If we miss the dance this year.....

It doesn't help that BIG dropped to 4th in conference race with SEC closing in on pushing it to 5th. What happened to BIG???
 
linus19 said:
I have to agree with the last 20 games comment. This garbage has totally carried over from the debacle that was the ending to last season. Fran did a good job of getting Iowa out of the crater left by Lick, but he doesn't have what it takes to sustain a sucessful program at this level. His lack of recruiting is Exhibit A.
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Time for some Sunday Morning Timely Truthiness:


But, Linus, he has been attempting to recruit to Iowa which has had a few good years under Alford but he was too arrogant and ignorant and wanted to become Indiana's coach but completely blew that dream by losing two 17 point leads against Northwest State and still should have won the game with competent coaching at the very end. Very few seconds left and Brunner is fouled. He made the first giving us a two point lead, I believe. He calls a timeout and takes Hansen out of the game, the leading shot blocker in the Big with about 20 minutes playing time a game the entire season. Brunner misses the second free throw and they drive down the court and nailed a three from the corner. Picture in the DMR showed Haluska attempting to block or alter the shot. He was extended as far as physically possible for him. He was about a foot short of even touching the ball. Hansen would have been able to block or alter the shot one would think. After they took the lead, we threw the ball in and Adam drove down the court and missed a desperate shot from long range before the buzzer sounded. In the meantime NW State players were storming the court before we threw the ball in. Technical should have been called, wasn't, and Alford couldn't spare the time to confer with the referees about the violation. He just walked quickly off the court, not a hair out of place with his mind occupied with the fact that he completely blew any chance of coaching his dream job at Indiana where he was a legend. Didn't seem to care about changing the outcome of the game....

Just that game would repel any decent recruits.....

He had to go, and we replaced him with Lick whose style made Bo Ryan seem like Loyola Marymount under Paul Westhead or Grinnell. If he would have won more games, he would still have had to go. It was the most boring team, perhaps, in college basketball history and completely destroyed the Hawkeye men's basketball program, tore it to tatters. I can still see him sitting on the bench with his head buried in his hands, much worse than George Raveling sitting at least ten feet from the team in his leisure suit shook to the core by the goldfish aspect of Hawkeye basketball. George however did not leave the cupboard bare, being the best recruiter the Hawks have ever had.....



The unbelievable hire of Lickliter was the straw that broke the camel's back. Despite how far he or rather his assistant Brad Stevens advanced in the tournament, his style was impossibly more painful to watch than Bo Ryans. If one thinks the past two games were unbearable and they were, they were nothing in comparison to LickBall. He spent quite a bit of time sitting on the bench with his head buried in his hands, despair and doom a cloud around him. Nobody watched the Hawks during his watch, Nobody that I knew whom I had watched every game with for over 20 years simply couldn't watch the complete collapse of one of the most prestigous programs in college basketball history, ranked tenth overall by the Sagarin/ESPN rankings. The Hawkeyes were famous for fan loyalty, the fieldhouse was packed when our teams were challenging NW for the basement and the stands at Kinnick were packed before Hayden arrived to turn things around. Fan loyalty disappeared. When he was finally fired, not many coaches wanted to spend years to turn the program around, and obviously No recruits even gave the Hawks a split second of consideration. We were, considering our history, the worst team in college ball and a joke that nobody even bothered to laugh at.

Fran had the fortitude and confidence, plus, of course, financial incentive, to know he could, in time, bring us back to respectibility. Not only that but absolutely No recruit would even consider Iowa. It was going to be a Herculean task and would take years of hard work and dedication. He was aware of the former prestige of the Hawkeyes, and knew he was capable of turning the program around. After convincing Devyn to stay and Melsohn to follow him, it was huge for Josh Oglesby, a ranked respected recruit to commit, knowing that in his four years we might still be at the bottom of the Big Ten, but his love of the Hawks as a young child till now sealed his loyalty, gaining the attention of other recruits who at least might consider Iowa. It was a brave and necessary move on his part, and he was a diplomat talking to his AAU teammates about coming on board. Mike G and Woody were talked into considering Iowa, although Woody and family were diehard Hawk fans, he had Roy Williams, and coaches from Kansas and other prestigous basketball schools after him. I remember seeing a picture of Peter Jok sitting next to Josh at a Hawk practice.

