I WAS getting excited about this season but...

[rodthompson]

I was beginning to get cautiously optimistic about the upcoming season, but then I talked to a high school coach I know who sat in on a couple Iowa practices a week or so ago.

He told me that the team looks extremely slow and unathletic compared to other teams he has seen.

Not that this guy is some end-all/know-all, but it is depressing that we don't target better athletes for this program. I thought that it might change some with Coach Fran, but it still seems like we aren't really targeting anybody who breaks the mold of the traditional Iowa player.[/QUOTE]


Do you know anything about our recruits or those we are recruiting? No need to comment; the answer is clearly 'no'.

I have seen who they are recruiting. And while they've landed a couple nice players, why do we continue to have ZERO presence in the Chicagoland area, in particular the Public League, which pumps out talent year after year after year. There is no excuse for it.

 

[newtonavenue]

I would greatly disagree with this statement. You are basically telling me that Olesani, White, and Ogelsby in this class are not atheletic upgrades to what we had on last year's team or years prior. If you are saying that Olesani is not more athletic than Cole, you are wrong. While Cole may have been a better player, Olesani is much more athletic and runs the floor better than Cole. And you can't seriously tell me that White is not more athletic than McCabe. This is nonsense and I put less than 0 stock in what you are saying.

I'd wait they have a game under their belts before you starting making claims like this.

 

[frank]

Let me get this straight. You think recruiting 7 footers is a bad thing? How do you know that the kids coming in aren't "GREAT ATHLETES" but are good basketball players? Did you gather that from their highlight tapes? It's also been pretty clear where Fran is coming from. He wants to run an up tempo offense with a good transition defense. He's recruiting players that can run the floor and play faster.

Umm yeah? What better to describe a guys playing skills, than a video of them playing

 

[AHawk1]

Fran is trying to recruit great athletes and basketball players. I hope you realize just how far this program has fallen. This Iowa team will be just average, and I'm sure they don't look very athletic or very good in practice, because they aren't. However, this team will improve, the recruiting has all ready improved, significantly, and the program is moving in a positive direction and that is something we haven't seen in several years.

 

[CPHAWK82]

Umm yeah? What better to describe a guys playing skills, than a video of them playing

Ummmmm, obviously you watched the tapes as did everyone else. I was arguing your statement that they didn't look athletic. I thought their highlight tapes were pretty impressive and showed a lot of athleticism in comparison to Iowa's recruits in recent years, not in comparison to Duke or similar schools.

 

[SheagleHawk]

I have seen who they are recruiting. And while they've landed a couple nice players, why do we continue to have ZERO presence in the Chicagoland area, in particular the Public League, which pumps out talent year after year after year. There is no excuse for it.

I get what you're saying about Chicagoland; would be REALLY nice to pick up some quality players from there. But you can't say that Fran is not boosting our talent. Without a name coach, it's nearly impossible to come into a program as bad as ours was and start pulling in top 100 players out of an area of recruiting normally dominated by consistently good teams. Hopefully in a couple of years Iowa will be a good brand name again and we can start hitting Chicago hard and challenging teams like Illinois for their top recruits. Patience.

 

[rodthompson]

Totally agreed. I just hope we can get back to the point where when we go on the road we have a chance to win games.

 

[djwoody98]

I haven't seen many basketball teams that look great in October.

 

[CPHAWK82]

2013 class in chicago is getting a lot of hype. It'd be nice to get in on some of those players.

 

[masoncityhawkeye]

Worthless troll. Go back in your hole

I have heard it too not the slow part but the not very good part. It isn't good to know that the kid we missed on (going to NW) is already as a HS senior better than two potential starters in White and May is reason enough for me to temper my expectations this year.

McCaffery really messed up on Kale's recruitment. Would have had him if he didn't wait till after the summer.

 

[TritonHawkeye]

If Kale wanted to be a Hawk he would have come to IC. He is dead to me...

 

[Ihawk209]

Worthless troll. Go back in your hole

"you've got to pay the troll's toll, if you want to get into that little boys hole"

 

[BasketballMan]

Ok. Let's all jump off a bridge because some unknown and un-named supposed high school basketball coach made the comment that we're slow and un-athletic. WOW. You are kidding me....right? I cannot tell you how many extremely athletic AAU teams I've watched over the years get DESTROYED by a somewhat lesser athletic team that was skilled. Cmon. This thread is a frickin joke.

 

[BasketballMan]

masoncityhawkeye...WOW. Is Kale your son? brother? cousin? maybe best friend? or are you simply incompetent when it comes to evaluating talent?

 

[ICHAWK]

I get what you're saying about Chicagoland; would be REALLY nice to pick up some quality players from there. But you can't say that Fran is not boosting our talent. Without a name coach, it's nearly impossible to come into a program as bad as ours was and start pulling in top 100 players out of an area of recruiting normally dominated by consistently good teams. Hopefully in a couple of years Iowa will be a good brand name again and we can start hitting Chicago hard and challenging teams like Illinois for their top recruits. Patience.

Hell even up untilt he last two recruiting classes Illinois struggled to pull in the top talent from Chicago. That is why Webber had to turn over some of his staff and basically make what in hinsight (most predicted) was a bad move in recruiting Richmond. So a home state team which has had a better history than Iowa especially the last 10-15 years had trouble recruiting Chicago. How in the hell does someone expect Iowa to just walk in an pull out the top talent.

Baby steps here. Recruit solid players who seem to be a heck of a lot better than Lick brought in and try to slowly build up to getting better players.

 

[rodthompson]

The point was that they weren't very skilled either. If you aren't athletic you have to make it up with an abundance of technical skill that this team lacks as well.

 

[frank]

Ummmmm, obviously you watched the tapes as did everyone else. I was arguing your statement that they didn't look athletic. I thought their highlight tapes were pretty impressive and showed a lot of athleticism in comparison to Iowa's recruits in recent years, not in comparison to Duke or similar schools.

I never made that statement.

 

[frank]

Ok. Let's all jump off a bridge because some unknown and un-named supposed high school basketball coach made the comment that we're slow and un-athletic. WOW. You are kidding me....right? I cannot tell you how many extremely athletic AAU teams I've watched over the years get DESTROYED by a somewhat lesser athletic team that was skilled. Cmon. This thread is a frickin joke.

I bet you've seen more games in which the more athletic team won.

 

[masoncityhawkeye]

Basketballman
Never even seen Kale play. Someone who was a four year starter for Iowa that is close toKale (sure you can figure that out) said as much so I believe him over all these message board trolls

 

[CGHawk]

I was beginning to get cautiously optimistic about the upcoming season, but then I talked to a high school coach I know who sat in on a couple Iowa practices a week or so ago.He told me that the team looks extremely slow and unathletic compared to other teams he has seen.Not that this guy is some end-all/know-all, but it is depressing that we don't target better athletes for this program. I thought that it might change some with Coach Fran, but it still seems like we aren't really targeting anybody who breaks the mold of the traditional Iowa player.

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