Iowa basketball: Hawks ready to beat up on Savannah St

The Iowa basketball team looks to extend their winning streak to four games as they take on the 3-10 Savannah State Tigers tomorrow afternoon.

As we expected, mid to late December would be somewhat of a cakewalk for the Iowa basketball team. After having a few tough games in the 2K Empire Classic and then beginning Big Ten play versus the ranked Wisconsin and Michigan State basketball teams, the Hawks have been able to coast the last few weeks. First, they dominated a strong but injured Iowa State team before cruising to easy wins over the University of Northern Iowa and Western Carolina this past week.

Tomorrow afternoon, they have another easy game as they take on the hapless Savannah State Tigers who are currently in the midst of a six-game losing streak after falling to the 4-8 Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles last night 91-80.

This was to be expected though for the Tigers as they lost their three leading scorers from a team that went 15-17 overall last year and 12-4 in the MEAC.

With their top three scorers from last year gone (two graduated, one transferred), the Tigers are now led by junior guards Jaquan Dotson (13.0 ppg, 5.7 rpg) and Zach Sellers (10.8 ppg, 4.8 apg). Leading is a relative term though as the Tigers have obviously struggled the entire season. According to KenPom, the Tigers are the third worst team in the nation defensively and the ninth worst team in the nation overall. It’s not a stretch to say this will be the easiest game the Iowa basketball team faces all year.

This team relies heavily on the three-pointer, which as we saw against Western Carolina, that can at times be an effective approach to keeping you in games against better opponents. The Tigers are first in the nation in three-point attempt percentage at 59.1% and they are first in the nation in percentage of points scored from the three-point line at 48.8%. That being said, they aren’t particularly effective at actually shooting the three, in fact they are one of the worst teams in the nation at actually making three-pointers as they hit on just 28.4% of their shots.

Looking at their stats, I get the feeling this team will attempt to out run and pop shots as quickly as possible, which can only last so long especially as the Iowa basketball team wears them down with their dynamic front court duo in Tyler Cook and Luka Garza.

Tipoff for this game is set for noon central standard time at Carver Hawkeye Arena and ESPN is giving the Hawks a 99.3% chance of winning this game while KenPom is giving the Hawks a 99.9% chance of winning this game. Obviously, those are the best odds the Iowa basketball team has had all season.

It should be another one of those games where Fran gets to dig deep into his bench and give some of his role players more valuable minutes of playing time as the Hawks cruise to victory.