How can the Iowa MBB become a destination program - Nationwide?

Husky28

Well-Known Member
For the sake of discussion and if you had a chance to play Barta for the time it takes... What would or how would you make a path to develop the MBB program to be at the same level as the blue bloods? Meaning, that you develop the program so you are at a level where you can pretty much recruit any player you want and have a high percentage in landing them. I was thinking on this a bit the other day and trying to put myself in Barta's shoes as an AD. What would I do understanding all of the university, regional and NCAA constraints? So I pose the question to you... Thoughts

A couple of rules - Must be legal (NCAA and FBI - LOL) and don't really want to hear "this is Iowa - ain't happening" argument - negative Nancy comments need not apply.
 
For the sake of discussion and if you had a chance to play Barta for the time it takes... What would or how would you make a path to develop the MBB program to be at the same level as the blue bloods? Meaning, that you develop the program so you are at a level where you can pretty much recruit any player you want and have a high percentage in landing them. I was thinking on this a bit the other day and trying to put myself in Barta's shoes as an AD. What would I do understanding all of the university, regional and NCAA constraints? So I pose the question to you... Thoughts

A couple of rules - Must be legal (NCAA and FBI - LOL) and don't really want to hear "this is Iowa - ain't happening" argument - negative Nancy comments need not apply.
It’s not negative Nancy to say something is impossible when it is.

There is literally nothing you can do other than luck into an awesome coach or cheat. Blue blood programs either had a unicorn coach come in (Krzeycwrzscrzyskwski, Few, etc) or they started doing dirty shit to get the best recruits. Once they start winning tons of ballgames and making deep tourney runs the recruiting happens by itself and there’s no stopping the train.

The best players are the ones you need to be an elite national team. Those players are only going to play one, and rarely two years. And those players go to the blue bloods. It’s no different in college football.

Garza is actually some of the best evidence for this. We had the unanimous POY and best player in college basketball for two years running, and we still couldn't pick up top guys out of the portal. Lost a starter to Xavier (for good reasons) and lost a kid to Kentucky to play for the current dirtiest coach in NCAA basketball.

In other words, unless this team lucks into the second coming of Mike Kyrsezrwyczrewski or starts making huuuuge brown bag deliveries to recruits’ parents, it ain’t happening. Fran does the right thing and runs a clean program. But the phrases, "clean program" and "blue blood" don't go together. Hell, even if Fran told a recruit he'd give his parents $100K, a booster will give you a car, and we'll pay someone to do your schoolwork for a year until you go pro how would that compete with the schools that already do that shit?
 
It’s not negative Nancy to say something is impossible when it is.

There is literally nothing you can do other than luck into an awesome coach or cheat. Blue blood programs either had a unicorn coach come in (Krzeycwrzscrzyskwski, Few, etc) or they started doing dirty shit to get the best recruits. Once they start winning tons of ballgames and making deep tourney runs the recruiting happens by itself and there’s no stopping the train.

The best players are the ones you need to be an elite national team. Those players are only going to play one, and rarely two years. And those players go to the blue bloods. It’s no different in college football.

Garza is actually some of the best evidence for this. We had the unanimous POY and best player in college basketball for two years running, and we still couldn't pick up top recruits out of the portal. Lost a starter to Xavier (for good reasons) and lost a kid to Kentucky to play for the current dirtiest coach in NCAA basketball.

In other words, unless this team lucks into the second coming of Mike Kyrsezrwyczrewski or starts making huuuuge brown bag deliveries to recruits’ parents, it ain’t happening. Fran does the right thing and runs a clean program. But the phrases, "clean program" and "blue blood" don't go together. Hell, even if Fran told a recruit he'd give his parents $100K, a booster will give you a car, and we'll pay someone to do your schoolwork for a year until you go pro how would that compete with the schools that already do that shit?

Hit the nail on the head here!
 
It’s not negative Nancy to say something is impossible when it is.

There is literally nothing you can do other than luck into an awesome coach or cheat. Blue blood programs either had a unicorn coach come in (Krzeycwrzscrzyskwski, Few, etc) or they started doing dirty shit to get the best recruits. Once they start winning tons of ballgames and making deep tourney runs the recruiting happens by itself and there’s no stopping the train.

The best players are the ones you need to be an elite national team. Those players are only going to play one, and rarely two years. And those players go to the blue bloods. It’s no different in college football.

Garza is actually some of the best evidence for this. We had the unanimous POY and best player in college basketball for two years running, and we still couldn't pick up top recruits out of the portal. Lost a starter to Xavier (for good reasons) and lost a kid to Kentucky to play for the current dirtiest coach in NCAA basketball.

