I'm a fan of Fran

BSpringsteen

BSpringsteen

Well-Known Member
I like how he gets in the opposing team players face after he plays dirty.

Players love when a coach has their back to that degree... this guy is a real players coach.

If Fran can get it done on the recruiting end, Iowa BBall might turn around in a hurry.
 
Fran is a fighter. He grew up playing ball in the inner city ...probably usually the only white guy on the court. He knows street ball,and street tough. I like it.
 
JHHawk said:
Fran is a fighter. He grew up playing ball in the inner city ...probably usually the only white guy on the court. He knows street ball,and street tough. I like it.
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You forgot to mention that he did this while being named Fran.:)
 
BSpringsteen said:
I like how he gets in the opposing team players face after he plays dirty.

Players love when a coach has their back to that degree... this guy is a real players coach.

If Fran can get it done on the recruiting end, Iowa BBall might turn around in a hurry.
Click to expand...

Agree 100 percent. I think Fran is going to turn this thing around sooner than later. The name of the game is recruiting so if he can bring in the talent I like the potential of our program returning to where it once was.
 
Sign me up as a Fran Fan. I definitely like the guy. He seems totally genuine and I love the style of ball we are playing. Even if we are not any good this year, it is 100X more entertaining to watch than the past 3 years.

You can tell the players are buying in and responding to what they are being taught, and to me, that's a sign that things can turn around sooner rather than later. The game yesterday is only the second one I've actually seen, and it's been a night & day different from the first game that I saw against SDSU, even if the latest opponent wasn't good.

Recruiting will be key of course, but I get a good feeling here that we will be fine when it's all said and done.
 
I love this coach. I remember when Iowa hired Ralph Miller, Lute Olson and Tom Davis. I have the same feeling about this guy.

Of course, I am your typical dumb Iowa fan -- I was really excited when we hired Alford, and we know how that turned out.

Still, I think this style of play will attract better recruits, which is imperative if we are going to compete at all in the brutal Big Ten.

There might not be very many wins this year, but this team will be fun to watch and could give some teams fits with their aggressive, attacking style on both ends.
 
ChosenChildren said:
There might not be very many wins this year, but this team will be fun to watch and could give some teams fits with their aggressive, attacking style on both ends.
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As much as I love the up-tempo offense, I enjoy just as much seeing a team that actually seems to be playing half-court defense and forces some turnovers.. Our guys seem to be able to effectively press and trap, and disrupt the offense without getting burned for easy buckets every time we try it.
 
I agree. It does seem that Fran's defensive schemes are extremely disruptive. They force teams to play a little bit outside of their comfort zone. 4 great coaches who taught the same way:

1. John Wooden
2. Ralph Miller (I saw all of his home games at Iowa; what a coach!)
3. Lute Olson
4. Tom Davis

We will get a bit of a read on this team over the next 3 weeks, I believe. The wins over Bama and SIU-E (the margin of victory) showed me a lot about this Coach.

I originally predicted 8 wins for this team. I think I might be wrong. Are 12-13 wins too much to ask?
 
ChosenChildren said:
I agree. It does seem that Fran's defensive schemes are extremely disruptive. They force teams to play a little bit outside of their comfort zone. 4 great coaches who taught the same way:

1. John Wooden
2. Ralph Miller (I saw all of his home games at Iowa; what a coach!)
3. Lute Olson
4. Tom Davis

We will get a bit of a read on this team over the next 3 weeks, I believe. The wins over Bama and SIU-E (the margin of victory) showed me a lot about this Coach.

I originally predicted 8 wins for this team. I think I might be wrong. Are 12-13 wins too much to ask?
Click to expand...

The past several years it seems we'd sit back in a very pedestrian style of defense, and our opponents, of course, would not usually turn the ball over much. Usually we'd have 15+ turnovers to our opponents' 8 or 10, pretty much every night out. I hated that, and am glad to see it change.

I predicted 12 wins this year, so yes, I think somewhere in that neighborhood is possible. :D The Big Ten is very tough this year, so even if we continue to improve, we STILL probably won't win many league games, but I think (or hope) we'll at least be competetive in most.

Yep, the next couple weeks will be tough, no doubt. Wake looks beatable so far, and the only road game in the in-state series is @Drake, so that's favorable. Not sure how many of these next games we'll actually win, but I think we have a shot in each of them. Stay tuned.
 
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