Iowa Eyeing '19 Point Guards Andre Gordon, Noah Hutchins

Take them both! If they are good, they will play. Fran overstocked on bigs, we are in short supply of guards. Plus it is a guards game. If we want to win, we need more guards. Period.

Fran messed up the roster balance big-time. We are two years out for correcting the balance. Could the current roster with the addition of Joe & CJ help that out? Maybe. Depends on if they are as good as advertised, and if our current guards improve and become more consistent. That is a big IF

I would be happy if we only took one top front court player every year, if someone good is available. The rest guards and wings. If Fran swings and misses, they can go to Drake.

I don't really think we have a problem with too many bigs and too few guards. We have 5 guys that play the 4 and 5 and we have 7 guys that play the 1 2 and 3. That's about as balanced as it gets.
 
Were the Alford boys ever on the court at the same time? They may have overlapped a little with the younger redshirting but I don't think they ever both saw floor at the same time but I could be wrong. I wasn't exactly watchin every UCLA game.

It just depends on the situation. Like with the McDermotts that's an interesting one. What if Dad didn't end up at Creighton and stayed with ISU? What a huge what if in regards to Dougs college career.. He was one hell of a college basketball player and his teammates at Creighton all seemed to get along great with him and his Dad they had some good runs.

I'm happy for Doug and Greg that he moved on and Doug played at Creighton. The well was already poisoned with ISU fans. I think Greg knew this and had Doug originally signed to go to UNI for a reason.

Doug is a good example of the father coaching the son issue. IMO it's not an issue as long as the kid is one of the best players on the team, or in Doug's case, arguably the best player in the history of Creighton. Honestly it's a legit concern that if things don't get better with Fran and soon that there could be some seriously awkward moments coming in the near future.
 
I don't really think we have a problem with too many bigs and too few guards. We have 5 guys that play the 4 and 5 and we have 7 guys that play the 1 2 and 3. That's about as balanced as it gets.

Jordan, Connor, Moss, Dailey, Joe, CJ. For 3 spots

Baer, Nunge, Pemsl, Cook, Garza, and Kriener for 2 spots.

That isn’t enough guards. Baer can play the 3 some, he is kind of a tweeter. Nunge is NOT a 3 and is a big part of the problem with Fran. Fran keeps trying to put square pegs into round holes and it doesn’t work. The rest of the BB world has gone small. So not only are we at an athletic disadvantage at the 3 when you play guy like Nunge and Baer there, you are also at an athletic disadvantage at the 4 as teams are going with 4 wings/guards and only 1 Big.

We need to have 4 Bigs and 8 guards. Maybe have 4 true bigs and one tweeter and 7 guards. Either way you don’t want 5/6 true Bigs and another guy who is a tweeter.

Last year shows exactly why Fran needs more guards. We just had 1 guy leave and 1 injury and all of a sudden we got 4 true guards playing. At the 3 we had to basically play a tweeter (Baer) or Big (Nunge) last year. If Fran had 8 true guards last year wouldn’t have been such a shit show.
 
If Iowa offers and few other or no other P-6ers offer, Hutchins could end up a Hawk. Fran would have to convince him that he'll run an offense at times with two pgs on the floor at the same time.
 
I don't really think we have a problem with too many bigs and too few guards. We have 5 guys that play the 4 and 5 and we have 7 guys that play the 1 2 and 3. That's about as balanced as it gets.
Our roster breakdown has gotten much better with bringing in the two guard/wings this year graduating Uhl, and Wagner transferring.
 
Jordan, Connor, Moss, Dailey, Joe, CJ. For 3 spots

Baer, Nunge, Pemsl, Cook, Garza, and Kriener for 2 spots.

That isn’t enough guards. Baer can play the 3 some, he is kind of a tweeter. Nunge is NOT a 3 and is a big part of the problem with Fran. Fran keeps trying to put square pegs into round holes and it doesn’t work. The rest of the BB world has gone small. So not only are we at an athletic disadvantage at the 3 when you play guy like Nunge and Baer there, you are also at an athletic disadvantage at the 4 as teams are going with 4 wings/guards and only 1 Big.

We need to have 4 Bigs and 8 guards. Maybe have 4 true bigs and one tweeter and 7 guards. Either way you don’t want 5/6 true Bigs and another guy who is a tweeter.

Last year shows exactly why Fran needs more guards. We just had 1 guy leave and 1 injury and all of a sudden we got 4 true guards playing. At the 3 we had to basically play a tweeter (Baer) or Big (Nunge) last year. If Fran had 8 true guards last year wouldn’t have been such a shit show.
This is very well put. Look at Michigan last year, of their top 10 minutes played players only two of them were true bigs. They had a couple tweeners that were really guys with guard skills in the 6’7-6’8 range, the rest were all guards. Of Iowa’s top 11, 6 were really bigs, with Nunge the only one that had some other skills.

