Now that the season is officially over...

C

CHShawk

Well-Known Member
and to put the Lickliter talk aside, how did the team perform based on your preseason predictions? Did anyone think this team would be better after last years exodus of transfers and graduates from the program?

Personally, I predicted 12 wins so my guess turned out to be a little optimistic.
I thought Gatens and Cole were somewhat disappointing in their development from a year ago, but I was very impressed with Fullers play especially down the stretch. I was also very impressed with Eric May's game, except a little disappointed with his ability to shoot the rock. Cully Payne played very much like I thought he would - showed promise but also made a number of freshman mistakes. Cougill is a work in progress but I like his ability to step out and shoot the deep ball. I actually really like Andrew Brommer's improvement from year 1 to year 2. He reminds me of Jared Reiner a little bit, but he obviously needs to spend more time in the weight room. Bawinkel best of luck to you in the future. Lil Lick was overmatched and I didn't expect to see him get the playing time he did entering the season - his minutes were a symptom of the Tucker situation, it is what it is I guess.

Obviously it was a rough season but I really do think there are some things that Lick, or whoever next years coach can is build upon.
 
I would have loved to see a whole season of the kids playing like they did in todays game. Heck the last three years for that matter. I guarantee there would have been fewer transfers and quite a few more wins each season.
 
I watched a team that unfortunately could never get more than 1 or 2 guys hot in a single game. As a whole we never really had a consistent trio of scorers which sent us into long offensive droughts and often resulted in a bit of panic on the part of everyone, including Gatens. I saw a lot of positives as well as several head-scratching moments but I will continue to go on record and say perhaps three major missing pieces will begin to fall into place over the next few months that will have me once again looking forward to watching several young men take the floor again next year determined to improve upon this year and that is really what matters more to me than the coaching drama.

Keys to Consider:
1) A full season and off-season of strength and conditioning is going to do nothing but help us on the glass, on the defensive end, and hopefully off the bounce as well if guys devote time to not only getting bigger but also quicker
2) Practice Facility - I spent two years trying to rebuild a program at the DIII level in which we ran into similar time constraints and were forced to practice at 6am one week and then 7pm the next, etc which not only significantly hampered recruiting even at the level but obviously kept players from improving the individual skills (free throw shooting comes to mind)
3) Full Squad = Full Scrimmages and should help motivate guys to get better. I'm not defending the reasons why we were short-handed this season but nonetheless when you factor injuries, sickness, etc. there were often times where it would have been impossible to seriously work on a full court press or 2-3 Zone, etc in game-type situations as Iowa did not have 10 guys healthy

Optimists top 5
1) Fuller has a nose for rebounding and now this off-season I believe he will look for that "next-level" by regaining confidence in his outside shot and dribble-drive from outside 5ft of the bucket. I believe he also saw enough games this season in which his PT was limited due to foul problems that he works on defensive positioning as well
2) May has the potential to challenge for big Ten defensive player of the year and will benefit from a full season of court time plus he should get a few extra minutes of rest next year to help keep the legs fresh. He had some success getting to the rim on offense along with a nice mid-range baseline jumper but this is only the tip of the ice in terms of what he can potentially bring offensively. Look for him to be much improved in his ball handling by next fall.
3) Payne logged a ton of minutes under heavy pressure at times and I will guarantee this young man is going to break down nearly each and every minute of those games to see what worked and what didn't against each returning player that he will face next season. His unforced turnovers were down the last few games and I almost think he has been watching some of the Tom Davis film era as the bounce pass is making its way into more and more games. A full off-season of conditioning could make a world of difference as well given that he was really still coming off a major injury this past year.
4) Cole will continue to do whatever it takes to help this team as witnessed this year by his improved mid-range jumper which I believe could be a very pleasant surprise by next fall if the progression remains consistent. I lost count on the number of charges this guy tried taking as well which began rubbing off on some of the others. He may not be as polished as many would like but I assure you teams rebuilding like Iowa need at least one guy like Cole and I expect he will continue to help push the rest of the guys as he leads by example this off-season.
5) I look for Gatens to bounce back in terms of shooting consistency next season as well both at the free throw line and from behind the arc. Personally I believe the number of minutes he has had to play over the last two seasons now may have caused him to begin playing a bit reserved so with the extra bodies next year providing more rest and ultimately guys pushing to take his starting role, I believe Gatens will be back to playing with more of a Brommer intensity where it's 100% effort for as long as he is on the floor instead of perhaps 80% or 90% lapses while he tries to catch his breath.
 
