Actually a better metric. Sort game by game Garza’s usage. In the 6 games his usage was over 37% guess Iowa’s record….
Rutgers is projected first team out
- Thread starter bac2therac
- Start date
I’m not saying the other guys aren’t good players, but Iowa’s offense probably ran through Garza at 30% usage because feeding him the ball gave them the best chance to win. Unless their coach was just plain wrong in the way they ran offense, losing a star who was relied on at 30% offense usage is going to hurt unless they reload at the same level.
The only thing this proves is that MJ was foul prone and Garza wasn’t. It shows that Garza’s team rarely if ever had to get by long without him when it mattered last year. 4 of those 7 wins were blow outs against MEAC type teams. Two others were also blow out wins against Covid depleted Michigan State and Nebraska. I gave up trying to find the last one but you see my point. I’d really hope RU would beat those 4 teams pretty easily without MJ too.
Against better teams MJ fouled more. We also lost more. The correlation makes sense but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we would’ve won all of those game if MJ was allowed 10 fouls.
The arguement is that Myles leaving is a bigger loss to RU than Garza was to Iowa.
Iowa was an offensive machine. Garza was the best weapon, but he was one of many that could score. Weiskamp and Frederick are great offensive players and Bohannon can shoot.
Without Myles our defense dropped off a lot.
Bottom line take Garza off Iowa and take Myles off RU…..Iowa has a few more losses and is a 4 or 5 seed. Take Myles off RU and we are under .500.
Good thing its rightfully at home at the RA.....
Oh wait thats right I forgot that they're a bunch crybaby chicken sh*ts who whined their way into a home game they don't deserve
Garza played 24 minutes at Northwestern and Iowa won the game 96-73. He had 17 points in the first half and didn't score in the 2nd half, when Iowa pulled away decisively. It was 49-37 at the break.
Iowa did have more scoring options if forced to play without Garza than we had big man options without Johnson. But those other Hawkeyes would be less efficient on O without Garza drawing so much attention, too. It's like saying Mulchay should have taken a ton more 3s because he had the highest 3PT% on the team, so clearly he is our best outside shooter. (Actually, Cliff shot 50% from long range, 1 for 2.)
This is a bad take. You need to get your head out of the stat page and watch the games. Everyone else's numbers benefitted from Garza getting so much attention. He was the focal point of the other teams defense and still dominated.
Iowa will see a big drop-off as they lose their best 3 players (Garza, Wiescamp, Frederick). Bohannon didn't come back from the injury the same player, maybe this year he regains his form. I don't know what Lusardi is looking at, Iowa could end up in the bottom 4 this year.
Rutgers lost two very good players, but there wasn't much of a difference in talent last year in the top 7 players. MJ and JY played great down the stretch but both had some big flaws. MJ's consistent foul trouble and not being an offensive threat beyond 5 feet were big issues. JY was RU best player overall last year but he was far from perfect.
RU team is constructed very differently this year than last year. I feel like the plan is for more running, more positionless basketball and less slow down in the half court. I least I hope that is the plan. If the young guys step up like I thnk they will we will have a deep team that can run people into the ground.
Overall Garza had a much, much bigger effect on his team.
Only a few more losses without Garza? I think you need to add in there - a few more losses “just against RU”. I didn’t watch many of Iowa’s games outside of our game but there’s zero shot they would’ve won the first game without Garza. It’s fair to say we would’ve blown them out that given day without his 24 points. He scored 22 in the second one too but at least in that one they had another unstoppable weapon in Wiescamp who was on fire (but again - had the focus not been on Garza I don’t see Wiescamp having as many looks and even if he did - Garza’s 22 would still have to be made up). Both those games would’ve most likely been losses without him.
Iowa would’ve looked like a completely different team without Garza.
Last edited:
I know we need to lower the efficiencies of others without Garza, but the other weapons were more efficient than Garza. No Garza means more ball movement and more touches for Frederick, Weiskamp and Bohannon.
Again in the 7 games Garza touched the ball the most Iowa was 1-6.
I know people are upset Myles left. I can't believe how quickly people forget the impact he had on the team the past 2 years. If there is a Mount Rushmore for Rutgers basketball since 1989 there are 3 givens on it. Keith Hughes, Quincy Douby and Myles Johnson.
It doesn’t matter. On that given day, RU was just on. Until those final 12 minutes or so where we literal ran out of wings and bigs not playing with 4 fouls. 5 more fouls to give from Caleb might’ve been enough to hang on.
I’m not comparing him to Johnson. It’s apples and oranges to try and do that.