Hoiberg had it a lot easier. He was a well known player who was fun to watch. Basketball savvy people in the Midwest knew him and watched him play for the Minnesota Timberwolves. After an injury he was an assistant coach for the Timberwolves and then worked in their office for four years, making countless contacts in the Midwest. Hardly anybody had heard of Fran. He also had the advantage of a loyal Iowa State fan base. Hilton was almost always filled with Rabid Loud Fans, and they loved the Mayor coming back to coach. His style of recruiting was criticized but ingenious. He took a chance and gave a second chance for very good players who had serious problems with the authorities and no respect for the coaches and made it work. Good for him. He has done very well, much better than most expected. The main difference between developing the Clones and Fran bringing the Hawks back was how far the Iowa program had fallen. It was a disgrace of the highest order....

Despite the setbacks, especially the puzzling fall from glory at the end of last season. Forget not that despite the string of losses, we were in the top 25 the entire regular season. We dropped out after the last regular season game just before the conference playoffs. Who really thought that in four years from LickBall we would be in the top 25 the entire regular season. I don't know the reasons for the lethal downfall. Rumors about internal strife among the players was mentioned but not proven. Fran and Marge had to know that Patrick was not well, and we don't know when the tests started. If it was during the team's downspin, that would make it more difficult to totally concentrate on coaching the team and any internal difficulties. Fortunately Patrick is well now, but any parent would find it extremely difficult to coach a team without the thought of whether or not their son was going to live.

I personally can't blame Fran for the sudden failure of the team after playing so well prior to Patrick's condition and any internal strife. Fran did not tell the team until after the regular season, I believe.....

Despite the losing streak, we Made the NCAA tournament. You either play in the tournament or not. We played in the tournament. It is simply a matter of semantics. Whatever it is called, we played in the first round of The Dance, otherwise the season would have been over unless we accepted a bid to the NIT....

The year before we played for the NIT Championship, quite an accomplishment for Fran and his team's third year.....

His second year we made the NIT which was a remarkable accomplishment considering the disgusting mess Lick had made of the program. Who really thought that possible....

Even his first year ended in glory the last game of the regular season beating Number 4 ranked Purdue at Carver. That in itself was a harbinger of comiing success.....

This season, after relying on Devyn last year on offense to the degree that he usually handled the ball most possessions and took a last second shot and was mostly successful, but the offense, at least in the half court was Devyn. It is a completely different team without Devyn and his scoring was going to take a while to replace. All in all, this season is not as bad as the past two games would suggest. Iowa State is always one of the toughest games on the schedule. Their hatred for us is profound. I don't believe the average Hawkeye fan devotes as much time and devotion to hatred. They won two football games this season, one at Kinnick. The year Brad Banks ran the team was the best team we have had in recent history. Iowa State beat us, our only loss until the Orange Bowl against USC. The Panthers also have developed a profound hatred for the Hawks and are a very good team this year, tournament bound and considered by the media experts as such. We weren't prepared for either of them. Time to move on and correct the myriad problems we have shown against them.....

However, before the past two games, we went into MSG undefeated and led Texas at halftime. They were not prepared for us.They were the second half. Too much talented size and we lost by 14 points. They were a top ten team, I believe. No disgrace. We played Syracuse next and were behind by five points at halftime. We fell down by 15 points with about 11 minutes left in the game. We fought back and cut the lead to a point with 55 seconds left, ended up losing by three, but the rally was definitely improvement over last season when we had the lead and gave it away in the last few minutes. This time we came back from a 15 point deficet and cut it to one point with under a minute left in the game. They were lucky to win.....

Won the rest of our games until going to Chapel Hill and beating North Carolina, whose preconference record under Roy was 80-3. Some attempt to downplay the achievement claiming that this was not a good Tarheel team. We beat them at Chapel Hill, a venerable arena, but on a neutral court this below average North Carolina team beat Ohio State 82-74 Friday Night.....,

This season is not over and not lost because we lost two games in a row in which we were completely outplayed and actually humiliated. It was painful, but it is also over. Our record is 9-4, losing three games to top 25 teams and one to a team that was in the top 25 last week.....

