Objective comparison of Fran and Lick

Are some of you serious? The Iowa program has been abysmal for nearly a decade. Boob Bowlsby f'ed up and didn't retain Mr. Davis and compounded the mistake by hiring a flavor of the month (alford). alford gained on the job training while at Iowa and we paid dearly for it. To compound the problem during alfords training was a kid named Pierre Pierce. Without PP I truly believe that we would have held on to alford and would have never even uttered the name Lick.

Lick was horrible. He was a horrible recruiter and an even worse X and O's coach. His style ran off any player that had a talent and the cupboard was bare when Fran arrived. Fran brought in two of the best ballers in recent history (Cartwright and Basabe). He took a flyer on a talented but questionable player and got burnt. Good or bad we will never really know but we know these facts:

The record was better with less (younger) talent and an unbelievably talented Big10 field.

The style of play was exciting. None of us turned the TV off during the game and fan support increased as the season wore on.

We are in on bigger and better players than we could have been during Licks tenure.

Rebuilding a decimated program takes time. We've had 10 yrs of futility. The kids that are entering as Freshman never knew what it was like growing up watching a Lute, Mr. Davis or George coached teams. They were either not born or younger than 8 yrs old when those guys coached at Iowa.

Losing one player isn't a program killer. It hurts but its not going to end the tenure of Fran.
 
"We are in on bigger and better players than we could have been during Licks tenure."

Are you talking about Woodbury, let's wait until that chicken hatches. Being in on recruits doesn't matter, you need to land them. Alford was the best and being second or third choice to a great player.
 
Why Gary Barta went mid-major after the last mid-major was a complete disaster is beyond me. Fran's recruiting is as bad as Lick's. Barta damn well better lose his job if/when Fran doesn't work. I do not want Barta selecting a Ferentz replacement.
 
We should have all been very worried when Fran didn't run Archie out of the program. We need a winner, not a nice guy.
 
JRHawks5969 said:
We should have all been very worried when Fran didn't run Archie out of the program. We need a winner, not a nice guy.
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Your just clueless JR. People like you sometimes should think before commenting. Fran kept Archie because he needed some bodies, it's not like he took over a program stocked with talent.
 
JHHawk said:
WTF? Abrahamson is the #119 ranked player in the country on Rivals,and you are upset that Fran has offered him? We currently only have 2 top 150 players on this whole roster- Gatens and Ogelsby,and you are turning your nose up at the #119th ranked player in the country? You actually want Fran to go after non-top 150 players as long as they are outside of Iowa instead of top 150 players in Iowa? If Fran lands Woody(#50),Gesell(#89),Abrahamson(#119) on top of Oglesby(#118) in two years,that will be the best 2year top 150 haul at Iowa since Horner,Brunner followed Sommerville and Pierce.

Chill out,debbie downer.
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Your comment shows your lack of basketball IQ. If you think turning Iowa basketball around can be accomplished by landing McCabe, May, Gatens, Ogelsby, Abrahamson type players, you are delusional. ALL of these guys are nice players, none difference makers and to win at the high D1 level, you need difference makers.s If not at Iowa, these kids would be at mid majors and NOT starting.
 
hawkIhoops said:
Your comment shows your lack of basketball IQ. If you think turning Iowa basketball around can be accomplished by landing McCabe, May, Gatens, Ogelsby, Abrahamson type players, you are delusional. ALL of these guys are nice players, none difference makers and to win at the high D1 level, you need difference makers.s If not at Iowa, these kids would be at mid majors and NOT starting.
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did you even read his post? he was just saying that you can't trash in-state talent right now when we still have some great players available. that won't hold true most years, but he was commenting that one guy made a stink about offering Abrahamson. from all accounts he's better than all but Gatens from the list of other iowa guys you mention.

yes, we need difference makers. but do you remember that we currently are in the worst stretch of the program's history? do you honestly think that we'd have a legit shot at a top 50 player if he wasn't from iowa? what you do expect? we've got to start somewhere.

some of you need to take a few breaths and relax. we're not going to get drastically better unless we pull a tim floyd and start buying players. its still going to take time to see if fran can build this program up or not. don't know if he will or not, but it seems like he's going to work like crazy in the process.
 
