I know it is a message board...

[lightning1]

I think the issue after the Purdue loss was a response to the success and failures of Fran McCaffrey as coach. Iowa has not been in contention for a men's conference championship forever. While I support the program there has to be a point when I guy runs out of chances. McCaffrey took over a terrible situation 9 years ago. He righted the ship and has never scratched his way into the top 4 teams, let alone win the championship. For his level of compensation in relation to results there is a gap.

I also believe that some of the criticism posted has some legitimacy. He has difficulty in substituting players and at the end of close games and to close the regular season he has not been great. Against NW he had a short bench and his substituting was limited, but worked out better. In the years where they went into February to finish in the top 4 they lost close games and ended up 5th.

He has tied for 3rd twice in the BIG conference. The first time, we were 4th because we tied for 3rd with Purdue but they beat us the only time we played them. The second time we tied for 3rd with 3 other teams but lost the head to head with 2 of them- making us 5th. The rest of your point still stands.

 

[lightning1]

And take a hard look at his own staff as well. There is no shame in having a defensive guru on the staff, even if it is an old grizzled veteran. Half the team's in the NFL are doing this. Phil Jackson had two on his staff during the Jordan dynasty. One knew offense, one knew defense.

But he didn't replace anyone from his staff. He hired some guy for 1 month over the summer. Which is completely mind boggling to me. Fran has several former head coaches on his existing staff and not 1 of them knows how to coach defense??? I find that extremely difficult to believe. The issue here is that Fran doesn't want to devote the practice time needed to play good defense. Fran doesn't want to evolve. Otherwise....Gutless Gary is worse than even I thought at running an AD. If he has allowed a coach to put together a staff that's only capable of coaching half the game.

 

[Northside Hawk]

But he didn't replace anyone from his staff. He hired some guy for 1 month over the summer. Which is completely mind boggling to me. Fran has several former head coaches on his existing staff and not 1 of them knows how to coach defense??? I find that extremely difficult to believe. The issue here is that Fran doesn't want to devote the practice time needed to play good defense. Fran doesn't want to evolve. Otherwise....Gutless Gary is worse than even I thought at running an AD. If he has allowed a coach to put together a staff that's only capable of coaching half the game.

You yourself seem to have a good idea of how to coach defense but I don't think you would qualify as old and grizzled.

I, for one, was definitely calling for a shakeup of the staff. It's probably overdue anyway.

 

[lightning1]

You yourself seem to have a good idea of how to coach defense but I don't think you would qualify as old and grizzled.

I, for one, was definitely calling for a shakeup of the staff. It's probably overdue anyway.

Well......I'm not as old and grizzled as you are.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Well......I'm not as old and grizzled as you are.

On a serious note, I think the makeup of our staff is a big part of the issue.

I don't mind one older former head coach, like Speraw, but three?

Give me at least two young up and comers who aspire to be D-1 head coaches someday. As long as at least one of them knows how to coach defense.

 

[lightning1]

On a serious note, I think the makeup of our staff is a big part of the issue.

I don't mind one older former head coach, like Speraw, but three?

Give me at least two young up and comers who aspire to be D-1 head coaches someday. As long as at least one of them knows how to coach defense.

Three - is a stretch. Francis was a D3 head women's coach for 2 seasons at some school I've never heard of. I did some digging into the back ground of this staff and none of them seemed to coach defense at their previous gigs. Speraw's teams consistently finished in the mid 200s for PPG allowed and Dillard's teams got progressively worse over a 7 year period. Going from 100 in PPG allowed his first season to the mid 200s by the end of his 7 year career. Francis has been with Fran for 90% of his coaching career. He won't help in the defense category.
It appears that Gutless Gary has sunk a few rungs lower on the ladder that is my opinion of him. I didn't think that was possible.

 

[PCHawk]

I think the issue after the Purdue loss was a response to the success and failures of Fran McCaffrey as coach. Iowa has not been in contention for a men's conference championship forever. While I support the program there has to be a point when I guy runs out of chances. McCaffrey took over a terrible situation 9 years ago. He righted the ship and has never scratched his way into the top 4 teams, let alone win the championship. For his level of compensation in relation to results there is a gap.

I also believe that some of the criticism posted has some legitimacy. He has difficulty in substituting players and at the end of close games and to close the regular season he has not been great. Against NW he had a short bench and his substituting was limited, but worked out better. In the years where they went into February to finish in the top 4 they lost close games and ended up 5th.

You mean Iowa hasn't WON a championship. They were in contention for one a few years ago.

 

[PCHawk]

You can't say this is basically the same team as last year when our 2nd or 3rd best player is new and our 7th best player (I think) fills a huge need from last year.

Also everyone who follows sports knows that things can snowball as the year goes on. It's pretty obvious that last years team wasnt as bad as their season.

 

[Ree4]

Iowa has not been in contention for a men's conference championship forever.

Weren't they contenders just 3(?) years ago when they were ranked 3rd and some pollsters were rating them at #1 in the country? They started 7-0 then went to Maryland and got the screw job

 

[HawkGold]

They commit to playing defense some games but not others. It's what typically happens when you ask your team to do something they never had to do before. The goal is to get it every game. The only question is, how long will that take?
I had a similar situation when I first started coaching AAU. My first team was a 16U team. They had enough athletic ability to play man defense but not the knowledge to play team defense. It took about 6 tournaments of an 8 tournament summer before they could do it consistently. That was a rough summer for me. many nights I went home with a pounding headache. I'm a defense first coach. So I stayed on them each and every practice. I'm sure some of those kids hate me til this day. But they play better basketball for it. These Hawkeye players will be better off for it too.

Some teams are faster than others. NW is not fast. D looks better.

 

[lightning1]

Some teams are faster than others. NW is not fast. D looks better.

Agreed. The different level of athletes you are trying to defend, makes a difference.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Some teams are faster than others. NW is not fast. D looks better.

Northwestern had tall rangy guards but not that quick jet ski who could break a defense down with penetration. Best possible matchup for us.

And that's why everyone keeps harping on the Wisconsin loss. Our team as constructed should have been able to handle their offense. But Greg outcoached Fran.

I am cautiously optimistic, and have brought it up on the boards, that lessons we learned that night in defeat led to wins over Nebraska and Northwestern (so far) that we may not otherwise have gotten. That's the only way to think about it now. We can't replay the Wisconsin game. We do, however, get a chance to return the favor later in Madison.

 

[Ian Pike Hammer]

But geezo peezo. Wide-spread predictions of Iowa getting hammered by Nebraska and Northwestern after getting de-testicled by Purdue at Mackey Arena (a decades-old Iowa tradition) were a little bit of a over-reaction. Fact is there are 2 elite teams in this conference in Michigan and Michigan State, and three doormats in Penn State, Illinois, and Rutgers. That's 9 other teams to duke it out in the middle and no credible analyst should even pretend they have any idea how this will shake out at this point.

Shame on you, all you thread hijackers! Back to the op= Yes, this is a message board and here is the message- we all like to bitch and moan after a loss and then are so ashamed that we bitched and moaned after a win, that we say very little. Deal with it.

 

[smhawk]

Win the next two and your looking at a shot at msu at home during 5 game winning streak. With msu havng played maryland a few days before. And purdur coming up after iowa game.

If they were able to pull that off they could likely get away with going .500 the rest of the way and still make tourny.

But gotta take care of business on the road at state, which may not be easy doing.

 

[PCHawk]

We've won 3 "must win" games in a row, now we have two more coming up. If we get to 5-3, we finally have some breathing room.

If we do somehow win them both, I will be having dreams of playing in Des Moines before the MSU game.