Tom Davis vs. Johnny Orr

[Knight78]

And a sports bar named after him in Hilton.

Probably serves only whiskey - Orr drank it like water. I attended several ISU booster functions with my wife's uncle back in the early '80s and Johnny always had a whiskey in his hand at those events.

 

[hawkeyebob62]

Hinrich was the other Iowa high school kid Mr. Davis missed out on at that time. Was too much for the Iowa 'faithful' to stand. Bing-bang... bye-bye.

IMO, the greatest and worst achievement for the Mr. Davis era at Iowa was the 1987 season.

Greatest because it was the highest showing of any Iowa team.

Worst because thereafter Mr. Davis Iowa teams consistently showed worst.

Mr. Davis couldn't recruit like the previous Iowa basketball coach. He could never get the level of athletes as that 1987 team..

Iowa's basketball coach before Mr. Davis was George Raveling. A fantastic recruiter. An average basketball coach.

More than not, Raveling's disagreements with Iowa fans had little or nothing to do with basketball.

Raveling left Iowa because he couldn't get along with 'knowledgeable' Iowa basketball fans.

BJ Armstrong was a Raveling recruit. Brad Louhas was a Raveling recruit. Ed Horton was a Raveling recruit.

Marble Sr. was a Raveling recruit. Bill Jones was a Raveling recruit.

Many of these players played substantial minutes for the 1987 team. A team that finished 8th in the NCAA Tournament after losing to The Runnin' Rebels.

Many Iowa fans thought the 1987 season was an anomaly.

More Iowa fans (and The Iowa Athletic Department) thought the 1987 season was a building block to sustained excellence in Iowa basketball. Side note: Iowa originated the ally-oop play (I think the errant shot went to Les Jepsen who laid it up). Sportscasters laughed at how badly the previous shot.. pass? had missed. This was during a televised pre-Super Bowl game between (I'm guessing) Iowa VS North Carolina.

Brad Lohaus was a Lute Olson recruit, FYI.

 

[HomerChampless]

Notwithstanding the contention by some straw man argument that I may have had political differences with Raveling (Raveling's chief cause of disagreement with Iowa fans during his stay at Iowa, BTW), and been an indirect cause for his departure, I'm full of pride realizing that I got so much right considering most of my retelling of Raveling's and Mr. Davis's history at Iowa happened at least 30 years ago. Raveling started at Iowa in 1984, If I remember correctly.

I was in St. Louis at the time of Raveling's coaching at Iowa and I didn't get a whole lot of Big Ten information, and absolutely none about Iowa. I do have one great memory while living in St. Louis (think it was 1984?) A Lute Olsen coached Iowa team played a powerhouse Missouri team coached by Norm Stewert in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament (I think that game was played on Mizzou's home court). My coworkers in St. L. egged me on about how badly Missouri and Steve Stepanovich (sic?) would crush Iowa. Iowa had Michael Payne (while he was still good) and Gregg Stokes that year. Iowa won that game, BTW... Later in that NCAA tournament, I saw Iowa lose to Villanova in the semifinals at the arena by the stockyards in Kansas City. That arena was a pure dump. I can't believe the Kansas City Kings pro basketball team played their home games, there, for years.

I'm surprised no one has nit-picked my retelling of Iowa ally-oop history. Look it up. That was also off the top of my head. I'm sure it was during a pre-Super Bowl game televised against a perennial college basketball power (pretty sure was N. Carolina). Iowa won the game, BTW, as the visitor. During Mr. Davis's coaching tenure.

 

[hawkdrummer1]

The numbers speak for themselves. Mr. Davis > Johnny as a coach. But "greatness" has a different benchmark in Ames, as we all know.

As a character, Johnny was something else. A college buddy of mine tended bar at a olf course Orr frequented. It was common to see him roll into the clubhouse or restaurant ****-faced. He told of one story where Johnny went over to say Hello to a couple of clone boosters and literally fell over their table. He was quickly ushered out by his posse.

 

[SpiderRico]

We are debating with a fan base that is okay with average to below average results so long as the head man is a character and says stuff that gets the fan base frothing at the mouth. It's not even worth it. The bottom line was that Johnny Orr was a mediocre coach, at best, while at ISU. He barely finished above .500 overall, rarely finished above .500 in the Big 8, could never win on the road and missed the NCAA tourney more than he made it in his time at ISU. But he had cool "Here's Johnny" music to come out to, he always had a joke about the Hawks to dispense to the fanbase and he was a genuinely goofy guy. So, of course, he got a statue erected in his honor.

No different than the guy running the football program now. He's got a losing overall record, his only success came with players that weren't his own, has never finished above .500 in the conference, has gone thru assistants like Mangino goes thru the buffet and just finished with a 3-9 record in a year that most new coaches would start seeing some great success since they have their system in place, their culture in place, their own players in place, etc. But because he puts out "So Proud" videos every now and then, has one upset win every year, and acts like a horse's a$$ most of the time, ISU fans, of course, eat it up.

Hawk fans have their own problems, but they are problems of expectations, not problems of settling.

At the end of the day, Mr. Davis was a heckuva coach that could coach circles around Orr and his success speaks for itself.