Preparing for pressure
Minnesota has mixed its defenses a bit more in recent games, but the Iowa basketball team is preparing to see plenty of pressure Sunday when the Hawkeyes close out the Big Ten season at Minnesota.
The Golden Gophers forced the Hawkeyes into a season-high 25 turnovers with their defensive pressure in an 86-74 win in Iowa City on Jan. 2. Minnesota turned the takeaways into 45 points and most of Iowa’s issues came early. The Hawkeyes coughed up the basketball 18 times in the first half and fell behind 21-4 in a little over five minutes of a game Iowa never led.
“I think we’re better at dealing with pressure than we were at that time. It wasn’t just one guy. We all took turns giving it to them,” Iowa coach Todd Lickliter said. “It’s something we will need to be aware of, something we assume they will do. They jumped us in that game.”
That won’t be the only area of improvement Iowa will look to make in its final regular-season road game.
The Hawkeyes will attempt to recover from more recent struggles on the road as well. Iowa has lost its last five road games by double-digit margins, losing by an average of 18.2 points. The Hawkeyes have averaged just 48.2 points in those games, a fraction of the 69.5 points Iowa has averaged while splitting four home games during the same time span.
Iowa still ranks second in the Big Ten in 3-point field goals per game, but will look to reverse recent struggles from behind the arc as well. In its last three games, Iowa is a combined 9-of-53 from 3-point range, a 17-percent touch that is nearly half of the Hawkeyes’ season-long average from behind the arc.
