okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
My buddy sent me this after the Illinois game and asked when we would return to the glory days Coach Alford brought? Are you clowns still glad you ran him out of town after seeing these banners?
Hey Alford Haters
- Thread starter okeefe4prez
- Start date
blkngoldUofI
Well-Known Member
Hell ya I'm glad he is gone. He didn't want to be at Iowa either so what is the big deal? I think it's time for you and your little buddy to move on. In 2015 or so it will be interesting to see where he is at and where Iowa BB is at. If you really believe he could have taken Iowa BB to a new level then why was he looking for a job while still employed at Iowa? Never will forget the day he was hired to take Iowa BB to a new level and that he did, all the way down to the cellar of college basketball.
Last edited:
sportstalent
Well-Known Member
What Alford did at Iowa was at both ends of the spectrum, he did win, but there were so many issues when he was at Iowa. In his tunure, six of his recruited freshman graduated from Iowa, it may be 7, but he was at Iowa for how many years. It just doesn't work for an extended period of time to continue to be successful. Iowa had so many players not get in schoold due to academics and many get in trouble off the court.
Iowa did themselves no favors keeping him as long as they did and didn't do themselves any favors when they hired Lickliter who had never had to build anything where he was. With Fran, I think the fanbase has moved on from Alford. Being in Michigan, people here still bring up Pierre Pierce to me and how long ago was that. Opponents fans will not move on until Iowa starts beating them on a regular basis again and that time will be sooner, rather than later.
Iowa did themselves no favors keeping him as long as they did and didn't do themselves any favors when they hired Lickliter who had never had to build anything where he was. With Fran, I think the fanbase has moved on from Alford. Being in Michigan, people here still bring up Pierre Pierce to me and how long ago was that. Opponents fans will not move on until Iowa starts beating them on a regular basis again and that time will be sooner, rather than later.
There were some good regular season victories but I think he only won 20 or games once and only finished with a winning Big 10 record twice. The expectation was to take Iowa to the next level. That didn't happen. By the end I think he wanted out as much as the fans wanted him gone. I have no personal vendetta against him, but the overall record speaks for itself. His teams weren't performing to expectations.
Scooter
Well-Known Member
Did you read the banners? It is obvious this was sarcasm.
WindsorHawk
Well-Known Member
My buddy sent me this after the Illinois game and asked when we would return to the glory days Coach Alford brought? Are you clowns still glad you ran him out of town after seeing these banners?
Absolutely. Wonder Boy needs to be at a school with no academic standards so he can get athletes to overcome his inability to coach. His star point guard (DG) wasn't getting into Iowa. Make as many of these posts as possible this year because you will look like an even bigger fool in two years when the current staff is doing more than your boy the program killer ever did.
blkngoldUofI
Well-Known Member
Sarcasm or not it's a shot at Iowa BB and the guy that led Iowa BB down that road is SA. Like an earlier poster stated, he never got recruits that could qualify academicly so he took the easy road and went to a lesser school. SA wanted to be the BMOC and with Iowa Football the way it is he would have never got that. Sure, Iowa has to take some of the blame with the facilities lacking but it was never an issue before.
AntonioRamos
Well-Known Member
I forgot all about the 1st round 2nd place they got that year. 2006 was a better year than I remembered.
big10fan
Well-Known Member
that last banner made me laugh.
yeah, i'm glad he's gone. don't think he ever wanted to be here, always looking for something better. i think he was a better coach at the end, but it was too late, he had already burned all his bridges in iowa city. i've moved on, and i don't have any hate either for lick, just wish he'd have left fran some better athletes.
yeah, i'm glad he's gone. don't think he ever wanted to be here, always looking for something better. i think he was a better coach at the end, but it was too late, he had already burned all his bridges in iowa city. i've moved on, and i don't have any hate either for lick, just wish he'd have left fran some better athletes.
He was a better coach by the time he left, but as a previous poster said, it was too late at that point - things had already spiraled too far.
The big issues for me:
Lack of player development (it's hard to name a single player under Alford that was a significantly improved player at the end of their career than they were as Fr)
Lack of player retention (this is multi-faceted - good players that transferred, boneheads that got into trouble that should have never been recruited in the first place, guys that really didn't want to be here...or got here and realized they didn't want to be here)
The game day coaching itself did show some degree of progress as Alford went along in his career, but nowhere near to the degree where it was enough to overcome the previous 2 issues.
He had a really cocky persona, which I think caused 9/10's of his problems w/Iowa fans (and probably players too, for that matter!). Personally, it never really bothered me - a coach that gets results for my team can be as cocky as they want to be. If Alford was leading us to 20+ wins every year, everyone would have called it "swagger". Just like Drew Tate - Drew was the exact same guy through his entire career, even though if you talk to a lot of Iowa fans, you would think he morphed into some horrible monster between the end of 04 and the end of 06...the W's & L's are what dictated perception.
