Not tryin to pile on

[tm3308]

Agreed. Alford wasn't well liked at all by the fanbase, so he makes a convenient scapegoat for a lot of folks.

Alford did not leave behind the greatest team in the world, no, but his last three years he won 21, 25 and 17 games. That is hardly the "biggest nightmare imagineable" being left for the successor. If that is "in shambles", then what do you call the current situation? Good grief.

Okay, maybe it was a little overstated. But the players on campus did not all fit well in Lick's system. It's a pretty bad spot when a coach comes in with a system that he's been successful with, and then doesn't have many players who either fit into it or are willing to fit in. And that was what Lick inherited. Smith was on his way out anyway. Freeman was too selfish to do what was required of him. Palmer didn't put out a full effort consistently. Kelly had a very good reason to leave that had nothing to do with basketball. Davis wanted more playing time, but didn't fit well here. Peterson I suppose is in the same boat, though I was surprised when he left.

Lick's first recruiting class consisted of 3 guys: Cole, Kelly, Peterson. That's what tends to happen when you make a coaching change and you aren't UNC or Kansas: you get very small classes. And two of those guys transferred. So in 2007, Lick is playing without the two best players from the previous year, Tate, Henderson, and freshman/reserves. That's not much. Then after last season, when we played well at times with those three freshmen, two of them leave.

Next year is going to be the first where we've had stability on our roster. Next year will be a good year to judge Lick on. The first three were all about implementing his system and getting the right players there. I think he's got that now.

 

[JHHawk]

I guess Barta should have informed the fan base that he was hiring a unique coach, one whose system installation will render his first three years as irrelevant and insignificant,and that fans should just not start paying attention to Iowa bb until his 4th year to save themselves the pain and money involved in watching the first three years of Lick. That would have been the honest thing to do. To explain that only hand-picked players of Lick himself can actually play his system. Actually, what they should have done that day that Lick was hired was just come out and say they are not renewing any of the current schollys since none of these guys can play licks ''unique'' system. It would have been the fair thing to do for the players and fans. Release them all, find places for them where they can play,and start with no schollys...then lick could have recruited 13 guys that fit his first year,and off we go to fame and glory.
No one told the fans that to ignore Iowa bb til year 4...need a warning label with lickball.

 

[NewMexHawk]

big lick didn't couldn't control TF well enough. TF wanted to play BB and big lick wanted him to play slow down keepaway bb and TF apparently couldn't adapt.

The bigger stumbling block I believe is that it takes years and years to learn Big lick's system and TF didn't have enough time left in college to learn the system. So big lick ran him off. TF only had a couple of years left in college, thus he didn't have near enough time left to learn the "system" so big lick didn't want to waste everyone's time teaching him a system that is so complicated only to see him graduate.

That is why big lick needs kids for 3 and 4 years...his system takes that long for kids to learn. He has to break them of everything they have learned up until they get to college and then he has to remold them into his system and it just takes a long long time. He doesn't have time for kids who are only going to be around for 1 or 2 years.

 

[1977Hawkeye]

Okay, maybe it was a little overstated. But the players on campus did not all fit well in Lick's system. It's a pretty bad spot when a coach comes in with a system that he's been successful with, and then doesn't have many players who either fit into it or are willing to fit in. And that was what Lick inherited. Smith was on his way out anyway. Freeman was too selfish to do what was required of him. Palmer didn't put out a full effort consistently. Kelly had a very good reason to leave that had nothing to do with basketball. Davis wanted more playing time, but didn't fit well here. Peterson I suppose is in the same boat, though I was surprised when he left.

Lick's first recruiting class consisted of 3 guys: Cole, Kelly, Peterson. That's what tends to happen when you make a coaching change and you aren't UNC or Kansas: you get very small classes. And two of those guys transferred. So in 2007, Lick is playing without the two best players from the previous year, Tate, Henderson, and freshman/reserves. That's not much. Then after last season, when we played well at times with those three freshmen, two of them leave.

Next year is going to be the first where we've had stability on our roster. Next year will be a good year to judge Lick on. The first three were all about implementing his system and getting the right players there. I think he's got that now.

I agree that next year is really "THE YEAR", and we'll know alot about how the Lickliter era will turn out, I think. It'll be time to show some results. If we get that - GREAT. If not, then I don't think it will ever happen no matter how much time we give Lick.

By this time next year we'll know the following:

1. More transfers? Definitely a trend.
If not - Ok, maybe we can call it a fluke and things have stabilized.

2. How much will this year's freshmen develop? Is it inexperience this year that's the problem, or lack of talent? If these guys are talented and are being well coached, then they should improve, agreed?

3. How good, REALLY, is the next recruiting class? 20+ games into next year, we should be seeing some flashes of how good these guys can be.

I've always had trouble buying into the "players don't fit the system" argument, at least to a large degree. Ok, asking a bunch of small/slow guys to run and gun, and play a full-court press is pretty obvious. That won't work out to well. But in general, how long does it really take for players to adjust to a new coach's philosophy? Raveling's players clearly had no trouble adjusting to Tom Davis' "system". But of course, those guys were talented as all heck, and that is kind of my point. Maybe it does take some extra time with not-so-talented players, I don't know. But that kind of leads me to the next question: Do we really have ENOUGH talent?

 

[hawkinaclownhouse]

big lick didn't couldn't control TF well enough. TF wanted to play BB and big lick wanted him to play slow down keepaway bb and TF apparently couldn't adapt.

The bigger stumbling block I believe is that it takes years and years to learn Big lick's system and TF didn't have enough time left in college to learn the system. So big lick ran him off. TF only had a couple of years left in college, thus he didn't have near enough time left to learn the "system" so big lick didn't want to waste everyone's time teaching him a system that is so complicated only to see him graduate.

That is why big lick needs kids for 3 and 4 years...his system takes that long for kids to learn. He has to break them of everything they have learned up until they get to college and then he has to remold them into his system and it just takes a long long time. He doesn't have time for kids who are only going to be around for 1 or 2 years.

I am sick of hearing this "it takes years to learn Lick's system". Go to any AAU tournament and you will see tons of teams playing 4 out 1 in offenses with high screens, staggered screens, drive and kick across the baseline to opposite corner, etc.

This is not rocket science people; watch the offense it is really simple and that is the real problem because the athletic talent of players in the Big Ten allow them to help and recover defensively quicker than Butler's opponents limiting the number of wide open 3s.

 

[tm3308]

I am sick of hearing this "it takes years to learn Lick's system". Go to any AAU tournament and you will see tons of teams playing 4 out 1 in offenses with high screens, staggered screens, drive and kick across the baseline to opposite corner, etc.

This is not rocket science people; watch the offense it is really simple and that is the real problem because the athletic talent of players in the Big Ten allow them to help and recover defensively quicker than Butler's opponents limiting the number of wide open 3s.

I think if you read some of NewMexHawk's other comments, then re-read the post you're replying to, you'll detect a strong air of sarcasm.

 

[ddiction]

I can think of a large number of times when running our "offense" turned into having the ball 30 feet from the basket with less than 8 seconds on the shot clock, and needing someone to try to play 1 on 1 or jack up a long 3.

Just sayin'...

And it would have been great to have his skills for precisely those situations. His problem was that his refusal to run the plays meant that he put us in those situations much more often than we needed to be.