Hawks better off in NIT this year

I am starting to come around more to this thinking as well. With a young team, like the Hawks, would be the only time I would consider it.

And tip your hat to the players, if they go out with a lackluster effort against ISU in the 1st round this whole thing becomes moot.
 
I don't totally agree with this line of thinking becuase in the tournament anything can happen, so who's to say we couldn't have pulled off an upset or two in the NCAA's. But there are a lot of positives coming out of the NIT run. We never would have had the chance to get a quality road win in the NCAA's, our young big guys are getting great experience, McCabe found his storke again, JO is playing well, Marble is playing great, and I think this run will effect the game plan next year as Marble will almost certainly be at the point next season now.
 
tm - I forwarded that to Teddy Greenstein so if he ever retires as the resident "NIT is great" mouthpiece of the Chicago Tribune you can take his place.

Here's where your analysis is wrong. You are correct that Iowa better roll Stony Brook and Indiana State - nothing really gained there. But you claim the team "learned how to win." Hogwash. When you shoot 8-17 from three point land 100% on FTs, you simply had a good shooting night. You don't just "learn" a good shooting night, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. We basically beat what would have been a 12 or 13 seed team. I'd still have rather been that 12 or 13 seed and had a good shooting night against the likes of a UNLV or K State where we could have won an actual tournament game for the first time bince the Creighton game in Hempstead NY back in 2001.

I hope it springboards into something big next year, but I ain't counting on a lot of near 50% 3 pt and 100% FT shooting nights down the road.
 
Section136 said:
And I won't ever just assume this team would have gotten beat in the 1st round of the NCAA Tourney.
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Exactly - give us a 12 seed and if we shot like we did last night against them, we probably would have beaten at least three of the 5 seeds.
 
okeefe4prez said:
tm - I forwarded that to Teddy Greenstein so if he ever retires as the resident "NIT is great" mouthpiece of the Chicago Tribune you can take his place.

Here's where your analysis is wrong. You are correct that Iowa better roll Stony Brook and Indiana State - nothing really gained there. But you claim the team "learned how to win." Hogwash. When you shoot 8-17 from three point land 100% on FTs, you simply had a good shooting night. You don't just "learn" a good shooting night, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. We basically beat what would have been a 12 or 13 seed team. I'd still have rather been that 12 or 13 seed and had a good shooting night against the likes of a UNLV or K State where we could have won an actual tournament game for the first time bince the Creighton game in Hempstead NY back in 2001.

I hope it springboards into something big next year, but I ain't counting on a lot of near 50% 3 pt and 100% FT shooting nights down the road.
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I'm less impressed by the 3's as I am the free throw shooting in the clutch. That's been a big weakness for this team all year, and they've calmly kept their opponent at bay down the stretch in each of their three wins. For Christ's sake, they couldn't manage that at Nebraska. Closing out any close game would have been a step forward.

And while I suppose we might have pulled an upset or two in the Dance, those odds were much lower than winning a few in the NIT. I also think last night was built up to by the team in the first two games. They would have had to beat a Virginia-type team in the first round of the NCAA, without the benefit of two games to figure things out.
 
Section136 said:
And I won't ever just assume this team would have gotten beat in the 1st round of the NCAA Tourney.
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Me either. This team is capable of beating many of the teams in the NCAA tournament. Round of 16 was not out of the question for this team if they made it, especially with the way Marble has come to life.
 
As always, nice write-up, TM.

A few of us (Seth53, 1hawkeye1) have agreed with this since the beginning. Not only for the player / team development but also, (for my selfish fan motives), I just wanted to keep watching this team play and the NIT was the best chance for that to happen.

One other thing I mentioned pre-tournament - do not discount the publicity this generates for Iowa and, in particular, Marble. One-n-done in the NCAA and everyone is looking at the Hawks as an over-achieving, midling from the B1G that is forgotten like the other 31 losers in the 1st round. This NIT run already has the "heads" talking Iowa as a 2013-2014 B1G contender and Marble will be seen as one of the premier players in the league.

While not quite as blatantly biased as it can get in football (the preseason publicity and rankings impacting status throughout the season), it always helps to start out high and with a "marquee" player -- that just leads to more nationally televised games and exposure.

Outside of a (highly unlikely) sweet-16 appearance in the NCAA, this NIT run is 100x better than anything that could have been gained from the dance.
 
tm3308 said:
I'm less impressed by the 3's as I am the free throw shooting in the clutch. That's been a big weakness for this team all year, and they've calmly kept their opponent at bay down the stretch in each of their three wins. For Christ's sake, they couldn't manage that at Nebraska. Closing out any close game would have been a step forward.

And while I suppose we might have pulled an upset or two in the Dance, those odds were much lower than winning a few in the NIT. I also think last night was built up to by the team in the first two games. They would have had to beat a Virginia-type team in the first round of the NCAA, without the benefit of two games to figure things out.
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I'm sorry, but that team "figured it out" against Illinois. That was the game where they finally closed it and got rid of boneheaded turnovers at the end of the game and exhibited a modicum of "clutchness" from the charity stripe down the stretch. They had it figured out against MSU as well, but they got absolutely manhandled every time they brought the ball down the court and the end was marred by horrific officiating for the final 4 minutes or so. That MSU game made me feel 1000x better about this team than any NIT game ever could.
 
