Iowa basketball: Hawks prepare for a dreadful Western Carolina Catamounts team

The Iowa basketball team, fresh off beating in-state UNI, is ready to take on another easily winnable non-conference game vs Western Carolina tomorrow.

While this section of the non-conference schedule might be a little boring considering the lack of general intrigue and competitiveness, it is an opportune time for the Iowa basketball team to fine tune a few more things before they enter the meat of their schedule at the beginning of 2019.

Tomorrow night’s matchup versus the Western Carolina Catamounts is the second of four easy non-conference games to end 2018 for the Hawkeyes. The first of which took place Saturday evening when Iowa beat the UNI Panthers in the final game of the Big Four Classic. 

Much like most of the games on the Iowa basketball team’s schedule, the Hawks hold a significant size advantage against the hapless Catamounts who come into this game with just three wins against nine losses.

Their tallest starters are 6’7” Carlos Dotson and Marc Gosselin. Despite playing as an undersized center, Dotson is undoubtedly Western Carolina’s most impressive player so far. He is leading the team in ball possession at 29.1% and he paces the team with 13.3 points per game on 60% shooting. At 265 pounds he will be a force downlow attacking Iowa’s twin towers, Tyler Cook and Luke Garza.

The big weakness in his game is free throw shooting, where he is effective at getting to the line but ineffective at capitalizing (hitting just 45% of his free throws).

The rest of the team lives and dies from the three-point range where 39.4% of their points are coming from. That would be an awesome number (ranked 29th in college basketball) if it weren’t for the fact that they have to take a ton of shots to get there (they are making just 34.6% of their attempts).

Defensively, they are one of the worst teams in the nation with a KenPom adjusted efficiency of 108.1 (subscription required) which ranks them 285th in the nation. For Fran McCaffery’s Iowa basketball team, this means they should be able to score at will with their wide array of versatile scorers.

This game tips off at 8 PM Central Standard Time at Carver Hawkeye Arena tomorrow evening, and it will be aired on the Big Ten Network, or if you happen to live in the area, you can get to the game for just $2. It should be pretty quick and painless. KenPom gives the Catamounts just a 1% chance of victory and ESPN gives them a 3.2% chance.