Is this THE year?

[BigD]

We definitely will be better this year. How could we not be? What does “will this be
the year mean? Does that mean Iowa gets past the second round in the BTT and the second round of NCAA tournament? Both would be a first for Fran. I would like to see it happen.

 

[tksirius]

We definitely will be better this year. How could we not be? What does “will this be
the year mean? Does that mean Iowa gets past the second round in the BTT and the second round of NCAA tournament? Both would be a first for Fran. I would like to see it happen.

I'm guessing we'll see an NIT birth or a play in game for the NCAAs. It's just too difficult to see a bigger jump than that, unfortunately.

 

[lightning1]

I don't think for a second that Fran doesn't know how to coach defense. It's just that he doesn't prioritize it. To me that's about the easiest fix you can ask for.

What's the difference between not knowing how to coach it and not bothering to coach it? The end result is the same.
It's not an easy fix. Not at all. You have to ask these players to change their mental approach to basketball. If any of them had the right mental approach to playing defense, we would have seen it. Playing tough defense isn't very much fun for players who don't take pride in doing it. Running and gunning on offense is fun. Your stats are fat. Even if you're losing, you can still point to the score sheet and see 12 PPG, etc, etc. It's fool's gold, of course, because the losses were fat too.

 

[lightning1]

I should probably thank Fran for last season. It made my job coaching defense in AAU that much easier. When kids started rolling their eyes at shell drills, all I had to say was "if you don't think this is important...look at Iowa's record last season. Top 25 in all D-1 on offense. Bottom 25 in all D-1 on defense. They won 4 Big Ten games last year."

 

[mopkins]

How many years would a coach survive at other B1G programs between NCAA appearances? 3? 4? Idk.

Pat chambers has been at penn state for 8 years now and never made the dance.

 

[mopkins]

I'm guessing we'll see an NIT birth or a play in game for the NCAAs. It's just too difficult to see a bigger jump than that, unfortunately.

Which kinda sucks considering it's a "down year" for the big ten.

 

[revkev73]

Perhaps this is the year we will be absolutely stunned by how much Iowa BB exceeds expectations.

By the law of averages, there has to one of those coming up one of these years.

 

[Mrke1]

Pat chambers has been at penn state for 8 years now and never made the dance.

I’d say he’s more of an outlier than the norm.

 

[PCHawk]

What's the difference between not knowing how to coach it and not bothering to coach it? The end result is the same.
It's not an easy fix. Not at all. You have to ask these players to change their mental approach to basketball. If any of them had the right mental approach to playing defense, we would have seen it. Playing tough defense isn't very much fun for players who don't take pride in doing it. Running and gunning on offense is fun. Your stats are fat. Even if you're losing, you can still point to the score sheet and see 12 PPG, etc, etc. It's fool's gold, of course, because the losses were fat too.

There is no difference as far as the past is concerned. The difference is in the future. If he doesn't know how to coach it, we will still suck at defense in the future. If he didn't prioritize it, but is going to now, we will be better in the future.

Fran let these kids develop that lazy attitude. But hopefully most of them have only had it for a year or two. It will be easier to beat back out of them if they were preached defense before Iowa.

Guys like Garza, Kriener, Baer, and Wieskamp are going to try their asses off. The guys who need to make a big jump in effort are Bohannon (hopefully his foot had a lot to do with it) Cook, Moss, and Pemsl. Those guys were embarrassingly lazy on defense last year. Our season pretty much rides on the effort they give. The guys I didn't mention were somewhere in the middle on effort. With the exception of Nunge. I'm not sure on him yet. I think the effort was there and he just looked lost sometimes.

 

[lightning1]

There is no difference as far as the past is concerned. The difference is in the future. If he doesn't know how to coach it, we will still suck at defense in the future. If he didn't prioritize it, but is going to now, we will be better in the future.

Fran let these kids develop that lazy attitude. But hopefully most of them have only had it for a year or two. It will be easier to beat back out of them if they were preached defense before Iowa.

