The Curse of Tom Davis...

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Gohawks123

Well-Known Member
Continues...

Who would have thought Twitter would have sabotaged this season? I honestly believe "suck a fat one" completely turned the season.

It's been 13 years since we won a tournament game.
 
Of course, Cyclone fans, are some, that like to constantly say, that getting rid of Tom Davis was a bad decision.
I had season tickets that last season of his, and, on average, there were 2,000 empty seats/game.
This is part of him being let go.

The only curse of Tom Davis I see is the substitution patterns and definition of insanity.
Oh, and when opposing teams were breaking TD's full-court pattern like, butter, TD refused to stop pressing.
With Fran, when certain player combinations don't work, he continues to go to that well, expecting different results.
 
Yeah like today. I kind of wish he would have wen to Jok earlier than the last 30 seconds of regulation, since Oglesby was putting down the ball much less than Jok was. However in OT Jok's only attempt happened to rim out so who knows. That's not huge, but it'd just be nice to see him ride the hot hand quicker. Felt like had we connected on one of the shots and stretched the lead to 4 with 2 minutes our defense might have been more energized to come with a stop to win it.
 
I certainly don't think we're cursed, I just think Wisconsin has become a pretty decent program and siphoned off wins and some ball players from us (this is a totally different team if Ben Brust is on it rather than a shooting guard whose name I won't mention). Plus, I think OSU has a newfound focus on basketball and MSU took a major leap forward when Jud retired. The landscape Fran is dealing with is totally different than what Davis was faced with. Short of hanging on to Lute, I don't know that much could have changed the fate of Iowa basketball. And oh yeah, IIRC Ray Thompson was our last decent player out of Chicago (class of '89 I believe) because Pearl got us locked out so any discussion of Davis's legacy has to include that majorly crippling long-term impact on the program. Let's hope that 2015 commit Brandon Hutton turns this around and is a harbinger of good things to come.

I know I get pretty emotional when we lose games, but there have been some big picture things that have changed and relegated us down a level and if pushed, I will readily concede that short of landing a true top 10 coach (which I doubt we ever will), there probably is no way to fix them through any action by the Iowa Athletic Department, we just need to wait for natural balances of power to shift and hope we are decent when they do. Irregardless, I continue to pledge my allegiance and hope for winning and competitiveness sometimes.
 
1) I absolutely disagree that the "suck a fat one" incident "turned the season". This offense runs on guys having the confidence to discover their own roles and play to their strengths (and thereby minimize their weaknesses). You need chemistry to allow that to happen - our on-court chemistry looked terribly out of sync resulting in no flow. I think part of this can be put on Fran's shoulders (a little too deep into the bench this year, IMO) but a good chunk of it can be chalked up to a team that just lost it's mojo and could never figure out how to get it back (easier said than done, though a couple wins woulda helped).

2) OK4P brings up a good point about Chicago. I've felt for a long time it's absolutely criminal Iowa can't seem to break into the Chicago hoops market like I think they should be able to. To be fair, that is HOT recruiting territory, but you can't tell me we shouldn't expect to squeeze a little more out of Chi-town.
 
Gohawks123 said:
Continues...

Who would have thought Twitter would have sabotaged this season? I honestly believe "suck a fat one" completely turned the season.

It's been 13 years since we won a tournament game.
Click to expand...

It is interesting that most of the players re-activated their twitter right after the game. Maybe there was a divide in the locker room after all?
 
528646 said:
1) I absolutely disagree that the "suck a fat one" incident "turned the season". This offense runs on guys having the confidence to discover their own roles and play to their strengths (and thereby minimize their weaknesses). You need chemistry to allow that to happen - our on-court chemistry looked terribly out of sync resulting in no flow. I think part of this can be put on Fran's shoulders (a little too deep into the bench this year, IMO) but a good chunk of it can be chalked up to a team that just lost it's mojo and could never figure out how to get it back (easier said than done, though a couple wins woulda helped).

2) OK4P brings up a good point about Chicago. I've felt for a long time it's absolutely criminal Iowa can't seem to break into the Chicago hoops market like I think they should be able to. To be fair, that is HOT recruiting territory, but you can't tell me we shouldn't expect to squeeze a little more out of Chi-town.
Click to expand...

Agree on both points.
If Illannoy can't keep Chicago talent, in-state, then Iowa really won't.
 
Scooby said:
Agree on both points.
If Illannoy can't keep Chicago talent, in-state, then Iowa really won't.
Click to expand...

Illinois has plenty of Chicago talent. Sure, they're not getting D-Rose, Anthony Davis or Jabari Parker level guys, but they are getting top 100 caliber players. That is the pool we should have a chance in, but we have been essentially locked out of for about 25 years.
 
okeefe4prez said:
I certainly don't think we're cursed, I just think Wisconsin has become a pretty decent program and siphoned off wins and some ball players from us (this is a totally different team if Ben Brust is on it rather than a shooting guard whose name I won't mention). Plus, I think OSU has a newfound focus on basketball and MSU took a major leap forward when Jud retired. The landscape Fran is dealing with is totally different than what Davis was faced with. Short of hanging on to Lute, I don't know that much could have changed the fate of Iowa basketball. And oh yeah, IIRC Ray Thompson was our last decent player out of Chicago (class of '89 I believe) because Pearl got us locked out so any discussion of Davis's legacy has to include that majorly crippling long-term impact on the program. Let's hope that 2015 commit Brandon Hutton turns this around and is a harbinger of good things to come.

