Lickliter regrets leaving Butler for Iowa

HawkeyeHypnosis said:
Did you stop reading his post? He never said they would have stuck around. No one is saying they would be better or even the same. Fran is the better coach for Iowa and nobody is saying otherwise.
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Fran is fortunate to have some really talented players right now that play well together and of course that makes Fran look good as a coach.
 
It should be noted Lick also faced a serious health scare while he was at IOWA. Not an excuse, but it certainly changes perspective.

For everyone jumping his case, he DID receive Coach of the Year--NATIONAL Coach of the Year--honors the season before he came here. And it would be natural for him to have regrets, along with trying to save face a little bit.

He wasn't a good fit, but some of those guys that left were not exactly guys that would even SNIFF time on this year's team. Some of those were rejects left over from The Person Who Previously Coached at Iowa/The Previous Coach at New Mexico/The Current Coach at UCLA. And he did have some good guys lined up.

In the end, things have worked out better for everybody, Lick included.
 
HawkeyeHypnosis said:
Did you stop reading his post? He never said they would have stuck around. No one is saying they would be better or even the same. Fran is the better coach for Iowa and nobody is saying otherwise.
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No, I didn't. He said "stuck around" as in stayed at Iowa. Staying at Iowa would likely not have changed Larson's character. And I never said anyone said Fran wasn't a better coach for Iowa, so not sure where you pulled that one from.
 
Kind of mid paraphrased him. Sounds like he regretted leaving butler, but not that he regretted going to Iowa
 
Have NO respect for the guy. I did until I saw where he never talked to any of the players before he left. Seems to me a MAN would of thanked the players such as Matt Gaten and others for giving their all. Showed NO class at all.
 
vexlar said:
Have NO respect for the guy. I did until I saw where he never talked to any of the players before he left. Seems to me a MAN would of thanked the players such as Matt Gaten and others for giving their all. Showed NO class at all.
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Give him a break. He probably saw it as "mutiny". And, allegedly, Gatens's father was one of those jumping on Barta to do something. In that same situation, I'd move on quietly, too.
 
I always heard rumblings that players pretty much hated him (at least most of him.) It would explain the transfers and I'd believe it. What do you have to do to make a majority of your team hate you? I'm sure the losing doesn't help but that's on you and Fran can go psycho on you at time (at least it looks like he flips on players like they're wearing ref stripes) but players seem to enjoy playing for him. Even when we sucked in his first year.
 
hawkeyebob62 said:
Give him a break. He probably saw it as "mutiny". And, allegedly, Gatens's father was one of those jumping on Barta to do something. In that same situation, I'd move on quietly, too.
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Maybe, but you don't continually whine that you didn't have enough time when you took a pretty storied program down to their worst 3 seasons in history. Consecutive seasons nonetheless. The buck starts and stops with him. He was hired to do a job, failed miserably and tries to blame everyone but himself. I don't respect anyone like that either.
 
hawkeyebob62 said:
some of those guys that left were not exactly guys that would even SNIFF time on this year's team. Some of those were rejects left over from The Person Who Previously Coached at Iowa/The Previous Coach at New Mexico/The Current Coach at UCLA. And he did have some good guys lined up.
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That's really harsh.

I don't blame the players. They were recruited to Iowa by the coaches. Blame the coaches. It's not the fault of the players if they weren't big enough or talented enough to compete in the Big Ten. They worked hard, competed hard and for the most part represented the U of I in a dignified manner off the court (a few exceptions).

I also don't hold any bad feelings for the ones who transferred. It was a terrible style of play, and it sounds as though Lickliter was very disconnected from his players. I had checked out long before they did. I couldn't stomach Iowa Basketball anymore.
 
theboat said:
I would say more like 60-40. Lick took over a crappy team, but Tyler Smith probably doesn't leave if the coaching doesn't change. Lick's legacy was players running away. Smith, Kelly, Peterson, Freeman, Tucker, Fuller, Payne.

Granted, Iowa would have never been close to competing for the B1G if those guys all stuck around, but they wouldn't have been quite as bad as they were.
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I can tell you with 100% certainty that Smith was leaving before the coaching change. Tyler had packed his bags and was leaving the program over X-mas break but Noodle'$ convinced him to $tay. They (alford and his staff) knew that Smith had played his final season at Iowa long before the season was actually over. This I am 100% certain of.

With that said, Lick did his fair share of running players off too. He was a gawd awful coach that was in way over his head. It's not that difficult to figure out how Butler was so successful while Lick was there and well after he was gone....it wasn't Lick.
 
hawkeye12345 said:
I can tell you with 100% certainty that Smith was leaving before the coaching change. Tyler had packed his bags and was leaving the program over X-mas break but Noodle'$ convinced him to $tay. They (alford and his staff) knew that Smith had played his final season at Iowa long before the season was actually over. This I am 100% certain of.

With that said, Lick did his fair share of running players off too. He was a gawd awful coach that was in way over his head. It's not that difficult to figure out how Butler was so successful while Lick was there and well after he was gone....it wasn't Lick.
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Very true. Smith's transfer was about his father's health, which is why he got to play immediately without sitting out a year. Jake Kelly's transfer seemed to be about family as well, but as for Davis, Palmer, Peterson, Fuller, etc? Hard to argue Lick deserved more time here when the team was consistently regressing and his players couldn't stand to be here.
 
tm3308 said:
The only one who don't regret Lickliter leaving Butler is Butler.
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Alford probably got some lulz from it.

Unrelated note, I think it would be fun to beat UCLA in the sweet 16 sending us to the elite 8, thus taking us to the "next level" (I've just wanted to type that scenario and haven't had the chance to do so yet and started a thread just to do so would be weird)
 
bcl20 said:
Alford probably got some lulz from it.

Unrelated note, I think it would be fun to beat UCLA in the sweet 16 sending us to the elite 8, thus taking us to the "next level" (I've just wanted to type that scenario and haven't had the chance to do so yet and started a thread just to do so would be weird)
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An Alford coached team reaching the sweet 16?

Lulz
 
volhawk50 said:
Very true. Smith's transfer was about his father's health, which is why he got to play immediately without sitting out a year. Jake Kelly's transfer seemed to be about family as well, but as for Davis, Palmer, Peterson, Fuller, etc? Hard to argue Lick deserved more time here when the team was consistently regressing and his players couldn't stand to be here.
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I don't want to hijack the thread over this but Smith's transfer was not about his dad's health. Tyler wanted out of Iowa and was looking for every opportunity possible. His dad lived in Pulaski which is an hour south of Nashville, 1 1/2 hours North of Birmingham, and 3 1/2 hours away from Knoxville (University of TN) and Memphis (equidistant from each).

Tyler grew up a Vols fan but wasn't offered a $cholar$hip coming out of high school. UT had a top 10 recruiting cla$$ so they pa$$ed.

He was gone regardless of his dad's health. His dad's health is what allowed him to play without burning a year of eligibility because the NCAA blinked. FYI - his dad was sick well before he accepted the scholarship to play at Iowa...

Let's just leave it that Smith was going to play at UT and was willing to sit a year if the NCAA said he had to.
 
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