Nice win

PCHawk said:
They were solid players. But they more than likely were top 10-15 freshmen. Top 5 was pushing it. Their production due to minutes gave them the small boost needed to get on that list. Having 2 of your top 4 players being "pretty good" freshmen isn't really a "should have been better" situation.

Look at the roster on those teams. Does it scream top 25? Fran's coaching got a team where McCabe and Oglesby were major contributors to "look" like a top 25 team. The reason they didn't end up a top 25 team was they couldn't win close games.

Last year we stole a game from Wisconsin that we had no business winning with 2 minutes left. We hadn't won a game like that the previous 3 years. But we've lost a ton of them. I'm my opinion, Gard didn't choke that game away. His players did. Just like our players choked away all those games in previous years. They either got snake bit early in their careers and it got in their heads, or the just never had the clutch gene. Either way, they lost a TON of close games in that 3 year stretch. And I think a coach can only help your odds in a close game a little bit at best.
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I caught a lot of heat for saying Jordan wasn't a top 5 freshman last year. I think you claimed his as one of the best freshman in the conference last year more than once.
 
HuckFinn said:
You obviously don't know much about division 1 athletes. They want to play any time, any where, and compete. Yeah. They would rather be in the Big Dance. But if you think they are bored with the NIT, you are dead wrong.
And, I am not just talking about Iowa.
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You missed my point. My point wasn't that "they are bored with the NIT" it was the fact its a consolation tournament. While I agree with you that college athletes want to play any time, any where, and compete, I would also make the exact same comment you made about "you obviously don't know much about division 1 athletes" if you were to tell me that going into the season teams have their hearts set on playing in the NIT and not the Big Dance. That is what I was getting at. It's a consolation prize, sure teams want to keep playing, but no one has their hearts set on anything but the Big Dance when the season starts.
 
PCHawk said:
They were solid players. But they more than likely were top 10-15 freshmen. Top 5 was pushing it. Their production due to minutes gave them the small boost needed to get on that list. Having 2 of your top 4 players being "pretty good" freshmen isn't really a "should have been better" situation.

Look at the roster on those teams. Does it scream top 25? Fran's coaching got a team where McCabe and Oglesby were major contributors to "look" like a top 25 team. The reason they didn't end up a top 25 team was they couldn't win close games.

Last year we stole a game from Wisconsin that we had no business winning with 2 minutes left. We hadn't won a game like that the previous 3 years. But we've lost a ton of them. I'm my opinion, Gard didn't choke that game away. His players did. Just like our players choked away all those games in previous years. They either got snake bit early in their careers and it got in their heads, or the just never had the clutch gene. Either way, they list a TON of close games in that 3 year stretch. And I think a coach can only help your odds in a close game a little bit at best.
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I think when you have an AA in JU, an all League player in Jok, two seniors guards, and a senior 7 foot rim protector, you should expect to do better than a 7 seed in the dance. That team had enough talent to be at least a 5 seed.

The “McCabe team” that you call it also had legit talent IMO. You had a 1st team guard in Marble, an all B1G player in White, and a really solid bench. We brought Uthoff, Oglesby, and Olaseni off the bench. Uthoff and Oglesby both shot over 40% from 3 and obviously we know what Seni brought. Btw McCabe was the 9th man. That team barely made the dance! That’s underachieving.

So again. Maybe we did win a few more games than we should have last year. As I’ve said a few times we really just caught UW and Maryland when they were playing their worst ball of the year. But what did that get us? If we would have made the dance that would have been one thing.

I’d rather overachieve with a talented team and see where it takes us than overachieve and lose in the 2nd round of the NIT.
 
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NikeHawk21 said:
I think when you have an AA in JU, an all League player in Jok, two seniors guards, and a senior 7 foot rim protector, you should expect to do better than a 7 seed in the dance. That team had enough talent to be at least a 5 seed.

The “McCabe team” that you call it also had legit talent IMO. You had a 1st team guard in Marble, an all B1G player in White, and a really solid bench. We brought Uthoff, Oglesby, and Olaseni off the bench. Uthoff and Oglesby both shot over 40% from 3 and obviously we know what Seni brought. Btw McCabe was the 9th man. That team barely made the dance! That’s underachieving.

So again. Maybe we did win a few more games than we should have last year. As I’ve said a few times we really just caught UW and Maryland when they were playing their worst ball of the year. But what did that get us? If we would have made the dance that would have been one thing.

I’d rather overachieve with a talented team and see where it takes us than overachieve and lose in the 2nd round of the NIT.
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Marble's team was a team of nobody's. Look at where they came from. They were guys that were ok signing with a terrible program becasue we were their best offer. They turned out to be so good, you think they underachieved. That's coaching.

You say Uthoff's team underachieved. But by what? One more win? Maybe 2? When they lost pretty much every single one possession game with 2 minutes left, and only underachieve by a game or 2, that's crazy. If everything played out the exact same except Gesell was a guy who you can count on in a close game, we probably win the conference that year. I'm not putting it all on him becasue there are a ton of other "what ifs" too, but if just that one player was clutch, things would have been way different.

And like I said, I'm a firm believer of a coach has very little influence in the outcome of a close game. Not none. But very little.
 
Hawk5656 said:
I caught a lot of heat for saying Jordan wasn't a top 5 freshman last year. I think you claimed his as one of the best freshman in the conference last year more than once.
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For the most part, I stayed away from that arguement. Dean trolled you a lot with it. But my arguement was he was pretty good. And I still think he was pretty good. But pretty good wasn't enough to say Fran underachieved that year.
 
