This past year Progress or not

L

longtimer

Well-Known Member
I think most of us clearly think this past year was a pretty significant improvement over the disappointing year before. Weiskamp helped that and a big part is that we were an experienced team in comparison to most others in the league. Two factors that probably helped offset the lack of athleticism. If this past year was the 3rd or 4th of the McCaffrey era I think there might be a bit of optimism for the future but unfortunately it is in the 9th year. The fear is that it represents a year when we did have some "decent" experienced players who were competitive for the most part with the bottom 3/4 of the league.
the key question of course is where do we go from here? Again if it were earlier in McCaffrey's tenure it might have led to some better recruiting, but being in the 9th year I dont think a 500 year in the Big Ten and likely one and done in the tournament is going to help our recruiting in the future and of course that's what needs to happen
I know there are some on the Board that like our chances next year with Nunge and Pemsl and Fredrick and PM and Tousant thrown into the mix. I think we could maybe come close to duplicating this years success because we do have quite a bit of experience coming back but frankly any combination of the new players and returning players looks IMHO to be even slower and unathletic than this years team? Treading water at best. Not progress
 
Good improvement over last year, yes. Hard not to be better than that, though. Last year was Lickliter bad. Some will argue that point, but it's true. 4-14, 19 losses overall. There's no spinning that.

Progress as a PROGRAM? Not really. Gotta get past the NCAA second round, win a BTT, challenge for (or win) a Big Ten regular season title. Do those things and I'll say the program has taken the next step. Until then, I'd say it feels like a plateau.

This year is nothing Fran hasn't already done a few years ago.
 
I predicted they would be a bubble team at the beginning of the year. I can’t pat myself on the back because it didn’t play out the way I thought.

I drank the kool aid when they were 20-5 I thought with favorable matchups they could get into the second weekend of the tournament. Now I think the ceiling is winning the first game.

I am rambling, but winning that opening round game would go a long ways. Equivalent of Iowa winning their bowl game. Where at first you really didn’t think it mattered and then you changed your mind after Iowa won.:)
 
Iowa will go into next year expected to finish middle of the big ten and probably be projected around the bubble again.

People obviously will argue if that's acceptable or not. The fact is barta sees 4 NCAA tournament appearances in 6 years and maybe 5 in 7 years next year. Barta will be happy with that result and his opinion is the only one that matters.
 
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mopkins said:
Iowa will go into next year expected to finish middle of the big ten and probably be projected around the bubble again.

People obviously will argue if that's acceptable or not. The fact is barta sees 4 NCAA tournament appearances in 6 years and maybe 5 in 7 years next year. Barta will be happy with that result and his opinion is the only one that matters.
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Yep. And the heat to make a change will not come from the “right” places. This has been Iowa basketball for the last 30 years, middle of-the-pack in conference, done by the first weekend of the tournament . Barta has no incentive to make a change if those standards are being met.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
Good improvement over last year, yes. Hard not to be better than that, though. Last year was Lickliter bad. Some will argue that point, but it's true. 4-14, 19 losses overall. There's no spinning that.

Progress as a PROGRAM? Not really. Gotta get past the NCAA second round, win a BTT, challenge for (or win) a Big Ten regular season title. Do those things and I'll say the program has taken the next step. Until then, I'd say it feels like a plateau.

This year is nothing Fran hasn't already done a few years ago.
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That’s just it though this has been the Iowa program for the last 30 years.
 
For sure. 22 wins. 11 BIG wins in toughest conference w 20-game schedule. NCAA appearance. None would have believed before the season. Most everyone coming back, plus add a few pieces. Fran deserves us, as a fan base, to relax and see what next couple years bring. Am hopeful for even more improvements.
 
I look at the big picture, when evaluating the current state of our program. The big picture tells me that we have one of the most experienced starting line ups in the BIG and we finished 10-10. Our starting 5 came into this season with a combined 207 starts. That's only 4 players, by the way because JW is a FR. Add to that 207 starts the 27 starts that Baer has and our starting 6 combine for a whopping 234 college starts!
Wisconsin has 194
MSU has 184 starts
Purdue has 69 starts
Michigan has 94 starts
Maryland has 106 starts.
These are the teams ahead of us in the BIG this season. And they are head and shoulders above us on the court. We had close losses to Maryland and Wisconsin @ home and we beat Michigan by 15 @ home. All of the other games against these teams were 16-20 point losses. Now, that might be expected in any given season because we don't recruit as well as most of those teams. The only way to off set that is to have teams that are upper classmen led with way more experience. Well....as you can see, we have that very team right now. This season!
That tells me that the talent gap between the top teams and Fran's team is enormous. Way too much to overcome with another year of experience.
That's how I see it, anyway.
 
lightning1 said:
I look at the big picture, when evaluating the current state of our program. The big picture tells me that we have one of the most experienced starting line ups in the BIG and we finished 10-10. Our starting 5 came into this season with a combined 207 starts. That's only 4 players, by the way because JW is a FR. Add to that 207 starts the 27 starts that Baer has and our starting 6 combine for a whopping 234 college starts!
Wisconsin has 194
MSU has 184 starts
Purdue has 69 starts
Michigan has 94 starts
Maryland has 106 starts.
These are the teams ahead of us in the BIG this season. And they are head and shoulders above us on the court. We had close losses to Maryland and Wisconsin @ home and we beat Michigan by 15 @ home. All of the other games against these teams were 16-20 point losses. Now, that might be expected in any given season because we don't recruit as well as most of those teams. The only way to off set that is to have teams that are upper classmen led with way more experience. Well....as you can see, we have that very team right now. This season!
That tells me that the talent gap between the top teams and Fran's team is enormous. Way too much to overcome with another year of experience.
That's how I see it, anyway.
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If Cook and Moss stay, the number of starts next year will be even more. Maybe enough to offset the talent gap now.
 
In the 14-19 year, everyone pointed out how young we were...and somewhat tried to explain away the defensive numbers...Fran especially. Well, this year...sure, we have improved, but to what. We went from God Awful, to simply awful. Defense wins championships. If you don't believe me, guess how many championships we have won under Fran.

I'm not saying Fran has to go. I think he's an excellent offensive coach and understands how to get his best players looks and the ball in the post. He can coach offense.

In my opinion, if I'm Gary Barta, I would tell Fran...hire a defensive assistant specialist for your staff from one of the top defensive programs in the country (ala what Michigan did), or I'll do it for you.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
In the 14-19 year, everyone pointed out how young we were...and somewhat tried to explain away the defensive numbers...Fran especially. Well, this year...sure, we have improved, but to what. We went from God Awful, to simply awful. Defense wins championships. If you don't believe me, guess how many championships we have won under Fran.

I'm not saying Fran has to go. I think he's an excellent offensive coach and understands how to get his best players looks and the ball in the post. He can coach offense.

In my opinion, if I'm Gary Barta, I would tell Fran...hire a defensive assistant specialist for your staff from one of the top defensive programs in the country (ala what Michigan did), or I'll do it for you.
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"I will do that for you." You honestly believe that Barta would have the nut sack to say that to Fran?
 
If ref calls foul when Maryland slammed Moss to ground at buzzer, and Debby doesn’t score 17 points in 52 seconds, we would have 13 BIG wins. If Moss and Cook return we will be deep and pretty loaded
 
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