Iowa relying on offense to stay afloat while defense struggles

IOWA CITY — Typically, 14 3-pointers is enough to win.

Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery pointed that out Saturday afternoon after his team lost, 98-89, to Nebraska Omaha. The Hawkeyes had gone 27 of 67 from the field and 14 of 34 from 3-point range, but once more, defense was the discussion and pressing concern.

But offense, though it's worked much more than it hasn't this season, has gone dry at a few inopportune times. In the late stages against Seton Hall, the Hawkeyes missed free throws and a few key shots. Against Notre Dame, the final 10 minutes of the game went cold. Saturday, it was a pair of cold streaks that allowed the Mavericks to build a lead.

When defense struggles as it has for the Hawkeyes, the offense can't. It's a thin line to walk.

McCaffery has had to search for combinations and various lineups to keep the offensive flowing in the face of what have become track meets.

'I mean, it (was) not poor execution or high turnovers (against Omaha),' McCaffery said. 'We just were missing shots that we would normally make after the first couple minutes because we cut a six-point lead to one very quickly, and then maybe in the first 10 minutes of the first half we were shooting like 17 percent, gave them a chance to go back up again.

'You know, you're searching for combinations. You're searching for fresh bodies. … You know, you want to go small, you want to go big.'

Among the combinations McCaffery has used, Peter Jok, Jordan Bohannon and Cordell Pemsl have been far and away the best producers since Tyler Cook's injury in Florida.

The three combined for 127 of Iowa's 167 points in the two games since Bohannon and Pemsl joined Jok in the starting lineup. Against Omaha, they shot 21 of 42 combined from the field. The rest of the team combined to go 6 of 25 from the field for 18 points.

It would make no sense for McCaffery and the Hawkeyes to go away from the players who are giving them the best output — the exact reason, McCaffery said, that Bohannon played the entire second half Saturday.

The Hawkeyes' bench can't be silent, though, and McCaffery pointed that out. He answered a simple, 'No,' when asked if he liked anything he saw off the bench Saturday, and when asked how disappointing that was, he added, 'very, because two guys lost their starting spot last week.'

'When you have a guy that's cooking, that's comfortable, you want to leave him in there because he's in a groove and he's coming out, going back in, and sometimes you lose that edge offensively,' McCaffery said. 'Those two guys were tremendous, and so was Pete. Pete was phenomenal tonight. 33 and 10, I mean, he really took the loss the other night personally. He blamed himself completely, which is certainly not the case and certainly nothing we want him to do, but that's kind of how he is.'

Though he had just five points in each of his first two starts, Isaiah Moss is a player McCaffery — and his teammates — see as someone who can be a fourth scoring option and potentially be a key factor in the needed defensive turnaround.

Moss' aggressiveness is what got him into the starting lineup, and prompted Pemsl to laud that characteristic between the Notre Dame and Omaha games. Pemsl laughed when talking about how Moss approaches the game, that he has a fearless aggression 'where he thinks he can score on anyone, and that's a great characteristic to have as a basketball player. If we all have that, we're going to have a lot of fun this season.'

While McCaffery searches for combinations to keep the offense rolling while defense is a frustrating work-in-progress, Moss' effort on both ends could be vital should Pemsl get in foul trouble or Jok become even more blanketed than he already is.

'He has taken his game up to another level in terms of aggressiveness. And I'm not talking about physicality. I'm just talking about an aggressive mind-set. You know, he moves his feet well defensively. He's making more plays off the dribble,' McCaffery said of Moss. 'I think like I said the other night (after Notre Dame), five assists, no turns to, me, was the biggest. He hit a couple shots in that stretch where we needed buckets.

'But his decision-making, he didn't start going to hunt shots after that because he made a couple. He moved it on and threw the ball to open people. Shows you he understands how to play.'

Iowa hosts Stetson at 6 p.m. Monday on ESPNU.

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