Glad you started a thread like this, Freddy. I was going to start something related but didn't want it to descend into a chastising diatribe against the myopians, (oops, there's that chastising tendency, again). I mean I wanted it to offer a realistic perspective / assessment of where the team is at and where they are going.
First, if you cannot overcome being compelled to constantly whine about "the system", cannot get past the "this is year 3" griping and just don't like the Lickliters (as evidenced by the personal attacks by many) then read no further. This isn't for you. If you're capable of viewing this from the big open pit that was Iowa bball, waiting to be filled with the key building blocks, then read on.
Going into this season, rational expectations were as follows:
#1) Progress toward competitive basketball.
Check. Anyone paying attention througout the BigXI season can clearly see this is happening. Far more athleticly and physically gifted Iowa teams have been run off the floor at MSU and OSU. With the exception of Michigan, Iowa has been in positions to win every single game over the last several weeks.
#2) Play like champions. Play with pride for yourself, your coach and for your university.
Check. See #1. This team keeps playing as if it is going to win. It plays with heart and effort. Of course, these characteristics alone are not going to win you many games but in the context of building the program, these are crucial to the foundation of future success.
#2a) Absolutely no attrition due "personal" reasons. (Sorry Tyler, sorry Jake. Really, sorry for your situations and losses. Bottom line, your decisions had as much to do with a dislike for TL / his style, little loyalty to the U of Iowa and your own personal betterment as it did with any pressing family situation. Not begrudging you for making a choice but, at best, the situations made your departure easier to "explain" but let's not sugar coat it with the emotional "high road".)
This has yet to be graded. Hopefully, the rumors of Payne leaving are hooey. However, if there's more "unnatural" attrition pointing to even the suspicion of a personality clash with TL, then he must be let go, immediately.
#3) Begin to see some semblence of continuity on offense.
Check. This is about as in depth as I'm going with X's + O's. Again, if you're paying attention, you are beginning to see that any system can have success with the right personnel and competent execution of some of the most basic fundamentals of the game. (Sound familiar Hawkeye football fans?)
-- Spacing, positioning and timing are all greatly improved:
I.E. (to the chagrin of many) that archaic on-ball pick / roll is resulting in some nice set-ins for Cole (execution and timing of the pass);
-- The inside game, while still a work in progress, is utilized more and more and the inside-out game is getting some great looks for the 3.
So far, so good in the "checklist" department of reasonable expectations. IMEO, the encouraging perspective sees the obvious: much less "systematic" / "coaching" concerns and far more "execution" concerns.
Let's break that down to context.
1) Youth and Experience.
Right now, here's my all around (skills, athleticism, productivity) ranking of the players: Fuller, May, Gatens, Payne, Cole, Cougill, Tucker, Lickliter, Brommer, Bawinkel.
Your 8 man rotation = 3 true frosh, 3 true soph (one has yet to play a BigXI game), a true junior (with the experience = rs soph due to injury), a senior (who's yet to demonstrate the consistent ability to fulfill the one dimension he might possess and who's a liability in every other aspect of the game.)
As far as individuals go ...
Fuller is cementing himself as a solid BigXI player at the 4. He still has great upside in developing his all around game and his confidence and controlled aggressiveness will continue to grow.
May is an athletic freak that will cover for him when his skills aren't on. You want to coach it and direct it as much as you can but, mostly, you just want to let that horse run and ride him when he's hot. You don't have a Naismith finalist personally pull you aside to give you props and encourage you to develop your skills to become a star if you ain't got the goods.
Payne is going to be a very good BigXI pg. He already possesses a Scott Skiles / Drew Neitzel type of mental toughness and confidence you need at his position. I never like true frosh pg's being forced into such extensive action because they tend to retain the habits that worked when they were high school studs but just don't at this level (drive / jump-pass, anyone?). He's shown flashes of what he can do when he attacks, and flashes of being a true frosh with his passes into the 12th row. Everything he does wrong is fixable with court savvy that will come with experience not only against this level of competition but with his teammates.
