Chad’s Hawk Central Article

[trj]

Have you been to Kinnick in the past few years?

The entire north endzone are was torn out, all new seating was put in with a separate upper deck, a mid level club seating area was put in, and a brand new multi-level indoor/outdoor club level was put in with premium viewing, standalone food/drinks/restrooms. Glass walls top to bottom inside and out. Also added a new sky walk. Completely redesigned and reconstructed the entire north end of Kinnick stadium from field level to the street outside. The area that was redone is wider than Carver Hawkeye Stadium is long. There were 10,000 seats installed which is almost the entire capacity of CHA. 20,000 sq ft lounge. 10 lounge boxes.

That total cost of the project was $89 million dollars.

$300 million dollars is a BS number. The reason you can't find any sources who said it is because no one said it. It's okay to mis-hear things people say or add an extra zero by mistake, I've done it myself plenty of times. But $300 million dollars for a renovation is complete bullshit when you could tear down Carver and build a brand new arena from scratch for half that money. What you maybe read was $30 million dollars (minus a zero). Sorry.

It is all good, man. All the logic and common sense points toward you, not me. We will see in the next few months here, we will get a a number and odds are you are right and I am wrong.

Feel free to bump this in a few months I will take the hit on it. I am old, but senility hasn’t kicked in yet. I know what I heard. I will kill this back and forth for now, and we’ll agree you are right and I am wrong.

 

[trj]

I laughed when I saw that too. 400 million? You could implode Carver, and rebuild it twice for that. She wants to take out the top 10 rows and make "luxury" boxes. Fry, we could knock that out with some day workers in a 3-day weekend!

I agree, but every coach in their respective eras played under the same rules and conditions. The tournament size has roughly stayed the same for both eras. NIL has only been a thing for two years so that is not a fair excuse. Conference expansion has not really been a big thing until this season. The reality is that Mr. Davis had modest to good tournament success and Fran has not. Like it or lump it, March Madness success is how most MBB coaches are judged. Fran has to own that. He has had many chances and has not gotten past the first weekend.

Fran only really had one good opportunity. I go back and forth between Alford losing to Northwestern St. or Fran losing to Richmond, which one was worse? Fran losing to Richmond was probably worse because how the bracket set up. Beating a bad Richmond team and a Providence team that wasn’t much better is all you had to do to get to a sweet 16 and you f*ck it up…it is hard to give Fran a pass on that.

 

[ChosenChildren]

Fran will still be my favorite Iowa basketball coach. Davis was good, but also overrated. He gets a lot of cult worship because of the “Doc Tom” thing.

He was a horrible recruiter who’d rather be golfing, and people forget he inherited that elite team he had. Once that team was gone he didn’t really do much except go on a slow slide into mediocrity. He whiffed on LaFrentz, Collison, and Hinrich before NIL, and Fran recruited Garza and the Murrays. The recruiting era Fran has had to operate in is orders of magnitude tougher with unlimited free agency and essentially no money to work with compared to the rest of the Big Ten and P6 in general.

Of all Iowa coaches, Fran did the most with what he had to work with and was the best recruiter by FAR. This will piss some people off, but he’s the best one we’ve had in the job.

The general impression I get after talking to a couple of "insiders" is that until Iowa makes a much bigger financial commitment to men's basketball, it doesn't matter who the coach is.....in other words, we are falling behind many schools because we simply are not spending enough on NIL, facilities, etc. etc.

Bottom line, no one is going to "save" Iowa men's basketball until the athletic department and fan base start investing in the program.

I'm one of the guys who was vocal about and frustrated with Fran but I'm starting to realize that Fran really isn't the problem. Even the best coach cannot win if he doesn't get the right support.

I remember when Hayden was thinking about taking the Iowa job. Iowa was at the absolute bottom of the Big Ten in football at that time. Hayden in his first press conference talked about "assurances" made to him that Iowa was going to invest in the football program and he stated that he would not have accepted the job without those promises. Those promises were kept and Iowa got a lot better. Hayden of course was a brilliant coach, but Iowa spent money as well.....improvements to the stadium; creation of an indoor practice facility; recruiting budget; etc.

A bunch of money has been spent during the Ferentz era as well, and the results show on the field.

The same thing has to happen in basketball, but will it?

Just my two cents.

 

[ChosenChildren]

Where in the actual F are you getting $300-400 million dollars? Pinnacle Bank Arena in Omaha cost $180 million to build an entire brand new arena from scratch. Good god man.

It would be fascinating to find out what a 10,000 seat new arena would really cost, perhaps located nearer downtown. If Northwestern can build a new football stadium, could Iowa build a new basketball arena? It seems like that would be a big piece of the puzzle.