With Iowa’s roster makeup having Garza, Cook, Nunge, and Baer would be plenty sufficient to cover the 4-5 spots. If we could trade Pemsl and Kriener for one quality guard it would be well worth it.
 
Our roster breakdown has gotten much better with bringing in the two guard/wings this year graduating Uhl, and Wagner transferring.

It did improve this year, but needs to be even better if you ask me.

Last year the roster makeup was just downright stupid. We had Wagner, Uhl, Cook, Pemsl, Garza, Kriener, Nunge were all Bigs. Asking any one of those guys to play the 3 is totally unfair to them and exposes their lack of athleticism to guard opposing wings. 7 true Bigs, and 1 tweeter is a roster nightmare.
 
Jordan, Connor, Moss, Dailey, Joe, CJ. For 3 spots

Baer, Nunge, Pemsl, Cook, Garza, and Kriener for 2 spots.

That isn’t enough guards. Baer can play the 3 some, he is kind of a tweeter. Nunge is NOT a 3 and is a big part of the problem with Fran. Fran keeps trying to put square pegs into round holes and it doesn’t work. The rest of the BB world has gone small. So not only are we at an athletic disadvantage at the 3 when you play guy like Nunge and Baer there, you are also at an athletic disadvantage at the 4 as teams are going with 4 wings/guards and only 1 Big.

We need to have 4 Bigs and 8 guards. Maybe have 4 true bigs and one tweeter and 7 guards. Either way you don’t want 5/6 true Bigs and another guy who is a tweeter.

Last year shows exactly why Fran needs more guards. We just had 1 guy leave and 1 injury and all of a sudden we got 4 true guards playing. At the 3 we had to basically play a tweeter (Baer) or Big (Nunge) last year. If Fran had 8 true guards last year wouldn’t have been such a shit show.

i agree with some of what you say. I think Baer is a 3 and the problem he has there is he is not a consistent scorer. I disagree with you on Nunge, at least right now. I can see Nunge with the ability to drive to the hoop and post up or shoot at an above average clip from range. last season i saw a very tentative Nunge who i could see thinking "should I take this shot" through much of last season. it was to the point that i could tell that if Nunge caught the ball and let it fly, it was going in. if he caught the ball and hesitated and then shot, it wasn't. i'm giving Nunge the benefit here of being a FR and finding his way. If Nunge plays with confidence, he's got the ability to change things in the conference.

I do agree we need more guards, but as important, we need more foot speed.
 
Right now we need a combo guard and wing for sure. Patrick is the wing, get a combo guard, or another wing in the ‘19 class. I don’t see an emergency need at PG. Then in ‘20 you get a PG as well. If Cook leaves we still have Garza, Kriener, Pemsl and Nunge, we are fine at the Big position for ‘19, and then you get 2 Bigs in ‘20.

‘19 need a wing and a combo guard or two wings
‘20 need 2 Bigs and a PG + whatever else becomes an obvious need. Hard to project this far out as to rosters.
 
i agree with some of what you say. I think Baer is a 3 and the problem he has there is he is not a consistent scorer. I disagree with you on Nunge, at least right now. I can see Nunge with the ability to drive to the hoop and post up or shoot at an above average clip from range. last season i saw a very tentative Nunge who i could see thinking "should I take this shot" through much of last season. it was to the point that i could tell that if Nunge caught the ball and let it fly, it was going in. if he caught the ball and hesitated and then shot, it wasn't. i'm giving Nunge the benefit here of being a FR and finding his way. If Nunge plays with confidence, he's got the ability to change things in the conference.

I do agree we need more guards, but as important, we need more foot speed.

I thought before last year Baer could be a 3. After last year I think he is a stretch 4 stuck in a 3’s build. Just my opinion, and I certainly don’t HATE Baer at the 3 like I do Nunge playing there. My problem with Nunge is he doesn’t have the foot speed and never will have the foot speed of a wing. He will never be able to defend an opposing wing out on the perimeter. Sure he can hit some 3’s and has decent handles, but that doesn’t mean you are a 3.
 
I'm happy for Doug and Greg that he moved on and Doug played at Creighton. The well was already poisoned with ISU fans. I think Greg knew this and had Doug originally signed to go to UNI for a reason.

Doug is a good example of the father coaching the son issue. IMO it's not an issue as long as the kid is one of the best players on the team, or in Doug's case, arguably the best player in the history of Creighton. Honestly it's a legit concern that if things don't get better with Fran and soon that there could be some seriously awkward moments coming in the near future.
I think Frans on thin ice regardless just with how last yr went. I think he's gotta make the dance this year no ifs ands or butts. It'd be a big jump from last yr but last yr never shoulda happened and he can't get two mulligans and a slight improvement from last yr won't cut it. Regardless of his kiddos situation. When it comes to coaching your kids at that level I just hope he has assistants that can coach them hard and put Fran in his place if he's even remotely over hyping his own kids. I didn't get the impression he would over play Connor over others last yr but that said last yr hardly counted with what little time he was even able to play so to be fair we should just discount that completely.
 
