Uthoff & Company have shot the lights out so far, and they will need to continue to do so against No. 4 Iowa State.
By Kyle Mann
After losing Aaron White and Gabe Olaseni from last year’s team, the Iowa men’s basketball team is undergoing a shift in philosophy in 2015-16. Once a big, strong team deep in the frontcourt, the Hawkeyes need to prove to be a better outside shooting team.
Iowa has shown promise early in the season, but it will be tested mightily as it travels to No. 4 Iowa State today.
Iowa finished 11th out of 14 Big Ten teams in 3-point shooting in 2014-15, hitting on just 33 percent collectively. Nine games into the new season, the Hawkeyes sit third, improving to 40.2 percent. Furthermore, the offense has vaulted to second in overall scoring with 83.8 points per game and third with a scoring margin of plus-16.6.
Sharpshooting senior Jarrod Uthoff has been at the head of the offense, and he has thus far lived up to the hype as one of the best pure shooters in the conference, if not in the country. Uthoff averages 18 points per game on better than 50 percent from the field, and perhaps more impressively, shooting 48.8 percent from 3 land, taking between four and five 3s per game.
As impressive as Uthoff has been from the outset this year, he will meet the Cyclones coming off of his best game, a 27-point performance on 10-of-16 from the floor and 4-of-5 from beyond the arc.
“I was just open,” Uthoff said. “I normally shoot open shots, so I was open, and I was feeling it. When you’re in that flow, you tend to just be in the zone.”
Uthoff is essentially automatic with time to set his feet, and he will increasingly see defenses help to keep a defender close. In such a situation, Uthoff is eager to pass the ball along, and thus far has seen his teammates drastically improve as shooters alongside him.
Peter Jok is the second leading scorer and also the second-most prolific 3-point shooter, attempting as many per game as Uthoff, and converting at a respectable 34 percent. Furthermore, guards Anthony Clemmons and Mike Gesell are shooting 33 percent and 39 percent, respectively, and stretch-4s Dom Uhl and Nick Baer are each hitting at a 50 percent clip.
All of this adds up to create an offense that has, to this point, offset its apparent shortcomings in the frontcourt and has appeared to capture head coach Fran McCaffery’s up-tempo philosophy reminiscent of his days at Siena. McCaffery and Company will be tested today, however; Iowa State just so happens to be nationally elite doing many of the same things.
The Cyclones score 86.9 points per game, which would place them between Indiana (87.1) and Iowa at the top of the Big Ten. They shoot 37 percent from beyond the arc, a very dangerous clip for such a fast offense and more concerning for the Hawkeyes, hold opponents to .293 from outside.
Combined with the daunting atmosphere of Hilton Coliseum, today’s Cy-Hawk game will offer the first opportunity to gauge if Iowa’s shooters and offensive firepower are legitimate.
“We’re a team that can shoot the ball very well,” Gesell said. “But at the same time, I don’t think we have to rely on the 3. I think that’s important, because there are going to be nights you’re not hitting shots, and you’ve got to get buckets other ways.”
Regardless if the shots end up falling or not, Iowa knows this will be one of the best teams it will face all year.
“Playing the fourth-ranked team in the country with a lot of experience,” McCaffery said. “[Today gets] a lot tougher.”
