Iowa basketball players say they are getting tired of hearing that they are making progress.
They don’t want to be told that their shot selection is improving or that their defensive teamwork is helping the Hawkeyes compete. Frankly, they just want to win.
“None of us came here to get moral victories,” freshman Eric May said Monday.
The veteran of the bunch agrees.
Junior center Jarryd Cole finds frustration in the lack of rewards Iowa has received for the effort it has put in to recent games.
“It is definitely draining,” Cole said. “We’re not going to quit. That’s not what anybody on this team is about. We have been playing hard, but not hard enough to get over that edge and get the win.”
All Iowa has to show for its recent effort is its second four-game losing streak of the season.
The skid, which includes two losses to ranked opponents, has left the Hawkeyes with an 8-16 record and a 2-9 Big Ten mark entering Wednesday’s 7:30 p.m. home game with Northwestern.
Iowa coach Todd Lickliter said beyond 14 costly turnovers, he found little not to like about his team’s performance in a 68-58 loss at Ohio State on Sunday.
“The problem is we’re playing the best of the best. That’s the Big Ten this year, and that has been too demanding for us up to this point. We are a much better team than we were earlier in the season,” Lickliter said.
“We’re competing, but we haven’t been good enough to get wins. The guys need to keep fighting, keep playing and competing and eventually it will happen.”
May believes the experiences Iowa is enduring this season will be beneficial in the future.
“We’re learning every day,” he said. “We’re seeing that we can play against the best in the league and learning what that takes. We just seem to have stretches where things get away from us. We have to continue to fight and work through it. Some teams would quit at this point. That’s not us.”