STILLBUSTER said:
Outside of a (highly unlikely) sweet-16 appearance in the NCAA, this NIT run is 100x better than anything that could have been gained from the dance.
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Say a recruit is split between Iowa and Wisconsin. If you were that kid, would you be more swayed by one deep NIT run or a long series of NCAA runs?
 
STILLBUSTER said:
One other thing I mentioned pre-tournament - do not discount the publicity this generates for Iowa and, in particular, Marble. One-n-done in the NCAA and everyone is looking at the Hawks as an over-achieving, midling from the B1G that is forgotten like the other 31 losers in the 1st round. This NIT run already has the "heads" talking Iowa as a 2013-2014 B1G contender and Marble will be seen as one of the premier players in the league.
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Great post, and you bring up a good point and I want to expand on that. Had Iowa made the NCAA tournament there would have been extra pressure to succeed as I am sure everyone would have been knocking why the selection committee took Iowa over (what they feel) a more deserving team like Kentucky or one of the mid majors that got left out. Had they at least not advanced to the 3rd round you go home wondering if those talking heads were right. Now having made the final four of the NIT everyone is talking about Iowa how they are an up and coming team, should have been in the NCAA, and might challenge for the B1G title next season. No matter what happens in New York they will go home feeling good about what they accomplished.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Say a recruit is split between Iowa and Wisconsin. If you were that kid, would you be more swayed by one deep NIT run or a long series of NCAA runs?
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How is that even a comparison? Iowa wasn't going to have a long series of NCAA runs in one year. Next year will be the start of the NCAA or bust seasons for Fran. If Fran can't sell a recruit on the year to year improvement the Iowa program has seen under him, well we might be in trouble then. One additional first round loss wouldn't help recruiting.
 
hawkfan33 said:
How is that even a comparison? Iowa wasn't going to have a long series of NCAA runs in one year. Next year will be the start of the NCAA or bust seasons for Fran. If Fran can't sell a recruit on the year to year improvement the Iowa program has seen under him, well we might be in trouble then. One additional first round loss wouldn't help recruiting.
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Sure, but year to year improvement of NIT last year and NCAA this year is better than NIT last year and deep NIT run this year.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Say a recruit is split between Iowa and Wisconsin. If you were that kid, would you be more swayed by one deep NIT run or a long series of NCAA runs?
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"Me" as recruit? Oh I'm going to Iowa, baby!;)

"General" recruit? Many more variables to consider but I tend to still land with Iowa.

1) As "historically challenged" as I think many kids are these days, I think Wisky's 1-n-done, this year, has a bigger impression than the "series of NCAA runs".
Without looking it up, did you know Wisky lost in sweet-16 last 2 years? I didn't. 3 & 4 years ago they lost in 2nd round, again, didn't know that until looked it up. You have to go back to 2005 as the last time they cracked the elite-8 (lost). That's pre-puberty to a current recruit.
Point is, the NCAA is exciting every year, while it's being played out. After that, unless it's "your team" (in which case, that's where you're going to commit, anyway) most people have no clue about NCAA success beyond "name brands". Once it's over, it loses most of it's relevance until the following March.

2) I think "general recruit" looks at style of play (Iowa, hands down), program upside (Iowa, hands down), returning players / opportunity to play (Iowa is stacked but, as crazy deep as Fran goes in his rotations, if I'm a confident recruit, I'm thinking I can crack the top-10) and geography (a push), more than NCAA history.

Admittedly biased but it's not a quantum leap to choose Iowa over Wisky.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Say a recruit is split between Iowa and Wisconsin. If you were that kid, would you be more swayed by one deep NIT run or a long series of NCAA runs?
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If I were a recruit, I'd look at recent history and the direction of the team.

Yes - Wisconsin has been to the Dance every year for the last 10+ years. But how good are they? What's the ceiling? What's the tempo?

Then .. look at Iowa. Iowa has basically been in the dump the last 10 years. BUT the Hawks are moving forward. They have 1 scholarship senior and a young team that SHOULD be poised for a good run in the NCAAs and the NIT is a first step in that.

As a recruit, I may not pick Iowa. But I'll give them a long serious look.

Just my $.02 .. ..

GO HAWKS!!!
 
STILLBUSTER said:
2) I think "general recruit" looks at style of play (Iowa, hands down), program upside (Iowa, hands down), returning players / opportunity to play (Iowa is stacked but, as crazy deep as Fran goes in his rotations, if I'm a confident recruit, I'm thinking I can crack the top-10) and geography (a push), more than NCAA history.
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Good stuff, but if I am a recruit for the 2013/14 season I see a lot of minutes graduating (Marble, Basabe, and McCabe).
 
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