Ahmad Wagner a Hawk

As to Fran's coaching abilities: The last two years, when his own recruits started to have a real impact, he has won 45 games, or an average of 22.5 per year. He has lost 26 games, 13 per year. That is a 58% winning percentage. No, that is not just BT games, but I still think an average of 22-23 games per year on the win side is pretty good, based on where this program was taken by two previous coaches.
 
JHHawk said:
Nobody seems to be outraged, just curious. Wonder why the ACC did not offer Wagner?
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because the school in question is focusing on in-state and just over the border targets at forward and feels good about their stopper.

wagner doesn't have a jump shot -- but if jok, uhl, ellingson, and fleming can convert from the 2 and 3 spots, fran can have a role player/stopper at the 4 in some lineups. sign anunoby or grimes, you get offense at the 3/4 spot.

what I like about fran's recruiting is that, starting with jok, his 3 stars have been kids who have the ability to excel at one or two skills, rather than all-rounders who are just sort of mid-major okay at everything. get too many kids with the same weakness, it blows up in your face, but get a group of kids who can excel at roles within your system, then they start to look "better" than their recruiting rankings.
 
JHHawk said:
Nobody seems to be outraged, just curious. Wonder why the ACC did not offer Wagner? Scoring is helpful in this game. We all got frustrated last year having a small forward (White) who could not shoot outside the paint....Hutton and Wagner might be the same....we will see. I love the transition game, but these Big Ten coaches know our plan now, and halfcourt offense became more important late last year. I agree we need to see how the class fills out before any concrete conclusions or substantive debate....just killing time until kickoff....Go Hawks!
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We had a small forward who couldn't shoot outside the paint, and we still averaged almost 5 PPG more than the 2nd place team (Michigan). The team needs defense, and an attitude in a bad, bad way.
 
GoHawks24 said:
I would say that the JUCO transfer (Anthony Hubbard was his name, right?) that was previously in prison and didn't even see a minute on the court was a pretty big whiff. You could also say that Ingram was a whiff too.
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Hubbard occupied a scholarship, from offer to departure, for about 4 months. He was a very late offer, and left at the start of school. He may have been a whiff, but his cost to the program was absolutely zero.

Ingram did occupy a scholarship as a recruit and for a year on campus, definite whiff.
 
The three recruits all seem to have tenacity, toughness, motor, and defensive chops. All of our scoring this year amounted to a first round loss, after struggling to close out games. There seems to be a real plan here.

I'll trust what the coach sees in many hours of recruiting, over internet dorks and 2 minutes of tape.
 
kids the staff is recruiting for the last two spots (as far as us geeks know)

tier one: wade, anunoby, grimes, morrow, sehic, boudreaux (all but wade have visits set)

tier two: dugan, lamous brown, christian romine, brady ernst

everybody in the first tier has some offensive game. get two of them, and this is a very good class

ernst is the most polished of the second tier, dugan may have the best upside, lamous brown has the best name.
 
clicheusername3 said:
What is your point? How much have you seen them play? And even if the answer is 100 times are you qualified to properly evaluate them? Stop moaning, it's an underwhelming get and people are a little frustrated right now, it will wear off.
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As a Clone fan, I don't know why you care if Iowa fans are frustrated.

I havent seen any of the prospects play one second of live basketball.

I do trust the coaching staff and Fran especially at spotting talent.

Is it that hard to understand?
 
HawkIPA said:
As a Clone fan, I don't know why you care if Iowa fans are frustrated.

I havent seen any of the prospects play one second of live basketball.

I do trust the coaching staff and Fran especially at spotting talent.

Is it that hard to understand?
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If you haven't noticed, Fran is a coach that loves to run. The recruits he has coming in are making him pretty happy. Hopefully, his smile will get bigger and bigger when he adds the other players to this class. I don't really know how good of shooters the recruits are, but I do know they haven't even started their senior year of high school yet. I do know they have a lot of great basketball attributes that you can't teach. It should be fun seeing these guys in action in a couple of years. Fran has improved the program every year with little time really developing relationships in the previous classes. This class he has had time developing relationships and it looks to me like he is bringing in guys that will fit his style. It will be fun seeing a team that will be able to shut down the Michigan States, ect. defensively and put a lot of pressure on them offensively.
 
JHHawk said:
Fans who compare him to Jarryd Cole need to remember that Cole was a much higher rated recruit than Wagner...so I think it is difficult to make that comparison.

Looking back, it seems that Alford, despite not having the new facilities we have now, did recruit very well compared to Lick and Fran. SA managed to pull in 12 top 150 recruits in his first 7 years,with a number of top 50 guys like PP, Somerville,Reiner,and Smith. Lick and Fran are pretty similar in recruits they have landed.
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Now granted, I'm not a Alford fan at all. I'm a results guy and if you look at the results, Alford like always was all fluff. 1 NCAA appearance in first 4 years. If you look at his good recruits like PP, Somerville, Reiner, and Smith, they never made anywhere near the impact at Iowa that Marble and White have. Add in Gesell, Woody, and Uthoff have 2 more years to make their marks as well. I'm guessing after you look at 2 of those 3 guys, along with Marble and White, those players will blow away what PP, Somerville, Reiner, and Smith did at Iowa.
 