In other words, unless this team lucks into the second coming of Mike Kyrsezrwyczrewski or starts making huuuuge brown bag deliveries to recruits’ parents, it ain’t happening. Fran does the right thing and runs a clean program. But the phrases, "clean program" and "blue blood" don't go together. Hell, even if Fran told a recruit he'd give his parents $100K, a booster will give you a car, and we'll pay someone to do your schoolwork for a year until you go pro how would that compete with the schools that already do that shit?
Exactly.... Now we are late to the party basically if Iowa was to start playing the same games. Other schools are already established with who their bagmen are how they communicate etc. Those pipelines between AAU coaches and college coaches/bagmen and boosters is what makes the wheels turn and has for quite awhile now.

This team here was Frans best shot at trying to springboard things for the program. Having the NPOY and a top 10 team most of the year. But it is what it is. We got the kid from Waukee who might have a ceiling as high as JW. Maybe I dunno but he wasn't some blue chipper that all the blue bloods wanted. And Mulvey same thing it didn't sound like Syracuse was banging down his door just up the road. We gotta get kids like that who hopefully develop. Tough to do in todays day and age of kids leaving early via NBA if their good enough or transfering.

I say it's not impossible to have a monster year or 2. All that takes is stumbling upon a couple studs and making a run. We were borderline close to really doing that this yr. But parlaying that into a decade of success and becoming a 'blue blood' would take some serious stars aligning and falling into place.
 
It’s not negative Nancy to say something is impossible when it is.

There is literally nothing you can do other than luck into an awesome coach or cheat. Blue blood programs either had a unicorn coach come in (Krzeycwrzscrzyskwski, Few, etc) or they started doing dirty shit to get the best recruits. Once they start winning tons of ballgames and making deep tourney runs the recruiting happens by itself and there’s no stopping the train.

The best players are the ones you need to be an elite national team. Those players are only going to play one, and rarely two years. And those players go to the blue bloods. It’s no different in college football.

Garza is actually some of the best evidence for this. We had the unanimous POY and best player in college basketball for two years running, and we still couldn't pick up top guys out of the portal. Lost a starter to Xavier (for good reasons) and lost a kid to Kentucky to play for the current dirtiest coach in NCAA basketball.

In other words, unless this team lucks into the second coming of Mike Kyrsezrwyczrewski or starts making huuuuge brown bag deliveries to recruits’ parents, it ain’t happening. Fran does the right thing and runs a clean program. But the phrases, "clean program" and "blue blood" don't go together. Hell, even if Fran told a recruit he'd give his parents $100K, a booster will give you a car, and we'll pay someone to do your schoolwork for a year until you go pro how would that compete with the schools that already do that shit?
This with one exception...I would argue Houston has the dirtiest coach in college basketball.
 
For the sake of discussion and if you had a chance to play Barta for the time it takes... What would or how would you make a path to develop the MBB program to be at the same level as the blue bloods? Meaning, that you develop the program so you are at a level where you can pretty much recruit any player you want and have a high percentage in landing them. I was thinking on this a bit the other day and trying to put myself in Barta's shoes as an AD. What would I do understanding all of the university, regional and NCAA constraints? So I pose the question to you... Thoughts

A couple of rules - Must be legal (NCAA and FBI - LOL) and don't really want to hear "this is Iowa - ain't happening" argument - negative Nancy comments need not apply.
2 things...

1 - This conversation has taken place in countless other threads.

2 - The only thing different is you’ve put limitations on allowable responses which eliminate the ability to respond honestly and accurately.
 
Ask John Wooden how to make a team a destination program. Just get a booster like Sam Gilbert to buy as many good players as possible. Look at Wooden's record before Gilbert got involved and compare it to after (the year the allegations said he got involved).

So what I'm saying is, let's cheat and our coach can be a legend and our fans can be happy. Go ahead and take down our banners 5 or 10 years later. I'll still enjoy the ride.
 
It all boils down to the fact that if it were reliably possible to make your team into a blue blood program aside from cheating with money and academics it'd be done already. Gonzaga didn't do anything great to turn themselves into the Gonzaga we know now, they rolled the dice on a guy who'd never been a head coach before and won the lottery. That's not making a good program or turning it into a blue blood, it's luck.

Wooden, Boeheim, Kyrsezrwyczrewski, Huggins, Calhoun...none of those guys did jack shit as head coaches before they got hired by the teams they first had success at.

Roy Williams you say? Hire a guy away from a team like Kansas like UNC did? Good fuckin luck, dude. For every Roy Williams out there there's 100 who will bomb. And let's not forget UNC was already a storied blue blood when he took over.
 
