2025-26 Roster - Update Tracker
- Thread starter GunnerHawk
- Start date
First off, someone had to coach those guys. Raveling sure as shit couldn’t coach them.
Second, Dr Tom coached during the golden age of B1G basketball. Multiple national championships and Final Four teams during that time. To even compare B1G records between him and Fran is laughable.
Finally, Dr Tom got us to tourneys and never got beat by a worse seed once. Had the unfortunate luck of running into the eventual national champs on 4 different occasions (Duke twice, Kentucky, and UCONN). The man could coach circles around Fran.
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Ben is going to have to recruit like a MoFo. Next year could be decent but then you lose your team-leader game manager PG and it drops off quickly. Years 2 and 3 could be rough, especially is Creighton can outbid us for players. College bball is f***ed.
6 out of 15 roster spots have been filled. Maybe we can wait to see what the full roster looks like before we start worrying about years 2 and 3.
Point remains. He has a great core but now he has to crank up the recruiting.
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
1. B1G was hell of a lot tougher during Dr Tom era
2. He NEVER lost a first round game. Comparing him to Fran is blasphemy. Fran was a shitshow in the tourney.
Fran lost two games in the dance as a favorite and won one game as a dog. Not that far off from what was expected.
There are shit shows and there are fan narratives; almost every one of which is a shit show
Losing twice as a favorite is what was expected?
What about more D2 recruits in the portal? Seems Ben should be able to find those top guys. Probably cheaper too.
I'm sure he's looking at that and the mw... whatever conference they were in last year.
Sturtz said he knows everyone in the portal that he'd like here. Also said he's been actively recruiting. I know damn well he's in Ben's ear
He came here to win games. Looking forward to seeing how the roster shakes out
Again, Iowa won once as a dog.
So Fran was one over par in the dance. A long way from what fans have painted it out to be
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
You seem to be trying to pump up Fran and poke holes in Dr Tom. Their tourney performances are not close. The teams we lost to under Dr Tom were generally elite. Most were top 3 seeds (Duke, Duke, UConn, Kentucky, AZ, etc)
Your tired, predictable narrative always defending KF and Fran is the real shitshow.
You seem to have quite the imagination and and lack of reading comprehension.
Nowhere have I mentioned Davis.
Nowhere have I defended Fran. I am calling out fans for an exaggerated narrative. That's not the same as defending Fran.
Why a few of you keep saying I've been defending Fran is beyond me. Stop making stuff up
4 wins in 15 seasons is a failure.
Not saying it isn't. That has more to do with needing to have more appearances and better seeds.
Birdman and others have exaggerated the actual performance in tourneys, calling it a shit show. That's a different story
Again, you are mixing two different narratives. Refer to the post directly above yours for the distinction between the two.
Iowa was a 3 point dog, as the higher seed, in a win vs Cincinnati. And they were a 2 point dog, as the higher seed in a loss to Auburn. Look it up
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Really. While Fran was coach, they made it to the NCAA tournament 7 times and didn't make it 8 times. Less than 50% Since 2014, Iowa is 4 and 7 in The NCAA Tournament which is less than 40%. The team did not make the tournament in the last 2 years. He accomplished so little with some of the best players in the league.
Not sure why you are saying this in response to my post. It has nothing to do with what I've posted.
And your numbers aren't accurate either
The Oregon and Richmond games were shit shows against lower seeded teams.
Dude, the ignore function is so nice.
They were both losses.
Again, my contention was with the characterization of Fran's overall performance in tourney games as being a shit show. Because when you add in the fact that Iowa won a game as an underdog, that puts Fran one over par level expectation.
A loss is a loss. If you want to characterize those games as more than two losses, that opens the doors to many conversations, including Keegan being a shell of himself due to an in-game injury vs Richmond, Conner and CJ both needing hip surgery immediately after the Oregon game, and Oregon having a week's worth of rest while Iowa had just played 4 straight.
But in the end they were simply two losses. Yes, two losses as a favorite. But nothing more and nothing less
They might have been just two losses but it was enough for the majority of the fan base to give up on Fran. It was time...
What? Losing to Oregon and Richmond with the talent he had on those teams was bs
Not saying it wasn't time.
For the majority of the fanbase to have given up... there's a lot that could be said about that
The Richmond game was putrid and my enthusiasm for the program was never the same after that. Heartbreaking, demoralizing, you name it.
Oregon won the Pac12 regular season championship in 2021. They shot 41% from three on the year (insanely good) and had quicker players than Iowa at all five positions. I watched them play UCLA that year and they threw a press on that was so nasty that UCLA couldn’t even get the ball past midcourt. I haven’t the foggiest clue why Oregon only got a 7 seed but they did. How people see that loss as some sort of unfathomable upset and an ironclad indictment of Fran’s coaching ability is the height of idiocy. Just a complete failure to understand anything about the sport.
Regarding the difficulty of the Big Ten for Fran vs Davis: during the first half of Davis’ career he faced an extremely great Big Ten. It wasn’t as strong in the second half of his career as Michigan and Indiana both fell off quite a bit.
Fran also faced a very strong Big Ten in the first half of his career both quality on top with Michigan, MSU and Wisconsin both being final four good / national runner up good, and tons of depth. It’s fallen off during the second half of his career but is still deep with no easy wins.
Davis faced a tougher B10 in aggregate but it’s pretty close imo. Alford faced a much easier B10 than both.
Fran had a ten year stretch where he won 55% of his B10 games and I will never cease to be amazed at how few people on this board recognize how hard that is to do at Iowa.
Anyways it’s done now and I’m tired of talking about it.
Oregon won the Pac12 regular season championship in 2021. They shot 41% from three on the year (insanely good) and had quicker players than Iowa at all five positions. I watched them play UCLA that year and they threw a press on that was so nasty that UCLA couldn’t even get the ball past midcourt. I haven’t the foggiest clue why Oregon only got a 7 seed but they did. How people see that loss as some sort of unfathomable upset and an ironclad indictment of Fran’s coaching ability is the height of idiocy. Just a complete failure to understand anything about the sport.
Regarding the difficulty of the Big Ten for Fran vs Davis: during the first half of Davis’ career he faced an extremely great Big Ten. It wasn’t as strong in the second half of his career as Michigan and Indiana both fell off quite a bit.
Fran also faced a very strong Big Ten in the first half of his career both quality on top with Michigan, MSU and Wisconsin both being final four good / national runner up good, and tons of depth. It’s fallen off during the second half of his career but is still deep with no easy wins.
Davis faced a tougher B10 in aggregate but it’s pretty close imo. Alford faced a much easier B10 than both.
Fran had a ten year stretch where he won 55% of his B10 games and I will never cease to be amazed at how few people on this board recognize how hard that is to do at Iowa.
Anyways it’s done now and I’m tired of talking about it.
Remember after brackets came out looking at all 6/7 seeds and Oregon was last team I was hoping to play. They got upset 1st rd in pac 12 tourney. Then it didn’t help VCU first rd opponent had covid issues and forfeited.
Worst part of that season with no fans the talk of empty carver now with Garza returning stands would’ve been full for almost every game that year. Little did we know it was the beginning of the end for Fran era with slow decline from there on out.
His record in the NCAA tourney was 6 wins and 12 losses.
He stunk in the tourney with some decent talent.
4-7 at Iowa bro.
Again, two bogies and one birdie.
But you all can continue to make it into something else
It’s not so much games won and loss and under dog or favorite. Biggest issue to me is in 15 years only 2x was Fran lower than a 7 seed.