I think it might not even be only isolated to playing time. Heard an interesting podcast with an ISU GA who played for his father, and the team he was on wasn't having the success they wanted, and ultimately there was a rift between he and his teammates not because of his playing time just because of the tension around the coach's job security. There is a lot of things that can go wrong with that situation.
 
I thought before last year Baer could be a 3. After last year I think he is a stretch 4 stuck in a 3’s build. Just my opinion, and I certainly don’t HATE Baer at the 3 like I do Nunge playing there. My problem with Nunge is he doesn’t have the foot speed and never will have the foot speed of a wing. He will never be able to defend an opposing wing out on the perimeter. Sure he can hit some 3’s and has decent handles, but that doesn’t mean you are a 3.

see, i saw enough foot speed, at times. but what i saw most of the time, was hesitation and thinking and not reacting. Nunge played as a statue much of the time. i'm not saying he's only a 3. he is a 4. but he can play the 3, as well. this season will likely finalize this argument.
 
It did improve this year, but needs to be even better if you ask me.

Last year the roster makeup was just downright stupid. We had Wagner, Uhl, Cook, Pemsl, Garza, Kriener, Nunge were all Bigs. Asking any one of those guys to play the 3 is totally unfair to them and exposes their lack of athleticism to guard opposing wings. 7 true Bigs, and 1 tweeter is a roster nightmare.
Agreed. The difference between last year and some of Fran’s previous teams that carried several “bigs”, was that guys like White, Uthoff, and even McCabe for that matter could defend 3s and 4s. That group of bigs last year had no chance against 3s and quite honestly most of those guys even have a tough time keeping up with 4s.
 
Jordan, Connor, Moss, Dailey, Joe, CJ. For 3 spots

Baer, Nunge, Pemsl, Cook, Garza, and Kriener for 2 spots.

That isn’t enough guards. Baer can play the 3 some, he is kind of a tweeter. Nunge is NOT a 3 and is a big part of the problem with Fran. Fran keeps trying to put square pegs into round holes and it doesn’t work. The rest of the BB world has gone small. So not only are we at an athletic disadvantage at the 3 when you play guy like Nunge and Baer there, you are also at an athletic disadvantage at the 4 as teams are going with 4 wings/guards and only 1 Big.

We need to have 4 Bigs and 8 guards. Maybe have 4 true bigs and one tweeter and 7 guards. Either way you don’t want 5/6 true Bigs and another guy who is a tweeter.

Last year shows exactly why Fran needs more guards. We just had 1 guy leave and 1 injury and all of a sudden we got 4 true guards playing. At the 3 we had to basically play a tweeter (Baer) or Big (Nunge) last year. If Fran had 8 true guards last year wouldn’t have been such a shit show.

You just said what I said except you call Baer a tweener instead of a 3.
 
I think it might not even be only isolated to playing time. Heard an interesting podcast with an ISU GA who played for his father, and the team he was on wasn't having the success they wanted, and ultimately there was a rift between he and his teammates not because of his playing time just because of the tension around the coach's job security. There is a lot of things that can go wrong with that situation.
I don't disagree with your comments on this in general other than Fran just signed an extension and has total job security.
 
With a roster of 12, 1 position player short is a big deal. Last years roster makeup was even worse.

1/2 to be exact. Last year's was obviously worse. It's hard to say we have a problem of too few guards when we are 1/2 a player off of your definition of perfect. In fact, if Baer made 3s last year like he did the year before, he would be about as 3 as a 3 gets. But since he didn't, we are half a player off from perfect.
 
1/2 to be exact. Last year's was obviously worse. It's hard to say we have a problem of too few guards when we are 1/2 a player off of your definition of perfect. In fact, if Baer made 3s last year like he did the year before, he would be about as 3 as a 3 gets. But since he didn't, we are half a player off from perfect.

We are closer to a better roster because we lost 2 posts and added 2 more wings. I feel better about our guard situation this year over last year. Yet I still think we are 1 guard short, which you are right certainly isn't as big of a deal as how bad our roster was last year. I am concerned though because I just don't know how GOOD some of the guards will be. I mean I don't expect CJ to play at all, and I don't know if Connor will be an adequate backup PG. So if those two don't cut it, we are essentially at 4 guards for 3 spots.

This is why it is a bigger deal than what you are thinking it is to be one player away. An injury, a guy not having a good year, and all of a sudden you are not just 1 short, you are 2 or 3 short now, as we saw last year. I mean some cut Fran slack because you know Williams left and Connor was injured. Well it was Fran who decided not to bring in guards and be stacked full of bigs, so yeah that is his fault, I don't cut him any slack for making his own bed last year.
 

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