Iowa Basketball: Dom Uhl Must Regain Form for Hawkeyes

The Iowa Basketball team has had it’s struggles recently. In large part, it is due to the lack of bench scoring they’ve received. Sure, there are other factors, but the bench is the biggest one. And it starts with Dom Uhl.

Uhl played in 33 games as a freshman for Fran McCaffery’s Hawkeyes, averaging 10 minutes per contest. He averaged around 2 points and 2 rebounds per game and really wasn’t much of a factor in his first year. The New Jersey product’s best game came early in the season against Alcorn State when he recorded 11 points and 6 rebounds in a 67-44 rout.

The Hawkeyes were without a doubt going to be looking for Uhl to have a bigger impact in his sophomore campaign. And for the most part, he has. In the first 11 Big Ten games, Uhl averaged 7.5 points, 3.4 rebounds, and shot nearly 54% from behind the arc. He’s bigger, more aggressive, and his shot has developed a lot. Especially from downtown, considering he shot only 5-27 from deep last season.

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His contributions off the bench coupled with Jarrod Uthoff‘s All-American play, had Iowa rolling out of the gates in conference play. Over the first 11 games, the Hawkeyes were 10-1 and sitting atop the Big Ten standings, which is something nobody would’ve predicted before the season started.

Now we’ve gotten deeper into conference play and teams are battling not only for Big Ten tournament seeding, but for potential NCAA berths. Sure, Iowa has cemented themselves in the tournament, but teams like Wisconsin, who Iowa lost to the other night, have not and they are looking to get there. The stretch run is starting take a toll on the Hawkeyes, especially Uhl, it seems.

Over the last four games, Uhl has scored a total of 10 points, and is averaging right around 2.75 rebounds per game. He’s also only attempted one three point field goal over the course of those four games, which seems very odd given his play early on.

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At the start of the year, this Iowa team looked like a team that was pretty deep, but now it isn’t looking that way. Brady Ellingson is starting to look like somebody that shouldn’t play at all given the fact that he’s a three point shooter and he’s only made two three pointers in 15 Big Ten games. And they were both in the same game. Ahmad Wagner is starting show his youth a little bit, maybe the first look at a longer season is taking a toll on the freshman?

Nicholas Baer has had flashes of his old self, but nothing like what we saw over a four or five game stretch early on this season. And then there is Uhl, who is the most experienced of the bunch, and has been invisible over the last two weeks. Yes, losing Dale Jones to injury didn’t help Iowa, but I didn’t think it could possibly hurt them this much. Jones was a junior college transfer and could really stretch the floor with his three point shooting. We can only imagine what having another three point shooter added to the mix could’ve meant.

Uhl needs to get back to being aggressive and taking shots when he’s open. He”ll need to play a big role for the Hawkeyes if they have any chances of making a deep run in the NCAA tournament in late March. As far as the rest of the bench, it’s going to be about effort. Baer and Wagner get most of their points on garbage buckets and haven’t been able to give Iowa any of those with the exception of a few.

If Iowa gets Uhl back to playing his best ball, and gets the hustle from Wagner and Baer, they set themselves up for a run in the NCAA Tournament.

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