Honestly, this thread amazes me. When Iowa gets big wins Fran is a genius and when they lose he is not a good coach and is just a hothead who doesn't act professional.
Let's have a little persepctive here. When Fran took over the program his three best players were Jarryd Cole, Matt Gatens and Bryce Cartwright and then he had Andrew freaking Brommer playing decent and fans thinking he would be a viable player in his Sr. year.
Fast forward to today and 3/4 of that initial recruiting class is still at Iowa. Marble, McCabe and Basabe...riddle me this, which one of those was to be a star? It shows.
Year two in recruiting a lot of people had no clue why Iowa got White and Olaseni...Oglesby was part of that class as well and he seems to have righted his head. Overall pretty productive class, but who was supposed to be a star? It shows.
Year three and the big national ranked class came, the sophomores still have growing to do, but there are a couple guys who can be stars in that class and the other two, time will tell Clemmons is solid and Meyer is unproven. Add Uthoff to the sophomores and we all know he can be pretty good.
This year one guy, who needs to just go through this season, stay healthy and evolve as a player, be ready for a big role next year.
When I take a look at Iowa's roster, espcially the upperclassmen, there is a lot of incompletes there. White is a good player, but he lacks something, like a shot outside of 12 ft, deadly player if he has that. Marble, lacks overall toughness, he is a good player and can take over at times, but why not when Iowa needs him the most, too often he doesn't.
Gabe is looking like the player that Herby had been talking about him being as a freshman, but he still misses loads of assignments on the defensive end. Basabe, does not get enough touches on the block. McCabe continues to struggle shooting and we all know his defense is average as best. Oglesby, too bad he started the season injured, very solid player who is emerging, when he gets to true game shape in a week or so, he could explode.
I think the more complete players are the young guys, but they lack overall maturity in all areas, not a bad thing, but there is a lot of good for the future still.
Iowa has truly gotten beat in two games. Michigan and OSU, but missed FT's have doomed them in the other losses. I am not sure how you can continually point the finger at the coaches when this team is in a position to win in EVERY GAME. Players not executing and missing shots when nobody is within 15 ft of them cannot fall back to the coach.