All you can hope for is to make the tournament 3 out of every 4 years and one of those 3 years you can make a deep run. If Fran had 1 or 2 deep runs in his 11 year stint I would be all good. Otherwise, Fryowa is correct, you stumble on to Brad Stevens or you go hire Bruce Pearl, Kelvin Sampson, a Miller brother or whoever.
 
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and some

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that would be a good start right now. And, oh with that cash, go buy yourself this best point guards money can buy.
 
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It’s not negative Nancy to say something is impossible when it is.

There is literally nothing you can do other than luck into an awesome coach or cheat. Blue blood programs either had a unicorn coach come in (Krzeycwrzscrzyskwski, Few, etc) or they started doing dirty shit to get the best recruits. Once they start winning tons of ballgames and making deep tourney runs the recruiting happens by itself and there’s no stopping the train.

The best players are the ones you need to be an elite national team. Those players are only going to play one, and rarely two years. And those players go to the blue bloods. It’s no different in college football.

Garza is actually some of the best evidence for this. We had the unanimous POY and best player in college basketball for two years running, and we still couldn't pick up top guys out of the portal. Lost a starter to Xavier (for good reasons) and lost a kid to Kentucky to play for the current dirtiest coach in NCAA basketball.

In other words, unless this team lucks into the second coming of Mike Kyrsezrwyczrewski or starts making huuuuge brown bag deliveries to recruits’ parents, it ain’t happening. Fran does the right thing and runs a clean program. But the phrases, "clean program" and "blue blood" don't go together. Hell, even if Fran told a recruit he'd give his parents $100K, a booster will give you a car, and we'll pay someone to do your schoolwork for a year until you go pro how would that compete with the schools that already do that shit?

Agreed. There's really nothing I can add to this. I want to say something bince the University is seeking a new president. When the last president was hired, I watched the community forums. I can't find the videos now, but there was one of the current president, then candidate, laying out his plan to make Iowa a so-called "public ivy." There was this lady in the crowd who was incredulous about the lunacy necessary to make such a statement. It was one of the better non-sports related University of Iowa moments on video I've ever seen.

Iowa ain't morphing into a national dynamo in football or hoops. At most, those of us alive and reading this right now might, we might, see a single run at greatness in either football or basketball where the chips fall. We will lose, but we might get close to greatness. Once. There's no changing it. Just like Iowa will never be a public Ivy due to its small population and location, neither will it ever be a dynamo in the powerhouse revenue sports. Sorry.
 
Rally up the rich UNI, ISU and Iowa alumni. Implement this plan: UNI and ISU alumni pay recruits to go to Iowa. Iowa, ISU pay for UNI. and UNI. Iowa pay for ISU.

This is a loophole in the system, exploit like tOSU does in football. This is a great way to become elite.
 
Landing Jalen Suggs last year would have been a good start.
 
It all boils down to the fact that if it were reliably possible to make your team into a blue blood program aside from cheating with money and academics it'd be done already. Gonzaga didn't do anything great to turn themselves into the Gonzaga we know now, they rolled the dice on a guy who'd never been a head coach before and won the lottery. That's not making a good program or turning it into a blue blood, it's luck.

Wooden, Boeheim, Kyrsezrwyczrewski, Huggins, Calhoun...none of those guys did jack shit as head coaches before they got hired by the teams they first had success at.

Roy Williams you say? Hire a guy away from a team like Kansas like UNC did? Good fuckin luck, dude. For every Roy Williams out there there's 100 who will bomb. And let's not forget UNC was already a storied blue blood when he took over.
I've had arguments on here in the past with people who like to say "Wisconsin is where they are because they refuse to accept mediocrity". Wisconsin didn't do shit other than luck into a hall of fame hire. They didn't even push a Tom Davis type coach out to go get Ryan.
 
Agreed. There's really nothing I can add to this. I want to say something bince the University is seeking a new president. When the last president was hired, I watched the community forums. I can't find the videos now, but there was one of the current president, then candidate, laying out his plan to make Iowa a so-called "public ivy." There was this lady in the crowd who was incredulous about the lunacy necessary to make such a statement. It was one of the better non-sports related University of Iowa moments on video I've ever seen..
I’d genuinely like to see that. I’ll donate $10 to the children’s hospital for your time if you can find it
 
I’d genuinely like to see that. I’ll donate $10 to the children’s hospital for your time if you can find it
I tried. Unfortunately, the Google has rendered the search functionality on the Youtube basically worthless. I think they're trying to make it easier to memory hole shit. You get like 10 results, which ain't gonna find shit that is 5 years old unless it's a song or a meme and you got the name pretty close, then it rolls into the "OTHER VIDEOS YOU MIGHT LIKE" which have nothing to do with the search. It plays in really well with America's collective ADHD.
 

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