You want McCaffery gone? Then give some names that have the ability to turn this BB program into a BIG contender which would put Iowa in the NCAA Tourney on a yearly basis. Don't lay a bunch of mid major coaches that have had some success in the Horizon league or some other middle of the road conference on me. We have been down that road for the last 15 years. You want a big time coach? Then you gotta pay big time. IMO, there are about 10 to 12 coaches in the country that could come into Iowa and have an immediate affect on the recruiting and get the players needed to put Iowa in the top 20 year in and year out. None of which would consider Iowa as a future building program. Besides the fact that Iowa does not even come close to having the financial ability to compete with the schools they need to beat to obtain a coach of that stature.
I am not saying Fran is the answer, I just want to know how come people think another mid major coach would make any difference. Want an example of how it can fail. Indiana a school in the middle of the BB hotbed of recruiting with BB tradition like few others. How have their mid major coaching stars worked out in the last 20 years? How much money have they spent on their venture into hiring a shooting star coach?
You say I'm accepting mediocracy, I say I'm accepting reality. Playing in the BIG, Iowa has a tough road to get enough wins to qualify for the NCAA year in and year out. So a coach that has won a conference championship in the Mid America a few years and taken a team to the NCAA can repeat that feat year in and year out in a power five conference is a roll of the dice. You might roll a seven but the odds say you won't. With Lick Iowa rolled snake eyes. With Alford it looked good at first but ended up we sevened out. At least with Fran we still have a chance to roll the point.
I'm not ready to give up on Fran yet. The reason being, I think Fran is where he wants to be. I don't think he is looking to gain a higher altitude in coaching. He's happy coaching at Iowa and I also think he wants to see Iowa become a viable program. If he can do that he will be a happy coach. Fran is a good man and will put his heart and soul into it. Just speaking for myself I wouldn't ask for more from any coach.
And you know I think Barta sees the those same attributes.
And to really PO some posters on here. That goes for KF too.
JMO
You are not accepting mediocrity. You are as frustrated as the rest of us. Let's take this step by step.
Some have mentioned Eric Musselman's name. That's not happening, but his pedigree is not all mid major. He's a former NBA coach. He's a coaches son who has been around the game at all levels, NBA, CBA, juco, NCAA, all of it. And he's still fairly young. He has embraced three modern trends-signing transfers, playing multiple position players, and shortening the bench. Next to Loyola (who beat Nevada) Musselman's Wolfpack may have been one of the biggest stories of the tournament. He just cashed in and it's still less that what Fran is making. But we would have zero chance of landing him even if he approached Gary Barta with a blank check.
How has Indiana done in the last twenty years? Better than you think. Definitely better than Bobby Knight's last eight or nine. They have, in that twenty year period, a national title appearance, at least one BIG title, and I beileve two Sweet sixteen appearances. And that's dragging the years 2008-2012 through the mud.
The BIG is a tough road, but it is not insurmountable. We made the dance with regularity from 1979-1999. We've made it four times since. And the BIG in many of those years was a lot stronger than it is now because kids from Chicago, Detroit, Peoria, Milwaukee, and Flint were staying home and playing in it. (Actually, Izzo does kind of have Flint locked down, the way Lou Henson once had Chicago Simeon locked down).
Barta does see Fran's positives (and he has positives) .In fact he see them too well. He just extended him to the moon. And that's my biggest contention. Not the extension, but the length, the buyout, and most all the timing. The last three of those four were preposterous.
I just mentioned this elsewhere. We have six months to see if this is an aberration. And that's the toughest part. By the time September rolls around you would have thought that we went about 6-25 last year and played convicted felons at every position. Because perception is only going to fester and grow. It's human nature.
Fran will do better next year. But don't be surprised if we fall short the dance again. Some of the stiffest second and third tier competition in the conference are thinking progressively when it comes to improving. By comparison it feels like we're stuck in the nineties.
