The Iowa basketball team is off to their best start since the 2013-2014 season. Fran McCaffrey’s team looks to continue this at they take on Pitt tomorrow.
The men’s Iowa basketball team is sitting at 5-0 after winning the 2K Empire Classic tournament and beating Alabama State the night before Thanksgiving. Although the Hawks struggled initially in their first two games against UMKC and the University of Green Bay, all the truly matters is their record, and right now the Hawkeyes couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season.
This surprising 5-0 start has led to Iowa’s inclusion in the AP top-25 poll. Now, the Hawkeyes are ranked #14 in the nation.
Tomorrow evening, the Iowa basketball team looks to continue this hot start as they take on the University of Pittsburgh Panthers who are currently sitting at 6-0. Although both teams are undefeated, Pittsburgh’s path hasn’t exactly mirrored the one the Hawkeyes have taken.
Iowa has faced two quality opponents in #18 Oregon and the University of Connecticut Huskies (who are receiving votes in the AP Poll) and came away victorious by a large margin. Pitt, meanwhile has remained undefeated by facing teams from the Horizon, Southern, Sunbelt, Southland, A-10, and A-Sun conferences. Not exactly a list of conferences screaming talented schools.
Nevertheless, the University of Pitt is 6-0.
That being said, they are expected to be one of the worst teams in the ACC this season, and they have to head to Iowa City to play the Iowa basketball team in Carver Hawkeye Arena.
The Pittsburgh Panthers are in their first season under head coach Jeff Capel who last was serving on Duke’s staff as an assistant coach. Prior to that, Capel was head coach at Oklahoma in the earlier part of the decade. In his first season, Capel has nine players who returned from last year’s squad that went 8-24 including 0-18 in the ACC.
From that group of nine players, only two were among the Panther’s top five scorers from last season (Jared Wilson-Frame and Shamiel Stevenson). Capel did do a great job of bringing in talent as his recruiting class ranked 32nd in the nation for 2018 and included three top-300 players with two of those being four-star players. All three of those players among the 2018-2019 Pitt’s top five scorers.
Similar to some of the small school opponents Iowa has faced, this should be an opportunity for the big men to dominate. Pitt features just one guy over 6’6” (Kene Chukwuka) their starting lineup. In addition to Kene, the Pitt starting lineup is a youth movement with three freshman starting and last year’s second leading scorer, Jared Wilson-Frame, coming off the bench as a sixth man averaging 27.2 minutes per game.
Although it’s tough to glean much from overall team statistics considering Pitt’s opponents, three key items jump out. Pitt is adept at getting to the free throw line (and capitalizing), they are strong from inside the arc, and they have been great at defending the smaller schools they are facing.
Regardless, with the Iowa basketball team playing solid basketball right now and getting production from all over the lineup in each game, this shouldn’t be much of an issue for Fran’s team in their last game before beginning their Big Ten slate of games Friday evening.
Tip off for tomorrow’s night game is set for 8 PM CST at Carver Hawkeye Arena and can be viewed on ESPNU.