BALDIES7980 said:
I would have loved to see a whole season of the kids playing like they did in todays game. Heck the last three years for that matter. I guarantee there would have been fewer transfers and quite a few more wins each season.
Click to expand...

They have been playing like this the overwhelming majority of the past 3 years. LOSING and LOSING playing a hideous, gut wrenchingingly painful style of basketball...
 
I was right with a prediction of 10 wins. I thought we'd win one more nonconference game and one less conference game. I thought we'd be this bad because of a lack of talent and poor coaching.
 
I predicted 10 wins and we're right there. I'm actually not disappointed at all. I'd be okay with Lick getting another year.
 
All the screaming and crying aside for this season..., Almost everyone and including myself, knew this would be a bad season. not many people including myself, thought iowa would get many wins. amny though we would finish 11th. we did better, we got ninth.

so if iowa preformed actually better then we thought, do we really need a coaching change? Nothing was expected of this team going in. And the team delivered. I am on the band wagon for a change at the coaching level. But this question and this thread, may make me rethink my position on this.
 
JoeHawki said:
All the screaming and crying aside for this season..., Almost everyone and including myself, knew this would be a bad season. not many people including myself, thought iowa would get many wins. amny though we would finish 11th. we did better, we got ninth.

so if iowa preformed actually better then we thought, do we really need a coaching change? Nothing was expected of this team going in. And the team delivered. I am on the band wagon for a change at the coaching level. But this question and this thread, may make me rethink my position on this.
Click to expand...

Yes we need a new coach. We all thought we would be bad because of our talent level. He isn't bringing in the talent we need to win, so we need to change to someone who will.
 
I thought they would win around 14 and 5-6 big ten games. It wasnt about wins and losses completely for me. The lack of effort/competitiveness in a lot of games is what bothered me the most
 
I knew they wouldn't be good, but I never thought they would lose 22, I thought they would win their first 2 games of the year and beat Wichita St and then win 6 Big Ten games which would have given them a 15-17 record.
 
cibula11 said:
I predicted 10 wins and we're right there. I'm actually not disappointed at all. I'd be okay with Lick getting another year.
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Did you think in our 22 losses we would be as bad as we were? Getting blown out on way too many occasions. You expected that?

I knew there would be losses but i didnt think they would come like they did
 
We did not have any big/signature wins or upsets this season. Zero. That's disappointing. And not finishing strong at the end of the season is also disappointing. Ugh.
 
I predicited 18 wins, but i mostly thought that we would be competitive at home and not lose to Duquene, Texas El paso, and some of those other schools.

Overall as I team, I am not happy with their play down the stretch. I thought they battled most of the year, except at Minny and Wisky. The players expressions show they are not happy out there when they are playing basketball. I think they have lose their love for the game. I was very disappointed to see us running the same offense over and over again. Usually good coaches find a way to change something. Our offense only worked against IU and PSU. Other teams out maned us and played a lot better defense.

I have hopes of Iowa basketball, sadly it is not with todd lick as the coach. UNLESS he changes something in the off-season and makes some coaching adjustments, and changes his style of basketball. I am sorry but his style needs to change, if he doesn't change it, then let him go, we will go no where with him at the helm.
 
Even if a coach came in that wants to run more, maybe press a lot, does iowa have the players that can play this style of ball? I am not convinced that the players at iowa can play any other style. The best we could hope from this group is to play a little more like UNI, but that would require a couple of true inside players, who are not afraid to pound the boards and mix it up a little. We don't have that at this time. Cole didn't do enough all season, and this man should have averaged double doubles all season. And his main back up, sometimes played a lot, and other times not heard from. Coughill is an inside player and he acted like a guard at best.
 
I was on the record in the fall with my projection of 11-21 (4-15)...I thought we would beat USTA and Duquesne to have a non-conference of 7-6...and only beat IU,NW and PSU at home....I missed on IU on the road...still our best win of the year.

Bottom line, we were very close to what I expected,cept that we were less competitive in the games down the stretch than I thought. It is pretty clear now that Jake played amazingly well in those last 8 big ten games last year to make us respectable.
And the fact that we expected to be bad,and were, does not let Lick off the hook for putting us at those expectation levels in the first place...bad is bad,no matter the expectations.
 
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