THIS RECRUITING STORY IS GETTING OLD

That's why I was so bothered over the late season slide, and getting bounced in the play-in game. If Iowa keeps playing well, gets a 4 seed, goes to the Sweet 16 or beyond, does Fran land Atwood/Huff, and whoever else? And hence making next year and beyond better than they likely will be, keeping momentum going? I guess we'll never know the answer to that.

I just feel Iowa missed a great chance this year to make itself a hotter commodity in the eyes of recruits by melting down on the court. But not even making it to the "second" round, I wonder if that was even any better than being in the NIT. Sure could have used a tournament run to add a little more recruiting mojo.

Thing is, Iowa had already missed on their initial top targets by mid-November last season, when they signed with other schools....so the late season meltdown did not impact our prep signings. The spring signings would not have been necessary if we had landed Tyler Ulis, Jordan Barnett, and Malek Harris last fall.
 
Thing is, Iowa had already missed on their initial top targets by mid-November last season, when they signed with other schools....so the late season meltdown did not impact our prep signings. The spring signings would not have been necessary if we had landed Tyler Ulis, Jordan Barnett, and Malek Harris last fall.

I'm sure Iowa could go after guys that are pretty good, but their isn't much competition for them. I'm not sure about Alford, but Lickliter went after guys that were pretty easy for Iowa to go after. Fran and his staff are going after guys that are sought after. They will find their guys. I'd rather have Iowa go after guys where the coaching staff has to work hard to get than guys where they don't.
 
Why not get the best players from Iowa to stay in Iowa and then add a few quality players from neighboring states? We have been doing this for as long as I can remember...Raveling being the exception. Now we just have to get all of the best in-state players to Iowa. Below are a few names off the top of my head.

Jok - Oglesby - Woodbury - McCabe - May - Gatens - Haluska - Henderson - Horner - Brunner - Oliver - Worley - Settles - McCausland - Street - Hansen

Edit - Bullard and Bowen

Lookingbill? Skinner? Ricky Davis? U even a Hawks fan?
 
You people are a bunch of nay saying nellies. Grow up and quit complaining. Let's suck before we act like we do ok, because it's bad enough talking about how we suck when we actually do. We have a good nucleus of players returning that guess what, will be better and that means the schedule isn't as daunting as you might think. We also have a few players with what I would term as MAJOR upside. Jok, Olesani, Uthoff, Gessell...all are going to be much, much better. Woody will be better too. That right there is solid and I haven't even mentioned White.

You puusssies need to wake up. We will have a good year and a few of these close calls recruits come our way and 2015-2016 will look pretty damn good again. God dammit, I thought I told you people we are back already.

We are back.
 
Fran has been at Iowa 4 years and Iowa has gotten better each year. I anticipate another step up in year 5. Our 2 most highly regarded recruits are heading into their junior season. We had Ulis until Kentucky came calling at the last minute. He has verbals from a junior and a sophomore in high school. Fran and his staff also know how to develop players. I'm not concerned at all.

The 2013-14 team was not as good as the 2012-13 team. They definitely took a step back last year. The had more wins, a better winning percentage, and much more post-season success in year three over year 4.

Also, I would like to dispute the motion that Fran is great at player development. How many Fran recruits have been All B1G players? Marble twice, and White got third team last year. The other 15 players he's recruited? Nothing. No third team, no honorable mention.
 
The 2013-14 team was not as good as the 2012-13 team. They definitely took a step back last year. The had more wins, a better winning percentage, and much more post-season success in year three over year 4.

Also, I would like to dispute the motion that Fran is great at player development. How many Fran recruits have been All B1G players? Marble twice, and White got third team last year. The other 15 players he's recruited? Nothing. No third team, no honorable mention.

Tom Davis recruited four all Big Ten players. Acie Earl, Ryan Bowen, Jess Settles & Andre Woolridge (twice) were the first team All-Big Ten players recruited by Davis. Woolridge actually was a transfer from Nebraska.

I like Fran. Unlike Davis & Lickliter, he is out there hustling his butt off trying to bring recruits to Iowa City. Davis was too lazy to go to LaFrentz's high school games. He would send his assistants. I see a lot of Ralph & Lute in Fran. Back in the day, when the Big Ten played on Thursday & Saturday, Lute would leave the team after the game on Thursday & return for the Saturday shoot-around. He was out there watching recruits play every Friday night.

While the results are not as good as Fran would like, he gets an A for effort. He just needs to get his Sam Williams or Ronnie Lester to really open the doors.
 
Out of a list of over 20 players that Fran sought to sign this class, this staff wasn't able to sign even one of them. Not a good record, imo. And as JM pointed out in one of his articles, Iowa is likely going to the NIT again next year, which would be step backwards in recruits' eyes and make recruitng more difficult.

