Time for some perspective

This season could have been so much more. Now it is basically a lock that we don't win another game this season.
 
Meh. We all acknowledge that Iowa isn't a blue blood. Imo, that is the very reason why if you get off to a great start you have to take advantage of it. I know right now it is easy to clown Wisconsin, but man when everything aligns for them they take advantage....Iowa crumbles. Iowa has their version of Kamisky/Dekker and we are talking about losing 6 of 7 and being a 7 seed in Providence.
 
A well coached team gets better as the season progresses. A poorly coached team gets worse. Not rocket science as to why. I dropped a deuce this morning. How do you like them apples?
 
1977Hawkeye said:
The OP makes good points. On the surface, that's a very good accomplishment, and that's why I'm not one of the guys who wants to run Fran out of town. The program is competitive again.

What's frustrating is when you look at exactly how we got to those results the past few years - two of those three years, Iowa would have had far higher NCAA seed if not for major late-season collapses. It would almost be easier to stomach if Iowa had been a 20-10 type team all year, rather than feeling like a much better season simply got away from us in the final month.

Even 4 years ago - tons of blown games late, and it resulted in an NIT bid when the team honestly should have been dancing.

Just a LOT of missed opportunity to go along with the success. What could have been? 2-3 seed instead of 6-7 or lower? Would that have boosted recruiting?

It's hard to know how to feel about it, but I'm not fool enough to call for the head of a guy who's done a pretty good job of cleaning up the mess Lickliter left behind.
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People always say on here that this is as high as Fran can take us. I would say the fact that we lost so many close games the last few years suggests that there is still room for improvement. Now if our loses were all blowouts and all our wins were close, it would be a lot harder to improve.
 
HerkyDude said:
A well coached team gets better as the season progresses. A poorly coached team gets worse. Not rocket science as to why. I dropped a deuce this morning. How do you like them apples?
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At least Fran was a good coach for 4 of the years he was here.
 
trj said:
Meh. We all acknowledge that Iowa isn't a blue blood. Imo, that is the very reason why if you get off to a great start you have to take advantage of it. I know right now it is easy to clown Wisconsin, but man when everything aligns for them they take advantage....Iowa crumbles. Iowa has their version of Kamisky/Dekker and we are talking about losing 6 of 7 and being a 7 seed in Providence.
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Don't disagree with any of this, but if you compare the supporting casts between those 2 teams it's pretty significant. December and January, Iowa's supporting cast played well, above their ability even, and that still remains the difference. As good as Uthoff and Jok are, without scoring help from Gesell, Woody, Clemons...and the bench in Uhl, Baer, etc...it's gonna be tough.
 
PCHawk said:
People always say on here that this is as high as Fran can take us. I would say the fact that we lost so many close games the last few years suggests that there is still room for improvement. Now if our loses were all blowouts and all our wins were close, it would be a lot harder to improve.
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We were down by double figures in over 6 games this year, by as many as 19 twice. 8 points was the largest margin of defeat and the average was about 4, with 3-4 games by one possession. Those things, to me, show a team with fight and/or good coaching.

Clutch they are not. Mistake prone in the last 2 minutes they are.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
The OP makes good points. On the surface, that's a very good accomplishment, and that's why I'm not one of the guys who wants to run Fran out of town. The program is competitive again.

What's frustrating is when you look at exactly how we got to those results the past few years - two of those three years, Iowa would have had far higher NCAA seed if not for major late-season collapses. It would almost be easier to stomach if Iowa had been a 20-10 type team all year, rather than feeling like a much better season simply got away from us in the final month.

Even 4 years ago - tons of blown games late, and it resulted in an NIT bid when the team honestly should have been dancing.

Just a LOT of missed opportunity to go along with the success. What could have been? 2-3 seed instead of 6-7 or lower? Would that have boosted recruiting?

It's hard to know how to feel about it, but I'm not fool enough to call for the head of a guy who's done a pretty good job of cleaning up the mess Lickliter left behind.
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You can make a strong case that in terms of the way they were playing at the end of the regular season, this was Fran's best team.
 
