Another March, another Alford tourney championship

another 1st round exit

If you don't make the Final Four, does it really matter when you lose?

Sure Davis never lost a first round game, but his record in the second round was awful. Under Davis, Iowa only played past the first weekend three times.
 
He didn't ruin Iowa basketball. The fans who stopped supporting him after the Pierre Pierce debacle started the process and Lickliter finished it off.

Come on now... Alford needed to go. Now hiring Lickliter compounded mistakes and actually made it worse. But... make no mistake about it. Alford did put us into the depths we hadn't seen in 30 years. I don't know who that coach would have been as it was before my lifetime. But I was use to the Hawkeyes playing post-season basketball, and we did give Alford a team straight off the Sweet 16.
That was the last time the Hawkeyes have went. The year before Alford arrived. He was arrogant to boot! Nah... but you are right about "Lickliter finished it off!"
 
If you don't make the Final Four, does it really matter when you lose?

Sure Davis never lost a first round game, but his record in the second round was awful. Under Davis, Iowa only played past the first weekend three times.

Alot of that had to do with gaining the 8-9 seed for the tournament. Meaning you play the #1 seed in the second round. Even the 7-10 seed would have been playing the #2 seed.
You have to remember.. Iowa was a BJ Armstrong illness against UNLV away from being in the Final Four having just beat the best team in college basketball that year IMO Oklahoma.
 
i can tell how a coach that never had a overall losing record while he is gets credit for turniong this team into a losing program, not to mention being the only coach in the history of Carver going undefeated at home for the season, and taking a team that lost 4 seniors off that team to graduation, managed to finish 4th after being picked to finish 10th in the BT, yeah i can see how he ruined Iowa basketball,
the fans can shoulder most of that blame as they turned their collective backs on the players because of the hatred of Indiana's Golden who dared to coach Iowa fans team.
Lick is to be blamed for tearing the Iowa team down by running off players and not utilizing the talent he had, to get 38 wins in 3 season is unacceptable, and should be the focal point of the fans,
and then they need to look in a mirror and ask themselves what kind of a fan turns their back on the players because of a coach people make up excuses for hating and continue to hate after 5 years
 
Iowa has way too many butt hurt fans when it comes to Alford

Rightfully so... he done more damage to Iowa basketball as our coach than he ever did as a player at Indiana. At least we only had to put up with him twice a year while he played at Indiana and I know we beat them at least once because I have the VHS... I think it was 101-89. The same year ('87) that Indiana won the "GET SMART- NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP"
 
Come on now... Alford needed to go. Now hiring Lickliter compounded mistakes and actually made it worse. But... make no mistake about it. Alford did put us into the depths we hadn't seen in 30 years. I don't know who that coach would have been as it was before my lifetime. But I was use to the Hawkeyes playing post-season basketball, and we did give Alford a team straight off the Sweet 16.
That was the last time the Hawkeyes have went. The year before Alford arrived. He was arrogant to boot! Nah... but you are right about "Lickliter finished it off!"

LOL Davis handed Alford Dean Oliver and nothing else. Alford started with an empty cupboard.
 
Hawkeyes Basketball Postseason Tournament Appearances
1955, 1956, 1970, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006

2000 was Alfords first year, and 2007 was his last... He missed as many Post Seasons in 7 years than Iowa had in the previous 20 and the Hawkeyes have not been relevant since. Like I said... he has done more damage to us as our coach that he EVER did/could have as a player at Indiana.

Younger people just don't know how much different Iowa basketball was before Alford.
 
Alford started with an empty bench, filled it out quite nicely with his first two classes, but in that second class there was a player who typified the Alford recruit: Josh Rhodes. Terrific talent, but the head wasn't there, and never even made it to Iowa City.

Add character failure Pierre Pierce, a couple of non-qualifiers (Vanderbecken and that kid from the shady Philly mill), and by year five Alford was no longer recruiting at the Big Ten level. Save for Tyler Smith (who lasted a year and left), Alford did not show that he could recruit a B10 difference maker, or develop the reasonabe talent that he brought in (with the exceptions of Brunner and Horner). Too many last-minute fillers for bigger targets that Alford couldn't close the deal on, post-Pierce, (Justin Johnson, Kurt Looby), too many marginal B10 recruits (Sondy, Gorney, Peterson). If Eustachy doesn't implode, there's no Haluska, so I don't really consider him an Alford "recruit."

As a fan, no, I don't hate Alford. His results just never matched his big talk, and he took the program back a step from where it was in the 1990s. On that basis, it was time for a change. He still has not proved himself to be anything other than a pretty good mid-major coach.
 
Last edited:
LOL Davis handed Alford Dean Oliver and nothing else. Alford started with an empty cupboard.

Koch, Oakey, Settles, all left due to graduation, Range left because he did not care for the slow pace Alford showed in their sweet 16 run where SW Missouri St, scored in the 40's, vs the reason he signed with Davis's style of uptempo, that left Alford with one starter out of the 5 starters but i guess you can blame Alford for making 4 players graduate.
Oakey was the 6th man that backed up Settles, that's a pretty solid 6th man
 
Alford has more tourney appearances at UNM than Northwestern has in its entire history. He also has more tourney appearances at UNM than Iowa has in the same period.

Uhhh, almost every college program has more than NW. You see you have to make the tourney the first time at some point.

Northwestern...the most futile postseason college sports program in the history of college athletics. No bowl wins in 60 years and never made an NCAA BB tourney. Must be proud to wear the Purple.
 
Koch, Oakey, Settles, all left due to graduation, Range left because he did not care for the slow pace Alford showed in their sweet 16 run where SW Missouri St, scored in the 40's, vs the reason he signed with Davis's style of uptempo, that left Alford with one starter out of the 5 starters but i guess you can blame Alford for making 4 players graduate.
Oakey was the 6th man that backed up Settles, that's a pretty solid 6th man

LOL yeah that was the reason Range left. Not because he only liked to do two things, eat and knock girls up. He just didn't have time for schoolwork in his busy life.
 
Hawkeyes Basketball Postseason Tournament Appearances
1955, 1956, 1970, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006

2000 was Alfords first year, and 2007 was his last... He missed as many Post Seasons in 7 years than Iowa had in the previous 20 and the Hawkeyes have not been relevant since. Like I said... he has done more damage to us as our coach that he EVER did/could have as a player at Indiana.

Younger people just don't know how much different Iowa basketball was before Alford.

You're wrong. People just don't know how much different Iowa basketball was before Davis. I didn't like Alford, but at least he won something. It may have been only the BTT. Davis never won anything. Who cares if you win every first round game. If you don't make the Final Four who cares when you lose.

It is thirty-three years & counting since Iowa won the Big Ten championship. Thirty-two years & counting since a Final Four appearance. That is pathetic. Since Lute left, Iowa has only played past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament three times. Davis always has been part of the problem. I don't call that being relevant.
 
not to mention the last time Iowa had a shot at a NT was 53 years ago when Iowa played "Gasp" a low level conference team in San Franscisco who dropped BB a few years later,
OMG even little Ol MWC team UNLV won a National title and are looking at a 4 seed or higher this year
its not about how many teams make the NCAA Dance its who wins the thing
 
Are we heading this into Tom Davis vs. Steve Alford? Who knows who Mr. Davis would have had coming in if he wasn't being released. Hard to recruit a team when you can't tell them who the coaching staff will be.
Mr. Davis did a great job.. his record speaks for itself. Sure he didn't get farther than the elite 8, but dang it was exciting basketball and until JR Kock missed that 3 at the buzzer vs Kentucky we had a shot... seemingly every year we were right there. Since? Not so much.
 

Latest posts

Top