Josh Oglesby

I know a metro coach that coached against JO (not going to name names). Said he was a mistake player and would not bring much offensively to Iowa.

If he was indeed recruit bait, great I guess. But, I would like to think Fran's presence and making Iowa more uptempo again attracted Woody to come and Uthoff to transfering out of BO wing Wisconsin.

No question, if JO comes out of his slump it would be wonderful and a lot of us would have extreme crow to eat. But, if he does not produce, minutes are going to get extremely tough for him. He is going to have to take a long, hard look, if he slumps through the rest of this year.
 
HaydenHawk56 said:
"So much insensitivity in this post."

Truth hurts. God bless them, but JO, McCabe, May, Olaseni are not elite Big Ten players. They are not the guys you need to win titles in games. They are good practice team players for elite players to practice against.

I mean, JO lights it up in practice.
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"Insensitivity" was a gentler way of saying racist. We need more kids out of the projects? I must have missed where Harrison Barnes and Greg McDermott balled out in the hood. Or even guys like Horner, Haluska, etc.

You don't have to have kids out of the projects to be good. Good players come from anywhere. Now, whether Iowa has good role players or not is a matter of opinion, and I won't knock you for thinking perhaps the Hawks lack in that area. But they don't have to get street ballers to change that.
 
I never said anything about skin color nor implied it. So, I think it is unfair to assume or play the race card here. Last time I checked, Olaseni is black and he is on my c list. Ingram might even be on this list, but I have not seen enough of him to make an informed decision.

Yes, there a lot of african american athletes that come out of those areas, but there also caucasian players to. It is not a color thing, it is more of a cultural thing and how those student athletes embrace the game of basketball. How those area schools embrace their programs. Look at what Bob Hurley Sr does for St Anthony and his players. They come from nothing and basketball is their life. Basketball is what keeps their school afloat. They come from the rough and tough streets and have a high degree of athleticism. They work hard and really develop their skills from their feeder program all the way up to the varsity level. And, they play pick-up games against the street ballers their age and older. They compete in their area AAU Programs. Talented kids in the New York and New Jersey area flock to that program because of Hurley's national reputation.

If you can get a couple true blue chipper in here from one of these top high school programs, keep their heads on straight in your college program, you probably going to have a Top 25 or higher program on you hands. If Fran is to take the next step, this is the type of player I would like to see him land. He has got the top Iowa kids, now get some top national high school players from the big urban areas and top high school programs.

Our kids are spoiled in a sense here in Iowa. Can be kind of boring, family orientated, but a lot of opportunities to get an education and go somewhere. Sure we generally have cold winners, but really don't have to dodge bullets, walk past street gangs, drug dealers, pimps, and local pros on the street corners. Not that that stuff does not exist in Iowa because it is everywhere (and some areas more than others in parts of Iowa), but it is definitely more widespread in those big areas. We certainly have our meth......

They live a harder life. When a great role model like Hurley gets a hold of them, they have the potential to go a lot of places by improving their academics and their highly touted athletic reputation. And, when they get to the big stage, they have been there before. The biggest crowd Woodbury probably played before playing for Iowa was the state tourney in Des Moines. Those Chicago kids could play key regular season games in crowds like that. Those blue chippers have been there before.

You got to hope to get them in the door and do something with them before they go to the NBA early. Then you can restock them when you build reputation nationally. John Calipari might be slimy, but he knows you need those big time players to compete nationally.

It was no accident perhaps Iowa's best team ever was assembled by Raveling with key players coming from urbanish areas. Then, Iowa hired a wonderful coach who knew exactly what to do with them sans a 2nd half against UNLV.
 
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HaydenHawk56 said:


Truth hurts. God bless them, but JO, McCabe, May, Olaseni are not elite Big Ten players. They are not the guys you need to win titles in games. They are good practice team players for elite players to practice against.

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Who said they were elite players? They are all bench players. Everyone knows they're bench players. Does Fran need to recruit elite bench players to compete too? Look, just about no one has given these four as much crap as I have, but it is what it is. We do not need to be 10 deep to compete in this league. If we are going to have a deep bench like Fran wants, then those players have to fill roles. May and McCabe have been filling their roles nicely. Ogelsby has not. Olesani just isn't very good, so I'll throw you that bone.
 
