I've already steeled myself for disappointment.
I’m curious, though, why Kirk seems to have some success in bringing in prized recruits but Fran not so much. I’m not saying Kirk is getting a ton of 4 and 5 star kids, but he gets a few somewhat regularly. Also, Kirk absolutely killed it in the portal this year. Killed it.
I have a few thoughts on this. Fran has made it clear he has an issue paying more NIL $ to freshmen or transfers than his players. Some schools are shooting for the moon. Only takes a few hits to change a team's success.
I don’t believe that’s a winning strategy. I understand why Fran and other coaches don’t like NIL, but you have to adapt to the times. It puts Iowa at a competitive disadvantage in the Big Ten. Not good.
Valid question, but I’d point out that Garza had a terrific offer list, something like 30 majors. A better offer list than his star rating would imply. But I agree with your premise. My guess is that he has not embraced the use of NIL money as much as KF, but I really don’t know.
Depends on what recruiting site you look at I guess, but Pryce, Dembele, and Freeman are all 4 stars on one of the 4 major recruiting sites (Espn, Rivals, 247 and ON3). Cooper Koch is also a high 4 star and has been tearing it up this spring on the AAU circuit--and yeah he's a legacy kid, but those aren't always layups to recruit--just ask Minnesota or Penn State who recently had 4-star legacy kids go elsewhere. If you look at Bowen and Dix's offer lists, it's not like Iowa wasn't competing against good schools for either of those guys. Compare that to Kirk this year--the '23 high school class had 2 total 4-star guys and one of those grew up in Iowa City.
I listened to Brad Heinrichs on Hawkeye of the Storm this weekend (CEO of the Swarm) and Brad said that Fran has actually been the one who has embraced the NIL Collective the most and has been actively soliciting Brad to do events for the basketball team to fundraise.
Imagine if Roy J Carver was alive in the era of NIL. According to his NY Times obituary his net worth in 1973 was estimated at $200-300MM, which is equivalent to $1.4-2.1BB today.
10 years ago, a picture like that would have never seen the light of day. Now, pictures of a greasy head coach hanging out with a billionaire is recruiting tool. "See, that's me with a rich old white guy that will throw money at you!"
Autry, the new coach at Syracuse, used to be a coach for Freeman's AAU team Takeover. I'd expect Syracuse to get a lot of Takeover kids the next couple of years which is a bummer since Iowa seems to be trying to get their foot in the door with them (Ngongba, Guerengomba, Sundra also play for them and have Iowa offers).
Garza was a top 100 4* by ESPN. I don't care if they hired God himself. Syracuse has lost way to much to be attractive to anybody especially a top 100 4*. then you have to figure in the rest of his top 5.
That's to bad. Would have loved him in the black and gold.
