Fran's early success VS Today

1977Hawkeye

1977Hawkeye

Well-Known Member
I've thought about this more and more in recent years, but regarding Fran's early success at Iowa, I have to wonder how much of that was a bit of fool's gold. If you think about Fran's best players:

Devyn Marble - Legacy recruit (Lickliter landed him). Does Roy Marble have any more kids out there that can play hoops?

Aaron White: 3* recruit that happened to become the program's 2nd all-time leading scorer. That doesn't happen often with 3* players. Fran caught lightning in a bottle.

Uthoff: Fairly fortuitous transfer - why did he decide to leave a very successful Wisconsin program anyway? If he stays at UW, we never have him.

Jok: Former blue chip recruit that hurt his knee and everyone else backed off his recruitment. Not sure we land him otherwise.

Am I missing anyone?

Yes, there was Woody and Gesell, 4* recruits. Cook, etc. I fully give Fran credit for identifying and landing all these guys when the opportunities came along. Yes, they all "count". Thing is, it seems that some of these lucky breaks/opportunities (whatever you want to call it) have dried up in recent years. And so too have the results.

What if Roy Marble never had a kid that was also a good player and/or Lickliter never recruited him? What if Uthoff decided to stay at UW? What if Aaron White turned out like nearly every other 3* recruit? What if Jok doesn't hurt his knee?

I know, I know - what if's don't really matter. Just seems that Fran caught a lot of good fortune early on the recruiting trail. Whatever the case, his later recruiting classes haven't been quite so impressive..
 
1977Hawkeye said:
I've thought about this more and more in recent years, but regarding Fran's early success at Iowa, I have to wonder how much of that was a bit of fool's gold. If you think about Fran's best players:

Devyn Marble - Legacy recruit (Lickliter landed him). Does Roy Marble have any more kids out there that can play hoops?

Aaron White: 3* recruit that happened to become the program's 2nd all-time leading scorer. That doesn't happen often with 3* players. Fran caught lightning in a bottle.

Uthoff: Fairly fortuitous transfer - why did he decide to leave a very successful Wisconsin program anyway? If he stays at UW, we never have him.

Jok: Former blue chip recruit that hurt his knee and everyone else backed off his recruitment. Not sure we land him otherwise.

Am I missing anyone?

Yes, there was Woody and Gesell, 4* recruits. Cook, etc. I fully give Fran credit for identifying and landing all these guys when the opportunities came along. Yes, they all "count". Thing is, it seems that some of these lucky breaks/opportunities (whatever you want to call it) have dried up in recent years. And so too have the results.

What if Roy Marble never had a kid that was also a good player and/or Lickliter never recruited him? What if Uthoff decided to stay at UW? What if Aaron White turned out like nearly every other 3* recruit? What if Jok doesn't hurt his knee?

I know, I know - what if's don't really matter. Just seems that Fran caught a lot of good fortune early on the recruiting trail. Whatever the case, his later recruiting classes haven't been quite so impressive..
Click to expand...
Who have Andrew Francis and Sherman Dillard bagged during their nine years here? Dillard had a hand in Cooks recruiting.

Same thing happened with Licks staff, brought in an Asst from Dubuque. No recruiting bag men assistants with any connections.

Same thing happened with Hair Gel, was somehow allowed to bring Dad Sam on as an assistant (see various posts on UI nepotism) What recruiting ties to Chicago or even Indy did Sammy have? Alford didn’t get dirty until Noodles Neal was brought on after canning Greg Lansing to land Tyler Smith. God only knows what Hair Gel did to get Reggie Evans.

Anyone see the trend problem here.
 
IMO Iowa basketball still hasn't recovered from the 2014-2015 recruiting classes. Those were complete busts...and a lot of those guys would have made up your Junior/Senior classes this year. At a school like Iowa its really hard to recover from having 2 empty classes in a row

The 2016 recruiting class has a lot of good pieces, but the 2 classes before them were just wastelands. So there was nobody to pass on the culture and the work ethic that guys like White and Gabe and Uthoff had. Cook and Bohannon showed up on campus and immediately played 30 minutes a game. Most successful Fran teams don't work like that. They rely on the upper classmen.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
Yes, there was Woody and Gesell, 4* recruits.
Click to expand...