There is a lot of basketball yet to be played. Fran and the team have an enormous task to get back on track. We shall see how resilient, tough, skillful and proud this team is. These guys know how to play good basketball and have Hawkeye Pride. How they respond to North Florida Monday will be telling. We simply Must beat them. If not, then we might be in seriious trouble because it is very difficult to win at Ohio State, and we will be looking at a four game losing streak.....

We start the Big with a particular Nasty schedule. Fortunately we have Nebraska and Michigan State at home then at Minnesota, Ohio State at Carver, then at Wisconsin.....

I can see a loss at Ohio State, they will be highly motivated by losing to North Carolina after we beat them at Chapel Hill. Nebraska can be defeated at Carver and we have a chance at beating the Spartans. They don't like playing at Carver. Lick beat them holding them to, I believe, an all time low, about 39 points. Fran beat them at Carver his second year, I believe, and they were shocked beyond belief. They interviewed one of their players after the game and he was devastated with shame. He said: I can't believe we lost to Iowa. At GopherLand it is a tossup. Ohio State at Carver is also a tossup slightly favoring the Buckeyes. However we do in those games home and away, I personally guarantee a victory at Wisconsin who will be in the top five....

KPom and I have been discussing the situation and we agree on every point....

As all can see, this season is far from over.....

If by some quirk we fall into a long losing streak, then the talk about how bad we really are will resume with validity, and the season might as well be over....

This is a thoughtful, carefully constructed analysis and despite all evidence, to the contrary, I am Not a Homer....

Signed: Jack




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Sorry Jack, I really do like you and your postings, but you gotta open your eyes on this. Iowa is going to be heading into year 7 of Fran with 1 NCAA tournament appearance if something isn't done. This isn't a NCAA team right now, and it will only get worse next year when we lose our best player, and our best inside post presence.
 
PCHawk said:
We would have to find a REALLY good coach to insure the program moved the right direction after the hire. Between Fran being such a hard recruiter and how good the conference is right now it would be tough to bring someone new in that would do better. It's different in football where the program is slowly moving in the wrong direction, we are barely a .500 team anymore, and how weak the conference is.
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Did you actually say that with a straight face?
 
deanvogs said:
Fran sh!t was over last year when his team completely and totally tanked down the stretch. When you have a 4-6 NCAA talent on your team, and you coach them up to get a 12 seed play in game, that is f*****. It is embarrassing the way all the Hawk fans are sticking up for Fran. Get me a nerd like Tim Miles, or a freaking coach who had never coach a second of BB at any level and they can outproduce Fran in single year.
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With all due respect intended is this year proving that we did not have 4-6 seed NCAA talent? We had a great player in Marble combined with whatever this is. When teams took away transition, clogged the middle and Dev was off or could not do it all then we collapsed. This years team shows why it happened. Nothing beyond Dev. Not good enough.
 
deanvogs said:
Everyone in this thread defending Fran and this garbage program needs to apologize to my azz right now. This team doesn't have a prayer to make the NCAA, and next years team is gonna be even worse than this years team. Fran is in over his head and it is embarrassing. When some freaking nerd looking dude (Miles) and a coach without one second of head coaching experience (Fred) are running rings around you, that is when you know you are a joke.
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Start holding your breath in 3...2....1...now. :)
 
SpecialKHawk said:
With all due respect intended is this year proving that we did not have 4-6 seed NCAA talent? We had a great player in Marble combined with whatever this is. When teams took away transition, clogged the middle and Dev was off or could not do it all then we collapsed. This years team shows why it happened. Nothing beyond Dev. Not good enough.
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Last years team was most defiantly a 4-6 seed. We had a NBA guard. Ogs actually hit water falling out of a boat last year. We got 10+ PPG and 10 + RPG from our C position. We could run, and score. We were much, much better than a play in team.
 
hawkforlife9 said:
Remember, that was UNI's Superbowl. They have more to win by winning than we do.
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Not this year. Beating UNI would have been a serious feather in our cap in terms of NCAA resume. UNI doesn't get much of anything out of beating us right now, other than avoiding what could potentially end up as a bad loss.
 
tweeterhawk said:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. This team isn't sniffing anything this year except the opponents' jockstraps as they fly over them for rebounds, blocks and uncontested jumpers. This isn't even an NIT team. The B1G is going to brutal. Fran should be gone this year.
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This.
 
nationalchamps said:
How hot is Fran's seat next year? I think it's NCAA tourney or he gone, and GarBar should be right behind him.
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I think if he misses it this year his seat gets hot. If he misses it again then it's time for a change.

