During the final 10 games between Illinois coach Brad Underwood and former Iowa boss Fran McCaffery, the Illini won nine.
If things are going to change during new Hawkeyes coach Ben McCollum’s first encounter with Underwood, then McCollum’s crew needs to become more like the Illini.
As No. 19 Iowa (12-3, 2-2) prepared to host No. 16 Illinois (12-3, 3-1) on Sunday morning in Iowa City, McCollum did a brilliant job of breaking down why the Hawkeyes lost Tuesday in Minnesota.
But first, understand that Illinois ranks No. 3 nationally in offensive efficiency (per KenPom) in part because its attack is so balanced.
Freshman Keaton Wagler (15.5 ppg, 3.7 apg) leads four starters in double figures while tag-team centers Tomislav Ivisic and Zvonimir Ivisic combine for 17.6 points per game.
“I think the beauty of this team is six guys in double figures – or close to it,” Underwood said.
Iowa’s dream is to be as balanced as Illinois. Senior point guard Bennett Stirtz (18.0 ppg, 5.0 apg) is playing so well that he earned a spot on the 25-man John Wooden Award mid-season watch list. But he’s the team’s only double-figure scorer.
Stirtz is so clearly Iowa’s main guy, the Hawkeyes are continually trying to figure out how to work that to their advantage when other teams load up to stop Stirtz.
“That’s the daily deal,” McCollum said. “That’s the hardest part. Because you have to leverage other sides. You can’t just leverage Bennett. You have to leverage whoever’s screening for him and then everybody else surrounding him.”
On Friday, McCollum frequently came back to “leverage” and “pace” as the solutions to “getting stuck” like the Hawkeyes did Tuesday at Minnesota.
“The other thing we have to leverage is just the pace of play,” McCollum said. “The first half of UCLA (a 74-61 win on Jan. 3), our pace was really good. And I don’t mean pace, like, shoot the ball quick pace. I mean getting from action to action very, very quickly. And in the second half, it got stuck. And when you get stuck, you have to leverage.
“Like, if you set (a screen) for Bennett and there’s a back side to that, meaning there’s another guy that’s setting that. Then, if they put two on Bennett, that guy has to be just as much of a threat as Bennett to create those (defensive) rotations. Otherwise, you have to do it with pace and attack the paint and stuff like that. We need to find that secondary leverage. And then we also need to make sure that we play with pace.”
Oddly, the rest of Iowa’s offense is as balanced as any in the country. There’s little difference between No. 2 scorer Tavion Banks (9.3 ppg) and No. 6 scorer Isaia Howard (7.3 ppg). And No. 7 scorer Kael Combs stepped up for a career-high 14 points at Minnesota.
“I think we’ve been really dialed in,” Underwood said. “I think we’ve gotten much better at not giving up layups and easy baskets. That helps.
“But all in all, I think that group jells pretty well together on the defensive side. We’ve got good length and we’re doing a nice job of making things just really difficult.”