I'll never forget the excitement on here when they committed to Iowa. It started the "We are back" phrase that still gets thrown around once in a while. That recruiting class wound up winning the most games in Frans tenure (89-49) although most of us were hoping for more.
 
mopkins said:
IMO Iowa basketball still hasn't recovered from the 2014-2015 recruiting classes. Those were complete busts...and a lot of those guys would have made up your Junior/Senior classes this year. At a school like Iowa its really hard to recover from having 2 empty classes in a row

The 2016 recruiting class has a lot of good pieces, but the 2 classes before them were just wastelands. So there was nobody to pass on the culture and the work ethic that guys like White and Gabe and Uthoff had. Cook and Bohannon showed up on campus and immediately played 30 minutes a game. Most successful Fran teams don't work like that. They rely on the upper classmen.
Click to expand...

Yep, the best recruit between 2014-16 wound up being a walk on, Baer.
 
Don’t forget about Sapp and Gabe. Two high quality role players on some winning teams. I don’t think you can knock Fran for landing White either.

This team is void of quality guard play. Part of me thinks Fran wanted it that way to find minutes for Connor, or maybe it was just tough to recruit when these kids knew Fran’s son would be there. Either way we don’t have guard play to compete in this conference.
 
Fran's best point guard was Bryce Cartwright. He got him early and I can't understand why he hasn't been able to recruit anyone as good as Bryce was. I miss that guy.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
I've thought about this more and more in recent years, but regarding Fran's early success at Iowa, I have to wonder how much of that was a bit of fool's gold. If you think about Fran's best players:

Devyn Marble - Legacy recruit (Lickliter landed him). Does Roy Marble have any more kids out there that can play hoops?

Aaron White: 3* recruit that happened to become the program's 2nd all-time leading scorer. That doesn't happen often with 3* players. Fran caught lightning in a bottle.

Uthoff: Fairly fortuitous transfer - why did he decide to leave a very successful Wisconsin program anyway? If he stays at UW, we never have him.

Jok: Former blue chip recruit that hurt his knee and everyone else backed off his recruitment. Not sure we land him otherwise.

Am I missing anyone?

Yes, there was Woody and Gesell, 4* recruits. Cook, etc. I fully give Fran credit for identifying and landing all these guys when the opportunities came along. Yes, they all "count". Thing is, it seems that some of these lucky breaks/opportunities (whatever you want to call it) have dried up in recent years. And so too have the results.

What if Roy Marble never had a kid that was also a good player and/or Lickliter never recruited him? What if Uthoff decided to stay at UW? What if Aaron White turned out like nearly every other 3* recruit? What if Jok doesn't hurt his knee?

I know, I know - what if's don't really matter. Just seems that Fran caught a lot of good fortune early on the recruiting trail. Whatever the case, his later recruiting classes haven't been quite so impressive..
Click to expand...


Iowa was completely changing playing styles from Lick's slow-down half-court offense to Fran's offense. This may be why he had a little success in his 2nd or 3rd year because teams were adjusting to Iowa's play. Once they figured that out they are taking him to town now.
 
ssckelley said:
I'll never forget the excitement on here when they committed to Iowa. It started the "We are back" phrase that still gets thrown around once in a while. That recruiting class wound up winning the most games in Frans tenure (89-49) although most of us were hoping for more.
Click to expand...