I agree with what you have to say. The coaching staff has an eye for talent, and they know how to develop what talent they have.
 
PalmettoHawkFan said:
jfc

hutton -- one of the top defensive+rebounding small forwards in the country, offered by bo rodent when he was a soph. stopper and transition scoring. underrated: had to play the 4 in aau last year, his ankle problem and not needing to raise his stock because he is firm on iowa meant limited exposure this summer.

fleming: steaky. looks terrible one game, like a top 50 scorer another. fans will have to live with it.

wagner (from an acc guy who has seen him play): plus defender with good anticipation and the lateral quickness to cover 2s, has defended the 2-5 in aau, plus rebounder who should excel at both roles. glue guy -- he is a high major player in every aspect of the game but scoring.

there are two schollies left in this class. all the remaining forwards -- anunoby, morrow, sehic (no way he's a B1G center), and boudreaux -- have strong offense. fran now has two guys who can fill the stopper role.

let's see how this class fills out. you add a scorer and it starts to look pretty good -- roles and needs filled with athletes for fran's system.
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This would be the only way this offer makes sense to me is if this guy is a defensive and rebounding specialist.

Guys who not only can but really want to play tough defense are an asset even if they don't score.
 
All recruiting is relative to what the other teams in the conference are doing and each coaches ability to develop that talent and to get the team to jell together. Seemed to go real well until the second half of the season last year. At this point the jury is still out. It will be interesting to see how well the players develop this upcoming season and that will answer one part of Fran's coaching ability.
 
deanvogs said:
Now granted, I'm not a Alford fan at all. I'm a results guy and if you look at the results, Alford like always was all fluff. 1 NCAA appearance in first 4 years. If you look at his good recruits like PP, Somerville, Reiner, and Smith, they never made anywhere near the impact at Iowa that Marble and White have. Add in Gesell, Woody, and Uthoff have 2 more years to make their marks as well. I'm guessing after you look at 2 of those 3 guys, along with Marble and White, those players will blow away what PP, Somerville, Reiner, and Smith did at Iowa.
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I am not a SA guy either, but still think that in terms of raw recruiting, SA did land some decent recruits. Clearly, we all know that he botched them up once they arrived, but some of these guys did end up being good players like Sommerville, Reiner, Smith, Brunner, Horner, Recker ect....most played pro ball in Europe. If he had been a better coach, he might have taken these recruits to the promised land. Fran can handle them once they are here, if he can get them here.
 
JHHawk said:
I am not a SA guy either, but still think that in terms of raw recruiting, SA did land some decent recruits. Clearly, we all know that he botched them up once they arrived, but some of these guys did end up being good players like Sommerville, Reiner, Smith, Brunner, Horner, Recker ect....most played pro ball in Europe. If he had been a better coach, he might have taken these recruits to the promised land. Fran can handle them once they are here, if he can get them here.
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SA also followed a coach who was always for always in round two of the NCAA tournament. Iowa still had a good basketball name, and was just coming off of a sweet 16 run. Fran had to follow the guy who buried the program, after the guy before him derailed it. Bring Fran in when Alford came in, and Fran pulls bigger recruits as well.
 
deanvogs said:
SA also followed a coach who was always for always in round two of the NCAA tournament. Iowa still had a good basketball name, and was just coming off of a sweet 16 run. Fran had to follow the guy who buried the program, after the guy before him derailed it. Bring Fran in when Alford came in, and Fran pulls bigger recruits as well.
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Probably true. Long climb back to respectibilty for Iowa bb. ...sigh
 
deanvogs said:
SA also followed a coach who was always for always in round two of the NCAA tournament. Iowa still had a good basketball name, and was just coming off of a sweet 16 run. Fran had to follow the guy who buried the program, after the guy before him derailed it. Bring Fran in when Alford came in, and Fran pulls bigger recruits as well.
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I would say that we are way better now than the Lickliter years and equal to the quality of play if not even better that when Alford was here. If we can make a respectable showing this upcoming season I would think we also see some top recruited players coming our way. We already have a couple of them in Woodbury and Gesell. Dickerson was considered one of the better players at the JC level. I am hoping for some good things this upcoming season and a player or two to surprise.
 
BigD said:
I would say that we are way better now than the Lickliter years and equal to the quality of play if not even better that when Alford was here. If we can make a respectable showing this upcoming season I would think we also see some top recruited players coming our way. We already have a couple of them in Woodbury and Gesell. Dickerson was considered one of the better players at the JC level. I am hoping for some good things this upcoming season and a player or two to surprise.
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Yes when you completely ignore results that may be true.
 
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