Based on what? "A strong chance"? Jack will NEVER play at Iowa, something I posted three years ago. Marge rules the roost and the youngest will never play at Iowa.
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Really not trying to be a downer, but please do give reasons why "I think this team will be great" . Based on what? Your last sentence highlighted one of the biggest issues even IF he had a solid ballanced roster, which he does not yet again.......
This year, I don't see players who are going to screw up the rotation, as we had big time last year. Dix might have stayed a role player, if Patrick hadn't gotten hurt for a few games. There are definitely some nice options available this year, and we need to just hope that they stay healthy. Depth at guard is a concern, but all 3 guys should play significant minutes. We need Freeman to also stay healthy. The forward positions are much deeper, assuming Payton returns.
I hear what you’re saying…. But in many people in many positions they give a strong effort, thinking it’s their best effort, but something happens that pushes them just a little bit harder when they thought they were already at their max.
I think we’ve seen that from Kirk a few times and athletics in general you see players/teams just make that extra effort….a little more focus that turns the tide.
Honestly up until a couple of years ago, I was probably in the same "glass is half full" group as you are. I just can't get past Frans inability to sign quality back court players. He has an eye for talent, not doubt, but he's not a closer. I give him alot of credit for being in early on Luka, and to some degree for his growth, although I think his development was just as much driven by the player himself. The Murray twins I think we were just really fortunate to have the previous connection, so we were in on them early, and I think them coming to Iowa was a done deal if fran just offered. I don't know if I'd agree that he's made some big shift in his recruiting however. He went after a guard because Perkins and Bowen hit the road. It remains to be seen what impact the new player has. To this point Frans other portal successes have been luke warm at best. Rebraka was okay his first year, and pretty damn good the second. As you stated Krikke is a mid major player who did nothing to improve our weakest areas, defense and rebounding. I had some hope for Braun when he signed, but it appears he was only here to hang with his high school buddy Pmac, because Fran played the guy like 20 minutes all year. Your statement about Iowa as it relates to the conference just agrees with my thought that the B1G just isn't very good. Honestly, other then Purdue, and to a lesser degree Illinois, who has been consistently good for some period if time? Even Izzo's army seems to have lost their mojo lately. I also wouldn't put much stock into our record being better then MSU if and when it is. They play a MUCH more difficult pre conference schedule then we do, and they take some early losses. It used to harden the Spartans for the B!G and tourney run, but lately it seems to be wearing them down. I think their recruiting has suffered to some degree lately also, and I think Izzo is nearing the end of his career.
Regardless if you think I'm sour on the program, I'd like nothing more then for Fran to take Iowa on a run through the B1G and the NCAA tourney. I just don't see the roster to make that a reality, and Fran is ultimately responsible for that.
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Team will do about the same. Be in upper half of Big, but at best first rd 7/10. NCAA game
I don't have to give you reasons, not at all, you and many others have evidently been tainted be Frans inability to live up to your expectations. I haven't, so I'm in the minority!
For me, I love this years past freshmen along with Payton and Josh. add Thelwell and yes, I believe Mulvey will be productive and along with this years freshmen. Just the deduction of Krikke, Patrick, and yes Desonte and Perkins should be a plus for Iowa.
Even if I'm the only one that believes in Harding becoming Iowa's starting point guard I don't care. What happens in the fall is not up to me anyway.
If a player doesn't want to be at Iowa, they're no help going forward. Perkins played 4 years at Iowa, he wanted a change of scenery and Desonte bailed on Iowa, that's was his choice.
Again I believe in next years team, if others don't, that's your prerogative. You've all made up your minds, I have too!
I agree totally thats its fine that you think what you do. Personally NO where in your run down of the team does that scream GREAT to me. Thats what you said, "they will be great". Okay then. I also don't see how I or others has been "tainted" by "our expectations". For Christs sake we had the NPOTY basically THREE straight years, and won ZERO B1G championships" (regular season, which is the real one in my book) and did absolutely NOTHING in the NCAA tourney on those three years. NOTHING. Call others, doubters, whiners, whatever. I mean what exactly are YOUR expectations when you have the NPOTY three straight years? (And they BOTH played on one of those runs) 3-5 place in a decent but not really strong conference, and same old same old in the tourney? First round loss to a much lower seed? Really? Thats YOUR expectation, but we are bad fans? Has there EVER been a team with two players of that level on one team and couldn't win a conference title OR ONE freakin tourney game? What that tells my uneducated self, evidently is that the guy building the roster did a really poor job of filling the remaining spots, or else he shit the bed coaching in those big games. Is that not Frans job? What is your assessment. Just bad luck?