Fran has gotten Iowa competitive again, but they aren't exactly "back".
 
trj said:
So you want to start over AGAIN? You do realize Iowa isn't a top 30 job and hasn't
been so in 15 years? I believe all of Coach K pups have jobs.

Normally, I would agree 3 years is all it should take, but given where the program is at the best play is that FM gets it going by year 6 or 7. You could hire Phil Jackson and it would take at least a couple of years to get going.
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I know Fran Mac will forget more than I will ever know about college basketball. I am just looking from a fan's observational perspective. I don't understand the style of cursing refs, cursing UNI's bench and players and cursing his own players as being a redemptive strategy in trying to build a successful team. If you don't have talent and athletes on the floor, talking about the referee's and player's mothers isn't going to get it done. No combination of players on the floor is going to matter if players aren't good enough. You can exhaust your timeouts and it won't matter. UNI has a lot to do with how they looked and I give credit where it is due. Seems like ultimately the true real problem is he can't recruit. No calvary coming. I still don't like Fran's style of getting it done even if it does bring some wins. He just backs off a little short of Bobby Knight because he doesn't physically abuse his players. Fran will probably hang around a while because he is one of a few coaches in America that thinks coaching at Iowa is his ultimate final dream job. Iowa is an average basketball team at best. I hope the team turns around only because I root for the colors, but I don't see Fran changing his stripes. Barta is a passive boss, and will leave him totally alone unless he gets ridiculous. UNI is a very good basketball team, plays great defense, Ben is a class act, and UNI was wise to sowing him up in a long contract. Uni potentially could be better than the 2010 team that went to the sweet 16. Ultimately Iowa sports is put in perspective based on what life is really about.
 
deanvogs said:
Everyone in this thread defending Fran and this garbage program needs to apologize to my azz right now. This team doesn't have a prayer to make the NCAA, and next years team is gonna be even worse than this years team. Fran is in over his head and it is embarrassing. When some freaking nerd looking dude (Miles) and a coach without one second of head coaching experience (Fred) are running rings around you, that is when you know you are a joke.
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Dean, I'm here to apologize. I've been a Fran supporter all along. I will list the reasons why I supported him if you want, but I'd rather get to why I'm finally coming to my senses. My biggest concern is player development and in-game coaching. The long scoring droughts is 100% on the coaching staff. If your normal "motion" offense is stalling, the coach should call time-out and run a (or multiple) set play to get a quality shot. Add in the lack of halftime adjustments and poor record in close games, and it's the icing on the cake.

Since the Woodbury and Gesell class, recruiting has been weak. The Dickerson transfer bothered me at the time, but now is just mind-blowing of how bad of a scholarship that was. The 2015 class is interesting, but lacks a PG and a Center.

I want to make it clear that I am not on "Team Ferentz" for football. I think the basketball and football situations are apples and oranges. The sports are nothing alike. So with that being said, I think Fran gets this year and next year to see what he can do (I'm happy to expand on why). The last thing I'll add here is that if Fran can't get these guys playing better, I think changes need to be made all the way up the ladder. This is a systemic problem at the University of Iowa. It starts with Sally Mason, and then goes to Gary Barta. For Hawkeye athletics get back to where they have been in the past, there has to be a changes, starting from the top.
 
A few observations...

1. All the talk of underachieving for possibly a 3rd straight season, IMO means our sights are unreasonable and the talent we have is no where near where some think it is.

2. We're losing to tournament teams that are better then we are. Its pretty simple, but we act shocked with these results. The way we are losing is head scratching, but I hear people posting like we shouldn't be losing to programs like ISU and UNI.

3. We continue to compare ourselves to the team that showed great promise and then fizzled last year. We quickly forget that Marble was a huge part of that and that no one has replaced him. Despite the belief that his production would be made up collectively rather than by someone stepping up to replace him.

4. Our "best player" and the current face of the program is making a living at the free throw line and really struggling to get his points/looks in the half court offense. There are far bigger problems then simply coaching at this point.
 
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