All I’m saying is that there is no way Iowa wins that first RU game without him. All the advanced stat analyses in the world would not change the fact that on that particular day Garza was quite literally Iowa’s whole offense except for a few reserves who came in and capitalized on RU overextended focus on containing Garza. Watch the game again if you disagree. Perhaps Wiescamp goes off for 45 in the second match up if he absorbs Garza’s usage and they still win, but the Vegas line likely would’ve had us as a road favorite if Garza was a DNP. The most likely outcome for a Garza-less Iowa would’ve been been 0-2 vs a 10-10 Rutgers team. To conclude they’d only lose only a few more games if he wasn’t on the team and still secure a 4 or 5 seed seems like a quantum stretch to me. But then - I didn’t watch their other games. Your looking at patch situations where Garza’s usage was down and Iowa did well to assume that’s how they would’ve done all the time without him - that’s extremely flawed logic because teams game planned specifically for containing Garza. Perhaps you would end up right - but the stats with Garza available are meaningless and don’t provide any insight either way.
"No Garza means more ball movement and more touches for Fredrick, Wieskamp, and Bohannon" is correct in a vacuum but completely misses the context that those touches would be better-defended. Driving lanes that existed for Wieskamp (pumping up his efficiency) would not have existed without Luka Garza getting attention on the perimeter. Closeouts on Bohannon/Fredrick would have been quicker because the defender could afford to play them tighter without worrying about needing to help on Garza.
For the record I agree that Myles Johnson's impact is being underrated on this board, but I don't agree that his impact was greater than Luka Garza's. Iowa did not lose games because Luka Garza touched the ball too much. They lost because of some combination of:
1. Garza having a slightly off night (Illinois, Michigan, Indiana)
2. Rest of team shooting poorly (Minnesota, Oregon)
3. They were bad defensively and got lit up (Illinois the other time, Gonzaga, Ohio State, Oregon, Minnesota)
Garza was better than Johnson overall, and I don't think anyone's arguing that. Garza was a huge part of Iowa's success, and I don't think anyone is arguing that, either.
At the end of the day, though, Johnson was more important to the overall success of Rutgers last year than Garza was to the success of Iowa, and I don't think it's particularly close.
At the end of the day, though, Johnson was more important to the overall success of Rutgers last year than Garza was to the success of Iowa, and I don't think it's particularly close.
Absolutely no one is disputing that. And that also highlighted the lack of depth behind him and his own inability to stay out of foul trouble, either when he was on the bench or when he was on floor and being tentative to avoid another foul and/or sulking about it. At his best he completely controlled the glass and was a great rim defender. Offensively, there were countless times where he got a rebound very close to the basket (not even at end games where he was trying to avoid going to the line) where his first instinct was to unload the ball rather than going up for a basket.
Last edited:
No. The opposite I am looking at the games Garza had the ball in his hands the most. When he did they were 1-6.
I am the 1st to say it doesn't matter who is going to the NBA and being a good college player is different than being in the NBA. Forget I ever said anything like that. Garza isn't sniffing the NBA. 1-3 players from IOWA last year most likely are. I think if Garza wasn't there the other guys would have stepped up and have done OK.
I agree. I am also not saying Myles was a better college basketball player than garza.
Take a look at his 7 highest usage games. They were 1-6. I realize there are other factors. In those 7 games in 6 of them they were well below their average adjusted offensive efficiency.
Maybe there was a point when he got the ball too much it had a negative impact on the offensive. The other thing also to consider was the impact of his usage on the defensive end.
Looking at stats I didn't realize how good of a rebounder Wesikamp was.....and how bad Fredrick was.
Looking at stats I thought Iowa would be OK this year until i realize Nunge is off to Xavier. That makes the Garza loss even worse.
Looking at stats I thought Iowa would be OK this year until i realize Nunge is off to Xavier. That makes the Garza loss even worse.
My buddy and I have been saying for the last two years that any teams gameplan against Iowa should be let Garza dominate the ball and get 30 and you beat iowa most of the time.
I am not quite that far on the Garza touch spectrum. The small sample size does support that notion. I don’t want Garza getting 30, but I am not sending Bohannon Weiskamp or Fredericks defender to double down.
The biggest fear of a Garzafest are the fouls that come with them.
I have to think as the touches go up the productivity on both ends in the last 5 minutes go down. Garza works awful hard on offense. I know he was very fit, but he is human (not an amphibian) and has to get tired
Garza had 36 points on 20 shots. Garza was at 26.9% usage. Well below his average.
Oregon scored 95 points in 75 possessions. I think Iowa had a defensive problem there.
Bohannon was tired from being up all night finalizing the deal with Boom In fireworks scoring zero points while Oregon guards were scoring 19, 23 and 21 points.
they lost that game despite Garza
He is 6'10" and shot over 40% from 3. He is definitely getting a shot at the NBA. He also lost 30 lbs since the season ended and is working on his quickness. While he still isn't a quick guy, I wouldn't be surprised if he lands on someone's bench and they give him a shot.
