The Breakdown: Hawkeyes Come Up Short Against Wisconsin

"If we execute, I can't be too upset" Wow folks, that says it all. Fran thinks that discombobulated mess that was the games last 7 minutes, where they scored 3 baskets, was well executed. I have nothing else to say your Honor.
 
I knew we were going to lose the moment I noticed Dolph wasn't behind the scorer's table.
 
"If we execute, I can't be too upset" Wow folks, that says it all. Fran thinks that discombobulated mess that was the games last 7 minutes, where they scored 3 baskets, was well executed. I have nothing else to say your Honor.

Did you read? He said “if we execute”, nowhere in there does he say it was well executed. They had open shots, they didn’t go down. You would think this team was supposed to be 30-0 right now and instead is 0-6. Nobody on this page expected them to be 6-0 at this point, they weren’t gonna go undefeated. Quit losing your minds. It truly is amazing the group of people on this board...
 
Did you read? He said “if we execute”, nowhere in there does he say it was well executed. They had open shots, they didn’t go down. You would think this team was supposed to be 30-0 right now and instead is 0-6. Nobody on this page expected them to be 6-0 at this point, they weren’t gonna go undefeated. Quit losing your minds. It truly is amazing the group of people on this board...
It's not the "if we execute" part that's confusing. It's the "I can't be too upset". That implies they did execute and he can't be too upset. It's probably just the wording of the comment. Maybe he should have said "if we execute, we have a better chance to win" or something along those lines. It's a confusing statement. You can't blame people for different interpretations.
 
It's not the "if we execute" part that's confusing. It's the "I can't be too upset". That implies they did execute and he can't be too upset. It's probably just the wording of the comment. Maybe he should have said "if we execute, we have a better chance to win" or something along those lines. It's a confusing statement. You can't blame people for different interpretations.

I would say he probably means that he can’t fault his team for playing hard and going punch for punch with a legitimate top 25 team. What upsets me is that there is several different people on this board that magnify everything. How as a fan can we be upset with this start and how we played last night? Didn’t get a few open shots to go down, it’s basketball. Fran has been good this year whereas last year, even as a Fran fan, I questioned a lot of things. The only thing I questioned is taking bohannon and Garza out midway through second half after going on that run because of them. Garza I can see cause he just had a 9 pound cyst removed like a month ago or so, but he was punishing Wisconsin. But also on the other hand Kriener and Cook have both showed they can do the same so hard to blame that. I understand not liking Fran or thinking negatively of him but some people on here will always have something to say. I get that it’s coaching, you’re gonna be criticized, but he’s not perfect and he’s usually the first to admit that.
 
I would say he probably means that he can’t fault his team for playing hard and going punch for punch with a legitimate top 25 team. What upsets me is that there is several different people on this board that magnify everything. How as a fan can we be upset with this start and how we played last night? Didn’t get a few open shots to go down, it’s basketball. Fran has been good this year whereas last year, even as a Fran fan, I questioned a lot of things. The only thing I questioned is taking bohannon and Garza out midway through second half after going on that run because of them. Garza I can see cause he just had a 9 pound cyst removed like a month ago or so, but he was punishing Wisconsin. But also on the other hand Kriener and Cook have both showed they can do the same so hard to blame that. I understand not liking Fran or thinking negatively of him but some people on here will always have something to say. I get that it’s coaching, you’re gonna be criticized, but he’s not perfect and he’s usually the first to admit that.
People are gonna be people. People are gonna criticize. It was a confusing comment. That's all I got.
 
I would say he probably means that he can’t fault his team for playing hard and going punch for punch with a legitimate top 25 team. What upsets me is that there is several different people on this board that magnify everything. How as a fan can we be upset with this start and how we played last night? Didn’t get a few open shots to go down, it’s basketball. Fran has been good this year whereas last year, even as a Fran fan, I questioned a lot of things. The only thing I questioned is taking bohannon and Garza out midway through second half after going on that run because of them. Garza I can see cause he just had a 9 pound cyst removed like a month ago or so, but he was punishing Wisconsin. But also on the other hand Kriener and Cook have both showed they can do the same so hard to blame that. I understand not liking Fran or thinking negatively of him but some people on here will always have something to say. I get that it’s coaching, you’re gonna be criticized, but he’s not perfect and he’s usually the first to admit that.
No one is upset with the start. And we were, fairly or not, ranked substantially higher than Wisconsin. We did some things well last night.