We are short just one go to guy of being a great basketball team. Damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Would love for Joc to step up and be that guy.
 
HawkeyeWalker said:
We were down by double figures in over 6 games this year, by as many as 19 twice. 8 points was the largest margin of defeat and the average was about 4, with 3-4 games by one possession. Those things, to me, show a team with fight and/or good coaching.

Clutch they are not. Mistake prone in the last 2 minutes they are.
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If this team could have just played average in the last 2 minutes of our loses, we would probably be a 1 seed this year.
 
deanvogs said:
Meh. Nobody was playing better than ISU last year coming out of the Big 12 tournament. They had lots of press and pub, and tons of people picking them for the final four. Heck JD had them in the NC game I think......they lost first round.

My point is this is the NCAA's, the rest of the year is pretty irrelevant. You can be the hottest team on the planet, you can still lose if you don't play well. You can also be the coldest team on the planet, and if you play well you can win. I don't know if Iowa will even win one game, but I can tell you I won't be surprised if they win two games and get to the sweet 16, it is the NCAA's anything can happen.
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Yhsnk you captain obvious. I understand that if you outplay your opponent you will probably win. My point is that this team is very unlikely to outplay an opponent with their current mindset
 
Iowa won their last 6 games of the year, last year, then lost to a bad Penn State team, then destroyed Davidson so bad that one guy on here is convinced they sucked. I agree with Dean, what has already happened is no indication of how they will play in the tourney. IF they're going to win, they will have to win big tho.
 
deanvogs said:
Ok, a day has past, so lets all let perspective sink in.

1) This is the 3rd year in a row Iowa has made the NCAA tournament. The last time they did that it was '90-'91, '91-'92, '92-'93
2) This will be the highest back to back seeding that Iowa will have received since the '86-'87 (2 seed), and '87-'88 (5 seed)
3) This is the most B1G games won in a 3 year span (33) since '86-'89 (36)


Nobody is happy with the way the season ended. At the same time nobody would have guess we finished tied for 3rd for the second year in a row and would be a 6 or 7 seed. It is a whole new season now, and what has happened for the last 4 months is irrelevant, what has happened the last 4 weeks is irrelevant. Win two more games and this is the most successful 3 year run in Iowa basketball since the mid to late '80's run.
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Another stat you conveniently overlook, Dean: Iowa was 4-0 (and quite handily at that) against the teams playing for the B1G championship. Let that sink in for a moment. What happened? This team seems to have suffered -- once again -- a complete collapse of leadership, from the coaches down through the seniors. That sticks in the craw of every Iowa fan. It ought to stoke the fire of desire in the players and coaches.

We'll see soon enough.
 
tweeterhawk said:
Another stat you conveniently overlook, Dean: Iowa was 4-0 (and quite handily at that) against the teams playing for the B1G championship. Let that sink in for a moment. What happened? This team seems to have suffered -- once again -- a complete collapse of leadership, from the coaches down through the seniors. That sticks in the craw of every Iowa fan. It ought to stoke the fire of desire in the players and coaches.

We'll see soon enough.
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We caught those teams at a good time. We were playing our best ball, and MSU also lost to Nebraska right around the same time.

Our non-conference and last 10 BIG games suggest that those 5 or 6 games were more the outlier than the standard for this team. We regressed to the mean.
 
tweeterhawk said:
So if the team doesn't make the Sweet 16, did it improve under Fran McCaffery?
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Years 1 to 5 are a given. Go 1-1 in the NCAA and we still improved IMO. We didn't just get the MSU monkey off our back. We swept them. And we swept Purdue. And we swept MI. And we haven't lost a game by double figures.
 
tweeterhawk said:
So if the team doesn't make the Sweet 16, did it improve under Fran McCaffery?
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If we win one, I still think it was a slight improvement overall. If we lose first game, it'll be a slight step back from last year but still better than the year before overall.

The highs of this regular season were the best we've had in decades. The lows have been brutal, but mostly because the highs were so high.

Next year will be very interesting. Honestly, not sure what to expect, but if we make the Tourney, I'll be impressed.
 
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