I know I get pretty emotional when we lose games, but there have been some big picture things that have changed and relegated us down a level and if pushed, I will readily concede that short of landing a true top 10 coach (which I doubt we ever will), there probably is no way to fix them through any action by the Iowa Athletic Department, we just need to wait for natural balances of power to shift and hope we are decent when they do. Irregardless, I continue to pledge my allegiance and hope for winning and competitiveness sometimes.
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Don't know if I am buying this the late 80's, the early 90's, the league was 6 or 7 deep with at least one or two pros on each team. The landscape Mr. Davis had to deal with is just as hard if not harder than what Fran is dealing with.
 
trj said:
Don't know if I am buying this the late 80's, the early 90's, the league was 6 or 7 deep with at least one or two pros on each team. The landscape Mr. Davis had to deal with is just as hard if not harder than what Fran is dealing with.
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Yeah, the late '80's was the heyday of the league and Mr. Davis had a bunch of Raveling recruits and momentum at his back. My memory is foggy, but IIRC Michigan, Illinois and Indiana were all really tough and Purdue was consistently good. MSU has drastically improved, though. So has OSU - they were typically a non-factor back in the day. And Wisconsin - that's the big one because they are geographically so close to Iowa.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Illinois has plenty of Chicago talent. Sure, they're not getting D-Rose, Anthony Davis or Jabari Parker level guys, but they are getting top 100 caliber players. That is the pool we should have a chance in, but we have been essentially locked out of for about 25 years.
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^ This nails it.
 
We did try to get Deon Thomas from Chicago to come to Iowa, and we saw how that turned out.
Since then, I can't think of a Chicago-area recruit we've gotten to commit.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Yeah, the late '80's was the heyday of the league and Mr. Davis had a bunch of Raveling recruits and momentum at his back. My memory is foggy, but IIRC Michigan, Illinois and Indiana were all really tough and Purdue was consistently good. MSU has drastically improved, though. So has OSU - they were typically a non-factor back in the day. And Wisconsin - that's the big one because they are geographically so close to Iowa.
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MSU had a string of great guard play: Skiles, Respert, Steve Smith.......OSU had Jim Jackson and some other guys during the fab five run. I get what you are saying though just like in football we are competing with Wisconsin for pecking order in the Big Ten.
 
Scooby said:
We did try to get Deon Thomas from Chicago to come to Iowa, and we saw how that turned out.
Since then, I can't think of a Chicago-area recruit we've gotten to commit.
Click to expand...

Chicago area has been okay. Pierce was from Chicago area. Brust (who committed and then left) was Chicago area. Cully Payne. There were others who I can't recall. The bigger problem is we have been locked out of Chicago proper. And now that I think about it, Ray Thompson was from the 'burbs, too. Iowa got completely blackballed after the Deon Thomas incident. I'm too young to confirm this myself, but all of the older die hard Hawk fans I know swear that Ronnie Lester was our best ever player and he was out of Dunbar High in Chicago.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Chicago area has been okay. Pierce was from Chicago area. Brust (who committed and then left) was Chicago area. Cully Payne. There were others who I can't recall. The bigger problem is we have been locked out of Chicago proper. And now that I think about it, Ray Thompson was from the 'burbs, too. Iowa got completely blackballed after the Deon Thomas incident. I'm too young to confirm this myself, but all of the older die hard Hawk fans I know swear that Ronnie Lester was our best ever player and he was out of Dunbar High in Chicago.
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The Chicago public leagues were a big deal when I was growing up has AAU completely change that dynamic? Chicago Simeon even relevant anymore?
 
trj said:
MSU had a string of great guard play: Skiles, Respert, Steve Smith.......OSU had Jim Jackson and some other guys during the fab five run. I get what you are saying though just like in football we are competing with Wisconsin for pecking order in the Big Ten.
Click to expand...

MSU and OSU are materially better programs now than they were in the early to mid Davis era. Like, it used to not be unheard of for us to win at Columbus or East Lansing - now it takes a miracle. Granted, Michigan fell off a cliff for a minute, but now they are back. Illinois has dropped, but had a flash of success with Bill Self's recruits (thank God he went to Kansas). The additions of PSU and Nebraska have diluted things a little bit, but the top to middle has gotten really crowded. I guess my bigger point is we can point the finger internally, but a lot of external shakeups have happened and rather than blaming everything on Davis getting run, I will give props to Wisconsin for building their program up and OSU for moving their bar way up with Matta and the talent he has landed, plus MSU for keeping Izzo when Jud retired. The Big Ten is a zero sum game and for one team to move up, one team has to move down and unfortunately, Iowa and Purdue are two teams that were historically pretty dang tough that have been bumped down by a few programs making great moves and heading up. I just hope it's cyclical and we get our chance to move back up. Hell, I was irrationally optimistic just 8 weeks ago about Iowa maybe winning the conference and that went up in smoke.
 
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