No. 3 Iowa made a season-low 21 percent of its three-point attempts in Thursday’s 74-68 loss at No. 8 Maryland and the Hawkeyes’ unfamiliarity with the Under Armour ball that the Terps use for home game probably didn’t help.
“It’s a little different feel,” Iowa guard Mike Gesell said. “At the same time, it’s the same weight, same size. Same shape, too.”
Iowa, which uses Nike balls at home, practiced with the Under Armour ball for three days leading up to Thursday’s game.
“There was complaining about the ball, but I don’t think it had anything do with the ball,” Jok told the Register.
Good for Iowa for not making Thursday’s loss about the ball. (Jok said the Hawkeyes didn’t move the ball like they normally do, which had nothing to do with the Under Armour logo on the leather or its “street ball”-like feel.) Still, it’s ridiculous that the NCAA doesn’t mandate the use of a specific brand of ball like the NBA.
(Update: During a teleconference with reporters on Friday, Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery echoed Jok’s comments that the basketball had nothing to do with the Hawkeyes’ poor shooting performance. “We practiced with an Under Armour ball for three days before we went down there,” McCaffery said, via AllHawkeyes.com. “So there is absolutely no excuse for any shots that we missed. That was a function of Maryland’s defense.”)
Former Maryland coach Gary Williams discussed the differences between balls and some of the tactics that home teams use to get an advantage during an interview with Andy Pollin last year:
“The shoe companies that sponsor schools all have their own ball now, basically, so you’ll see a Nike ball, you’ll see an Under Armour ball, Adidas ball, whatever,” he said. “And they’re all different. They’re basically the same size, obviously, but nowadays with composite balls, they’re not all leather, they don’t [warp] like the leather ball used to. You used to get some balls where you’d spin it up in the air and the spin would go way off because the balance wasn’t there in the basketball. But nowadays, you’ll see balls pumped up at some places. If they’re a good defensive team, there might be a little more air in the ball, and of course the ball will come off the rim a little more. If you’re a good shooting team, you might want them a little softer, so the ball lays on the rim when it hits up there. There’s a lot of things that have always been done with balls in basketball.”
Familiarity with the Under Armour ball didn’t do the Big Ten’s other Under Armour program, Northwestern, any good when it visited Xfinity Center earlier this month. The Wildcats shot 35 percent from the field and made only five of their 21 three-point attempts.
Thanks to Comcast SportsNet for the heads up about McCaffery’s comments.
