By Kyle Mann | [email protected]

BROOKLYN, New York — What is there left to say?

The Hawkeyes were 19-4, as high as No. 3 in the AP Poll, top 15 nationally in both offensive and defensive efficiency, and in the discussion as a potential national-title contender.

Then, nothing.

Iowa dropped six of its final eight regular-season and Big Ten Tournament games and seven of their final 10 overall. During that span, it played some of the most frustrating basketball known to humans over the past two months, culminating with a 19-point slaughter at the hands of Villanova.

It was perhaps the worst collapse of all in a string of late-season slumps for Iowa basketball, but everyone has heard all about that. Enough complaining. Enough bickering.

Fans aren’t mad, they’re just disappointed. OK, maybe some of them are mad, but that doesn’t help. More than anything, they just want to know what the jalapeño happened.

Jarrod Uthoff was the focal point of one of the most dangerous offenses in the NCAA in the first half of the year, scoring 20 to 30 points in single halves, and for a short time was legitimately in the conversation as the National Player of the Year.

Iowa’s collapse is far from Uthoff’s fault. On the contrary, who knows where they’d be without the potential first-round draft pick.

With that said, Uthoff required shots. Coach Fran McCaffery often suggested that he wanted him to take as many as he wanted to — and then some.

But somewhere along the line, something changed. The offense that once averaged more than 80 points per game fell off entirely and didn’t score 80 points a single time after Jan. 31, a stretch of its final 13 games.

So again, what happened? After asking the same question after seemingly every game for the past two months with no real answer, Uthoff at least ventured to guess.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “People just played us differently. We played so many games, people have scouting reports, they know what we’re going to do and adjust accordingly.”

Uthoff has a bit of a point. However, the Hawkeyes can make adjustments, too. That never appeared to happen.

In fact, there was really only one thing that was ever overtly different throughout the year. Everybody knew Uthoff would run the show, but when Peter Jok exploded on the scene as one of the best shooters and pure scorers in the Big Ten, Iowa realized that Jok needed nearly as many shots as Uthoff. Furthermore, he needed shots from beyond the arc.

The change that ensued was that Jok received “the ultimate green light” from McCaffery after a victory over Nebraska on Jan. 5, which meant that both Jok and Uthoff were becoming co-focal points of the offense.

If Jok’s green light was anything like Uthoff’s, it meant he had absolutely no restrictions on when, where, or from how far he wanted to let it fly.

“He knows you have the green light to shoot the ball,” McCaffery said. “Whenever and wherever you want to shoot the ball … I’m not going to say a word to you.”

Sure enough, in Iowa’s 3-7 finish to the season, the duo accounted for 53 percent of Iowa’s scoring. They proved to be perhaps the most dangerous scoring tandem in the conference, all the while the team’s offense actually crumbled around them.

There was nothing overtly different in terms of schematics on either end of the court, and the team never identified any chemistry issues, despite a players-only meeting late in the season.

However, perhaps the best explanation for what happened is that the Hawkeyes got thrown off when they found themselves with one too many star scorers than they knew how to deal with.

Overly concerned with getting their top two scorers enough shots, bench production plummeted, and even the other starters seemed relatively hesitant to attack or take shots of their own.

It’s an intangible that will never show up in a box score and will be difficult to grasp. After all, who has ever had too many good players? It left a bad taste in the mouths of Iowa fans and left players confused.

“I don’t know,” Jok said. “We didn’t play all season like we should. It’s too bad we got in a slump at the end, but that’s just how basketball is.”

It’s not supposed to be.

Follow @KyleFMann for Iowa basketball news, updates and analysis.