Three Thoughts on Rutgers Basketball's loss to Iowa on Sunday
Rutgers Basketball suffered a season-sweep at the hands of Iowa as the Scarlet Knights fell 93-82 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Here are three thoughts after the game….
TURNOVERS AND TREYS....
Although on paper Rutgers (14-7, 6-4 Big Ten) should win when scoring 82 points, turnovers plagued the Scarlet Knights as they finished with 18, including five in their opening seven possessions. Similar to their first meeting, the Hawkeyes (13-8, 5-5 Big Ten) carved Rutgers up from the 3-point line as they finished 12-24 from beyond the arc to go along with 43 percent from the field.
“We obviously can't turn the ball over 18 times against a team like this that can score like that,” head coach Steve Pikiell said. “Coach Fran McCaffrey does a great job and they have a lot of weapons. They got to the free throw line and we turned the ball over way too many times.”
Rutgers does not have the firepower to get into a shooting match with Iowa so, unless it can muck things up on the defensive end, more often than not this represents a bad matchup for the Scarlet Knights and the last two matchups have proved that.
CAM STAYS COLD....
Despite finishing with 10 points and five rebounds, this was not a performance Cam Spencer will write home about as he shot 4-10 from the field and missed all three of his 3-point attempts.
“A lot went right for them obviously,” Pikiell continued. “We can't turn the ball over like that at the start of the game. 18 turnovers are a season-high for us.”
The last three games have not been kind to Spencer as he has combined for 21 points and gone 8-31 from the field and 2-14 from three. Although Aundre Hyatt has stepped up the last two games as the team’s key perimeter shooter, going a combined 6-13 from 3-point land, if Rutgers wants to reach its full potential on offense it needs Spencer to snap out of this funk sooner rather than later.
A HAWKEYE PROBLEM....
Along with dropping the season series, Rutgers has also lost six of its last seven against Iowa and is 1-5 all-time at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Although the Scarlet Knights seem to have found the secret sauce to beat the likes of Indiana and Purdue, they have yet to find the answer to their Hawkeye problem.
“They have really good offensive players, and you have to take something away,” Pikiell said. “The way they share the basketball and the way they pass it. It's like every team in the league has some good matchups and some bad matchups and they have a lot of good offensive players.”
While most of the Big Ten is built in a similar vein to Rutgers, there are those in college basketball who are predicated on their offensive abilities. So, while the style the Scarlet Knights play will likely serve them well in this conference, at some point they will need the firepower to go against the likes of an Iowa otherwise it could be a shorter end to the season than many would have hoped for.
Rutgers will return to action on Wednesday when it takes on Minnesota at 8:30 p.m. (ET) at Jersey Mike’s Arena.
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