Fair enough.
This is exactly why I hate texting. The conversation never goes as intended.
Damn, Fran praising/explaining why Connor has to be on the floor at the end of games
- Thread starter ROCKY MOUNTAIN HAWK
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This is exactly why I hate texting. The conversation never goes as intended.
I thank Jordan for his career and the big shots he's made. Contrary to some posters, I didn't think JBo at the shooting guard plays to Jbo's strength. He's never been a shoot off the screen guy---he shoots best with ball in his hands. He is just too small/slow to defend well and get his shot off...he's great to close the game, but if he plays a lot, the man defense has a weak link.
Clearly Fran's lineups are effed up. Too much JBO and CMAC. PMAC is a guy without a position---he can't guard opponent 3's--way too slow vs guards and he's too soft to bang inside if he plalys PF. Connor is a tough kid lacking skills/height---PMAC is the opposite. This is another bad defense year. I think an impartial defensive minded coach would get more out of this team.
My guess is this is a 7 or 8 win B1G team. I am assuming they need 10 B1G wins to get to NCAA tourney. Keegan is carrying the team. His brother kris is not getting the PT his skills/athleticism deserves to the detriment of the team ultimate upside.
Those are my opinions..it seems like some fans have so much love invested in Fran they can't admit he is a flawed coach.....If Fran does get this team into NCAA tourney, I will have to admit I was wrong and I hope I am wrong. Even if they get into NCAA tourney, Fran has been coaching 36 years and zero sweet16 appearances....not like there is not much chance a Fran coached team will make an run in NCAA tourney based on past performance.
Being a hot head is not be being tough, just stop with the tough BS. Defense, rebounding and loose balls is how you prove toughness and he's a giant pussy there and well as self control. He's a crybaby, that's probably a factor in getting the crucial mins.... Fran probably gets sick of his crying/bitching
While I wouldn't take it that far, you are correct defense/loose balls do show toughness.
My concern is there is too much zach mccabe in conner.
Where Connor lacks the most is around scoring, not defense. For a 6' 5" guy he does pretty good defending guys that are taller than him. I have no problem with his defense and effort. He's also reduced his complaining from his first two years.
Fran is throwing another season away with a legit pro player by playing Connor and Jbo far too much. Like many said it last year and have been saying it all this year. The Maryland game was definitive proof that Fran will not change.
Connor first came in the game, gave up a wide open 3 because he was slow to close out followed by a quick turnover. Our double digit lead completed evaporated. I can respect he knows where to thell players to get positioned to attack the zone, about the only thing net positive he does but that doesn't overcome for his offensive liabilities.
We have the wrong starting lineup and the wrong minute distribution. Wasted all those cupcake games giving minutes to Connor and Jbo, just stupid. Kris, Tony, Sandfort are they key to this team.
Connor first came in the game, gave up a wide open 3 because he was slow to close out followed by a quick turnover. Our double digit lead completed evaporated. I can respect he knows where to thell players to get positioned to attack the zone, about the only thing net positive he does but that doesn't overcome for his offensive liabilities.
We have the wrong starting lineup and the wrong minute distribution. Wasted all those cupcake games giving minutes to Connor and Jbo, just stupid. Kris, Tony, Sandfort are they key to this team.
Well Keegan did play behind Connor last year.
Also maybe it’s just selective hearing but during the Maryland press conference, Fran seemed to make quick work of questions about how great and dominant Keegan but went a long and technical diatribe defending Connor without even being provoked with a direct question. He anticipated he would be asked about Connor.
probably nothing but maybe Fran had a bias against Keegan for taking the spotlight away from Pat and Connor?
probably nothing but maybe Fran had a bias against Keegan for taking the spotlight away from Pat and Connor?
I think the most disconcerting thing last year was after the Oregon loss Fran mentioned about CJ and Connor's injuries. All I could think if they were that injured why the heck were they playing so much let alone starting and it showed. By Fran playing these 2 far less than 100% ended up hurting the team more than helping. This year reports again early in the season of nagging injuries with him. End of the day fran is going to keep throwing him out there hell or high water.
I remember last year against MSU at home Keegan, JT, and Perkins led us back in second half with shutdown D. I thought that would be a turning point.
Next game he plays Connor more minutes than Keegan in a loss then got snarky with the press when asked about it.
I appreciate what Fran has built but that day I transitioned from a Fran believer to neutral supporter. Man deserves his job but I no longer have faith in him to make correct personnel decisions.
There are countless examples of this last season just for Keegan alone. Can’t believe I briefly bit on the JBo is going to have a a specialist role (it’s younger guards turn) BS he pushed in offseason. Shame on me
Next game he plays Connor more minutes than Keegan in a loss then got snarky with the press when asked about it.
I appreciate what Fran has built but that day I transitioned from a Fran believer to neutral supporter. Man deserves his job but I no longer have faith in him to make correct personnel decisions.
There are countless examples of this last season just for Keegan alone. Can’t believe I briefly bit on the JBo is going to have a a specialist role (it’s younger guards turn) BS he pushed in offseason. Shame on me
Throwing another season away? We are 11-3 and current projected 7 seed. When did he do this before?
Last years team that failed to even sniff getting pass the the second round by playing slow, unathletic, injured guards.
Exactly what I and many claimed would happen in the reg season if he didn’t develop our young athletic guard talent.
