Road to the Final 4 has been demonstrated

[trj]

That's it, that is the only response you've got? lol wow is right.. Next time might toss in why you disagree!


College Basketball is the last step of the purest of levels of Basketball, the NBA is a joke! The NCAA Tournament is the greatest sporting event in sports.

I disagree I think the NBA playoffs are purest level of basketball.....You simply can't have that purity in a one and done scenario. I love the NCAA tournament and this year's tournament was awesome, but recent tournaments have been filled with games with missed shots, teams not knowing what to do late in games and coaches calling excessive timeouts late in games.

Given what is at stake in tournament games makes them compelling they do not make them well played.

 

[trj]

I've flipped on this. I no longer care about graduation rates. Stay out of trouble and contribute to the program that's all I care about. If you take of advantage of the situation and get your degree, great.....If you want to party, hookup with chicks and play ball I am fine with that also. Stay eligible and stay out of trouble that is not too much to ask.

Bottom line, there are some things I can look the other way at and some things I can't. There is no such thing as a 100% clean D-1 basketball or football program including Iowa. Iowa funnels athletes through certain classes, certain majors just like everyone else.

 

[lightning1]

UNC has taken cheating to a systemic level. That isn't a situation where the head coach/ players/boosters are involved in a scam. It' the School President, the Board of Trustees, the Athletic Director, multiple Professors, ASPSA and the coaches are all involved and have been for 23+ years!
To see them in the Final Four is enough to turn everyone away from college basketball. Everyone with a conscience and a brain, that is.

 

[Xerxes]

That's it, that is the only response you've got? lol wow is right.. Next time might toss in why you disagree!


College Basketball is the last step of the purest of levels of Basketball, the NBA is a joke! The NCAA Tournament is the greatest sporting event in sports.

I used to say the same thing but then I started actually watching the NBA. The NBA playoffs are fantastic IMO. Far better than the NCAA tournament. I will say that the NBA ruined college basketball because all of the good players leave as soon as they can. When you look at NCAA BB in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s it was on a different level. The quality of play is just so much lower now.

 

[HawkGold]

The road also goes through OK. Lon Kruger seems like a class act. Syr and NC seem dirty. Prov I know nothing about except they are playing very well and smothered the Hawks.

 

[hawkeyebob62]

What makes reality harder to handle is the cost of Iowa basketball and football, keep going through the roof. If you aren't prepared to pull out all of the stops to win titles, don't expect your fans to keep paying a king's ransom for pauper's results. Or even a noblemen's results. Why compete in the "arms race" of college sports when cheaters are the only ones who prosper?
UNC = CHEAT your *** off, self report nothing and lawyer up when it's time to pay the piper. It has worked for them. Why on God's earth would any program self report a violation?
I understand why people want to do it the right way. I'm on that side. But the AD can kiss my arse when it comes to donations, seat licensing, and priority seating. Only to sit and watch the CHEATERS walk away with the titles every year????? Why would I buy into that system again??

You're blaming a single AD for a problem that is the fault of the NCAA and the cheater schools.

For as slimy as O$U can be, they DO abide by rulings, and the B1G does NOT try to smokescreen when member schools are punished.

Just look at how the NCAA handled the PSU situation. Disgusting as it was, they changed rules. I'd like to say they changed them "midstream", but worse, they changed them day to day and hour to hour. Worse than that, the ADs clamoring loudest for "death penalty" were ADs and Presidents from schools who are systemic cheaters.

B1G should get with the "clean" schools in other P5 conferences--and exclude $EC and ACC schools--and form a separate "alliance". They would literally OWN the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and most the Texas-based bowls, along with the Western bowls. They could bring bowls to Indy, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, to domed stadiums, etc. The NCAA would fold with just $EC and ACC as "players". Not enough "payoff" money to sustain itself.

 

[PCHawk]

I wonder if Michigan, Illinois, UNLV fans, etc. really care that some of their greatest teams were made up of players acquired in a less-than-honest manner. Something tells me "no". The flying illini, fab 5, etc. etc. All you hear about is how great those teams were, not that they are tainted by shady recruiting. Do UK fans care that John Calipari has a checkered past, and is still most likely bending the rules? Leopards don't change their spots, right? Judging by the amount of UK fans that show up for their NCAA games, I'd say it doesn't bother them much, either.

Vacated wins? No one really gives a rip, and you can vacate all the wins you want - it doesn't change the fact that other programs were still cheated out of those recruits that they might have had otherwise, if not for other coaches' recruiting practices.

Of course "the right way" would be great, but at a school like Iowa, that usually means mediocrity. I don't expect our coaches to be choir boys - you have to push the envelope. I don't like it, but I think it's a fact.

If Iowa cheated and won a couple national championships, they can vacate all the wins they want. They can't vacate my memories of the wins.

