McCaffery will be a huge hit...eventually

[HawkeyeRyno]

This is from a blog post by ESPN's Andy Katz on his thoughts about the "coaching carousel" around college hoops. Nothing new, his thoughts are much of same as ours but at least a "talking head" takes notice of what is going on with Iowa hoops. Pretty critical about our talent but I think it is there and incoming, just needs the right system to excel. Hope this is it:

Andy Katz: Catching up on the coaching carousel - ESPN

Iowa

Out: Todd Lickliter


In: Fran McCaffery

The move: The Hawkeyes were wandering at the bottom of the Big Ten with little hope for moving upward. Clearly the Lickliter experiment wasn't working. Iowa had to completely change direction to get fan interest going again. Hiring McCaffery, if he can deliver with the uptempo style like he succeeded with at Siena, will be a huge hit. Tom Davis' fast-paced Iowa teams were always a good watch. McCaffery's will be too -- eventually.

Important step: The talent level at Iowa is down … way down. McCaffery has had great success recruiting in the Northeast, but he may need to convince some to head to the Midwest. He's got to have a tremendous recruiting class this summer to start the process of rebuilding.

 

[drew003]

I'm amazed at the number of people that think our talent is good enough. We were consistently not competitive with all 8 teams in the Big 10 that finished ahead of us. There is a large talent gap between us and those teams. I know McCaffery has amped up expectations but it is going to hard to win with the returning players, they just aren't as good as most team's players. We have a lot of a fringe Big 10 players.

Fuller should not be our best player. He is an undersized post with incomplete guard skills, whose best asset is playing as a garbage man. This isn't a knock on Fuller, he is useful Big 10 player but the fact that he is our best player is quite troublesome. Our lack of guard-play is also scary. Payne is the one guy that has flashed the ability to where he wants on the court off the dribble, we need more players that can get to their spots on the court.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

I also have a feeling that coaches McCaffery & Ferentz will also have a closer professional relationship than with past two B-ball coaches. Alford was just too arrogant & Lickliter really was rather reserved.

I feel McCaff has a nice all-around personality & resembles Kirk Ferentz's personality. Both seem to be perfectionist who pay a lot of attention to detail. I think the two will have a nice working relationship & continue to represent Iowa well.