I recently attended a game at Carver. It really feels beat up and tired to me, and the location still stinks. Hard to get to and hard to find parking.

 

[NorthKCHawk]

The general impression I get after talking to a couple of "insiders" is that until Iowa makes a much bigger financial commitment to men's basketball, it doesn't matter who the coach is.....in other words, we are falling behind many schools because we simply are not spending enough on NIL, facilities, etc. etc.

Bottom line, no one is going to "save" Iowa men's basketball until the athletic department and fan base start investing in the program.

I'm one of the guys who was vocal about and frustrated with Fran but I'm starting to realize that Fran really isn't the problem. Even the best coach cannot win if he doesn't get the right support.

I remember when Hayden was thinking about taking the Iowa job. Iowa was at the absolute bottom of the Big Ten in football at that time. Hayden in his first press conference talked about "assurances" made to him that Iowa was going to invest in the football program and he stated that he would not have accepted the job without those promises. Those promises were kept and Iowa got a lot better. Hayden of course was a brilliant coach, but Iowa spent money as well.....improvements to the stadium; creation of an indoor practice facility; recruiting budget; etc.

A bunch of money has been spent during the Ferentz era as well, and the results show on the field.

The same thing has to happen in basketball, but will it?

Just my two cents.

I agree that a new coach does not solve all the problems, but neither does doing nothing at this point. It sounds like Beth is looking at the issue comprehensively. But, from a lot of fans perspective we have an old, tired arena, and an old, tired coach. Sometimes you just have to make some changes and hope momentum builds.

 

[HuckFinn]

The general impression I get after talking to a couple of "insiders" is that until Iowa makes a much bigger financial commitment to men's basketball, it doesn't matter who the coach is.....in other words, we are falling behind many schools because we simply are not spending enough on NIL, facilities, etc. etc.

Bottom line, no one is going to "save" Iowa men's basketball until the athletic department and fan base start investing in the program.

I'm one of the guys who was vocal about and frustrated with Fran but I'm starting to realize that Fran really isn't the problem. Even the best coach cannot win if he doesn't get the right support.

I remember when Hayden was thinking about taking the Iowa job. Iowa was at the absolute bottom of the Big Ten in football at that time. Hayden in his first press conference talked about "assurances" made to him that Iowa was going to invest in the football program and he stated that he would not have accepted the job without those promises. Those promises were kept and Iowa got a lot better. Hayden of course was a brilliant coach, but Iowa spent money as well.....improvements to the stadium; creation of an indoor practice facility; recruiting budget; etc.

A bunch of money has been spent during the Ferentz era as well, and the results show on the field.

The same thing has to happen in basketball, but will it?

Just my two cents.

Yeah. Your two cents is damn good sense.

 

[HuckFinn]

It would be fascinating to find out what a 10,000 seat new arena would really cost, perhaps located nearer downtown. If Northwestern can build a new football stadium, could Iowa build a new basketball arena? It seems like that would be a big piece of the puzzle.

I recently attended a game at Carver. It really feels beat up and tired to me, and the location still stinks. Hard to get to and hard to find parking.

Going to 10,000 seats could make sense in today’s market.

 

[#1DieHardHawk]

Fran will still be my favorite Iowa basketball coach. Davis was good, but also overrated. He gets a lot of cult worship because of the “Doc Tom” thing.

He was a horrible recruiter who’d rather be golfing, and people forget he inherited that elite team he had. Once that team was gone he didn’t really do much except go on a slow slide into mediocrity. He whiffed on LaFrentz, Collison, and Hinrich before NIL, and Fran recruited Garza and the Murrays. The recruiting era Fran has had to operate in is orders of magnitude tougher with unlimited free agency and essentially no money to work with compared to the rest of the Big Ten and P6 in general.

Of all Iowa coaches, Fran did the most with what he had to work with and was the best recruiter by FAR. This will piss some people off, but he’s the best one we’ve had in the job.

I always liked Tom, but keeping it real, his conference win record without Raveling recruits was about .50. Not exactly world-beating.

It was fairly well-known that he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about recruiting, and he often was late to the game with guys he should have been in-on much earlier. Scrambling last-minute recruiting efforts typically don't pay off unless you're a blue-blood.

That's not to say he wasn't a good recruiter or coach. He had a very nice career at Iowa, and, one area where he definitely outdid Fran was in his ability to give off a happy enthusiastic vibe - always quick to smile and engage. Fran has never really immersed himself into the Iowa community, and, for whatever reason, doesn't look like a man who is happy in his current state.