Schwartz: Iowa Hoops Sees Slide Amid Success Story

InGoodCo said:
It's ok to be a negative nancy. This team is not very good. But we know that now. I don't think anyone who brings up a positive suddenly thinks this team is now a top 25 team because you noticed something good. I think we can move on and try and see how the team comes together the rest of the season. I think they've played better the last 2 games, I hope it continues. Me noticing that doesn't mean that I think we need to alert Joe Lunardi.
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At this point in the season, I am looking for improvement, watching the chemistry and team identity develop. It is slowly getting there, piece by painful piece.....

After watching every Lick game, I can endure this season.....

There will still be some difficult games to watch, along with the upsets that make it worthwhile.....

At this stage, a BigTen conference win just might qualify as an upset.....

:cool:
 
1977Hawkeye said:
And whether the play-in game "counts" or not, 2 NCAA wins in 7, soon to be 8 years, isn't that good. That isn't exactly outperforming Alford by a whole lot.

I've always liked Fran but I'm a bottom line kind of guy. He dug the program out of the pits of hell, but things seem to have stalled out, at a point that's short of what I expect from this program.
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I get the "he dug us out of hell" sentiment.
But what about the other side? He inherited a program where "up" was about the only direction possible.
Tom Davis never lost a first round game and now the standard is "just get us to the dance".

I am going to make you a 100% guarantee. Fran is the next Kirk. He is going to go from a coach people would rather not fire, to a coach THAT CAN'T BE FIRED.
Mark my words, 24 months from today Iowa will have 2 men in charge of the revenue sports neither of which are desired by competing programs with openings and neither of which can be fired due to contractual obligations.

The future is continued irrelevance for Iowa athletics. The only way for that to change is to fire Barta. A new AD could drive the coaches to either higher achievement or at least make them miserable enough to quit if they were still swimming in mediocrity.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
go re-watch the game. I did it today. the ball was moving crisply and to the open man when Conner was in there. both commentators spoke about it, also. it was clear, to me, that the offense was much more crisp with Conner at the point. Re-read my post. I didn't say Conner was the second coming, or even an elite player. I actually said his ball handling was only better than JBo's. And on a relative comparison of Conner and JBo as point guards, I believe Conner is the better.

Let me ask you: do you want JBo playing pg or SG where he'll get more shots per game?
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Give the ball to CONNOR.....

Right freaking NOW

That is a step in the right direction.....

He made everyone on the floor look better yesterday.....

Connor moves the ball so well that we will not have to depend on him scoring at a rapid rate.....

:cool:
 
PCHawk said:
And for Christ sake can people stop asking how long it takes to build a program please. Fran built the program already. The only question is are his best seasons yet to come.
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Exactly it's far from the dumpster fire it was when he got there. I totally agree is will the team get better? I think when you have 2 freshman and 3 sophs playing the most. 4 Sophs if you count Pemsl. That surely the heck they'll get better. Throw in Frans two sons and Weiskamp and I think that this may be a case of yeah we'll take a step back from last yr but next yr could very well be two steps forward with another big step the year after that...
 
thedukeofearl said:
Give the ball to CONNOR.....

Right freaking NOW

That is a step in the right direction.....

He made everyone on the floor look better yesterday.....

Connor moves the ball so well that we will not have to depend on him scoring at a rapid rate.....

:cool:
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I liked what I saw from him too but.... Look at who we were playing. What the score of the game was and all the circumstances going into the time he was out there the most. He looked really good in garbage time of a way out of control game against a team as jet lagged as you'll ever get. Granted the kid probably has to put on 10 lbs just to get back to what he usually is coming off his stint with mono and not even close to being in game shape but I'm not going to call him White Magic Jr just yet. But hopefully down the road we do because holy cow that type of player is perfect. A long tall PG that can pass and keep the ball moving on O yet still hit the open shot is exactly what we need. And talk about making JBo better.. I think it goes without saying he'd improve getting to play off the ball and get to run off screens like Reggie Miller. But let's let the kid get back to 100% and get some more mins against quality opponents before we get the hype train up to full speed.
 
ArvadaHawk said:
go re-watch the game. I did it today. the ball was moving crisply and to the open man when Conner was in there. both commentators spoke about it, also. it was clear, to me, that the offense was much more crisp with Conner at the point. Re-read my post. I didn't say Conner was the second coming, or even an elite player. I actually said his ball handling was only better than JBo's. And on a relative comparison of Conner and JBo as point guards, I believe Conner is the better.

Let me ask you: do you want JBo playing pg or SG where he'll get more shots per game?
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I’m not convinced moving JBo to the 2 changes much.

We still lack a guy that can get to the rim at the 1,2,3 spots.

A guard that can drive and draw fouls and hit a couple free throws in key situations.

Moss and Dailey have the biggest potential to add that element.

I’d like to see a JBo Moss Dailey, Cook, Nunge lineup.

Connor will be fine as the backup PG but I don’t think he’s skilled enough offensively. I was certainly happily surprised yesterday when he knocked down the 3.
 
ibahawkeye said:
I’m not convinced moving JBo to the 2 changes much.

We still lack a guy that can get to the rim at the 1,2,3 spots.

A guard that can drive and draw fouls and hit a couple free throws in key situations.

Moss and Dailey have the biggest potential to add that element.

I’d like to see a JBo Moss Dailey, Cook, Nunge lineup.