You mean other than the two they did sign...Uhl and Ellingson....Ellingson one of the ten best shooters in the entire class, and Uhl surprising everyone by choosing Iowa over BC, Maryland, Minnesota and others...Trey Dickerson choosing Iowa

This must be the first basketball recruiting season for some of you....Iowa is gonna probably put out 15 to 20 offers in a given year...and being that on average they have three rides a year, it means they will miss out on the vast majority of them.

Some are acting like Iowa has actually done something in the last EIGHT years since winning the BTT. Newsflash: They pretty much haven't and for over half that time, they were horrible.

I think the problem lies less with McCaffery and more with folks having unrealistic expectations.
 
I listened to the On Iowa Pod last night and Dochterman was saying he heard that Atwood played a pickup game with the team on his visit...and he had his stuff handed to him by Uthoff and White and that he wasn't going to be starting for Iowa next year if he came there....and Arizona State, he probably will. If that did happen and was a part of it all, is that 'losing out' on a player?
 
I listened to the On Iowa Pod last night and Dochterman was saying he heard that Atwood played a pickup game with the team on his visit...and he had his stuff handed to him by Uthoff and White and that he wasn't going to be starting for Iowa next year if he came there....and Arizona State, he probably will. If that did happen and was a part of it all, is that 'losing out' on a player?

well if that's true, then i'd say it's a good thing he didn't come.
 
You mean other than the two they did sign...Uhl and Ellingson....Ellingson one of the ten best shooters in the entire class, and Uhl surprising everyone by choosing Iowa over BC, Maryland, Minnesota and others...Trey Dickerson choosing Iowa

This must be the first basketball recruiting season for some of you....Iowa is gonna probably put out 15 to 20 offers in a given year...and being that on average they have three rides a year, it means they will miss out on the vast majority of them.

Some are acting like Iowa has actually done something in the last EIGHT years since winning the BTT. Newsflash: They pretty much haven't and for over half that time, they were horrible.

I think the problem lies less with McCaffery and more with folks having unrealistic expectations.

It's almost like people think this is Kentucky or Duke. It's not. Think how old these kids are that are getting recruited. The last time Iowa was decent these kids were 10 years old or younger. It's a what have you done for me now game.
 
I listened to the On Iowa Pod last night and Dochterman was saying he heard that Atwood played a pickup game with the team on his visit...and he had his stuff handed to him by Uthoff and White and that he wasn't going to be starting for Iowa next year if he came there....and Arizona State, he probably will. If that did happen and was a part of it all, is that 'losing out' on a player?

Ya see!? This is exactly the reason I've been loyal to HN over the years!

Any interwebz buffoon can claim to have the "inside connections" and fling noodles of second-hand hearsay and innuendo against the Hawkeye wall. No one comes close to making it stick like Jon does.

Regardless of the degree of truth of this story, it shall, henceforth, be considered the "official" rationale for Atwood's decision (and probably Huff's, as well). It's the only thing that makes sense and any other reasoning would pale in its absurdity. Seriously, no one "chooses" AZState (or Creighton, for that matter) over IOWA!

Thanx, Chief. The masses needed that sedative to break free of their mania. Please stick around to keep this place a bit more tolerable.
 
Tom Davis recruited four all Big Ten players. Acie Earl, Ryan Bowen, Jess Settles & Andre Woolridge (twice) were the first team All-Big Ten players recruited by Davis. Woolridge actually was a transfer from Nebraska.

I like Fran. Unlike Davis & Lickliter, he is out there hustling his butt off trying to bring recruits to Iowa City. Davis was too lazy to go to LaFrentz's high school games. He would send his assistants. I see a lot of Ralph & Lute in Fran. Back in the day, when the Big Ten played on Thursday & Saturday, Lute would leave the team after the game on Thursday & return for the Saturday shoot-around. He was out there watching recruits play every Friday night.

While the results are not as good as Fran would like, he gets an A for effort. He just needs to get his Sam Williams or Ronnie Lester to really open the doors.

I am not asking for all B1G first team players, but maybe a smattering of third teams every now and again. White probably will get all B1G honors next year, but who else? Woodbury and Gesell? Probably not. There are already better player not only on other teams, but arguably on our team as well. Uthoff? Some people think he needs to adjust to B1G basketball, but IMO, he's been practicing on B1G teams for 3 seasons, so he should have adjusted by now. I'm not saying he's reached his ceiling, but I doubt his ceiling's very high. He's a 21 year old Sophomore, so I doubt he's going to mature into something else.

I'm not saying this team has little talent, just saying they have pretty average talent, and they keep recruiting average talent. You can be as high on this talent as you want, but Iowa's class is ranked about 8-9 in the B1G (behind Northwestern and Illinois), and you're not going to build bigger on 9-9 6th place seasons with average talent.
 
