Few rewards yet, but Tucker says team gets better each game

Moral victories don't come easily when programs expect to compete for championships.

Iowa (2-5) has played well in spurts, played smart most of the time and played hard nearly every possession. But the team hasn't seen many rewards for its efforts.

“I know it might not seem that way with our record, but anybody that's seen us play can attest to the fact that we've gotten better in every single game, which is a positive,” guard Anthony Tucker said. “You don't really see that this early in the season, the strides that we've made. I feel like we're a much better team than when we played Texas-San Antonio and Duquesne. I feel like we'll continue to get better.”

Iowa stumbled in its first two games against veteran-laden teams Texas-San Antonio and Duquesne by 12 and two points, respectively. Those teams combined to win 40 games last year, and Iowa's inexperience showed in lapses on both ends of the court.

Iowa rallied to beat Bowling Green (19 wins last year) and North Carolina Central (four wins). Iowa also lost to No. 2 Texas, Wichita State and Virginia Tech.

It's difficult for Iowa's players and coaches to accept the growing pains of progress.

“It's so early in the season you can't write the season off at this point. It's pointless,” Tucker said. “There's no reason to. We could go out and win the rest of the games with five losses and it's a great season. There's no reason to panic or write the season off. You just have to get better.”

“I'm not into moral victories. I want to win,” Iowa Coach Todd Lickliter said. “We had (Virginia Tech) down one late and just couldn't get a couple of back-to-back plays. My thing with this team has been improvement and to continue to grow and accept tough situations.”

Tucker spurred Iowa with a 24-point effort against Virginia Tech in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. Iowa trailed by 10 points in both halves and retook a lead late in the game only to lose, 70-64. Although the game was filled with gaps of sloppy transition defense and missed offensive opportunities, it may have been Iowa's best to date.

“We just couldn't keep them from scoring whenever we needed to,” Iowa center Jarryd Cole said. “We played good defense but they scored whenever they had to.”

Like Cole, Tucker can see the problems, especially if Iowa doesn't have a good offensive possession. Iowa had 11 turnovers against Virginia Tech - 10 in the first half - and the Hokies scored 16 points off them.

“I think we're taking some tough shots,” Tucker said. “I think that's when we start shooting some contested 3s and let the shot clock get down and not get great looks and then bad shots result in transition, easy transition for them. We'd like to make them work on defense a little bit more.

“We can't have stretches where we score and we let them get some easy ones in transition, and we get down eight, 10 points. It makes it tough to come back.”