Iowa was in the Top 25 for much of the 2013-14 season, making it as high as a #10 ranking thanks to its impressive 15-3 start. This prosperity did not last, though, as the Hawkeyes closed out the season 5-10, winning only one of their last eight contests. Defensive lapses and a lack of consistency plagued the team throughout this poor stretch, but an overreliance on Roy Devyn Marble to bail the team out offensively also didn’t help. Iowa brings back quite a bit of talent from last season’s first round loser, but the loss of Marble leaves Fran McCaffery searching for a go-to scorer. How does Iowa learn from its previous mistakes and replace one of the best players in the Big Ten? How does it account for the fact that it no longer has a player who used the third most possessions in the league at 27.3 percent, and was fifth in the league in scoring with 17.0 PPG?

Aaron White will have to score more this season for Iowa to offset the loss of Roy Devyn Marble. (Brian Ray/AP)

Marble contributed 12 games last season where he cracked the 20-point plateau, leading or tying for the team lead in scoring 16 times. It’s safe to say that the offense went through him a good chunk of the time, as he proved equally adept at driving to the hoop or shooting from deep. There are now 29.6 percent more shots available given his departure and it would be wise for Aaron White and Jarrod Uthoff to take most of them. White posted the third best offensive rating in the Big Ten among players who used 20 percent of their team’s possessions last season. He shot a whopping 63.1 percent on his two-pointers, getting points around the rim and from the mid-range. He’s also an excellent free throw shooter who has proven over the last two seasons that he can get to and convert from the line, knocking his five free throw attempts down at an 81 percent clip during his junior season.

The question with White is whether he can be as efficient if he has to shoulder a heavier load. Uthoff did most of his damage during non-conference games, but he showed a great deal of potential in some of those early contests. He averaged 10.8 PPG on 56.0 percent shooting from the field before league play, but dropped down to 5.6 PPG on 44.2 percent shooting once conference games started. If Uthoff can channel his early-season success shooting the ball into this year, he could end up surpassing White as the go-to scorer. He gets to the line less than his colleague, but he shoots a similar quality percentage once there (81.7 percent). He’s also shown that he’s a much more dependable shooter from behind the arc (42.5 percent), which is something that White has yet to do.

Iowa still has some perimeter shooting in its arsenal with Josh Oglesby and Mike Gesell returning, but it’s likely that Adam Woodbury and Gabriel Olaseni will have to pick up more of the scoring load down low. Woodbury made some strides offensively as the season went on, which culminated in a team-high 16 points in their NCAA Tournament loss to a Tennessee team with a talented frontline. Olaseni also displayed a knack for getting to the free throw line (a team-high 71.4 percent free throw rate), and also showed that he could score around the rim and in transition. With more chances to score,  it’s a safe bet that both players will have better offensive numbers. Oglesby missed the first 12 games due to injury, but shot 40.3 percent from deep once he returned. He should get more minutes and looks with Marble gone, but he’ll need to avoid falling into a slump like he did the previous season (26.9 percent from three). Gesell saw his shooting numbers drop across the board in his sophomore year, but he did post an impressive 3:1 assist to turnover ratio. He split point guard duties with Marble last year, but now he’ll have it all to himself. Peter Jok also showed flashes in the brief amount of playing time that he could contribute with added minutes.

All told this team will continue to struggle if it doesn’t clean things up defensively. With so many rotation players back and the combination of size and athleticism it possesses, things should get better on that end. But Marble’s loss will be felt offensively. It will take multiple pieces taking and making more shots for Iowa to improve upon an uneven 2013-14 season.

Brendan Brody (307 Posts)

Brendan Brody is in his fourth season covering the Big Ten for RTC. Email him at brendan.brody@gmail.com, or follow him on twitter @berndon4.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2014 at 2:05 pm by Brendan Brody and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: aaron white, Adam Woodbury, iowa, jarrod uthoff, Josh Ogelsby, Mike Gesell, peter jok. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.