Three things to me were disappointing (not upsetting, that in itself is a difference and a different story)

  • Wisconsin, not us, made all the plays the last two minutes of the game, which is rinse and repeat of a familiar theme if you remember our April conversations.
  • #22 ranked team didn't play particularly well and stole a golden opportunity for us to build our resume.
  • We got a fair shake from the refs and all the reaching and grabbing and hand checking for which Wisconsin is famous for the first time in eons.
Don't worry about the badgers. They will be there in the end, like they usually are. Trice makes a huge difference for them.
 
I would say he probably means that he can’t fault his team for playing hard and going punch for punch with a legitimate top 25 team. What upsets me is that there is several different people on this board that magnify everything. How as a fan can we be upset with this start and how we played last night? Didn’t get a few open shots to go down, it’s basketball. Fran has been good this year whereas last year, even as a Fran fan, I questioned a lot of things. The only thing I questioned is taking bohannon and Garza out midway through second half after going on that run because of them. Garza I can see cause he just had a 9 pound cyst removed like a month ago or so, but he was punishing Wisconsin. But also on the other hand Kriener and Cook have both showed they can do the same so hard to blame that. I understand not liking Fran or thinking negatively of him but some people on here will always have something to say. I get that it’s coaching, you’re gonna be criticized, but he’s not perfect and he’s usually the first to admit that.
Haters gonna hate.

But truthfully, Fran’s end game coaching is bad
 
Haters gonna hate.

But truthfully, Fran’s end game coaching is bad
Fran's end of game coaching has pretty much always been bad at Iowa. It's just something we all have to deal with. It's like my Locure thread, we all just have to deal with it. Suck it up and find something else to bitch about.
 
The Wisconsin loss was painful for certain, but it is just one of the first setbacks on the road to an undefeated season. They are a first division team in the Big. There is no doubt about that. We need to protect home court from now on. We simply have to win all the games at Carver because the road is brutal. We will have to win 3/4 games on the road to make The Dance.....

We know what the Hawks are capable of. That showed in the Garden and against Pitt. Our defense has vastly improved. We did a nice job on Happ. We have done that the past three games against the Badgers. We had two drastic mistakes on D the last few minutes of the game, especially the three by Trice, the Lad with the despicable name. The game-winning shot came with the ball being inbounded with 3 seconds on the clock. That doesn't happen every time. Just one of those unfortunate crazy things that make being a Hawkeye fan difficult at times.....

We will recover from this. I don't foresee a win at Lansing. If we lose and beat the clones at Carver. That will give us a 5-2 record during an intensely tough stretch. Before the season we really didn't anticipate escaping with 5 victories. We are still on the road to The Dance.....

The substitution patterns are rather odd. Connor was doing well in the first half but didn't see enough action on the court the second half, it appeared. Garza sat entirely too long during the Badger rally to erase our lead. The good news is that we only had 12 turnovers. A few more free throw attempts and we would have won the game. We shot close to 75%, on free throws, close to our season average.....

I am starting to wonder if we should have removed Jack Nunge's redshirt after Cordell's season-ending injury. Don't know if it is too late now. We could have used him last night.....
 
Duke is spot on. Still on track for the dance and no indication we won’t get there. An eighth place finish will do it. This is a good Hawkeye team. And to some extent still figuring things out and with things to grow from.
Did not shoot that well and still could have beaten a ranked team that made its shots down the stretch. Happens.
I’ll take the Hawks and the points vs MSU.
 
I will truthfully and respectfully agree to disagree. Fran can’t make the shot for his teams.

Remember the 47535753 times Fran put the ball in Gesell's hands with under 20 seconds to play despite Gesell predictably being baited into driving right-side all the way to the rim where 3 bigs were waiting to make him eat his weak attempt like every single time before? Or the first 6 or so yrs where Fran thought there was some advantage to not calling a timeout under a min no matter how rag tag and out of sync we were when needing a good look?
 
I will truthfully and respectfully agree to disagree. Fran can’t make the shot for his teams.

I completely agree. We had a number of good looks in the last 3-4 minutes of the game that just didn't go down; we were 2-8 from the field from the 4:02 mark (where Cook was fouled) to the end of the game. On a positive note, we were 4-5 in that same stretch from the line and had a steal and a blocked shot with no turnovers. Wisconsin was 3-6 from the field and 4-4 from the line in that same stretch with a turnover.

The coach can implement an offense that gets the players good looks but the coach cannot make the shot - that's up to the players. Last night, we suffered through a horrible shooting night. We likely won't be shooting that bad again.
 
I will truthfully and respectfully agree to disagree. Fran can’t make the shot for his teams.
Yeah. I get it.

For some reason Fran can draw up plays out of time outs and dead balls, but his decision making and play calling at the end of games suck

cuz most of the times the players can’t make shots is because they’re chucking it up in the last second of the shot or game clock or they have a defender in their jock strap and are just throwing it up.
 
Top