Just plain old bad luck and a really bad matchup against a 7 seed. I mean Oregon got a bye first round. Without that I think we would have lost by less than double digits. Wait, nope, they have athletic guards which we’ve never had under Fran. But you’re in luck, you can look back to all the memorable seasons we finished in the top 5 of the conference.
Again, I'm 75 years old, I have enjoyed watching Iowa basketball since Lute Olsen became coach. That's not forever, but every fall is special to me, every year is different and every year I hope that the Iowa team can duplicate Iowa's run in the NCAA tournament as they did in 1980. It hasn't happened except in 1987 they came very close. I still believe, does that make me a bad person?
I understand all your disappointments, think back to 2005 and Alfords team that had the undefeated home games, really what was the chance that Iowa would have lost to Northwestern St. Every coach that Iowa has had has struggled to live up to the fan base at one time or other, but the lowest time in my life in watching Iowa basketball was the 3 Lickliter years.
Is Fran a great coach, no but he's a coach that cares for his players and I like his style of play even if it doesn't include what some want in a lock down defense. Fran has lots of faults, but in the end it is what it is.
Brock Harding is the closest thing to a pure point guard as you can have. I've watched him grow and get better during the last 5 years and when Owen Freeman moved to Moline I new that those 2 would bring the first every state tournament championship to Moline and they did.
That only intensifies my love of Iowa basketball having 2 players from my part of the world playing for my favorite team. So yeah, I'm extremely excited to watch those possibly leading Iowa to someplace they haven't been in 25 years.
Whether most of you believe that could happen or not is not my concern, it's what I believe and that's all that matters.
By the way none of you are bad fans, just the opposite....
Sorry to get this thread back on track but it appears that Matt Cross will be taking at least a couple more official visits (SMU, TCU).
This is from his AAU team this morning:
Well that sucks...Transfer portal and TCU I hear way too often
I actually like Harding and thought he needed to play more this year. I think he and big O will have solid careers in the black and gold. think we can be pretty solid in the frontcourt, although I still am not sure why your sold on Mulvey. This was his third year in the program, and we redshirt him supposedly because he's not ready, while we are in dire need of a rim protector, and rebounder. I'm not over whelmed with confidence there. Still think we're not close to where we need to be in the back court from a depth situation. We'll see what Fran does in the next couple of weeks.
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This captures my sentiments perfectly. I’m 65 and started following Iowa basketball in 1979 and your comments just perfectly encapsulated my fandom.
Also means he wasn't really impressed with either Iowa or WIsconsin and the NIL was not enough
Agree and because of that they will be in bottom half of Big next year as they stand right now
Bowen didn't have much of a choice. Fran did the same thing to him that he did with Toussaint. Bowen and Toussaint could have been pretty decent players as we saw with Toussaint but you can't get better if your coach never plays you.
I'd agree. Recruiting is also an ongoing thing with the current roster, especially now with the portal, (just ask Tyler Barnes about that). Thats why I said mid year that Bowen would not be back.......
Hmmm. Really. His best stat was his assist to turnover ratio which was just short of 2 to 1 last year and was worse than he did at Iowa his last year here. He shot less than 30% from 3 and shot 40% overall, which is less than he did his last year at Iowa. He got twice as many minutes his last year as he did at Iowa and averaged twice as many points which was just over 12 points a game. His increased scoring and worse shooting were most likely a result of his increased minutes, but in reality, he didn't improve very much. More minutes and some maturity in his 5th year were the differences. He never made any great leap in his play based on his stats.
To me Harding was a lot more impressive than Bowen and it wasn't even close imo
Not good for Iowa, but really did not think Iowa would land the guy. JMO
Still different from insinuating that FM wanted Toussaint or Bowen back. He didn't and I would guess informed them as much.
ETA for the point of the thread: if they want to kick the tires on forwards it's whatever, but they'd better not put all their eggs in that basket. I'll say again, they need guards. Guards guards guards.
It's not the worst thing if we don't get Cross IMO. I’d much rather get an experienced, solid, starting combo guard at the 2 spot (Dix backup), slide Dix to 3 (Koch / Pryce backup), and Payton at the stretch 4 spot. Have Tadjo back up the 4 spot (6'9, 7'0 wingspan, 225, rebounding machine according to the On3 article linked below) with Dembele back up Owen at the 5 spot.
https://www.on3.com/college/iowa-ha...industry-with-4-star-iowa-signee-chris-tadjo/
https://www.on3.com/college/iowa-ha...industry-with-4-star-iowa-signee-chris-tadjo/
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Where and who are you seeing is the portal option at guard, combo or otherwise?
