Still trying to sell that lick did such an amazing job of ''repairing'' all the damage that SA did with HS administrators and coaches,eh tigger?
Face it. AAU coaches have more sway and influence over most recruits in most states these days...and in Iowa maybe not as much but certainly they are still a big factor. You keep saying that SA damaged our relationships in state...which in-state players besides JaBo did SA miss on?
If you are going to enshrine AAU coaches (including the many hustlers in their ranks) as your deities of choice, it would be prudent to become a bit more knowledgeable about them---and you might as well start in Iowa.
1. Neither the Martins Brothers or the Barnstormers coaches have been a "big factor" in the choices made by Iowa HS players who have signed with Division 1 programs--and the latter has gone on record on many occasions to stress that he does NOT try to influence the decisions of the kids that play for him.
Their AAU summer affiliations were NOT influential in the choices of any of the current or recent Div 1 signings--Harrison Barnes to play for North Carolina (that was a one-on-one operation by Roy Williams), McDermott's kids going to UNI on the advice & encouragement of Dad & Dad's buddy who took over for him at UNI, McCabe and Creekmur dealt directly with Lickliter. No AAU coach played any part with Gibbs going to Gonzaga, or any of the Bohannon kids, or Nate Hutcheson--or any other of the Minn-Mar kids past, present or future--or the coach will make sure the kid either drops off that AAU team or is out at Linn-Mar. Cougill and May were recruited via their HS programs, not the AAU. Same with Brust & Payne, just as with Gatens. Indeed, while there have several jucos who Alford recruited via AAU coaches, you have to go back to Sonderleiter to find the last Hawkeye recruit from Iowa for whom a AAU coach was a "factor", "big" or small. If it different at UNI it is a well-kept secret...as for the Clowns, post-scumbags, until McDermott recruits his first Iowa HS player we won't know if he listens more to AAU coaches than to the HS coaches that he relied upon building his successful program at UNI.
2. What Iowa HS kids with Division 1 talent did Alford-Neal miss out on?(admittedly, this is somewhat muddied-up by Alford's poor judgment about the potential for development of the kids he was recruiting). A better way to ask is how many Iowa kids with Division 1 potential did he manage to get to Iowa and keep after Worley & Sonderleiter (Horner & Brunner recruited themselves to the program they had dreamed about since they were toddlers). The only notable Iowa HS kids he brought in were Thompson & Reed--and their experience at Iowa and the manner in which they left STILL make it a very uphill battle for Iowa coaches to be welcome in Ames or Waterloo-Cedar Falls (not as far along in thawing process as most of the Cedar Rapids & Iowa City area HS). Among the Iowa Div 1 players who Alford couldn/t/wouldn't recruit were all the Korvers, Homan, half a dozen guys at UNI including Egleseder, other Creighton guys including MVC POY Jacobson, starting big men at Wyoming, Nebraska, UNC-Wilmington, Wichita State, starters at Albany, Indiana State, Dayton, elsewhere. That many of these guys would not have panned out in BT play is not what matters: the crippling truth was AND IS that they were a pool of home-state talent that was out-of-reach because of Alford (and because he failed to recruit and keep a single Iowa kid in the five years after the Brunner-Horner-Haluska class and couldn't replace them with kids from Illinois post-Sommerville, he had little alternative to his gambles on the gypsies, rough diamonds and character-stained inadequates & he abadoned them at the first opportunity. Ov course the disastrous consequences didn't end immediately upon his departure. The odor remains long after, even when the cows are no longer in the barn. My point--and you are the one who wants to inflate its importance-was AND IS that ONE of the things that Lickliter DID manage to accomplish in his short time here was to re-establish a welcoming climate in Iowa schools AND HS in other states in the region, as well as diminishing considerably the hostility toward the program among Iowa faculty and administrators.
Apparently a great many posters have trouble distinguishing between support for a coach and concern that a hasty dismissal can cause even more damage to a program already hurting. Lickliter was not my man, not when he was hired (I hoped for Dana Altman, second preference was Lon Kruger--but I most of all still wanted the same guy I wanted when Bowlsby made the worst hiring blunder on the part of any Iowa AD ever: he passed over the UW-Milwaukee coach, Bruce Pearl, to hire the cover-boy--except by 2007 he was no longer available...and is even less so now.