PCHawk said:
For the most part, I stayed away from that arguement. Dean trolled you a lot with it. But my arguement was he was pretty good. And I still think he was pretty good. But pretty good wasn't enough to say Fran underachieved that year.
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You said he was the best offensive point guard we've had in your lifetime. Combine that with the B1G's leading scorer and Cook and it speaks to Fran's abilities that his best coaching job he's ever had here was getting that team to the NIT.
 
PCHawk said:
Marble's team was a team of nobody's. Look at where they came from. They were guys that were ok signing with a terrible program becasue we were their best offer. They turned out to be so good, you think they underachieved. That's coaching.

You say Uthoff's team underachieved. But by what? One more win? Maybe 2? When they lost pretty much every single one possession game with 2 minutes left, and only underachieve by a game or 2, that's crazy. If everything played out the exact same except Gesell was a guy who you can count on in a close game, we probably win the conference that year. I'm not putting it all on him becasue there are a ton of other "what ifs" too, but if just that one player was clutch, things would have been way different.

And like I said, I'm a firm believer of a coach has very little influence in the outcome of a close game. Not none. But very little.
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Well I did say Fran should be applauded for getting the talent level we had here. The advanced stats are saying we underachieved based on what we had.

Gesell was extremely unclutch, so why did we keep putting the ball in his hands at the end of games? Let Jok and JU run a pick and roll. Give Clemmons a shot. Try something different. Anything.

It’s an interesting discussion and one we’ve had before. We basically rode a wave of nice instate talent to three tournament bids. We had a 1st Team all B1G Player (star) and a fairly veteran team in each of those years. Is that what it’s going to take in order to make the tournament under Fran? I guess my point would be to get to the next level Fran is going to have to prove that when he has a senior laden types team with a star or stars (JU & Jok), that he can produce better results than a 7 seed. If that is the case he’s going to have to do a much better job of evening his classs and he’s going to have to hit on a very high % of his recruits. Or he’s going to have to prove when he has a younger team, like this year, that he can push the right buttons and lead them to the dance. Last year he was close, but almost isn’t good enough in this profession.

Also just to be clear, and this discussion may be unrelated, but weren’t you trending toward the Fire Fran camp recently? Did the UW game change the tune a little bit for you? For me it was nice to see the talent that I thought we had prove that they can play (Garza, Cook, JBo), but I still wonder how Fran will right this ship next year.
 
Hawk5656 said:
You said he was the best offensive point guard we've had in your lifetime. Combine that with the B1G's leading scorer and Cook and it speaks to Fran's abilities that his best coaching job he's ever had here was getting that team to the NIT.
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I don't think he was as bad as a point guard as you made him sound last year but I do admit that his better position is shooting guard.
 
Hawk5656 said:
I'm just saying I got mocked for saying he wasn't one of the 5 best freshman in the league last year.
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No you got mocked because you said there was no way he’d make the All Freshman team literally the same day that it was announced that he did. It was awesome, then you disappeared for a few weeks.
 
Hawk5656 said:
I'm just saying I got mocked for saying he wasn't one of the 5 best freshman in the league last year.
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No, to be fair about it, you were mocked for basically saying Jordan had no chance..and really, that was your stance.. NO CHANCE to be on the All B1G Freshman team and beating the drum that he wasn't good. Top 5 I don't think was ever really discussed hard like in that type of context. I know cause I was one of the ones mocking you.
 
NikeHawk21 said:
Well I did say Fran should be applauded for getting the talent level we had here. The advanced stats are saying we underachieved based on what we had.

Gesell was extremely unclutch, so why did we keep putting the ball in his hands at the end of games? Let Jok and JU run a pick and roll. Give Clemmons a shot. Try something different. Anything.

It’s an interesting discussion and one we’ve had before. We basically rode a wave of nice instate talent to three tournament bids. We had a 1st Team all B1G Player (star) and a fairly veteran team in each of those years. Is that what it’s going to take in order to make the tournament under Fran? I guess my point would be to get to the next level Fran is going to have to prove that when he has a senior laden types team with a star or stars (JU & Jok), that he can produce better results than a 7 seed. If that is the case he’s going to have to do a much better job of evening his classs and he’s going to have to hit on a very high % of his recruits. Or he’s going to have to prove when he has a younger team, like this year, that he can push the right buttons and lead them to the dance. Last year he was close, but almost isn’t good enough in this profession.

Also just to be clear, and this discussion may be unrelated, but weren’t you trending toward the Fire Fran camp recently? Did the UW game change the tune a little bit for you? For me it was nice to see the talent that I thought we had prove that they can play (Garza, Cook, JBo), but I still wonder how Fran will right this ship next year.
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Good point about getting the ball put of Gesell's hands

One point I'll make about getting the 7 seed. It seems like every year, for as long as I can remember, the Hawks always end up lower than we thought they would or where they were projected. Maybe it just seems that way tho.

I wasn't quite to the fire Fran camp. But I did reach the point of being ok with it, and I still am. I will be disappointed it didn't work out tho because I like him personally and professionally.
 
PCHawk said:
There is nothing wrong with giving up a handful of wide open 3s a game. What you can't do is give up over 20 of them, along with 20 wide open layups.
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I agree but the huckster said they didn't have any open looks which is inaccurate
 
Who cares, you guys are fighting over something extremely silly and it can easily be resolved with - They got some open looks, Iowa also defending the 3 ball better against them
 
InGoodCo said:
Who cares, you guys are fighting over something extremely silly and it can easily be resolved with - They got some open looks, Iowa also defending the 3 ball better against them
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Yeah, but I was just having some fun with looney.
 
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