Yeah you absolutely can’t double. Some of the guys on our team tend to needlessly provide help defense and it usually leads to a great open 3 look. Last year it drove me nuts especially if Myles was in the game because it wasn’t necessary. Geo McConnell and Mathis were culprits often, Paul did a good job not doing it. Same with Ron IIRC
While you can definitely knock him for not being aggressive enough with the ball off rebounds or under the rim, our offense functioned better and we had better ball movement with Johnson on the floor, than without him (not to mention his offensive rebounding that gave us extra possessions). He did a lot of things that don't show up on the stat sheet, and he impacted the way defenses played us.
Looking at the lineup data we have from last season, we scored 1.80 pts/min in 541.7 min with him on the floor. By contrast, when he was off the floor, we scored 1.51 pts/min in 212.4 min with Omoruyi at center, 1.37 pts/min in 21.2 min with Doucoure at center, and 1.19 pts/min in 16.8 min with Reiber at center.
Looking specifically at offensive rebounding, he had 4.7 ORB/40 min, while Omoruyi had 2.0 ORB/40. Omoruyi really needs to improve in that area for us next year.
Over those 212.4 minutes that is 14 extra OREB. Not sure of stats regarding points on a possession after a OREB. SO let's say 14 extra points. 14/212.4 is an extra .065 points per minute. So roughly 25% of the added offense is due just to OREB.
Not sure if my logic or math is flawed at all.
part of that 75% could be Cliff having more minutes than Myles with 2nd team.
I do think/know Myles was a decent efficient offensive player
Not sure if my logic or math is flawed at all.
part of that 75% could be Cliff having more minutes than Myles with 2nd team.
I do think/know Myles was a decent efficient offensive player
Last edited:
Or maybe there were games where the opponent well covered the rest of the team so they ended up forcing it in to Garza more. Who knows? The point I’m making is it’s simply flawed to use this data as a basis for saying that without him Iowa would’ve been only marginally effected and dropped to only to a 4 or a 5 seed losing just a few more games.
Regardless of his usage, they still benefitted from 21 or more points from him in all but 5 of their wins (NW twice, Nebraska, depleted Michigan State, and North Carolina). He scored 16 in 3 of those games and 14 in another. I don’t see how it’s a sure thing they even would’ve made the field without him. Maybe they would’ve figured something out but there is no evidence to support it.
I completely agree with this but regardless still think Iowa is a much worse team without him even if only on the floor as a threat to score.
Only because a few more losses for RU meant no tournament and a 500ish or worse record whereas for Iowa relatively a few more losses was just a seed line or two. I don’t think it’s accurate to say the number of extra games RU would’ve lost (assuming we replaced Caleb for him early) would’ve been drastically different from the number of extra games Iowa would’ve dropped. RU already lost to most of the better teams. I think we could’ve handled NW type teams without MJ. Our guards were just better and Duke would’ve pulled in a decent number of rebounds to get by (for example). RHJ was on fire in those early games we won against Maryland and Syracuse and neither were particularly strong on the glass at that time. Maybe we drop one of those but based on how we were playing, maybe not. MJ was so critical early because without Caleb we literally didn’t have any wings OR bigs to throw in as back up except raw frosh. As I said - I don’t think Iowa even beats RU without Garza so it seems unlikely they only lose an extra game or so having to make up for all his production. I think they would’ve struggled more than you think and will have a tough time next year unless the new guys are awesome off the bat.
It is a given that Iowa was an elite offensive team. It is also a given that Garza was an extrodinary offensive player. The initial argument was Myles loss to Rutgers 2020-21 is a greater loss than Garza 2020-21. You have pushed back that Garza only meant 2 or 3 wins to Iowa. I disagree, but respect. What about the other half of the argument. What does RU look like without Myles?
Someone please help me if I have this wrong. My memory for these things are waning.
The game Iowa beat us by 2. Cliff was out (I can see by the boxscore). Didn't Myles completely control Garza and he only went off when Duke or Rebier were in the game.
The game Iowa beat us by 2. Cliff was out (I can see by the boxscore). Didn't Myles completely control Garza and he only went off when Duke or Rebier were in the game.
Not sure. Duke played 1 minute. Reiber played 10 minutes which surely overlapped with the 5 minutes that Garza sat for. I highly doubt Garza scored 25 points during the other 6 minutes either of them was on the floor, but sure, it could be possible - Dean was a raw frosh playing against a star.
My argument that Iowa would’ve struggled without Garza assumed that Iowa would be playing against the same exact competition without him though. So MJ would’ve been there. There is no chance at all Iowa wins that game without Garza.
Without Johnson this season, I'd have expected us to get swept by Minnesota, lose @Indiana, lose vs. Illinois, and lose vs Purdue. That drops us to 9-15 (5-15) heading into the B1G tournament seeded 15th to queue up a loss to Illinois and a 9-16 overall record. Maybe we pull out one of those games and finish 10-15, but the story is still the same.
We'll be a different team this year, built in a different way with a different approach that doesn't rely so heavily on the type of player Johnson was. But last season? We just didn't function well when he wasn't on the floor - what we were trying to do didn't work very well with Omoruyi/Doucoure/Reiber in that spot.