Short turnaround keeps Hawkeyes focused

IOWA CITY — Given the news about Dale Jones' pending season-ending knee surgery, plus the other growing pains for the Iowa men's basketball team, time to focus on fixing those issues and how they want to play would be invaluable.

But as it seems to always go in these types of situations, the Hawkeyes don't get the benefit of time before they're back on the court.

Coach Fran McCaffery didn't even get to watch all of the Big Ten championship game Saturday night because he had to start game prep for Western Illinois, which comes to Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Monday. A short turnaround means trying to fight two battles at once.

'We will do a little of both. We'll break this down and we'll show some clips. There was some problem areas (Saturday), but I think if you were to look at positives and negatives there were way more positives, clearly,' McCaffery said. 'The way our bench played, the way our starters played, at times, got us a lead, got us another lead in the second half. Most importantly, you're playing against a team that likes to press, 2-2-1, we have six (turnovers), we have 22 assists, we out-rebound them. We know those are the areas that you look at. If you're turning it over, and you're getting beat on the glass, you're having a hard time winning.'

The Leathernecks (6-1) come in shooting 51.4 percent as a team overall and 50.4 percent from 3-point range.

They have three scorers averaging in double digits, led by Garrett Covington at 17.9 points per game. J.C. Fuller — who is a Sioux City East grad and played against Mike Gesell in high school — is shooting 54 percent overall and 64 percent from 3-point range while averaging 16.6 points per game.

Guard-oriented teams have posed problems for the Hawkeyes so far this season, and the issues raised make their assertiveness all the more important.

McCaffery, who was asked last Monday about his team's shot selection and how selfish or unselfish he wants them to be, doubled down on what he said then: he likes where they're at, but wants to see more from his best players.

'I like the way we share the ball. I always would say I wish Jarrod would be more assertive. You look at him and say we had 13 (points) and seven (rebounds), with five blocks in 21 minutes. Fabulous game (Saturday),' McCaffery said. 'You always kind of look at him and say well, he could have shot it more. He's just an unselfish guy. You got to love that about him. He did get it inside a little bit (Saturday) and that was important for us.'

It was this Western Illinois team that went into the Kohl Center and beat Wisconsin to begin its season.

At 6-1 and with that victory as evidence enough, any thought to looking past WIU toward the Cy-Hawk rivalry matchup on Thursday was dismissed very quickly by McCaffery and his players, with McCaffery saying, 'we don't ever worry about that kind of stuff. This team beat Wisconsin at Wisconsin, so clearly they'll have our full attention.'

'They come in and beat Wisconsin at their place. It's a team you cannot look past,' Gesell said. 'They have good guards and can be dangerous. It's going to be a good matchup. It's a quick turnaround, but nothing that we're not used to.

'You look around the country, there's so many upsets. Smaller schools continually beat bigger schools at their places. Western Illinois, they just play hard. We're going to get familiar with them and prepare.'

Iowa and WIU tip off at 6 p.m. on Monday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The game can be seen on Big Ten Network.

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