Lickliter Hired as Evansville Assistant

Funny how this business churns. Imagine how many things would be different if he had never left Butler?
 
How many other B1G basketball programs can say one of their former head coaches is now an assistant coach at a Missouri Valley Conference school that was once in Div. II?
 
Hawknigh said:
Funny how this business churns. Imagine how many things would be different if he had never left Butler?
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Who was the runner up to Lickliter for the Iowa job? Kevin Stallings? Dana Altman? I can't remember.
 
One thing Evansville loses is at least 100 lbs. of girth on their head coaching position.

Marty Simmons made Bob Huggins look like Manute Bol.
 
trj said:
Who was the runner up to Lickliter for the Iowa job? Kevin Stallings? Dana Altman? I can't remember.
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Iowa contacted Bruce Pearl and he quickly told them no. Northwestern State's coach was a candidate, I remember that was a bit of irony. Barta said that there were 2 finalists. Most people believed Altman was the other finalist, especially because he took the Arkansas job (and then backed out to return to Creighton) the day Lick took Iowa's.

Speaking of runners-up for jobs, ISU called Michigan to talk with assistant coach Bill Frieder about their job and Johnny Orr intercepted the call, found that he could make more money at a school that had no football program to speak of, and became a legitimate candidate. Those involved in the search had their favorites, but the Army head coach was the favorite of most. When a Big Ten head coach became involved, they changed their minds, so the Army coach came in second and ended up at Duke.
 
99topdawg said:
Iowa contacted Bruce Pearl and he quickly told them no. Northwestern State's coach was a candidate, I remember that was a bit of irony. Barta said that there were 2 finalists. Most people believed Altman was the other finalist, especially because he took the Arkansas job (and then backed out to return to Creighton) the day Lick took Iowa's.

Speaking of runners-up for jobs, ISU called Michigan to talk with assistant coach Bill Frieder about their job and Johnny Orr intercepted the call, found that he could make more money at a school that had no football program to speak of, and became a legitimate candidate. Those involved in the search had their favorites, but the Army head coach was the favorite of most. When a Big Ten head coach became involved, they changed their minds, so the Army coach came in second and ended up at Duke.
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Rumor has it that the Duke coach worked out pretty well for them.

I've told that story before on these boards and I'm not going to re-hash it, but can you not wonder how the history of college basketball, both in Iowa and nationally, would have been rewritten if coach K had taken the ISU job?

In actuality, ISU had a decent football program through most of the seventies under Johnny Majors and Earle Bruce and dominated in state recruiting. The problem, like you said, is their purse strings were too tight. There were only about fifteen bowls then, if that, or they would have been in them multiple times. Their 1976 team was a powerhouse, mainly because they forced a ridiculous number of turnovers that year and the offense benefitted. But the old Big Eight in the seventies was a powerhouse, and teams ahead of them in the pecking order quickly gobbled them up. In 1976 ISU was probably one of the top fifteen teams in the country but could only tie for fourth in their conference.
 
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99topdawg said:
Iowa contacted Bruce Pearl and he quickly told them no. Northwestern State's coach was a candidate, I remember that was a bit of irony. Barta said that there were 2 finalists. Most people believed Altman was the other finalist, especially because he took the Arkansas job (and then backed out to return to Creighton) the day Lick took Iowa's.

Speaking of runners-up for jobs, ISU called Michigan to talk with assistant coach Bill Frieder about their job and Johnny Orr intercepted the call, found that he could make more money at a school that had no football program to speak of, and became a legitimate candidate. Those involved in the search had their favorites, but the Army head coach was the favorite of most. When a Big Ten head coach became involved, they changed their minds, so the Army coach came in second and ended up at Duke.
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This rings a bell now. I remember there was Altman backlash from the fans I just can’t remember why. Was it simply because we(fans) didn’t think he was “good enough”?

That Duke coach you speak of think of the ripple effects that would’ve had if he got fired in year 4, which nearly happened.
 
99topdawg said:
Iowa contacted Bruce Pearl and he quickly told them no. Northwestern State's coach was a candidate, I remember that was a bit of irony. Barta said that there were 2 finalists. Most people believed Altman was the other finalist, especially because he took the Arkansas job (and then backed out to return to Creighton) the day Lick took Iowa's.

Speaking of runners-up for jobs, ISU called Michigan to talk with assistant coach Bill Frieder about their job and Johnny Orr intercepted the call, found that he could make more money at a school that had no football program to speak of, and became a legitimate candidate. Those involved in the search had their favorites, but the Army head coach was the favorite of most. When a Big Ten head coach became involved, they changed their minds, so the Army coach came in second and ended up at Duke.
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For a brief time coach K actually had the ISU offer and nothing from Duke. Col. Tom Murphy at Army convinced him to see Duke through. Not sure of the exact chronological order, but it was at point that Frieder, and through him Orr became involved and K was finally offered at Duke after the assistant AD famously sped back out to the airport to intercept him.

I add this only to point out that while Orr was offered, K was actually offered first, and at one point had no guarantee of either job. Bobby Knight, the biggest name in college basketball at the time, was pushing for the Chicago native K to get the Midwest job. If ISU rescinded their offer to K after Orr got involved, which was likely, well, we know how that athletic department has operated over the years.
 
Fryowa said:
That’s not an accomplishment; it was a given. There was no other college football team in the state during the 70s.
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Certainly not until Hayden, although in today's landscape, with six and even five win teams going to bowls, Commings' 1976 and 1977 teams may have snuck into one. The bottom fell out in 1978, costing Commings' his job, but the embryos he recruited for that team eventually blossomed into the 1981 Rose Bowl team.
 
Who knows? If Woody Hayes doesn't punch the Clemson linebacker on the sidelines, perhaps the Ohio State job doesn't open up for a few more years.

And perhaps Earle Bruce stays at Iowa State a while longer.
 
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