A Look Behind the Curtain of the Licklighter Years
- Thread starter JStandefer
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On paper Lick was a good hire, but if Barta had done his homework and spent time talking with the man, there should have been some doubts. I guess Barta does deserve some credit for changing to Fran after three years.
(1) I said it was "almost" unanimous approval. Stating that you weren't happy does nothing to disprove that, especially when I have already called you out on relying on hindsight to evaluate a decision made 8 years ago. As for proof that fans were almost unanimously happy with the hire, linked is a Press Citizen article from 2007 that includes the following quote: "most fans seem genuinely happy that [Lickliter] is here."
(2) As I said before, there are many coaches that have a quiet demeanor. I will ask you again, do you think Bill Belichick is a hit at parties? I would say his demeanor mirrors Lickliter's in a lot of ways. To demand that Barta be able to tell the future success of a coach based on a personal interview instead of based on the past accomplishments of said coach is an outrageous request.
(3) Mentioning the issues with other coaches in other programs is a non-sequitur to analyzing whether he deserves kudos for firing Lickliter after 3 years.
http://archive.press-citizen.com/ar...Lickliter-hire-has-defined-Barta-s-first-year
I'm not sure many were thrilled with the hire, they were just happy it wasn't Alford anymore.
We clearly have very different opinions on this issue, icant.
However we might be viewing the past is irrelevant to the current situation as Fran is the coach now and these events really have no affect on his tenure at this point.
I don't think much of Barta as an AD. You seem to be happy with him. Fine. As I'm not a big money donor to university athletics my opinion of him isn't going to affect his employment in any way.
However we might be viewing the past is irrelevant to the current situation as Fran is the coach now and these events really have no affect on his tenure at this point.
I don't think much of Barta as an AD. You seem to be happy with him. Fine. As I'm not a big money donor to university athletics my opinion of him isn't going to affect his employment in any way.
The fanbase may have been almost unanimously in favor of Lickliter's hiring. I think that an even hire percentage of fans were happy he was fired. I know of many longtime Hawks that had given up even following the team. The attendance in Carver was more than sad. Barta had no choice but to pull the trigger.
His first year was the year the BTN started.wasm't it, which means I didn't get to see many of the games, since dear of Mediacom didn't have the network. Thus I missed the big upset early in the season.
Lick got fired from Marian University in the last couple of years. Sounded like he was lazy there as well.
Lick got the job because he was NCoY, coming off his second Sweet 16 and, what 4th NCAA appearance in 6 years. That's still more NCAA success than Hawks have had during this entire century.
Let's not revise history. Alford was enormously unpopular by his last season at Iowa. Lick didn't pan out; quite the opposite he was a disastrous hire. But......it looked good at the time.
Let's not revise history. Alford was enormously unpopular by his last season at Iowa. Lick didn't pan out; quite the opposite he was a disastrous hire. But......it looked good at the time.
I think Bowlsby often gets left off the hook in these discussions. I think he is more responsible for the long slow decline in Iowa basket than Lick. He never should have fired Davis after he was told by the President that he had to let his contract finish out with a lame duck year. Terrible decision that Alford was never able to recover from. Then the whole PP fiasco sealed the deal for both Bowlsby and Alford. Iowa ended up up suffering for their screw ups.
Thank God for Fran. We've a bright future.
And to think Stevens was actually in his car on the way to Iowa to join Lick as his top assistant when he got a call from the Butler AD asking if he would come in for an interview to be the next Butler head coach. Had Stevens come to Iowa we might have been good.
Yeah Lickliter had some really top notch assistants that made his system go. He had virtually none of that at Iowa.
No wonder the turd Izzo wanted Lick to stay....
Yes. A lot of the guys I played with at the South Gym were better than John Lickliter.....and a number of other players on the team for that matter.
And no, we would've had no business playing D1 ball, but that's how bad it had gotten.
Lick did himself no favors with his selection of assistants. By all accounts really good guys, but collectively they were completely overmatched by our conference peers and other Power 5 schools across the country.
As for the OP and comments by Coughill, I guess it doesn't surprise me, although I suspect there might be some cases of slight exaggeration, but the overall theme and points are what I expected. We've known for a long time the hire was a colossal failure. Makes me appreciate Fran even more for what he has done in his time here.
Tony Dungy says Belichek is fun at social outings, very different from his public demeanor. So no need to 'ask again'
Very good point. Alford made a big mistake by bringing his Dad in as his top assistant. He got better when he brought in Neil. Licklighter basically made the same darn mistake. He brought in inexperienced guys none who were proven recruiters. Had he found a veteran assistant coach with recruiting ties he may have been much more successful. Fran's guys have all been head coaches. Apparently Lick was uncomfortable coaching beside that kind of talent.
I try to forget the Alford and Lick years. I really do. Like tire iron to the temple amnesia forget.
I'll summarize...this is what I choose to remember:
1) Alford win over UConn first game...fool's gold
2) a couple B10T runs, dance failures, mind-numbing inconsistencies in all regular seasons except one
3) Rumors of being a douechbag of epic proportions, player defections galore
4) Lick hire - wha? What did he actually build at Butler? Hmmm.
5) Water circling the drain years - Chernobyl meltdown of entire program
That's from what...late 1999 to early 2010. The details are just too painful to desire to recall. A lost decade +...it makes the Tom Davis look like John Wooden by comparison.