Connor will be fine as the backup PG but I don’t think he’s skilled enough offensively. I was certainly happily surprised yesterday when he knocked down the 3.
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I agree with almost everything you said iba. :)

I am not trying to knock JBo for his lack of ball handling skills, but I am trying to promote his ability as a shooter. He is a straight long range sniper. In fact, his mid-range game is suspect, in my opinion and Brady's is better. I just believe that moving Conner to pg frees up JBo to provide more scoring. I think that makes us a better team and harder to guard. I do not view Conner has a fix to our defensive guard play. I think we'll have to play a lot of zone defense until we do get that type of pg we all know is missing from this team.
 
Hawkfnntn said:
I liked what I saw from him too but.... Look at who we were playing. What the score of the game was and all the circumstances going into the time he was out there the most. He looked really good in garbage time of a way out of control game against a team as jet lagged as you'll ever get. Granted the kid probably has to put on 10 lbs just to get back to what he usually is coming off his stint with mono and not even close to being in game shape but I'm not going to call him White Magic Jr just yet. But hopefully down the road we do because holy cow that type of player is perfect. A long tall PG that can pass and keep the ball moving on O yet still hit the open shot is exactly what we need. And talk about making JBo better.. I think it goes without saying he'd improve getting to play off the ball and get to run off screens like Reggie Miller. But let's let the kid get back to 100% and get some more mins against quality opponents before we get the hype train up to full speed.
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I just liked the way Connor distributed the ball to his teammates.....

We have had a rather static offense, players watching Jordan dribble with no ball movement. With Connor, that looked much better. He has the mindset and passing skills of a PG. Considering the fact that he is still recovering from a bout with mono, he did rather well.....

I am not personally saying that he will turn the Hawks into a title contender, just that he looked good at something that almost everyone on this board criticized quite vociferously.....

All that said, the Drake game looms large. They will be a tough out.....

:cool:
 
thedukeofearl said:
I just liked the way Connor distributed the ball to his teammates.....

We have had a rather static offense, players watching Jordan dribble with no ball movement. With Connor, that looked much better. He has the mindset and passing skills of a PG. Considering the fact that he is still recovering from a bout with mono, he did rather well.....

I am not personally saying that he will turn the Hawks into a title contender, just that he looked good at something that almost everyone on this board criticized quite vociferously.....

All that said, the Drake game looms large. They will be a tough out.....

:cool:
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I'm with ya. And yeah Drake gave MN all they wanted and more. MN was lucky they won that game. Frankly we have to play our best against everyone though. I think we can play with most teams but only if we are on. There were stretches against ISU where we just had no business winning that game. Just bad basketball. Then again there were stretches we played pretty well hence why it was probably closer then it should have been. I just think it'll be an up and down year the rest of the way with the downs being more prevalent...
 
Lot of good stuff and agree on some points, I'm disappointed by the injuries and the fact the returners are not significantly improved. I guess unlike many out there I see potential worth watching. Garza, Nudge, and Daily are growing by the game. Throw Conner in the mix and we are just gonna have to see what we have by seasons end. I suspect after taking our lumps these guys will be handing some out by then. I'm not a Mac apologist but I have to credit him that we are in fact disappointed because we expected more. I'm sure he did too.
 
RobHowe said:
Has Fran McCaffery's time at Iowa been a success? HN columnist David Schwartz explores that question:

LINK
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There is no such thing as a "play in" game. You are in the tournament. To suggest otherwise is simply disrespectful of that team and those players what they accomplished.

Back in the 1970s, I believe they invited 24 teams, with 8 teams receiving byes and 16 teams playing first round games. Were those play in games? Were those teams in the tournament? Of course they were.
 
PCHawk said:
Oh yea you definitely don't want to count yiur chickens before they hatch.

What bugs me tho is people always say "it's year 8, we shouldn't be talking about Lick anymore". That's true for how he is doing this season. But it's not true when saying he's only made the tourney 3 out of 8 years. No matter how many years go by, he should still get a pass for the first 2 or 3 years.
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You're crazy.
 
You don't even have to look outside of the BIG conference to find a worse basketball program! And a HC that took over that program and more than doubled the number of wins in his first season.
Steve Pikiell @ Rutgers!
Rutgers 10 year record before Pikiell got there in 2016-17.
10-19
11-20
11-21
15-17
15-17
14-18
15-16
12-21
10-22
7-25
Pikiell's first season @ Rutgers 15-17.
Iowa basketball 10 years before Fran got here?
23-12
19-16
17-14
16-13
21-12
25-9
17-14
13-19
15-16
10-22
Fran's first year at Iowa? 11-20
 
Joshbrown said:
I get the "he dug us out of hell" sentiment.
But what about the other side? He inherited a program where "up" was about the only direction possible.
Tom Davis never lost a first round game and now the standard is "just get us to the dance".

I am going to make you a 100% guarantee. Fran is the next Kirk. He is going to go from a coach people would rather not fire, to a coach THAT CAN'T BE FIRED.
Mark my words, 24 months from today Iowa will have 2 men in charge of the revenue sports neither of which are desired by competing programs with openings and neither of which can be fired due to contractual obligations.

The future is continued irrelevance for Iowa athletics. The only way for that to change is to fire Barta. A new AD could drive the coaches to either higher achievement or at least make them miserable enough to quit if they were still swimming in mediocrity.
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Remember that you are going to have to fire the head coaches and all of their assistants, along with the president of the University, and a whole bunch of big donors, in order to test your theory. I don't trust you that much...sorry.
 
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