Paying the price for years of bad recruiting

H

hawkIhoops

Well-Known Member
After seeing the talent on display even by the mid majors in the tourney, it is painfully obvious what we lack. Story after story of "this kid wasn't recruited by anyone etc.," or "he only had a handful of offers from D2 schools" and now look at him.

I suppose a "what if" case could be made regarding retaining some of the players who left, but still, Lickliter and Walthall couldn't have done a worse job of evaluating talent. Crimminy, you should be able to stumble across a kid who can play every once in a while and watching VCU, Butler, Richmond, etc., make runs with players none of the big boys wanted proves that there are players out there to be had.

Until McCaffrey has 2-3 years to get his players in here, I think the NIT will be a great goal. We are a long ways off from being able to match the athleticism of tourney teams and if you don't have strong guard play combined with 3-4 quick bigs to board and defend, you aren't going to beat the teams that do. Coaching makes a difference, but players make plays and we don't have enough difference makers.
 
Lick could go down in history as one of the worst basketball coaches ever at Iowa and clearly was unable to recruit in a major conference. It is telling that the two best players this year were recruited by the new head coach.

That said, I don't think the program is that far off from being competitive:

- Close early season losses to Long Beach State and Wake Forest.
- Close home loss to Ohio State
- Overtime home loss to Wisconsin
- Overtime home loss to Michigan
- Victory over No. 6 Purdue

A few other losses were competitive save for dry spells where the effort totally fell apart.
 
I agree with your assessment regarding the close games, but by in large, we just haven't had the horses to compete with the top 2/3 of the conference for a few years now. Nothing we can do about the past, but when you watch team after team hit the floor with the type of athletes we haven't been able to recruit since, geez, I can't even remember, it is a reality check.

The lack of recruiting in the past makes rebuilding that much more arduous of a process, as McCaffrey doesn't have much of a foundation to build on.
 
tweeterhawk said:
Lick could go down in history as one of the worst basketball coaches ever at Iowa and clearly was unable to recruit in a major conference. It is telling that the two best players this year were recruited by the new head coach.

That said, I don't think the program is that far off from being competitive:

- Close early season losses to Long Beach State and Wake Forest.
- Close home loss to Ohio State
- Overtime home loss to Wisconsin
- Overtime home loss to Michigan
- Victory over No. 6 Purdue

A few other losses were competitive save for dry spells where the effort totally fell apart.
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I agree with most of what you have there, but you probably don't want to put a close loss to Wake Forest as a sign of being competitive. They were god-awful this year.

I would also add the win over MSU; not so much because we beat them, but because of the total domination.
 
didymushawk said:
I agree with most of what you have there, but you probably don't want to put a close loss to Wake Forest as a sign of being competitive. They were god-awful this year.

I would also add the win over MSU; not so much because we beat them, but because of the total domination.
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I considered adding the 20-point win over Sparty but had a hard time balancing that with the 19-point loss at their place. Not sure that showed a lot of progress.

I do remember thinking during both games that Iowa was running MSU much more than they were running us. That was a surprise considering the athleticism of Tom Izzo teams. Unfortunately young Mr. Hardaway got the hot hand in that second game.
 
tweeterhawk said:
I considered adding the 20-point win over Sparty but had a hard time balancing that with the 19-point loss at their place. Not sure that showed a lot of progress.

I do remember thinking during both games that Iowa was running MSU much more than they were running us. That was a surprise considering the athleticism of Tom Izzo teams. Unfortunately young Mr. Hardaway got the hot hand in that second game.
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Uh-oh someobody mixed up their Michigan teams. ;) I think it was aplington or applesby or something that was on fire for MSU
 
I don't know that it's been bad recruiting so much as it has been the ability to keep good players in the program.

Iowa had some decently talented guys during the Lick era, but they all decided to go elsewhere.

It started with Tyler Smith at the end of the Alford "regime".
 
hawkfarmer said:
Uh-oh someobody mixed up their Michigan teams. ;) I think it was aplington or applesby or something that was on fire for MSU
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Ruh-roh. My bad, indeed. Was young Mr. Appling, who went 7-8 and 4-5 from beyond the arc to score 18 in only 26 minutes.

I get confused keeping track of all the players who had career nights against us this year.
 
Player retention was the problem more than talent although talent is still an issue. You can't develop players if they aren't there.
 
INTIMIDATORHawk said:
I don't know that it's been bad recruiting so much as it has been the ability to keep good players in the program.

Iowa had some decently talented guys during the Lick era, but they all decided to go elsewhere.

It started with Tyler Smith at the end of the Alford "regime".
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True to an extent, but you would have to pull from 5-6 teams to have enough talent to compete for the upper half of the conference. Peterson, Kelly and Fuller are the only three losses of note. Palmer, Davis, Tucker, Cougill, should not have been here in the first place. Davis at least had the athleticism, but based on where they ended up, I think it is safe to say they were in over their heads in the big ten.
 
Cydkar said:
Player retention was the problem more than talent although talent is still an issue. You can't develop players if they aren't there.
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Does anyone consider WHY we had a problem retaing players?
This isn't really rocket science here guys.
 
BALDIES7980 said:
Does anyone consider WHY we had a problem retaing players?
This isn't really rocket science here guys.
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I would just like to remind everyone of how much support Lick had around here the past couple of years. It was painfully obvious to see he was not the guy after his 2nd summer in IC but that did not stop the blind supporters.

That said, Fran is the complete opposite which is a very good thing.
 
Cydkar said:
Player retention was the problem more than talent although talent is still an issue. You can't develop players if they aren't there.
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It's not like the players that defected were awesome. Freeman started for a team that lost 13 games in the MVC. Jake Kelly was the third or fourth best player on a solid MVC team. Jeff Peterson was a starting guard for an Arkansas team whose coach just got fired. We will see how Fuller plays out at USC

These guys were solid Big 10 players, but at best were an average Big 10 team with them. We simply haven't recruited the level of players that it takes to consistently make the NCAA.
 
1hawkeye1 said:
I thought the problems began with losing Mr. Davis for the flavor of the month.
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I dont know about Mr. Davis. Agreed that it was a bad move to cut him lose for Wonderboy but it wouldnt have taken very long to end up right where we are, under a failed Keeno Davis regime. And Keeno would have been incredibly hard to unseat, once he got the job. JMO.
 
drew003 said:
It's not like the players that defected were awesome. Freeman started for a team that lost 13 games in the MVC. Jake Kelly was the third or fourth best player on a solid MVC team. Jeff Peterson was a starting guard for an Arkansas team whose coach just got fired. We will see how Fuller plays out at USC

These guys were solid Big 10 players, but at best were an average Big 10 team with them. We simply haven't recruited the level of players that it takes to consistently make the NCAA.
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Nearly all of those guys left after their sophomore year. They could have developed to make a solid team. Kelly in particular. What we saw in the tourney the other night was not the Jake Kelly that we watched in Carver. He's definitely lost a step or two since his knee injury.
 
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