I moved to Iowa City for grad school in 1975, so I was blessed with seeing Lute develop a BB program that went to the final four, despite injuries. I also left Iowa City the year before Lute's final season, but continued to follow and root for Iowa most of the years since... I also was lucky enough to see Hayden transform Iowa FB from a laughing stock, to a really good program, almost overnight.
I share your sentiments about Fran, although his regular post-season failure makes it challenging to be a huge supporter. I also agree that Iowa has the foundation for a really good team with the past freshman class, Payton, and Dix. Adding Thelwell helped quickly give Iowa a desperately needed third guard, and I would feel a lot better if Fran could add another for next year, especially in case of injury, foul trouble, etc. The two incoming freshmen both will give us more options at 3/4, but I really like the possibility of adding an experienced do-everything forward like Cross, in case the freshmen and Dembele aren't ready for big minutes. Sounds like Cross wasn't sold on Iowa yesterday, so that is a disappointment...
I wish that I really knew what transpired with Bowen and Fran. He played fairly well early in the season (better than Harding), but Iowa sucked, mostly because we were starting Patrick and Krikke, and Freeman and Dix were getting limited minutes. Bowen played worse and worse, and for the last month, barely played at all. This opened the door for Harding, who showed some great potential, but was Bowen blamed by Fran for Iowa's early season failure, instead of really identifying the main source of the problem?
Not good news. Cross didn't get all he wanted. Unfortunately, if he was looking for more $$$, he is gone.
Why are people acting like Iowa can get either a power forward or a guard? They have two scholarships open. They can get both.
Your negative attitude is getting in the way of reality, this past freshmen class is way more sound then any freshmen class Fran has had as a whole. Yes, Garza was very good as a freshmen and got better every year and Bohannan was an exceptional shooter, Wieskamp was great but Iowa didn't have any depth beyond the starters, the Murray brothers were athletic but raw and evidently nothing meshed well enough to make Iowa good enough to push past the 1st week.
Because I've seen Harding play and do his magic on the court, he's the key in getting Iowa past the 1st week whether you believe it or not. You evidently didn't see Harding play in high school and I can see your skepticism, if I hadn't seen it for myself I probably would have the same doubt.
By the middle of next season I'm guessing there will be a whole lot of Iowa fans with a new appreciation for Brock Harding.
Well we already beat out SMU for a transfer this cycle. I assume we can do it again.
Not sure how our NIL stacks up with TCU
I do appreciate your unbridled optimism & die hard fanatic attitude towards the Hawkeyes. And I do hope Harding takes a giant leap forward. Same with Mulvey. If they live up to your hype, the Hawks will be very hard to beat. I'd love to see Brock average 7 assists & 10 points a game & Mullvey 3 blocks & 8 rebounds.
But..... it's a stretch that Mulvey & Harding will be what your hope & dream of. If they do, I'll eat that crow, pat you on the back & send you a six pack of Swarm beers.
Go Hawks!
If only that would happen.
Cross looks like a good player but I'm not sure what you gain in offensive efficiency you don't just give back up by having Payton at the 3 where he can't defend.
Fran should be trying to add 2 more guards (as well as upgrading over Mulvey) and stop trying to play 4s like Sandfort at the 3 spot.
You think Fran asked Toussaint to leave so that he could start Ulis?
I'm guessing not.
Fran doesn't ask players to leave, if he did we wouldn't have a 7ft mascot named Mulvey.
Shit, half the time he doesn't even have a full roster and ends up giving scholarships to walkons.
Have to be 8 beers. The swarm beer comes in 4 packs. Lolol..Got the Mrs to grab some on her last trip back home.....I do appreciate your unbridled optimism & die hard fanatic attitude towards the Hawkeyes. And I do hope Harding takes a giant leap forward. Same with Mulvey. If they live up to your hype, the Hawks will be very hard to beat. I'd love to see Brock average 7 assists & 10 points a game & Mullvey 3 blocks & 8 rebounds.
But..... it's a stretch that Mulvey & Harding will be what your hope & dream of. If they do, I'll eat that crow, pat you on the back & send you a six pack of Swarm beers.
Go Hawks!
Absolutely. Until he starts recruiting more athletic guards he's stuck trying to play small 4's like PS and having them defend wings and slashing guards, and we get what we've seen for years with Iowa on defense. His "postionless basketball" seems to work okay against most teams on offense, but gets us whipped on defense year after year.....
I don’t understand valuing height over speed and quickness.
There's no evidence or results to make it make sense.
We're not really playing positionless basketball, we're just playing guys out of their natural positions which exposes them on defense.
You can't just play a bunch of 4s and call it positionless, you need guys like the Murrays if that's what your trying to do.
I have no inside info, but if he had found what he was looking for, I think we would have gotten good news today. I don't know about what TCU or SMU can offer, both in terms of play and NIL$$.
