Is Fran And Iowa Basketball At A Tipping Point?

PCHawk said:
Like I said in my post tho. People say Fran reached his ceiling every year, only to be wrong. Eventually they will be right tho. The thing is, if he gets better players, he won't have reached his ceiling. Has he already done that with Cook, Nunge, Garza, Weiscamp, and the McCafferys? I would guess so. Look what he did with guys like Oglesby and McCabe playing major minutes. Or Gesell and Clemmons. These were decent players for sure, but far from his ceiling.

The problem this year is there is no good upperclassmen to soften the blow of transitioning to the next group of players. With Woodys class, he had Marble and White to help bring them along, or they would have looked way worse as sophomores than this team does now.
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I think he's gotten the group of quality players he expects he can pull to Iowa. These last two classes and next years with Wieskamp might be the ceiling for recruiting to Iowa as far as player rankings go. He already stated that Cook was the best player he's ever recruited, even better than that stud at Sienna that made it to the NBA. I think the recruiting ceiling has been met. Maybe I'm wrong, but getting Cook, Garza, Nunge & Wieskamp are all pretty good gets, IMO.

Now we will see if the team play ceiling raises. If not with this group of recruits, that is what could tip the scale to the neg. But, we won't know for 1-2 years. I suspect, as you, they will grow as a team and get much better.
 
PCHawk said:
I know people hate the word close, but it shows we are really close to what everyone's expectations should be. It's funny how pissed everyone can get by just falling a tiny bit short of expectations.
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What is really quite strange when one thinks about it is how young a team Fran has in year 8 of his tenure. One might expect this with a relatively new coach in the 2nd or 3rd year (player transfers, etc), but in year 8 is rather odd, IMO. You would think the classes would be a bit more staggered.

Not faulting him as it is what is is, but how did it get to this point having so many underclassman? I'm trying to remember the circumstance and situations that got it to this point. Anybody?
 
MelroseHawkins said:
What is really quite strange when one thinks about it is how young a team Fran has in year 8 of his tenure. One might expect this with a relatively new coach in the 2nd or 3rd year (player transfers, etc), but in year 8 is rather odd, IMO. You would think the classes would be a bit more staggered.

Not faulting him as it is what is is, but how did it get to this point having so many underclassman? I'm trying to remember the circumstance and situations that got it to this point. Anybody?
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A TON of recruiting misses.
 
Although I am not happy with this season to date, it is not time to panic. That the Hawks have gotten back to a level of competence is something and the future still looks bright. It honestly didn't look like there would ever be light at the end of the tunnel, unless that light was a freight train. Iowa basketball under Lickliter was pretty much the same as Iowa football under Frank Lauterbur and Bob Commings. That is an extraordinary low point. I'm not saying that Fran is the basketball incarnation of Hayden but he's done all right. Put away the pitchforks for a year or so. Let's see what happens with this team, with a little seasoning and a couple more new faces.
Cheers!
Go Hawks!
 
MelroseHawkins said:
I think he's gotten the group of quality players he expects he can pull to Iowa. These last two classes and next years with Wieskamp might be the ceiling for recruiting to Iowa as far as player rankings go. He already stated that Cook was the best player he's ever recruited, even better than that stud at Sienna that made it to the NBA. I think the recruiting ceiling has been met. Maybe I'm wrong, but getting Cook, Garza, Nunge & Wieskamp are all pretty good gets, IMO.

Now we will see if the team play ceiling raises. If not with this group of recruits, that is what could tip the scale to the neg. But, we won't know for 1-2 years. I suspect, as you, they will grow as a team and get much better.
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I agree he is probably not going to recruit much better. Now it's time to see what his recruiting ceiling looks like on the court. The play ceiling should be in 2 years.
 
MelroseHawkins said:
What is really quite strange when one thinks about it is how young a team Fran has in year 8 of his tenure. One might expect this with a relatively new coach in the 2nd or 3rd year (player transfers, etc), but in year 8 is rather odd, IMO. You would think the classes would be a bit more staggered.

Not faulting him as it is what is is, but how did it get to this point having so many underclassman? I'm trying to remember the circumstance and situations that got it to this point. Anybody?
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I think it has a lot to do with kids transferring right away now. They had a big class that was taking all the minutes and kids didn't want to wait to play. It affected recruiting and retaining players. Trey Dickerson would have been great to have on last year's team. Hutton would potentially be helpful this year.
 
Hawk5656 said:
A TON of recruiting misses.
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folks, fran's recruiting philosophy is have 2 classes back to back with 7-9 recruits so that they can grow for a season or two and then have a team loaded with JR's and SR's. then he starts over. you can agree or disagree with that, but that is how he has been operating.

As for recruiting "misses" sure he's had his share. but almost all coaches do. finally we're seeing kirk politely ask players to consider moving on; Fran does it and all coaches should do it. there is nothing wrong with having a miss on a recruit, unless you keep that kid on the team and he becomes an un-utilized scholarship.
 
The good news is there are Iowa kids like Weiscamp and Patrick that will help smooth the transition from the next big class.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
folks, fran's recruiting philosophy is have 2 classes back to back with 7-9 recruits so that they can grow for a season or two and then have a team loaded with JR's and SR's. then he starts over. you can agree or disagree with that, but that is how he has been operating.

As for recruiting "misses" sure he's had his share. but almost all coaches do. finally we're seeing kirk politely ask players to consider moving on; Fran does it and all coaches should do it. there is nothing wrong with having a miss on a recruit, unless you keep that kid on the team and he becomes an un-utilized scholarship.
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Not sure I agree he's doing it on purpose.
 