Five years it took to recover from that systematic destruction those two jackasses caused. You really have to destroy a program to take 5 years to rebuild it. The only thing that didn't happen was Carver-Hawkeye burning to the ground.
I'll summarize...this is what I choose to remember:
1) Alford win over UConn first game...fool's gold
2) a couple B10T runs, dance failures, mind-numbing inconsistencies in all regular seasons except one
3) Rumors of being a douechbag of epic proportions, player defections galore
4) Lick hire - wha? What did he actually build at Butler? Hmmm.
5) Water circling the drain years - Chernobyl meltdown of entire program
That's from what...late 1999 to early 2010. The details are just too painful to desire to recall. A lost decade +...it makes the Tom Davis look like John Wooden by comparison.
Five years it took to recover from that systematic destruction those two jackasses caused. You really have to destroy a program to take 5 years to rebuild it. The only thing that didn't happen was Carver-Hawkeye burning to the ground.
IMHO, he was too slow to fit the player FM looks for. It was probably not a match between talent and style of play
It is not like Fran brought in a murderer's row of coaches, and no, they had not all been head mens coaches somewhere:
Andrew Francis: 3 years as an assistant at Siena
Sherman Dillard: Had not coached anywhere since the 2003-2004 season...10 years as a head coach, 2 winning seasons
Kirk Speraw: Fired from UCF, all wins during last 2 seasons vacated due to NCAA violations.
Lots of "wow" in this thread. Can you actually have a 20 min practice?
Anyway, Fran is, to me, the Hayden Fry of basketball. He brought Iowa back from the dead. He has a very long leash IMO.
Anyway, Fran is, to me, the Hayden Fry of basketball. He brought Iowa back from the dead. He has a very long leash IMO.
compared to Licks staff he did...
I don't need to tell you the resumes of the Iowa assistant coaches, but when you pair these coaches together and what they had proven at the D1 level, then yeah Fran's staff could be considered a murderer's row of coaches when stacked up against Lick
Cornette/Francis: former had no coaching experience, at least Francis had 3 years plus 2 years with Jay Wright as admin asst.
Jordan/Dillard: former had three years asst coaching experience, the latter nearly 30, if you include work with Nike Grass Roots
Walthall/Speraw: D3 experience versus D1
yeah, not even close.
Well stated. I'm not sure what it takes to be a murderer's row, but at the time of the hire's I recall many folks were very impressed with the decisions McCaffery made.
Why bring up Little Lick and his significant minutes. He played something like 81 minutes in 23 games. You know whose to blame for those minutes....Peterson. He didn't like starting here, didn't like starting at Arkansas and finished his career at a third school.
Peterson transferred after most of the recruiting was finished leaving an already damaged program with only Cully Payne, a freshman, backed up by only a walk on freshman, Little Lick. While Payne had a respectable freshman season he couldn't play every minute and there was simply no one else to play those 81 minutes.
Lick failed miserably. That was six years ago and people still want to rip on his kid, whose worst crime was sticking up for his Dad. Leave the younger Lick out of it.
Peterson transferred after most of the recruiting was finished leaving an already damaged program with only Cully Payne, a freshman, backed up by only a walk on freshman, Little Lick. While Payne had a respectable freshman season he couldn't play every minute and there was simply no one else to play those 81 minutes.
Lick failed miserably. That was six years ago and people still want to rip on his kid, whose worst crime was sticking up for his Dad. Leave the younger Lick out of it.
Andrew Francis was the Head Women's basketball coach at Mt. St Vincent College as well as an assistant coach at Siena and Villanova.
Sherman Dillard has 29 years of coaching experience. He earned CAA coach of the year honors and NABC coach of the year honors when he coached at various schoolsincluding Indiana State and James Madison
Kirk Speraw has 17 years head coaching experience at Central Florida
Also:
Billy Taylor has 15 years coaching experience, most recently as head man at Ball State
Al Seibert was a head coach at University of New Haven
So Fran's current assistants have a plethora of head coaching experience. There is no question about that. I cannot imagine any staff has more head coaching experience than Fran's staff but maybe so.
That would be a pretty good trivia question....I have a 2 hour conference call today which has about 0 importance to me so I may spend some time looking into it. For the sake of making the research as easy as possible I'm going to limit it to D1 mens head coaching experience.
So Iowa is the benchmark with 27 (Speraw 17 and Dillard 10).
How much are guys like Billy Taylor really helping during practices?
I'd venture to say very little, if anything.
If you ATTEND A GAME in person you will notice that Al Siebert and Billy Taylor consult frequently with the other coaches. While their role is not primarily to coach players directly, they both have plenty of input. I won't say what their practice roles are as I don't know if that is public info. The point is Iowa's coaching staff personnel have a great deal of coaching experience, there is no question about that.
Lick actually had a top notch recruiter on staff. He's now Michigans top guy under Belein. I sat at spiece fieldhouse watching Trey Burke go off with him and he said he'd have been a hawkeye if they hadn't been fired. Month later he and Trey were headed to Michigan. He said Coach Lick just wore down after the second year in Iowa. Had no clue Alford's roster had so many personal problems.
But we could tell during the 1st game that things were changing for the better.