Gaten's is struggling. Unfortunately, thanks to Tucker being on extended spring break each January, he is your go-to outside shooter and he's just not hitting. I don't know if it's the dreaded "sophomore slump", whether he's trying to do too much, whether he's athletically overmatched or just frustrated. The bottom line is he's really underachieving at crucial times when he's needed the most.
Cole, bless his heart (he's got a lot of it), is a round peg in a square hole. He's got the skills for an inside game but he's just physically overmatched, giving up 3 - 5 inches every game. His success is going to come from hard work, positioning, timing (those 3 make up 90% of rebounding) and execution. Frankly, he's struggled with that last one -- too many times on offense he's losing his position advantage, if not turning it over, fumbling around with the ball.
Cougill is a wide-body, space-eater that the Hawks desparately need. Unfortunately, he's soft and green -- not in a deragatory way but in a baby-fat, true-frosh tentative, gotta tell the big guy to mix it up sort of way. I like what he brings to the table but it's a matter of time, experience, conditioning and mind-set from what I've seen. (None of which are out of the ordinary for true frosh, by the way.) Here's where maybe Archie's injury has exposed this deficit -- not so much in that Archie was expected to be an all BigXI center but having more size would go a long way toward keeping things honest.
All-in-all, while you've got a very good nucleus of talent, skills and athleticism, you have a pretty healthy deficit of experience, depth and positional size. Unfortunately, those are the things you can't coach. You can't keep blaming TL for what he can't control. (Yes, he's responsible for recruiting to his needs but Tucker's out because of his own immaturity / inability to handle his booze and Archie is injured. That's 25% of what would have been your 8-man rotation.)
2) Back to "Execution".
In the traditional Iowa way, historical success is almost always the result of out-working and out-executing the more talented opponent. While I think this team is succeeding at the out-working / effort side of the ledger, they are struggling with the execution.
I offered examples in the individual breakdowns, above. While there are plenty of "mind-fart" examples from the (relative) veterans, for the most part the struggles fall under the universally accepted concept that youth and inexperience = inconsistent execution.
As I mentioned above, there's more evidence that the lack of W's is less "coaching / system" related and more "execution" related. The biggest example is the poor shooting. It isn't because of a lack of open looks, it's because of a failure to finish.
-- Gatens and Bawinkel are shooting 36.5% and 36.8% compared to 42.2% and 36.1% last year; Gatens 3-point shooting is 34.4% vs 40.3% last year.
-- the team is shooting 41.4% vs 44.2% last year; from 3, it's 32.4% vs 36.4% last year.
-- the team is averaging 51.6 shots/game this year vs 45.9 shots/game last year.
All this clearly shows that, regardless of your contempt for the style, this team, in this system, has averaged 6 more scoring opportunities this year over last year. For those paying attention at home, that's opportunities for 12 - 18 more points per game, which, if successfully executed puts the team average at 73 - 79 ppg. (By the way, that would be in the top 3 of the league.)
Here are a few other this year / last year stats to consider:
-- Rebounding: 32.7 vs 29
(Hawks opponents are at 32.5 vs 29.5. Be it ever so slightly, Hawks are back to out-rebounding opponents.)
-- Assists: 12.8 vs 11.7
(Payne is #10 in apg in the BigXI, at 3.6; Gatens is #12, at 3.5).
-- TO's: 14.1 vs 12.5
(There's that youth -- Payne is #3 in the BigXI, at 3.2 -- and underachievement -- Gatens is #4, at 2.9. Still, your league leader in turnovers is ... Evan Turner, at 3.7 per game.)
I said I was fearful of going into a diatribe. If you made it this far, sorry, but, sometimes ya gotta spell it all out.
I don't care to challenge anyone's preferred style of bball but I do care to set the facts straight and separate the truth from the opinion. I'd suggest to those still struggling with their myopia regarding Iowa bball, don't be ashamed to enjoy / be a fan of those coaches / programs that satisfy what you're looking for. Please, at least check yourselves enough to accept that that your dissatisfaction is more a "your expectation and / or preference" issue rather than an Iowa bball issue.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. A couple of comments, primarily related to personnel.
