Iowa Basketball: Thoughts After Loss To Omaha Mavericks

The Iowa Hawkeyes dropped their fourth straight game, now what?

In the midst of a crazy college football championship weekend, Iowa basketball lost their fourth straight game. Not to an opponent that will earn them a bye at the end of the season, rather against the Omaha Mavericks, marking this as one of the worst losses of Fran McCaffery‘s career.

Iowa dropped their fourth straight game, 98-89. Omaha outscored the Hawkeyes in both halves, and four players scored in double-digits for the Mavericks.

The Hawkeyes defensive struggles continued, as well, especially in the paint. Forwards Tre’Shawn Thurman and Mitchell Hahn combined for 32 points and 14 rebounds.

Overall, the Mavericks grabbed eight more rebounds than the Hawkeyes, forced three more turnovers and shot 47.9 percent to Iowa’s 40.3 percent from the field. All three areas combined helped Omaha overcome Iowa’s 14 made threes and very good 41.2 three-point percentage.

Offensively, Iowa had the same struggles. Peter Jok struggled shooting at 8-of-21 from the field, and outside of Jok’s 33 points, Jordan Bohannon‘s 20 points and Cordell Pemsl‘s 18 points, the Hawkeyes had zero help on offense.

In fact, the bench combined for nine points on 18.8 percent shooting from the field and 20 percent shooting from three.

The Hawkeyes are now 0-3 in games Jok scores 30 points, a feat that’s very hard to accomplish. Iowa is now on a four game losing streak and their 3-5 record is turning into a laughable mark, as they quickly become more and more irrelevant in the Big Ten.

Still, despite Iowa not only losing to Omaha, a team in the Summit Conference, but simply being outplayed, many are saying there’s no reason to panic.

“It’s a rebuilding season,” or “They’re young and it’s just the start of the season,” are common phrases being thrown around.

Both are true. Plus, Iowa is still trying to find their identity without Tyler Cook.

That being said, there comes a point where excuses aren’t valid anymore, and when it’s time to face reality that Iowa basketball isn’t good this year but a loss to Omaha is still unacceptable.

Losing to Memphis despite a 42-point performance by Peter Jok is mind-boggling, but Memphis is also 6-2 right now and in a respectable American Athletic Conference. It’s a loss that at the end of the season won’t look terrible, rather a game that Iowa’s youth couldn’t comeback in late. The same goes with losses to Notre Dame, Virginia and Seton Hall.

Although, a loss to Omaha shows the bigger problems with Iowa’s young team.

McCaffery has tried changing his starting lineup, to no avail. He’s trying to search for options off the bench when Jok isn’t hitting every three he takes, or when Bohannon and Pemsl need rest.

However, the bigger issue at hand with this young team is that they don’t show up to play every game.

They looked defeated before Virginia jumped out to a quick lead, and Iowa started slow against Omaha, as if they expected the Mavericks to roll over because they’re on the road against a Big Ten team. It seems like they felt their pure talent would be enough to beat a small program in Nebraska.

With teams like Stetson, Delaware State and North Dakota still on their non-conference schedule, it will be interesting to see how they start games against mid-majors the rest of the way.