Guys like Garza, Kriener, Baer, and Wieskamp are going to try their asses off. The guys who need to make a big jump in effort are Bohannon (hopefully his foot had a lot to do with it) Cook, Moss, and Pemsl. Those guys were embarrassingly lazy on defense last year. Our season pretty much rides on the effort they give. The guys I didn't mention were somewhere in the middle on effort. With the exception of Nunge. I'm not sure on him yet. I think the effort was there and he just looked lost sometimes.

Believe it or not but few high school and AAU coaches preach defense. Very few. They take a player like Bohannon (just using him for this example, as I have no idea if this happened) and because he shoots so well from 3, their coaches look past their defensive deficiencies. I've actually seen AAU coaches rip their role players for getting beat on defense, while their star players cherry pick and play zero defense. These teams don't win against opponents that have similar talent, either.

 

[trj]

I expect 5-7 more wins this year. What 18-21 wins gets you I have no idea. This team will be better defensively, but it will not be what people want. Given the way this roster is currently constructed, I think the ceiling defensively is the Iowa team of 2 years ago.

 

[thedukeofearl]

What's the difference between not knowing how to coach it and not bothering to coach it? The end result is the same.
It's not an easy fix. Not at all. You have to ask these players to change their mental approach to basketball. If any of them had the right mental approach to playing defense, we would have seen it. Playing tough defense isn't very much fun for players who don't take pride in doing it. Running and gunning on offense is fun. Your stats are fat. Even if you're losing, you can still point to the score sheet and see 12 PPG, etc, etc. It's fool's gold, of course, because the losses were fat too.

Playing D is rather basic. Shouldn't be that difficult for every Hawk on the team to have a semblance of this. They just seemed to be lost most of the season. Their Help defense was almost nonexistent. Do they know how to say Switch.....

And then, actually execute this concept, should be automatic.....

Playing D is more difficult for certain but should be second nature for anyone on the floor.....

 

[lightning1]

Playing D is rather basic. Shouldn't be that difficult for every Hawk on the team to have a semblance of this. They just seemed to be lost most of the season. Their Help defense was almost nonexistent. Do they know how to say Switch.....

And then, actually execute this concept, should be automatic.....

Playing D is more difficult for certain but should be second nature for anyone on the floor.....

If you passed out a quiz on playing team defense, they could all pass it. There's no doubt that they've all been taught how to do it at some point in their basketball careers. They still have to practice it and apply what they practice during games. I can tell that most of them won't play defense if they don't have to. If the coach allows them to ignore that part of the game, they will.

 

[HawksMN]

Playing D is rather basic. Shouldn't be that difficult for every Hawk on the team to have a semblance of this. They just seemed to be lost most of the season. Their Help defense was almost nonexistent. Do they know how to say Switch.....

And then, actually execute this concept, should be automatic.....

Playing D is more difficult for certain but should be second nature for anyone on the floor.....

You mean they're not supposed to go under every high screen?

 

[MWS604]

Deficiencies in defense are part coaching and part talent. None of the guards on the roster have the talent to play B1G level PG defense. You can coach positioning but not quickness.

They should concentrate on decreasing Cook's team leading TOs from 82 to 40. Turnovers often lead into easy baskets at the other end. Cutting down on turnovers is the most plausible strategy to improve our defense.

 

[Ian Pike Hammer]

Playing D is rather basic. Shouldn't be that difficult for every Hawk on the team to have a semblance of this. They just seemed to be lost most of the season. Their Help defense was almost nonexistent. Do they know how to say Switch.....

And then, actually execute this concept, should be automatic.....

Playing D is more difficult for certain but should be second nature for anyone on the floor.....

I was always taught that: some players have better offensive skill sets, but EVERYONE can play decent defense.

 

[mopkins]

I was always taught that: some players have better offensive skill sets, but EVERYONE can play decent defense.

Defense is 100% effort and desire. Playing defense is thankless and chicks don't care about defense so most players don't care to play it.

 

[Jason Rann]

Defense is 100% effort and desire. Playing defense is thankless and chicks don't care about defense so most players don't care to play it.

This isn't entirely correct. Effort and desire are absolutely important, but so is positioning and instincts. You are much likely to have better execution with smarts and knowledge of fundamentals, otherwise, it's chickens running around with their heads cut off.