Facts are having Garza and Keegan in back to back seasons if he doesn’t come out with at least 1’sweet sixteen it’s a failure. Iowa rarely gets talent of this caliber.
Keegan and Pat played more minutes against Oregon after Fran benched Connor and CJF. Regardless, we ran into a god damn buzzsaw that day, that not even playing Jbo, Connor, and CJF at all would have mattered. I'm still pissed about Oregon getting that opening round bye.
With that being said, right now, Fran is rotating Connor and Pat. I favor Pat all day, but Pat was freaking terrible against Maryland. He looked completely uninterested, and Fran benched him. I hope he bounces back and plays most of the minutes over Connor going forward, and that was his wake up call. I'm just glad we won the game.
My bigger gripe is Jbo playing over Perkins right now. This has to stop, Perkins has proven time and time again he is the far superior player.
True, but in reality Connor is averaging roughly the same number of minutes as Joe, Ulis, Kris, and Tony. They are all within around 2 minutes of each other. The only players averaging significantly more minutes are Keegan, Pmac, Rebraca and JBo.
Agreed on the Perkins point but I don’t expect that to change.
Sure Oregon was a buzz saw but rolling out slow injured players was a death sentence.
I just look at what Izzo does year in and out. He commits to the high ceiling lineups early in the year so by March they are ready to go. He seems ahead of the curve this year. Just wish Fran would try this strategy once.
Izzo is a bad comparison IMO. 5 of the top 6 are Juniors/Seniors, they are all 4 star/5 star players, and he played Foster Loyer ALOT last year and that dude sucked. If Iowa was able to pull in a complete team of top 100 players like MSU has, we wouldn't be bitching much. With that said, I'm excited to see this team next year without Jbo and Connor's minutes.
Last year was arguably the most talented Iowa team in 4 decades with 3 NBA players onboard. Two of them played starter minutes and the 3rd averaged 18 minutes per game behind JBo, CJ, and CMac.. I won't pretend to understand it but I'm not the coach either.
Fair point.
Agreed, the more he continues to not play young guys I fear transfers. Sounded to me when he brought Jbo back he promised a changing of guard to younger guys but hasn’t been handing over the keys.
I think Jbo only came back after CJF bailed on Fran. I think the plan was Perkins/CJF and that would have been fun.
I don’t think it quite played out like that, but I’m sure your memory is more accurate than the box score below. Iowa had a five point halftime lead. They lost it briefly 59-61 for about 30 seconds of game clock in the 2nd half before tying the game back up and eventually pulling away.
Iowa did get down 10 at the 14:49 mark of the first half with Garza, Connor, Weiskamp, Keegan, and JBo. It remained around a 7-10 deficit until the under 8:00 media TO.
Iowa came back from that deficit with: Nunge, Garza, Toussaint, Patrick, Connor, and Perkins (for about 1:30). Keegan (& JBO) came out at the 12:52 mark for Nunge and Toussaint. Keegan did not reenter until the 00:47 (for 16 seconds) mark when the Hawks were up 3 by then. Perkins played one five minute stretch where he was +4 during that time.
Had you said that Toussaint and Nunge with a handful of others brought the Hawks back, you would have been more accurate. The starters and Keegan (subbed for CJ at 18:01) put the Hawks down 10 in the first half.
https://storage.googleapis.com/hawkeyesports-com/2021/02/35b6341d-1796354.pdf
Yeah. Its a lot like Ferentz in that way. Once Fran trusts a player they're a made man and will play almost no matter what.
Everyone else seems random as is the criteria for why he trusts certain player.
Playing 3 guys that combined for no points and all couldn’t guard anyone wouldn't have mattered?
I feel like it probably would have mattered a lot to have players on the court that could have effectively defended instead of getting broken down off the dribble at will.
No, it would not have mattered, because when those guys came in, they got blown away too.
Ok so details were a bit off but point remains a more athletic lineup had adequate success and was the reason we won against MSU, we had already witnessed this once in the Rutgers game a week prior where Ulis and Tony came in for big spurts.
In the next game against Ohio State after that lineup of Tony, Touisant, Nunge, Pmac, Garza had success did we see it again? No Fran didn't play Tony a minute, only played Touisant 7 and we lost at home.
Then in the next game at Indiana he plays Touisant a total of 4 minutes. I seem to recall him putting Tony, Ulis in twoard the end of the 1st half and having a rough spurt where he refused to call timeout then after the game making a snarky remark:
“You guys are unbelievable,” McCaffery said, referring to the media. “You want me to play the bench. I play the bench because guys are in foul trouble, then you want me to take them out. How are they going to get better? How are they going to improve?"
This is the same coach yanking JT's chain every game and playing him less than 8 minutes. Not playing Tony after he had a dynamite defensive performance the game prior. Not committing to JT, Keegan, Perkins last year was a mistake that he will never admit to. Jbo didn't need 38 minutes a game (off hip surgery no less) and Connor didn't need 30.
Had he committed to developing his atheltic guard talent (Ulis. Tony, Ulis) and gave Keegan the starting reigns which I think most coaches would have I think we at least compete to make the sweet sixteen. It was obvious to anyone watching when we went up against guard talented teams (Michigan, Illinois) we were a disaster and were likely going to face that in the NCAAs.
But, but, but, Keegan was still developing and wasn't ready for the minutes. Lol
Thats just not accurate. I've watched it 4 times
The lack of D played by the starters was in no way comparable to the bench guys.
