Day one of Ben McCollum

H

Hawkfnntn

Well-Known Member
Overall it was a great start. Plenty to nitpick over but the vibe and how the guys played hard was fantastic. For those that thought we were going to be getting Lickliter ball 2.0 I hope that game may have put those thoughts to rest. Did Lickliter ever hit 100 in a game? And don't get me wrong we shouldn't expect this every night either the refs turned this into a ref show and a ton of FTs. But we won't be having 50-60 pt games all the time either.

Stirtz is the real deal what a stud. He makes it look easy.

Koch played the most mins besides Stirtz and looked really solid out there. If anything I'd like to see him be more aggressive going after his shot. He plays like this and he'll make himself tough to take out of the lineup

Banks brings energy and is always around the ball. I like guys who go up to dunk it and he clearly has a dunk first mentality. Brings it defensively and I see why Ben was hesitant to punish him with a suspension. He is a better version of what I think we hoped Trayore woulda been for us last yr.

Folgueras not starting surprised me but he did well when he was in there. He showed he can shoot outside off that pick and pop action we'd been told about and he and Stirtz showed it for us. I think he'll end up starting and playing more as the yr goes on. He's too good of an offensive player not to.

Manyawu looked ok got himself in foul trouble and didn't play that much. Gonna need him to stay on the floor more and rebound..(that looks to be the big thing that needs worked on for the whole team)

Jirak held his own ok. Didn't look out of place or slow out there. I thought he did great. That and 1 was awesome was 5-5 on FTs. Would like to see him be more assertive on the glass (reoccurring theme) but overall he plays like that he'll play a lot this yr.

One of the other things that surprised me was Hausen not starting and only playing about 15 mins. I hope that changes as yr goes on. This team doesn't have a ton of outside shooting with the other guards and he can clearly provide that.

I wish Trey Thompson coulda got in for at least garbage time those last 3-4 mins woulda been nice to see him get some run. I wasn't exactly impressed with Tate Sage when he was out there and I'd just be curious to see if Thompson couldn't have produced more with those same minutes.
 




Great to see the Hawks play well.

The fears of Lick 2.0 were ignorance. BMC teams have mostly been relatively high scoring. He ran a slower offense for one year at Drake, and too many got the impression he did that every year.
 




weak opponent or not, you have to like the way they went and just dominated RM on defense. 49-26 at the half. Fran's Iowa teams would been up big too but it would have been like 49-39 at the half.
 


InGoodCo said:
weak opponent or not, you have to like the way they went and just dominated RM on defense. 49-26 at the half. Fran's Iowa teams would been up big too but it would have been like 49-39 at the half.
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I sill like Fran and always will, but having a coach running up and down the side line pumping the crowd up Like Flavor Flav is fun. They GOTTA get students in there and get the student section out of the closet. How much can 60 pizzas per home game and free admission with student ID cost in the grand scheme of things?

Here's what we do...kick Pizza Ranch to the curb and give Pagliai's a kitchen somewhere in CHA to make pizza's for students every home game. Local joint, great advertising, make it a thing.
 


InGoodCo said:
weak opponent or not, you have to like the way they went and just dominated RM on defense. 49-26 at the half. Fran's Iowa teams would been up big too but it would have been like 49-39 at the half.
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Yeah getting up 17-2 or whatever it was right out of the gate was awesome. Just put a stranglehold on them. I agree Frans teams could build a lead like that but they'd have a 4 min plus complete laps on D and let em make a run. I don't think Bens teams will give up such things very often.
 


Fryowa said:
I sill like Fran and always will, but having a coach running up and down the side line pumping the crowd up Like Flavor Flav is fun. They GOTTA get students in there and get the student section out of the closet. How much can 60 pizzas per home game and free admission with student ID cost in the grand scheme of things?

Here's what we do...kick Pizza Ranch to the curb and give Pagliai's a kitchen somewhere in CHA to make pizza's for students every home game. Local joint, great advertising, make it a thing.
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I was quite impressed by not only the student section, but the overall attendance. Most people I can remember seeing at Iowa for a season opener in a decade.
 


InGoodCo said:
I was quite impressed by not only the student section, but the overall attendance. Most people I can remember seeing at Iowa for a season opener in a decade.
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I don't disagree, I just think it can get way better. There's lots of room to do things to get wild.
 


InGoodCo said:
I was quite impressed by not only the student section, but the overall attendance. Most people I can remember seeing at Iowa for a season opener in a decade.
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9k I think is what I heard... I was hoping for north of 10k but it's a start. Was never going to be a snap of the fingers fix. What were some of last Fran games? 5k or less? it was pretty damn bad
 




Hawkfnntn said:
9k I think is what I heard... I was hoping for north of 10k but it's a start. Was never going to be a snap of the fingers fix. What were some of last Fran games? 5k or less? it was pretty damn bad
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It was under 5k for some B1G opponents, last night seemed like an entire culture overhaul
 


InGoodCo said:
I was also overall impressed with just how many dunks we had last night. How did Iowa become more athletic bringing in 8 guys from Drake?
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The next 2 games will be a good litmus test. If they can play like that in the next 2 they're officially legit IMO.

What struck me most was the number of guys who played and scored. Yeah, it's Robert Morris, but BMC (at least last night) showed off his depth and that's one of a few things Fran never really had past the 6th man.

When was the last time we had a box score that looked like this...

1762360568354.png
 


Fryowa said:
I sill like Fran and always will, but having a coach running up and down the side line pumping the crowd up Like Flavor Flav is fun. They GOTTA get students in there and get the student section out of the closet. How much can 60 pizzas per home game and free admission with student ID cost in the grand scheme of things?

Here's what we do...kick Pizza Ranch to the curb and give Pagliai's a kitchen somewhere in CHA to make pizza's for students every home game. Local joint, great advertising, make it a thing.
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Yeah, Pizza Ranch is just awful pizza. Do Pagliai's or Wig & Pen.
 


The hustle and D stood out to me.

Keep winning and those stands will fill up.

I was surprised Alvaro and Hausen didn't start but it's hard to argue with the results of those that did start. And, having them come off the bench and both hit double digit points only makes us stranger.

I was impressed with Tavion Banks.

I was thinking Thompson might be a redshirt candidate and was a bit surprised to be thinking that. But supposedly he's still learning how to play defense and the overall college game. He is just 17 years old.

Lots to work on but encourage at this point.
 


Fryowa said:
The next 2 games will be a good litmus test. If they can play like that in the next 2 they're officially legit IMO.

What struck me most was the number of guys who played and scored. Yeah, it's Robert Morris, but BMC (at least last night) showed off his depth and that's one of a few things Fran never really had past the 6th man.

When was the last time we had a box score that looked like this...

View attachment 11714
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6 dudes in double figures with 2 others a bucket away from it. Yeah that's a coaches dream pretty much. Too bad that won't be maintainable. But hey it's a roster of guys that can put the ball in the basket and seem to know their roles and what's a good shot for them. Shot selection is so huge and I don't remember many bad ones being thrown up there really.
 




Lot of good things last night- thought the defense was not stellar in the 2nd half, but then again, the game was already decided by then, so I wonder if BMC called the dogs off a bit. Liked the tenacity in getting after the ball, and rebounding was better, at least from an effort standpoint, previous years it seemed we were waiting for the ball to bounce toward us and not getting after it. I agree that the refs kind of took over parts of this game with the foul calling. Banks is going to be a highlight reel this year. And for all the years we have been bitching about having a point guard.....well, we got one.
 


Attendance was 9,232. Last year, Iowa's first 7 home games were below that number, before 13,033 came to the Iowa State game.
 


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