If Fran were to leave, which i do not think will happen, the question to me is what else would a new coach bring to the table? By that, I mean what system would they run? As of now, here is how you win in college basketball:
1. Talent at a blue blood. Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, they all rely on a continuous stream of talent. There is zero chance that we can compete doing this.
2. Pay for talent. You could lump #1 in here too because they probably play that game (when mid level recruits like the bowen kid from louisville and smart from LSU get 6 figures, why would these others play for free?), but the problem here is that we dont break the rules and if we did we would be made an example of. Like SMU in the 80's didnt do anything different than texas or a&m, its just they didnt like an upstart peeing in their cheerios.
3. Transfer U. Texas tech, nevada, even Iowa st. Maybe could work, but from what i gather the big ten admission as well as university requirements make it harder to do than the other schools.
4. Develop. Try to recruit mid level players, lose badly for a couple years, be competitive for 1 and try 1 senior laden run at it. Problem here is that at the beginning, that works because a fan base had been starving for any type of success. But after that initial successful run, nobody wants to go through the losing of the next cycle. We all expect to skip that part and re load. But to re load is #1-3.
5. The foreign route. Try to bring over raw talent from africa mostly but other countries as well. This seems more of a west coast or old Georgetown thing, but is a route.
Add to the above, the requirements of the Iowa fan base that we like offense and only like defense when we have to. Lick's defense first game was not accepted from the get go, but even if he had won more consistently, we all still would have thought it to be boring.
When you add it all up a new coach has an almost impossible task in a state that does not consistently produce in state D1 talent. There are a lot of really good bench coaches out there, but without the talent it isnt going to happen.
So what do you all think would work here, if anything?