Regardless of the difficulties recruiting to Iowa, unrealistic expectations, etc. Frank went into this year with 5 scholarships and only filled 3. I highly doubt this was his intention. The guy likes to play a lot of kids. And while I don't think the prospects signed are bad, I would expect all to contribute in some capacity next year, it's the minimum level of prospect I would expect a major conference team that has a hope to compete to sign. Uhl and Ellingson might be one of the best shooters in the class but he'll probably take a least of a year of seasoning and I can't expect him to beat out Oglesby for minutes next year. Uhl is slight. Dickerson will absolutely play but I don't see him as a prospect on the level of Baylor's Kenny Chery and he struggled at times this year. It is still a big adjustment to D1 ball as a JUCO.

I don't think Fran's own expectations were met. I don't think it's unfair for fans to feel that way. I still look at Iowa next season as a team with a lot of solid pieces, just like last year, but nobody that can really get to the rim. Maybe Dickerson is that guy but that's a lot to pin on a first year player. Gessell can beat his man but struggles to finish at the rim. He desperately needs a floater. Once people stopped transition for Iowa Uthoff and White were much less effective. IMO the key to Iowa making the tourney next year is Woody developing into a serious post threat that demands double teams or Dickerson being an absolute revelation that is at least as good as Marble was last year.
 
I listened to the On Iowa Pod last night and Dochterman was saying he heard that Atwood played a pickup game with the team on his visit...and he had his stuff handed to him by Uthoff and White and that he wasn't going to be starting for Iowa next year if he came there....and Arizona State, he probably will. If that did happen and was a part of it all, is that 'losing out' on a player?

So all that evaluation that was done prior to that was thrown out the window and it was gleaned that he wouldn't be a starter from one scrimmage in the offseason? That doesn't seem logical.
 
I listened to the On Iowa Pod last night and Dochterman was saying he heard that Atwood played a pickup game with the team on his visit...and he had his stuff handed to him by Uthoff and White and that he wasn't going to be starting for Iowa next year if he came there....and Arizona State, he probably will. If that did happen and was a part of it all, is that 'losing out' on a player?

"Coach Sendek believes in me and I can start for them immediately"...............Atwood quote from the Connors State press release regarding his decision.

Certainly supports the Dochterman story.
 
I listened to the On Iowa Pod last night and Dochterman was saying he heard that Atwood played a pickup game with the team on his visit...and he had his stuff handed to him by Uthoff and White and that he wasn't going to be starting for Iowa next year if he came there....and Arizona State, he probably will. If that did happen and was a part of it all, is that 'losing out' on a player?

I listened to the podcast as well, and found that interesting. Who knows the real reason as to why Atwood went elsewhere. I think if Uthoff just plays his game more consistently next year, Atwood would have had a real competition for playing time. He isn't going to be taking time from White, and so if he doesn't take it from Uthoff, he wasn't going to be getting as much time as he would like I'm sure.
 
"Coach Sendek believes in me and I can start for them immediately"...............Atwood quote from the Connors State press release regarding his decision.

Certainly supports the Dochterman story.

I can see where a JUCO guy would really like an assurance like that.
 
You mean other than the two they did sign...Uhl and Ellingson....Ellingson one of the ten best shooters in the entire class, and Uhl surprising everyone by choosing Iowa over BC, Maryland, Minnesota and others...Trey Dickerson choosing Iowa

This must be the first basketball recruiting season for some of you....Iowa is gonna probably put out 15 to 20 offers in a given year...and being that on average they have three rides a year, it means they will miss out on the vast majority of them.

Some are acting like Iowa has actually done something in the last EIGHT years since winning the BTT. Newsflash: They pretty much haven't and for over half that time, they were horrible.

I think the problem lies less with McCaffery and more with folks having unrealistic expectations.

Truth, especially the last sentence.
 
I am not asking for all B1G first team players, but maybe a smattering of third teams every now and again. White probably will get all B1G honors next year, but who else? Woodbury and Gesell? Probably not. There are already better player not only on other teams, but arguably on our team as well. Uthoff? Some people think he needs to adjust to B1G basketball, but IMO, he's been practicing on B1G teams for 3 seasons, so he should have adjusted by now. I'm not saying he's reached his ceiling, but I doubt his ceiling's very high. He's a 21 year old Sophomore, so I doubt he's going to mature into something else.

I'm not saying this team has little talent, just saying they have pretty average talent, and they keep recruiting average talent. You can be as high on this talent as you want, but Iowa's class is ranked about 8-9 in the B1G (behind Northwestern and Illinois), and you're not going to build bigger on 9-9 6th place seasons with average talent.

Seriously? Bo Ryan recruited Uthoff. In fact, IIRC, Bo Ryan pretty much went to the limit to make sure Uthoff wouldn't land at Iowa once the dust settled.

Alas, WTH does Bo Ryan know about basketball...
 
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