The Breakdown: Hawkeyes Can’t Keep Up with Michigan State

[tksirius]

Fran may someday get elite talent here (doubtful) including a point guard, but I don't believe he will ever be considered an elite coach imo.

Just doesn't have the chops for game coaching. Teams win games all the time when their shooting is off by doing those other things and by having a bench coach pushing the right buttons and coaching his tail off. Fran can't control his anger which makes this makes this much more difficult, if not impossible. This is his default mode. Unfortunate.

His abysmal record in close games is hard to ignore. There has to be a correlation.

I'm not sure if you're up to speed on how UofI athletics work. At the University of Iowa, a coach is never to blame for losses or poor play. Blame can only be placed at the feet of the student-athlete. Most often, this is referred to "execution." On occasion, blame is permitted to be placed on officiating. Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

[seepig]

The kids don't respond to adversity at all. Once we get down double . digits we fold like a cheap suit. We looked gassed then after the 24-2 run they just kinda gave up. Moss was disappointing, JBo didn't do anything, Weiskamp one of the best freshmen in the conference had a few bad defensive lapses, a couple bad fouls and that's about it.

 

[seepig]

We don't have the horses to compete at a high level. After watching this the basketball team is further away from being competitive with anyone in the top 10 than the football team is. Although I reserve the right to change my mind with the huge holes in the football program now.

 

[RobHowe]

Michigan State is a Top 5 team in the country that's won 21 conference games in a row, including 11 games in a row in the road in this league. Think about that.

Breaking news: Iowa isn't as good as MSU.

 

[seepig]

Michigan State is a Top 5 team in the country that's won 21 conference games in a row, including 11 games in a row in the road in this league. Think about that.

Breaking news: Iowa isn't as good as MSU.

I agree 1000% and maybe MSU will be the National Champions this year. I think I noted that in my first sentence. The arguable thing is can this staff put together a roster that could possibly, maybe get us to the 2nd weekend of the NCAA's? Not sure on that one. Bruce Webber has (ousted from Illinois now sitting in a tie for first with Kansas), Porter Moser has, Kermit Davis has...at some point you gotta or should expect more from yourselves. That first half was probably the best all round ball Iowa has played against that type of competition since Fran has been there. What took him so long?

 

[skinnykilmer17]

Michigan State is a Top 5 team in the country that's won 21 conference games in a row, including 11 games in a row in the road in this league. Think about that.

Breaking news: Iowa isn't as good as MSU.

We get all of that Rob. MSU is better than us.

Serious question and this is my point: Do you believe Fran is good, average or below average as a game/bench coach? And if you believe he is good at this part of coaching, can you please highlight those strengths?

He can't control his anger. Fact. Which affects his ability to remain focused. Opinion
He is historically awful in close games. Fact.
His substitution patterns just don't make sense at times. Opinion.
Last night he didn't do enough to slow Sparty's run by calling timeouts to either break their rhythm OR give our guys a blow OR try to reorganize our offense AND defense. Our spacing became atrocious and again way too much dribbling, too many quick shots and poor ball movement. How can he just stand there and watch that? Why would he end the game with TWO timeouts in his pocket? The only two explanations are:
1- He conceded the outcome of the game before the 10:00 minute mark, OR
2- He had zero answers or the ability to come up with ANYTHING.
Just more broken clipboards. To me his broken clipboards mask his inability to strategize. It is easy to shatter clipboards.

Again we aren't as good as MSU. But what smelled bad to me is how quickly it got out of control, how little was done to counter, and how we seemingly gave up with little effort from HC on down.

 

[skinnykilmer17]

He should have had zero timeouts remaining by the 10:00 minute mark. I would have applauded that actually.

 

[skinnykilmer17]

You can't allow a team to go on a 24-2 run. You just can't. Inexcusable. Jesus they aren't the '72 Bruins. Have you ever seen such a lopsided run? I haven't.