That class did what I figured, got Iowa back. What I also assumed is Fran would build on that and really elevate the program. He hasn’t. Just awful recruiting after that. Instead the program has been downhill ever since
 
mopkins said:
IMO Iowa basketball still hasn't recovered from the 2014-2015 recruiting classes. Those were complete busts...and a lot of those guys would have made up your Junior/Senior classes this year. At a school like Iowa its really hard to recover from having 2 empty classes in a row

The 2016 recruiting class has a lot of good pieces, but the 2 classes before them were just wastelands. So there was nobody to pass on the culture and the work ethic that guys like White and Gabe and Uthoff had. Cook and Bohannon showed up on campus and immediately played 30 minutes a game. Most successful Fran teams don't work like that. They rely on the upper classmen.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree. It goes back to what I was saying. I just don't think the talent is what it was 3-4 years ago. Marble, White, Uthoff, Jok.. I'd take that group in a heartbeat.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
Yeah I agree. It goes back to what I was saying. I just don't think the talent is what it was 3-4 years ago. Marble, White, Uthoff, Jok.. I'd take that group in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

I miss Gabe. Still one of my favorite players. A raw freakish athlete who busted his ass for the program.
 
Fran had some good luck early, but he also had some bad luck after that. It seems like every recruit he finds early and spends a lot if time on turns into a 5 star who is too big for iowa. That is a form of bad luck. If some of these kids would just end up being mid to upper 4 stars, maybe the blue bloods dont come calling and we get them.

I would say all in all, Fran is a decent coach who probably makes the tournament half of the time if he took over for Davis instead of Lick.
 
PCHawk said:
Fran had some good luck early, but he also had some bad luck after that. It seems like every recruit he finds early and spends a lot if time on turns into a 5 star who is too big for iowa. That is a form of bad luck. If some of these kids would just end up being mid to upper 4 stars, maybe the blue bloods dont come calling and we get them.

I would say all in all, Fran is a decent coach who probably makes the tournament half of the time if he took over for Davis instead of Lick.
Click to expand...

So Fran is TOO good at identifying talent. :)
 
Great thread.

I think the woody/Gesel teams underachieved. Or maybe they were better than their record but coaching held them back.

I know that this last decade has been uninspired. And I'm losing the passion I used to have for the BB program.
 
eveningnewsteam said:
That class did what I figured, got Iowa back. What I also assumed is Fran would build on that and really elevate the program. He hasn’t. Just awful recruiting after that. Instead the program has been downhill ever since
Click to expand...

Even with that group they ended up calapsing have way through the season. That’s when I knew we were in trouble and it was the following year that I began criticizing Fran. I took some heat from some of the Fran supporters. Hmmmmmmmmm where have they been lately? I know, I know, some of you have finally saw the light and admit you were wrong.

Real coaches don’t have systems (see Butler way and Fran’s playing twelve players deep), but instead design a offense and defense based on the skills of their players. The really good coaches also know how to recruit each class to make up for those leaving the program due to graduation. Lute was really really good at this. He took his skills over to Arizona and built one hell of a program over there.
 
I read this thread and wonder what most of you are looking at. It certainly isn't what I;'m looking at.

Cook, Garza, Bohannon, Moss, Wieskamp.

Exactly what is wrong with his recruiting any of those guys? I've seen a lot of jawing about JBo through the years but he's put up some pretty stellar numbers for a guy who can't play the point. I think the whole conversation is silly.
 
BlindDogScooter said:
I read this thread and wonder what most of you are looking at. It certainly isn't what I;'m looking at.

Cook, Garza, Bohannon, Moss, Wieskamp.

Exactly what is wrong with his recruiting any of those guys? I've seen a lot of jawing about JBo through the years but he's put up some pretty stellar numbers for a guy who can't play the point. I think the whole conversation is silly.
Click to expand...

No one was arguing the point when we were 0-3...

It doesn't change the fact that the 14-15 classes were disasters. Except for Moss. We paid for that for a couple years. Hopefully we're past that now that the guys you mentioned are seemingly starting to gel.

Iowa has looked good beating bottom feeders, an OSU team that appears to have been overrated, etc. MSU coming in next. I like the way the team is playing - but this next one is a real measuring stick game. Make a good showing there, and I'll feel pretty good.
 
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