Howe: Big Ten Hoops Power Rankings 1-14

[lightning1]

Name the guy to replace him. The guy that will accept the job. The guy that won't be another Alford or Lick. And before you do go over to the Illinois board and ask them if they would like to have Bruce Weber back. He wasn't awesome. But he still wins more than he loses at Kansas State. And Illinois has fallen off the face of the map.

It's not my job. Guess what, brain surgery isn't my job either, yet their are successful brain surgery operations performed, every year. How is this possible? I don't need to be a hospital administrator to know that a brain surgeon with a .466 success rate isn't a brain surgeon I want to keep around.

 

[lightning1]

Again. Nobody is celebrating Fran

You're arguing for a neutral opinion of Fran. Is that what I am understanding? Because I'm arguing against.

 

[kicker22]

Name the guy to replace him. The guy that will accept the job. The guy that won't be another Alford or Lick. And before you do go over to the Illinois board and ask them if they would like to have Bruce Weber back. He wasn't awesome. But he still wins more than he loses at Kansas State. And Illinois has fallen off the face of the map.

Not arguing with you, but does this replacement have to be found immediately or could it possibly be done over time without adding buyout after buyout to contracts. I don't necessarily know of a replacement for him at this moment, but at the same time I do know what Fran, Alford, and Lick had in common. They all had no previous P5 head coaching experience when they took the position. I agree that Illinois got it wrong with getting rid of Weber. There's other coaches out there we just need to be in a position to move when the time arrives. There's a risk/reward argument to any hire, but with some there's more risk involved.

 

[lightning1]

I'd actually be in favor of keeping Fran if he went out and got 2 assistant coaches to replace some dead weight on his staff. 1 assistant that can recruit better athletes and 1 assistant that coaches the defense. I don't know who is doing what on his staff right now but you can't tell me there aren't better assistant coaches out there. If Fran's ego won't allow himself to do what even Alfraud ended up doing (by hiring Noodles), we deserve whatever we get, I guess.

 

[PCHawk]

Fran could be here 10 more years and his winning percentage would still be skewed some by his first couple years. If he took over a program like Davis did and had the same first 2 years as him, imagine how much we would love him before last year. Hell last year probably would have never happened.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Fran could be here 10 more years and his winning percentage would still be skewed some by his first couple years. If he took over a program like Davis did and had the same first 2 years as him, imagine how much we would love him before last year. Hell last year probably would have never happened.

Check out Lute Olson's first two years at Arizona sometime.

 

[lightning1]

Fran could be here 10 more years and his winning percentage would still be skewed some by his first couple years. If he took over a program like Davis did and had the same first 2 years as him, imagine how much we would love him before last year. Hell last year probably would have never happened.

Memories are short. Tom Davis's first 4 seasons:
30-5
24-10
23-10
12-16.
I wanted him fired after his 4th season. I loved the players. Tom Davis pissed me off.

 

[mopkins]

You're arguing for a neutral opinion of Fran. Is that what I am understanding? Because I'm arguing against.

I just disagree with your assessment that Fran hasn't accomplished anything or done anything positive for Iowa hoops.

 

[lightning1]

I just disagree with your assessment that Fran hasn't accomplished anything or done anything positive for Iowa hoops.

In a vacuum, he has had positive moments. He took us from 11 wins to 25 wins back to 14 wins in an 8 year period.

 

[PCHawk]

Memories are short. Tom Davis's first 4 seasons:
30-5
24-10
23-10
12-16.
I wanted him fired after his 4th season. I loved the players. Tom Davis pissed me off.

Give Fran those first 2 years and his record is way better. Try using some variables when forming an opinion instead of seeing everything in black and white. You wont sound so dumb.

 

[Cableman]

Give Fran those first 2 years and his record is way better. Try using some variables when forming an opinion instead of seeing everything in black and white. You wont sound so dumb.

Why would you give Fran those 2 years? Fran needs to earn those types of years. I think that we should not count his first 2 years at Iowa against him. Those should be blamed on licklighter. After that everything is blamed on or a credit to Fran in my opinion

 

[mopkins]

In a vacuum, he has had positive moments. He took us from 11 wins to 25 wins back to 14 wins in an 8 year period.

I think people easily forget where Iowa was as a program before fran. We were worse than illinois, worse than nebraska, worse than Penn State. Remember the "my man Fran" t-shirts? Fans were legitimately excited about where Fran was taking the program. We were all reenergized

He had a couple disasterous recruiting classes recently where nearly every player was a massive miss. That's all on fran, obviously, and he needs to start winning again...and soon.

 

[Cableman]

In a vacuum, he has had positive moments. He took us from 11 wins to 25 wins back to 14 wins in an 8 year period.

Yes and now he has Iowa at 14 wins with 14 games to go. Enjoy the ride while it's there. Hang on tight though as I'm sure that there's some bad bumps in the road coming up

 

[PCHawk]

Why would you give Fran those 2 years? Fran needs to earn those types of years. I think that we should not count his first 2 years at Iowa against him. Those should be blamed on licklighter. After that everything is blamed on or a credit to Fran in my opinion

The point was Davis was "given" those 2 years with the team he inherited and Fran was "given" is first 2 years with the team he inherited. Pretty much everyone agrees that the first couple years shouldn't be held against him, yet people still sight his overall record at Iowa and say things like "only 3 tournament appearances in 9 years".

 

[ssckelley]

I like what Fran has done at Iowa but I can see where lightning is coming from. Last year was a huge step back, the turn around this year so far has been nice but we need Fran to get Iowa to the next level.