At some point you have to raise the bar. People call fans crazy for wanting more but if we were all happy with being basically a bubble team every year, the program would get stale pretty fast.
Fran had a nice run with some players who were lifelong Hawkeye fans from the state of Iowa. Now we appear to be going backwards.
I'm not saying he should be fired, but EVERYONE sees the issues but Fran it seems. I want nothing more for him to turn it around in 2018 and have a great year. I'm just losing faith in Fran. He appears to be a mid-major coach trying to compete in a major conference. Still better than Lick, but shouldn't we try to be better? Again, I hope he proves me wrong.
 
PCHawk said:
Maybe. Once players leave, you don't know how things would have panned out. What would Wagner be doing right now had he left? Is Hutton an upgrade from him? Weird you see this in black and white. That's not like you.
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If Wagner left he wouldn't be coming off the bench and putting up bad numbers for a terrible Southland Conference team.
 
eledmonster said:
Although I am not happy with this season to date, it is not time to panic. That the Hawks have gotten back to a level of competence is something and the future still looks bright. It honestly didn't look like there would ever be light at the end of the tunnel, unless that light was a freight train. Iowa basketball under Lickliter was pretty much the same as Iowa football under Frank Lauterbur and Bob Commings. That is an extraordinary low point. I'm not saying that Fran is the basketball incarnation of Hayden but he's done all right. Put away the pitchforks for a year or so. Let's see what happens with this team, with a little seasoning and a couple more new faces.
Cheers!
Go Hawks!
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This is a far too rational collection of thoughts to be on this board. You should relocate.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
folks, fran's recruiting philosophy is have 2 classes back to back with 7-9 recruits so that they can grow for a season or two and then have a team loaded with JR's and SR's. then he starts over. you can agree or disagree with that, but that is how he has been operating.
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Is that really his philosophy or has it just randomly worked out that way? Its not like Fran planned for Uthoff to transfer in from Wisconsin and join the class of seniors like Clemmons, Gesell, and Woodbury. It just happened to work out that way.

The glut of Sophs right now comes from those 4 seniors graduating, plus Moss red-shirting and Flemming/Hutton transferring. Fran had massive amount of scholarships to give out, so he gave them out. I don't think it was planned, I think it just happened to work out that way.

Its probably one reason why Fran preferred to redshirt Connor. To help spread the classes out more. He didn't know CW would then transfer and force Connor to play.
 
PCHawk said:
Not sure I agree he's doing it on purpose.
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'10 - 5
'11 - 3
'12 - 4
'13 - 1
'14 - 2 (Baer was walkon who earned scholly and classified for '14. Trey Dickerson left almost immediately.
'15 - 6 (wagner/moss only 2 that remain *Dale Jones was due to injuries) So, effectively was a 2 man class.
'16 - 5
'17 - 3

So you could be at least partly right in there there has been a fair amount of attrition. But Fran doesn't seem to bank scholly's and it has turned out to be 2 big classes and 2 smaller classes.
 
mopkins said:
Is that really his philosophy or has it just randomly worked out that way? Its not like Fran planned for Uthoff to transfer in from Wisconsin and join the class of seniors like Clemmons, Gesell, and Woodbury. It just happened to work out that way.

The glut of Sophs right now comes from those 4 seniors graduating, plus Moss red-shirting and Flemming/Hutton transferring. Fran had massive amount of scholarships to give out, so he gave them out. I don't think it was planned, I think it just happened to work out that way.

Its probably one reason why Fran preferred to redshirt Connor. To help spread the classes out more. He didn't know CW would then transfer and force Connor to play.
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Well, Ogelsby and Utoff were best friends. literally. Fran had a clue. remember, Fran recruited JU like hell but JU didn't want to decommit from WUs.
 
RobHowe said:
This is a far too rational collection of thoughts to be on this board. You should relocate.
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There are a few exceptions, but most people are wondering if Fran's seat should be warming up. That's it. Do you agree that there are some issues with Fran's coaching? For example, I looked at the huddles for the ISU vs Iowa game. All the ISU players were engaged, looking at the coach in the huddle. When Fran wasn't yelling at the refs, the players seemed totally disinterested. It's things like this and many other things that have been pointed out that make me question how good of a coach he really is.
Yes he's way better than Lick, but is that a reason to settle for mediocre? I want him to turn it around, but if we are NIT or worse next year, I think it's time take a hard look at the future. You can disagree, but I don't think that's irrational.
 
DJL said:
At some point you have to raise the bar. People call fans crazy for wanting more but if we were all happy with being basically a bubble team every year, the program would get stale pretty fast.
Fran had a nice run with some players who were lifelong Hawkeye fans from the state of Iowa. Now we appear to be going backwards.
I'm not saying he should be fired, but EVERYONE sees the issues but Fran it seems. I want nothing more for him to turn it around in 2018 and have a great year. I'm just losing faith in Fran. He appears to be a mid-major coach trying to compete in a major conference. Still better than Lick, but shouldn't we try to be better? Again, I hope he proves me wrong.
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Fran basically had 1 year of rebuilding from the Lickliter debacle, and then 6 years of bubble-ish teams (3 NIT's, 3 NCAA's). He's had one sub-500 record at Iowa his entire time here and that was year 1.

This year has been a disaster so far, no doubt about it. But there have also been a ton of injuries (Baer, Connor, Pemsl) and a last second transfer (Williams) who was probably going to play 15+ minutes. Suddenly people are jumping off the Fran-wagon like its going down in flames.

Its pretty fucking stupid.
 
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