I was no more satisfied with the dreary consistent losses of Lickliter's years. No one was. Not even Lickliter himself one hopes. But I did not detest the guy, or even dislike him or saw any to criticize him for anything except the losing and the infuriating slow pace of progress for the Iowa program. In that sense, I wanted Alford gone, yesterday was always too late. The guy disgraced the University; Lickliter, on the other hand, gave no indications of being anything other than a decent man with only one thing possible in common with Alford--the chance that he, too, was in over his head.
IMO the fair evaluation of Lickliter was that he is a first-rate teacher of the game. My opinion sharply contrasts with the views of most posters here on his recruiting: he is an excellent judge of potential for development, especially in respect to the attributes that are most significant to his style of play; and my impression is that he had three solid recruiting classes in his three chances at Iowa: two good BT quality players his first class in Fuller & Gatens (Tucker might have become a valuable role-player as outside shooter, scorer; Brommer was a mistake that Lickliter didn't want to admit to), two more in his second class in May & Payne (and I'm inclined to believe that the other two, Archie & Cougill, were going to be useful BT-level contributors--maybe still will be under another coach with a different approach). Depending upon how many/which of them still want too become Hawkeyes, this year's recruits IMO have the potential to make a more positive difference for the Hawkeyes than recruits anywhere else in the BT--the crucial importance of depth, especially when each & every one of them provides quality depth at every position. One has bailed out before he even climbed aboard: the POY in Iowa Juco ball, Alexander, a 6-4 combo guard, was due to commit over the weekend, after the end of his team's season--but when Barta announced Lickliter's contract was being bought out, Alexander immediately committed elsewhere. That could be serious if Payne decides to leave and his pal Brust decides not to come..with Tucker already out, we have an even bigger problem at Point Guard than a year ago when Kelly left--at least then it looked like Tucker could play some of the PG time--would leave this time only the incoming Marble kid with even a little experience as a playmaker.
No, I was not a supporter of Lickliter. Nor did I buy the notion that a coach "deserves" a longer time to show if he can succeed (my opinion is that he had some clear strengths, have doubts about his bench-coaching & game management abilities, and any evaluation could only be tentative UNTIL he had his own players with some experience behind them, given the disaster he inherited. Mostly, seemed clear to me that the Hawkeyes would have a much better won-lost record next season, play post-season, be in the middle of the BT--bottom line was that I expected the Hawkeyes to do well enough that Barta would not only not terminate him but likely give him the pro-forma one-year contract extension (this was not a pleasing prospect to me, since it simply would delay the time when Iowa was the kind of solid program that could use its BT affiliation, the attractiveness of Iowa City as a campus town, and its deep pockets to finally get the mega-star coach who could make Iowa competitive with the likes of Ohio State & Michigan State in men's basketball--just as in football, wrestling, womens hoops.
Now the change has been initiated, and it remains to be seen if Barta can lure a coach who can manage two simultaneous near-miracles: (1) sell the program: the fan base is aging, consistent with the demographics of Iowa & the upper Midwest, few students are interested in hoops of either gender; much of the fan base settles for watching on the BTN or ESPN or other TV for reasons of a poor economy and their own limited finances. (2) win quickly--which is a very daunting challenge, quite possibly made worse initially by the coaching change itself if Payne leaves, some of the recruits decide not to come--but beyond such possible further exodus of players, adapting to the new coach & his style of play, etc usually makes for some problems in the transition.
If the new coach doesn't provide a winning team in his first two years, will the fans give him more latitude and patience than they did for Lickliter. If Iowa doesn't win much--or perhaps even if shows some progress--can a new posterior in the coach's chair interest enough fans enough to buy more tickets and donate more cash to the program? And such questions lead back to the immediate question: is there a guy on Barta's list of candidates who thinks he can be the yes answer to both questions--and, most basic of all, a guy who CORRECTLY believes he is the affirmative answer to both winning games AND winning back the fans.
My concern all along, dating back to the last years of Tom Davis, is that the Iowa Hawkeyes have been losing both the reality and the perception of our team as one of the better programs in the premier conference. The downside of a coaching change now, I fear, is that it further damages our weakened status...and makes the Iowa job appear to be a serious risk to the coaches that should be at the top of Barta's list. Coaching is a tight fraternity, and it is hard to keep things secret: if, as it appears, dissension between members of the team was a key factor in Barta's curious abrupt change of mind (and that of President Mason) about his coach's status, that won't help.