Jo has been pressing and he has been fading away which makes it harder to be consistent. He is the only legit outside threat on the team and that also puts him under a microscope. Fran has help coming next yr in jok and uthoff. Jok is more of a true outside shooter but uthoff is also better than everyone else on the team from the outside. Anyone that understood basketball knew that this yr would still be a struggle. Next yr pieces should be much more in place. We have an outside chance at it this yr but only if the team can hit the outside shot a little more consistently. That comes on jo the most but marble and gesell and clemmons and may and mccabe can help.
 
"Who said they were elite players? They are all bench players. Everyone knows they're bench players. Does Fran need to recruit elite bench players to compete too? Look, just about no one has given these four as much crap as I have, but it is what it is. We do not need to be 10 deep to compete in this league. If we are going to have a deep bench like Fran wants, then those players have to fill roles. May and McCabe have been filling their roles nicely. Ogelsby has not. Olesani just isn't very good, so I'll throw you that bone."

No one did. The point is, they are weak links forced to play more important minutes for this team and because of this, we are not a top big ten team. Combine that with our talented, but young freshman and overall young team, hence our inconsistency. Once May leaves and we get Jok and Utohff playing and hopefully get some more difference makers, the less we will have to see the likes of JO, McCabe, Olesani, etc.
 
HaydenHawk56 said:
"Who said they were elite players? They are all bench players. Everyone knows they're bench players. Does Fran need to recruit elite bench players to compete too? Look, just about no one has given these four as much crap as I have, but it is what it is. We do not need to be 10 deep to compete in this league. If we are going to have a deep bench like Fran wants, then those players have to fill roles. May and McCabe have been filling their roles nicely. Ogelsby has not. Olesani just isn't very good, so I'll throw you that bone."

No one did. The point is, they are weak links forced to play more important minutes for this team and because of this, we are not a top big ten team. Combine that with our talented, but young freshman and overall young team, hence our inconsistency. Once May leaves and we get Jok and Utohff playing and hopefully get some more difference makers, the less we will have to see the likes of JO, McCabe, Olesani, etc.
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Your previous post made it sound as though we need elite Big Ten players coming off the bench. Sorry, but that doesn't happen anywhere. Michigan has maybe one guy that good coming off the bench (McGary).

May and McCabe have played their roles pretty well. We're talking about bench role players here. We don't need elite at those spots.
 
"Your previous post made it sound as though we need elite Big Ten players coming off the bench. Sorry, but that doesn't happen anywhere. Michigan has maybe one guy that good coming off the bench (McGary).

May and McCabe have played their roles pretty well. We're talking about bench role players here. We don't need elite at those spots."

I did not mean to come off that way. And I was not trying to come off that way. My point is we are forced to play certain role players that are not big ten caliber (if you want to win the league) and would not be playing significant minutes at Michigan, Indiana, OSU, MSU, etc.

It would be nice if we had some more talented freshman in our system getting their minutes. Not going to happen this year, but should start to be somewhat more apparent next year and hopefully even more so the following year.
 
HaydenHawk56 said:
"Your previous post made it sound as though we need elite Big Ten players coming off the bench. Sorry, but that doesn't happen anywhere. Michigan has maybe one guy that good coming off the bench (McGary).

May and McCabe have played their roles pretty well. We're talking about bench role players here. We don't need elite at those spots."

I did not mean to come off that way. And I was not trying to come off that way. My point is we are forced to play certain role players that are not big ten caliber (if you want to win the league) and would not be playing significant minutes at Michigan, Indiana, OSU, MSU, etc.

It would be nice if we had some more talented freshman in our system getting their minutes. Not going to happen this year, but should start to be somewhat more apparent next year and hopefully even more so the following year.
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Okay, I understand what you are saying about "more talented freshman" but look at Illinois' group of sophomores, particularly Abrams/Egwu. Those two looked lost most of the year last year, but are big contributors to their team, not the last two games, all season.

Iowa is getting good players to come to the program, but Iowa is never going to compete to get the kids from the academies that you mentioned, may as well throw in Findlay Prep and guess what, they don't have too.

Fran took over the worst program in the B1G at the time, he has done a great job and heading into year three of the project he has been able to position Iowa to get to the NCAA tournament, had one of those first two home games gone differently. At any rate, there was very little talent left at Iowa when he took over and now his third group of freshman have a Top 25/30 ranking prior to stepping on the floor.

Call me stupid, but I think Fran has accomplished more with less talent than the four previous Iowa coaches combined. I think some forget just how absolutely awful Iowa was when Fran took over.
Don't forget Iowa won 13, 10 , 11 wins before they won 18 last season.
 
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