza. He is averaging 34 PPG, shoots 76% from the field and 62.5% from 3. Garza is going to get his points, the key is to limiting that and making other players beat us. I would say the magic number would be to keep Garza to under 25 and preferably 20. UNC has 4 bigs we can throw at him, and I would imagine Roy will throw the whole rotation at him depending on how effective he is. Hot take, but I could see Kessler getting a lot of playing time. Physically he matches up against Garza and has the height and length to bother him. Garza obviously has more experience though, but it is a possible match up to look at. As I said before we need to pound post and hopefully we can get Garza into foul trouble or at the very least be able to wear him down with fresh bodies. Garza is a senior, so I think he is smarter then to get himself into foul trouble but if we force him to defend frequently it could happen. Iowa shoots 50% as a team from the field and 39% from 3 on the season. They have 6 players shooting 40% or better from 3, so defending the 3 will be crucial yet again. We have a bad habit of over helping and getting lost on the weak side. Iowa also takes care of the ball, averaging 10 turnovers in 3 games. UNC must take care of the ball, as we won’t be getting many extra possessions. I would say 10 turnovers would be the magic number. Iowa’s 3 games this year haven’t been against very good competition. UNC won a hard fought close game against a good Stanford team and lost a heart breaking game to a ranked, experienced Texas team after playing and shooting poorly. Quick rant: UNC is the point guard U and the art of being a true PG is slowly dying. I guess I got spoiled watching Ty Lawson, Kendall Marshall, Marcus Paige and Joel Berry orchestrate the offense. A point guard is supposed to run/facilitate the offense, not be the offense. Love is trying desperately to be the dynamic scorer he has been throughout his basketball career and forces many things. Our freshmen guards don’t know how to feed the post because they have probably never had to. The ball was put into their hands and they were told to go score. They would probably be more successful if they feed the post and learned to move without the ball. If we can get our post game going, then it will open up more things for them, much in the way that a running game opens up the passing game in football. Lastly, freethrows. Our poor free throw shooting absolutely infuriates me. There used to be a time when UNC was almost automatic and now we pray that they make them. Just lack of focus and attention to detail. I know free throws aren’t as flashy as dunks or step back fade-aways but they still count for 2 points if you make them both. Every free throw counts and we saw that in the Texas game. I admire our guards’ willingness to get to the basket, but you have to make it count when you go to the line. The same goes our post players. You have to know that when you are banging in the post, you are going to get fouled. Make your trips to the free throw line count!
The basic summary of this game comes down to this… experience and smart play against inexperience and raw talent. We definitely have the more athletic and talented team, but that doesn’t always matter. Iowa’s experience will serve them greatly especially this year with the rona situation. We have looked like a team that is out of sync and hasn’t played together much. Iowa, and Garza in particular, have put up big numbers in their first couple of games, but it is hard to judge how good they actually are considering the level of competition they have played. They won’t dumb themselves out of the game, and if we can keep it close, our last two games will serve us well. They were close games against quality opponents and lets be real, Texas is more athletic than Iowa.
It will be our first real road game of the year as going to Asheville didn’t require much travel. None of our players have played in Iowa’s gym either. The rona negates a little bit of the home court advantage, but it is still there. What I mean by that is this, Iowa is used to playing in their gym. ESPN or Sports Science, I honestly can’t remember who wrote it, did an article on how teams try to increase their home court advantage as much as possible. I thought it was crazy, but certain teams purposefully use balls that very few teams use in order to gain an advantage. How a ball feels in a shooter’s hands can affect a lot. Then you take into account the depth perception you get when looking at the basket based on what is in the background. This year that means little to no fans. Just an interesting thought, I would be curious to know if that has any effect on shooting percentages this year for the reasons I mentioned above. I wonder if percentages will be up or down compared to last year. Again it sounds crazy, but all of this stuff can factor in. I am also just kind of thinking out loud.
We have had a little under a week to prepare and hope Roy has had the boys running for every missed free throw and turnover at practice. A week should be plenty of time to have a defensive game plan for Garza and their 4 guard rotation. Only time will tell.
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