I think alot of this season can be measured by Fran's 15-16 season. 15-16 was his sixth year as coach, and the culmination of his first good recruiting class after he got established (4 senior starters, 3 of them were four star recruits). This year is Frans 11th year as coach, and kind of the culmination of Fran's second half of his tenure ( four starters are upperclassmen, J-Bo and Garza seniors have been the bedrock of Iowa basketball rebuild after 17-18). We obviously have high expectations now, but let's not forget that 15-16 we were ranked as high as #3, and Uthoff was a poy candidate until the last stretch of the season. In many ways, 15-16 and 20-21 are the two "stars are aligning" type seasons Fran has had.
Obviously we all know how 15-16 turned out. And the jury is out whether that will happen this season. Although there are many reasons to differentiate this year from 15-16 (Garza, moxy of our 3 point shooters, etc.) I think the biggest difference is our bench.
In 15-16, we had basically nobody on the bench. We had Baer, uhl, wagner, ellingson, and christian williams. Baer was a great hawkeye, but only a sophomore at the time. I almost don't even need to say anything about uhl, wagner, ellingson, and williams. They seemed to be good teammates, but none of them ever became starters and only one of them finished his career at iowa. To put it bluntly, they weren't B10 players. And to make matters worse, they were all underclassmen at the time.
Similarly, our bench was a monumental question mark this year. Only Joe T logged real (productive) minutes before this season. However, some of our backups are making serious arguments for getting starters minutes. I don't think anyone on this board would be overly worried if our starting lineup included Joe T and Keegan Murray. Nunge shouldn't be a starter right now, but he does LOTS for the team (7 boards and 3 blocks today; averaging as many points and more boards than kriener last year). Pat Mccaffery does some stuff, hustle plays, but he looks like he'll be a B10 player someday. Pat, our 4th worst backup, might've been our best backup were he on the 15-16 team.
The point is, it's understandable that a team will fade late in a season when you have virtually no competent backups. Today we would not have won without the play of our bench. I don't expect smooth sailing all season, but I am awfully encouraged by what I've seen so far and the bench is the primary reason for that. I am confident this team is built different.
Obviously we all know how 15-16 turned out. And the jury is out whether that will happen this season. Although there are many reasons to differentiate this year from 15-16 (Garza, moxy of our 3 point shooters, etc.) I think the biggest difference is our bench.
In 15-16, we had basically nobody on the bench. We had Baer, uhl, wagner, ellingson, and christian williams. Baer was a great hawkeye, but only a sophomore at the time. I almost don't even need to say anything about uhl, wagner, ellingson, and williams. They seemed to be good teammates, but none of them ever became starters and only one of them finished his career at iowa. To put it bluntly, they weren't B10 players. And to make matters worse, they were all underclassmen at the time.
Similarly, our bench was a monumental question mark this year. Only Joe T logged real (productive) minutes before this season. However, some of our backups are making serious arguments for getting starters minutes. I don't think anyone on this board would be overly worried if our starting lineup included Joe T and Keegan Murray. Nunge shouldn't be a starter right now, but he does LOTS for the team (7 boards and 3 blocks today; averaging as many points and more boards than kriener last year). Pat Mccaffery does some stuff, hustle plays, but he looks like he'll be a B10 player someday. Pat, our 4th worst backup, might've been our best backup were he on the 15-16 team.
The point is, it's understandable that a team will fade late in a season when you have virtually no competent backups. Today we would not have won without the play of our bench. I don't expect smooth sailing all season, but I am awfully encouraged by what I've seen so far and the bench is the primary reason for that. I am confident this team is built different.