The big issues for me:
Lack of player development (it's hard to name a single player under Alford that was a significantly improved player at the end of their career than they were as Fr)
Lack of player retention (this is multi-faceted - good players that transferred, boneheads that got into trouble that should have never been recruited in the first place, guys that really didn't want to be here...or got here and realized they didn't want to be here)
The game day coaching itself did show some degree of progress as Alford went along in his career, but nowhere near to the degree where it was enough to overcome the previous 2 issues.
He had a really cocky persona, which I think caused 9/10's of his problems w/Iowa fans (and probably players too, for that matter!). Personally, it never really bothered me - a coach that gets results for my team can be as cocky as they want to be. If Alford was leading us to 20+ wins every year, everyone would have called it "swagger". Just like Drew Tate - Drew was the exact same guy through his entire career, even though if you talk to a lot of Iowa fans, you would think he morphed into some horrible monster between the end of 04 and the end of 06...the W's & L's are what dictated perception.
hawkdoctor
Well-Known Member
We got the right coach here now. He was a better coach when he left but he was not am ambassador for Iowa. He set in stage the decline of a once proud basketball program. I know this wasn't the question but I'm not happy we dumped Tom Davis.
big10fan
Well-Known Member
I couldn't agree with you more. Perfect post.
sioux34
Well-Known Member
He was only a better coach in that he had hired a better assistant, and would from time to time listen to him. I look back at his inaction during the great flame out in his last NCAA game with Iowa and I see one of the worst coaching jobs I had ever seen.
1977Hawkeye
Well-Known Member
I'm not one who gets too hung up on Alford's personality and all that jazz. Yes, he had his flaws, but I'm willing to bet most of us would have looked past that if we had been winning more consistently.
Under Alford, we did win more games than we lost every year except his first season as our coach (which we haven't done since he left), so he wasn't a HORRIBLE coach. He left the program in better shape for Lick than Lick did for McCaffery. But Alford was certainly no John Wooden, or even a Mr. Davis, for that matter.
I look back on Alford's tenure at Iowa and it was mostly filled with underachieving and disappointing seasons given the talent some of his teams had. Some of those squads were better than NIT material. Our NCAA appearances were pretty disappointing, especially the NWST loss, which came in very Alfordesque fashion (late leads choked away).
An overall sub-.500 conference record and 3 NCAA appearances in 8 years. So-so, but nothing spectacular.
Under Alford, we did win more games than we lost every year except his first season as our coach (which we haven't done since he left), so he wasn't a HORRIBLE coach. He left the program in better shape for Lick than Lick did for McCaffery. But Alford was certainly no John Wooden, or even a Mr. Davis, for that matter.
I look back on Alford's tenure at Iowa and it was mostly filled with underachieving and disappointing seasons given the talent some of his teams had. Some of those squads were better than NIT material. Our NCAA appearances were pretty disappointing, especially the NWST loss, which came in very Alfordesque fashion (late leads choked away).
An overall sub-.500 conference record and 3 NCAA appearances in 8 years. So-so, but nothing spectacular.
ibahawkeye
Well-Known Member
It's too early to tell.
1977Hawkeye
Well-Known Member
I just don't buy into that thought anymore. Alford is in no way to blame for where we are right NOW. He hasn't been our coach since 2007.
The program regressed under Alford, yes, but it's not like we were anywhere near as badly off as we are right now. We finished 9-7 in the Big Ten Alf's last year, and I think most of us would kill for that type of conference record these days. Some people talk like we were going 10-22 by the time Alford left. We simply were not THAT miserably bad until we hired Lickliter.
I truly believe that we would be fine if Barta had made a better hire following Alford's departure. The Lickliter hire was truly a disaster, and it's going to take some time clean up that mess.
What if we had hired McCaffery back in 2007 instead of Lick?
Last edited:
That's because Iowa let go an even better one for Slick Steve. I mean seriously, when you look at Mr. Davis's record at Iowa how do you let him go for an unproven mid-major caliber coach like Alford?
Mr. Davis led the Hawkeyes to 9 NCCA tournament appearances including one Elite 8, two Sweet Sixteens, and never lost in the first round. He also led Hawkeyes to two NIT bids. Only twice in is 13 season tenure did he not make the post season, and those were also the only seasons he had a losing record. His last season before he was pushed out he led the Hawkeyes to a 20-10 record, finished 3rd in the Big Ten, and took the Hawkeyes to the Sweet Sixteen.
If you ask me, letting go of Mr. Davis was the worst mistake that Iowa made besides the hiring of Todd Lickliter.