 

[AlmaMaterIowa]

A quote attributed to Grantland Rice. A little Hawkeye history lesson: This quote reminds me of the story of the Iowa - Notre Dame 1953, the fainting Irish game. After faking 2 injuries to stop the clock, ND scored to steal the game from the Hawks (it ended in a tie). Some argue it led to the legendary ND coach, Frank Leahy, to retire, as public sentiment was against ND. These tactics led Evashevski to say after the game, the following:

When the Great Scorer comes
To write against our name
He won't write whether we won or lost
But how come we got gypped by Notre Dame.

That same sentiment can be used to speak of these basketball programs. It ain't really a fair fight.

 

[HawkGold]

In response to several comments, I think anyone who thinks a program is completely clean is naive. Michigan had some great teams that were obviously cheating, but Beiliein is about as clean as it gets. His mentor and uncle took down SMU Pony Express and Switzer's OU.

The Flyin Illini were in fact a great team and did get into much trouble. The trouble during that time with both the football and basketball programs have led to a very inconsistent program. They would love to be Iowa over the past 15 years, with the exception of maybe the best Illini team put together by Self and coached by an awful recruiter.

UNLV did hire Lon Kruger who might actually be the best coach in the US right now. He strikes me as being clean but who really knows.

Hiring a coach to cheat and win may lead to long term pain. Remember when Lute used to complain about Henson, Dutcher, and Orr?

On the other hand, look at Jaquan Lyle. You would think if he was enticed by NCAA illegal stuff, the perps wouldn't want him bouncing around to at least 3 programs? And Woody did come to Iowa instead of NC?

Not sure what anything really means, but it is interesting.

Did Bruce Pearl operate in a vacuum, his activities starting only after Iowa? I don't know.

 

[trj]

In response to several comments, I think anyone who thinks a program is completely clean is naive. Michigan had some great teams that were obviously cheating, but Beiliein is about as clean as it gets. His mentor and uncle took down SMU Pony Express and Switzer's OU.

The Flyin Illini were in fact a great team and did get into much trouble. The trouble during that time with both the football and basketball programs have led to a very inconsistent program. They would love to be Iowa over the past 15 years, with the exception of maybe the best Illini team put together by Self and coached by an awful recruiter.

UNLV did hire Lon Kruger who might actually be the best coach in the US right now. He strikes me as being clean but who really knows.

Hiring a coach to cheat and win may lead to long term pain. Remember when Lute used to complain about Henson, Dutcher, and Orr?

On the other hand, look at Jaquan Lyle. You would think if he was enticed by NCAA illegal stuff, the perps wouldn't want him bouncing around to at least 3 programs? And Woody did come to Iowa instead of NC?

Not sure what anything really means, but it is interesting.

Did Bruce Pearl operate in a vacuum, his activities starting only after Iowa? I don't know.

What's with your fascination with Lon Kruger? Is he part of the family? He is a good coach, he reminds me of Larry Brown a guy never content in one spot. I guarantee Oklahoma isn't his last stop.

 

[HawkGold]

What's with your fascination with Lon Kruger? Is he part of the family? He is a good coach, he reminds me of Larry Brown a guy never content in one spot. I guarantee Oklahoma isn't his last stop.

Good morning sunshine. Why are you always in a bad mood? With love....

I have no idea where he will stop. You cannot deny his success and as far as I know he hasn't had dirt on him. In my post I mentioned several programs. Never personally met the man.

 

[WindsorHawk]

I don't want to cheat. And it's not necessary to make a deep NCAA run. Mid majors do it. And they aren't getting the players the big name programs are getting.

 

[trj]

I don't want to cheat. And it's not necessary to make a deep NCAA run. Mid majors do it. And they aren't getting the players the big name programs are getting.

You better have a patient fan base.....Those mid majors that make deep runs are usually senior laden teams. Guys have played together a long time and it is a slow process.

 

[HawkGold]

You better have a patient fan base.....Those mid majors that make deep runs are usually senior laden teams. Guys have played together a long time and it is a slow process.

Agree with the comment. It is frustrating though that several of the seniors were still making fundamental mistakes pretty often. Players? Coaches? Both? Playing against better talent makes you better but also makes you look worse than playing lesser talent. It was pretty pressing to see teams making it into the sweet zone have several players playing that didn't seem up to par. The Hawks had several.

Next year has promise in athleticism. Not sure how deep the bench will be.

 

[hawkeyebob62]

I started a similar thread some time ago very similar to this. Is the price worth it to pay? I also got blasted to a point by some who didn't really understand my point or what I was pointing out.

I didn't say I approved of cheating, I was merely asking does a program get more out of cheating than what they would have to pay if caught? It's a f up'd system and hate that teams like that get an advantage.

Can you see a "blue-blood" EVER getting "death penalty"? Of course not. But some of those systemic cheaters and/or "blue-blood" folks were clamoring for PSU to get it. In fact, they were willing to "change" the rules to do it. Some of those schools represented (by AD or President) have had multiple-to-numerous violations. Or in some cases, "Too many to count:. PSU had NEVER been cited.

NObody likes what happened at PSU. But to change rules "just because", and to imply that it somehow warranted disregarding and/or changing the rules is part of why the NCAA no longer has any credibility.

I love March Madness. I just don't "like" most of the participant schools.