By Blake Dowson
While most Iowa students were enjoying their time at home during Thanksgiving break, the men’s basketball team was in Florida getting beat up by No. 7 Virginia and Memphis.
After the Emerald Coast Classic losses, the Hawkeyes (3-4) traveled to South Bend and lost, 92-78, to a tough Notre Dame squad.
After all of that traveling and playing teams that will likely make the NCAA Tournament, seeing Nebraska-Omaha in Carver-Hawkeye will be a sight for sore eyes for head coach Fran McCaffery and his team.
The Hawkeyes haven’t played a complete game in a while, something that needs to happen against the Mavericks on Saturday.
Against Virginia, Iowa couldn’t score. Against Memphis, Iowa couldn’t defend. There were stretches of both instances against Notre Dame.
“We had that one cold spell in the game where we didn’t score the ball, and they did,” McCaffery said after the loss to the Fighting Irish. “So there’s the difference in the game.”
Nebraska-Omaha should be an opportunity to work out some kinks in both the offense and defense. The Mavericks also sit at 3-4 this season, although the level of competition hasn’t been that of the Hawkeye’s schedule.
However, Omaha kept a game close against Southern Cal earlier this season, losing, 82-72, in Los Angeles and 81-68 to Kansas State in Manhattan.
They have played the Hawkeyes tough in the past as well, competing with Iowa all the way until the end in 2013, but ultimately lost, 83-75, in Iowa City.
The Summit League opponent gives McCaffery another chance to let his freshmen log some major minutes. He had three frosh in the starting lineup against Notre Dame — Isaiah Moss, Jordan Bohannon, and Cordell Pemsl, all made their first career starts.
The overwhelming consensus was good for the young Hawkeyes. Bohannon, if the Notre Dame game is any indication, seems to have taken a firm hold on the starting point guard position. He lit it up with 7 3-point field goals, 7 assists, and only 1 turnover in 32 minutes, and McCaffery said that’s the Bohannon to expect.
“[Bohannon] did that regularly in high school,” he said. “[The] basket’s the same distance. He’s going to make 6 or 8 3s, because he’s going to keep shooting them and working to get open.”
Moss is another freshman to keep an eye on.
His head coach said it was obvious he was nervous making his first start, but after he calmed down, he played pretty well.
Moss is one of the streakier scorers on the team — when he gets going, he can really fill up the stat sheet. Having someone such as that in the game when leading scorer Peter Jok is shooting 20 percent from the field is vital.
Until freshman Tyler Cook comes back from a broken finger, expect Moss (and Pemsl) to eat a lot of those minutes.
McCaffery said as much in his postgame press conference in South Bend.
“No. 1, [Moss has] been playing better, and No. 2, I think I did him a disservice in our last game not playing him enough,” he said. “I wanted to shake up the lineup, I wanted to go small, so I thought he’s got the speed, the quickness, the size, and length that would matchup.”