Little difference...considering that no one wanted to play for lackluster and fans hated his slow ball style. Plus, lackluster was a ****** when it came to communication. Plus, Iowa fans KNEW that lackluster was never going to get Iowa out of the basement. Lackluster had no idea HOW to recruit and drove the program so far into the ground that a new coach is/was going to have a very difficult job of rebuilding.

So to compare the two coaches and say that Lackluster did a better job than Fran in his first year is ridiculous. Fran has a much steeper road to climb than lackluster ever dreamed of.

The new coach has started putting people back INTO seats again because he has brought an exciting style of bb.

The new recruit leaving before ever playing definitely hurt there is no doubt however, I highly doubt that Iowa will see the mass defections that lackluster had.

Had lackluster stayed, you could have heard crickets in Carver last year. He was a terrible terrible coach and was never ready to coach in a major conference. He was way in over his head...way in over his head.

Fran KNOWS how to rebuild a program although the program took a hit. Fran will do just fine.

After ONE season, there was already a division between fans about lackluster. About half the fan base hated his coaching style after 1 year....Lackluster was a total ******.
 
newtonavenue said:
You couldn't have said it better. What happened to McCaffrey's ties out east? Shoot, I go over on CF and all I read about is Fred killing it on the east coast. Why can't Fran do the same?

The same personal agenda could be said for Fran making no effort at all to keep a serviceable point guard in Payne. That loss is looking real bad right now. Ouch
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you're underestimating the power of the rolodex!
 
You can slice it however you like, but recruiting Iowa kids with limited athleticims isn't going to get it done. Feel free to point out Iowa kids getting at the D1 level outside of Barnes. If you read my post, you see no mention of recruiting top 50 kids or even top 100 kids. I know we aren't going to get those kids (now or ever probably), but we sure as hell better be able to go find some overlooked talent and fill in with juco kids. Am I freaking out? No. Am I very disappointed that McCaffrey screwed up a year of positive momentum (renewed hope, rejuvenated fans, no off the court issues) by sticking his neck out for Hubbard? Yes.

Two reasons coach make these kinds of mistakes:
1) Inexperience
2) Desperation.

Given FM's coaching experience, I think we can rule out #1.
 
Lots of funny comments in this thread. I agree that Caff kinda screwed the pooch with Hubbard. And I agree with hawkihoops that I was expecting more of an east coast flavor to our recruiting. Caff's inability to hire more of an elite recruiting asst is going to make this rebuilding job much tougher for him than I originally thought. He may need to reevaluate that decision in the future if we keep missing out on prospects. At this point tho I am still remaining patient and will assume he will turn this program around.
 
This is a very good line.....

Had lackluster stayed, you could have heard crickets in Carver last year.

jiminyCricket.jpg
 
ISU has a much better roster than Iowa does. I don't think any rational person would disagree. Iowa needs a serious upgrade in talent. Hopefully that will start with Woodbury.
 
Hawkstrat said:
"We are in on bigger and better players than we could have been during Licks tenure."

Are you talking about Woodbury, let's wait until that chicken hatches. Being in on recruits doesn't matter, you need to land them. Alford was the best and being second or third choice to a great player.
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That's pretty much correct. Finishing 2nd in recruiting is basically the same as finishing last. No commit = no commit. And I'm not banking on Woodbury being a lock. He clearly is waiting to see what offers he gets this summer, which to me, means he is looking for the best offer he can get rather than following his love for the Hawks and committing.

So far, Fran has pretty much been unable to land any players that aren't in-state or lightly recruited. I'm sure that part of it is the fact that we've been so horrible the past few years, but other than that, I'm hoping that Fran knows how to spot overlooked talent like Basabe & Cartwright. Based on those two recruits, it seems Fran knows how to find those diamonds in the rough.

Only time will tell if that trend continues with the recruits we've got coming in next. But based on their star ratings and lists of offers, that's going to have to be the case.
 
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