I personally will not be happy with an occasional NCAA bid. I want to see Iowa competing for the B10 crown, BTT title, and making noise in the NCAA tournament. I’m not ready to chase him out just yet but I won’t be happy seeing Fran continue ignoring glaring weaknesses and have repeats of last season.

 

[Northside Hawk]

I like what Fran has done at Iowa but I can see where lightning is coming from. Last year was a huge step back, the turn around this year so far has been nice but we need Fran to get Iowa to the next level.

I personally will not be happy with an occasional NCAA bid. I want to see Iowa competing for the B10 crown, BTT title, and making noise in the NCAA tournament. I’m not ready to chase him out just yet but I won’t be happy seeing Fran continue ignoring glaring weaknesses and have repeats of last season.

We had four spurts of relevence between 1956-1988. It can be done with the right people in place. And you could argue that Lute's teams in 1976 and 1977, with Sky King at center, would have easily qualified for the NCAA's if 68 teams got in back then. And that was even more true in Ralph Miller's era.

Iowa doesn't have to be a blue blood. But it can be what it was that era. The B1G certainly wasn't any weaker and if anything may have been stronger.

 

[Northside Hawk]

This is exactly where Barta failed and Fran's had to dig himself out from. Barta should left himself the ability to pull the plug on Lickliter after it was clear his second season wasn't going to be any better than the first. It could have saved us a full year of fan apathy and teeth gnashing. Fran had a winning and competitive team by his second year so he checked the first box to stay. Then he scored some major recruiting wins in state and got us to the tournament as many times as Alford did with one more win in the NCAA tournament than Alford did check the next box. (Tangent: He also had an NIT runner up in there compared to Alford's first and second round boots from the NIT. Toss out the Big Ten tournaments and Fran is an objectively a better coach than Alford. Especially when you consider that he inherited a solid team with a solid reputation from Tom Davis.) The next boxes to be checked are a sweet 16 and a big ten title, tournament or otherwise. If Fran keeps checking boxes every 2-3 years, I think he gets to stay as long as he wants. If not, he'll be shown the door. But I'm with you on Barta. He's flunked on every test thrown his way.

Lickliter might have had something going that third year if four key players hadn't transferred out of the program and Anthony Tucker hadn't drank himself out of the program. It's pretty hard to go to battle without five players you were counting on. In 2009 Cyrus Tate battled a bad ankle all year and Jarryd Cole still wasn't 100% from a knee injury. That team could of had a little something with all hands on deck. But the 2010 team absolutely went belly up, got worse as the year went on, and the change had to be made. Attendance and interest were approaching dangerously low levels. A bad team with a boring style of play is a bad combination.

 

[Cableman]

I like what Fran has done at Iowa but I can see where lightning is coming from. Last year was a huge step back, the turn around this year so far has been nice but we need Fran to get Iowa to the next level.

I personally will not be happy with an occasional NCAA bid. I want to see Iowa competing for the B10 crown, BTT title, and making noise in the NCAA tournament. I’m not ready to chase him out just yet but I won’t be happy seeing Fran continue ignoring glaring weaknesses and have repeats of last season.

I can see where he is coming from as well, just don't agree that Fran hasn't accomplish anything yet. Personally I don't count the first 2 years against him. I blame those on Lick. NCAA tournament bids for 3 out of 6 years is still average at best. Maybe replacing him will be where we end up in a year or two, who knows?
Right now Fran is/has addressed the glaring weaknesses from last year, defense. It was a focus during the off season and the improvement so far this year is there. They've already matched their wins from last year and still have 14 games left.
If you believe that the glaring weaknesses is the way the roster is put together; changing that is a process that will take time. Hopefully that starts next year with the New York point guard.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Iowa should be able to compete for conference titles and consistent NCAA appearances, no doubt about it. I just don't like the comparisons of today's culture/environment to the 70s/80s or even 90s. The landscape has changed drastically from those days...see nebraska football.

In some ways today's landscape has made it much easier. As recently as the early 1970's it was difficult to make the NCAA'S unless you won your conference. That no doubt hurt some of Ralph Miller and Lute Olson's teams. USC with Paul Westphal in the early '70's was probably a top ten team. But if you went 25-2 (which they did) and your two losses were to UCLA you were going to the NIT.

A decade later things were already changing. Lutes 1980 final four team wouldn't have sniffed the dance in 1970. It finished tied for fourth in the conference. Nowadays teams fininshing fourth or lower in the conference and making runs are fairly common. See NC State in 1983 and Villanova in 1985.

 

[JG10Hawk]

Lickliter might have had something going that third year if four key players hadn't transferred out of the program and Anthony Tucker hadn't drank himself out of the program. It's pretty hard to go to battle without five players you were counting on. In 2009 Cyrus Tate battled a bad ankle all year and Jarryd Cole still wasn't 100% from a knee injury. That team could of had a little something with all hands on deck. But the 2010 team absolutely went belly up, got worse as the year went on, and the change had to be made. Attendance and interest were approaching dangerously low levels. A bad team with a boring style of play is a bad combination.

Todd's biggest issue was player retention. His style was boring as all get out but it's tough for any style to work when losing your best players every year when they are not even graduating. Just off the top of my head he lost Tony Freeman, Jake Kelly, Jeff Peterson, Jermaine Davis, David Palmer, & Anthony Tucker before graduation. I'm sure I missed some. I know there were several others on the brink of transferring when he got fired. Aaron Fuller, Brennan Cougill (academic reasons I think), Cully Payne (played one year with Fran), even rumors of home town Matt Gatens exploring his options... Probably missing others.