Do we win
- Thread starter spbc7
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Impossible to say. Iowa should be very competitive and if things fall into place just right then absolutely.
Stay healthy and recruit a pg that slashes, dishes and scores, then yes!!
I do think that the play of our guards, especially Moss and Williams, will be critical for Iowa to win a B1G championship.
Since Iowa hasn't since 1979, I would say it's more likely no than yes. Last year was a great opportunity to steal one.
It's more likely in football, but anything is possible. I think our front line will get there but I have some questions about our guard court.
The key is to keep putting top half type competitive teams on the court and one of these years we'll get the regular season championship. There is a lot of luck involved, and the nature of today's Big Ten with fourteen teams and other stuff I won't mention....this isn't an easy task.
Lot of "if this" and "if that" going on in here. Nut up and make a choice.
We will win a B10 championship in the next 5 years.....just not this next year. We have lost some talented players over the last couple of years but this roster we have from now going forward appears to me to be completely different than what we have had. I think it is a physically longer, more athletic, and overall more talented.
I think this shift in the make up of the roster is a move more towards playing the way Fran wants the team to play. The reason we don't win it this next year is because of the youth we have at PG and a generally young roster overall.....GO HAWKS!
Imo, if/when Fran gets a top flight pg to run the show is when Big 10 titles will be forthcoming. The rest of the pieces are filling in........pg leadership, ability, athleticism and scoring is/has been the missing commodity. Tyler Ulis would have made a world of difference in past seasons.
Lot of "if this" and "if that" going on in here. Nut up and make a choice.
We win two, back to back in 2018/19 and 2019/20. The first one we will be Co-Champs. The second is all ours! The teams?
2018/19:
Guards: senior Christian Williams and junior Isaiah Moss. Don't say point guard because who the heck knows.
Wing: senior Nicholas Baer. Gosh, remember when he was a walk-on? Crazy.
Power Forward. junior Tyler Cook. Our rock. We aint had nothing like him!
Center. sophomore Luka Garza. Skilled and tough.
And depth up the bum.
2019/20:
Guards: sophomore Connor McCaffery (Dang but he did go to prep school!) senior Isaiah Moss. Still can't figure out who the point guard is.
Wing: sophomore Joe Wieskamp (Now that's some kind of outside shooting!)
Power Forward: senior Tyler Cook. Because he just loves Iowa.
Center: junior Luka Garza. More skilled and even tougher.
A little thing at guard but with Wieskamp moving down, senior Ellingson, junior Bohannon and rising star sophomore Dailey we're fine. The bigs, we've got talent all over the place.
We could be better still in 2020/21 depending on if Hauser commits.
Weird but true? Wagner turns into an outstanding wing/power forward backing up Baer and Cook in 2018/19 as our sixth man....and has a great pro career where he plays the wing exclusively.
That better?
If we consistently score more points than our conference opponents than yes
None the less, this question would be much easier to answer pre Fran that is for sure
None the less, this question would be much easier to answer pre Fran that is for sure
No. Next year will be year 7 for the Hawks with Fran. He has a done a wonderful job, but guys who have the ability to break through and win a conference title usually (not always) do it sooner, unless they have the huge recruiting break. Lou Henson won his title in year 9, but that is more the exception. I look at Fran as somewhat like Dick Bennett at Wisconsin in terms of program building, but not someone who can get you to the top of the conference.
As others have already said, until we get good play from the PG spot, I don't see it happening. We don't even need a top 25 type of PG. Just good, tough play. Protect the basketball and set up your teammates. Fran has shown the ability to scout long tweeners and get them to perform at the BIG level. For some reason he thinks he can take a long 2/3 and play him at the point. I don't see it working.
I'll settle for getting to the NCAA's this year. I expect to be a bubble at best. We'll know a lot more after the season.
I suspect our defense will be downright ugly at times. We will be fun to watch and have some highlight plays, but there will be many painful moments as this team grows.
I suspect our defense will be downright ugly at times. We will be fun to watch and have some highlight plays, but there will be many painful moments as this team grows.
For this upcoming season, I'm feeling more confident in the defense than I am in the offense. Not sure where the points are going to come from, especially since teams are going to key heavily on Jok.
Getting to the NCAAs would be a good season given what the Hawks have coming back and the question marks that remain. I don't think they'll quite do it this year.
I hope you're right and they'll be fun to watch, which for me means pushing the tempo and scoring.
Winning is obviously the goal, but I can't stand to watch games with final scores in the 50s.
The last 2 years have been surprises as to where we ended up based on what people thought before the season started. Another late bloomer you missed was John Wooden. Of course, that's not Fran but it happens. Fran is continuing to build the program with great players coming in. Who knows about a title- it takes a little luck, often even when it's predicted for a program.
I'm not worried about offensive weapons this year- Jok is certainly not the only one. Interior defense also should be pretty good. Going around Cook isn't going to happen like it did vs Woody earlier in his career. Baer is a player and Uhl has experience. Jok should be OK on D. CW has the potential to be a good to great defender and could determine how good the perimeter D could be. Moss has the tools to defend the perimeter effectively too and could be a dark horse as a defensive stopper. But the big question mark, as we've know all along for this year, is PG. The stat I'd most like to see in a crystal ball for this team is CW's A/T ratio at the end of the season. That will go a long way to determining this season. If he can manage a 2/1, this team will surprise in a big way.
I'm the opposite, I'm far more convinced they'll be able to score a lot of points than be able to stop people. I could see a few 102-95 losses against good teams and 97-90 wins against some lesser teams.
Note - not that they'll average 90+ points, just that a few really high scoring games are very possible.
I hope you're right about the scoring. I'd definitely find it more entertaining than those 48-52 peach basket level games that seemed to be commonplace in the B1G a few years ago.
The B1G was extreme, but it was all across college basketball, too. From the 1990's on, scoring has been dropping pretty precipitously, bottoming out a few years ago. The shot clock change last year helped, but scoring is still somewhat down from historic levels.
Here's an article from 2013 talking about it.
I've been very vocal in the past about the fact that, within reason, I like to watch teams outscore each other, not play keep away with the ball. It's no coincidence that my favorite coaches/teams where (obviously) Davis' Iowa teams, Richardson's Razorbacks, Tark's UNLV teams, Miller's OSU teams. The teams that played to push the tempo. Now, when you get to the likes of Westhead's L-M teams, that's probably a bit extreme, and the current Grinnell philosophy, while interesting for a while, is way out of what I'd consider normal basketball.
Basically, I'd love to see the Hawks get back to scoring in the mid 80's to low 90's. That would probably be my happy place. Though I'd certainly take the 100 per game B10 average they had in 1969-70. 90-85 games are fun. 95-90 games are fun. 52-48 is boring as hell. Unless you're talking about a halftime score.
I enjoy good basketball. I WAS pleasantly surprised that lowering the shot clock didn't cause too many wild chucks at the basket. But hey, I still recall the Iowa/Michigan State game where Heathcoat stalled the entire first half...and I liked watching the strategy.
I liked the four corner stall.
Yet I too also enjoyed Miller's Six Pack.
I just like good basketball and my complaint is the scoring is low because too many hockey games break out.
I liked the four corner stall.
Yet I too also enjoyed Miller's Six Pack.
I just like good basketball and my complaint is the scoring is low because too many hockey games break out.
I hope we will eventually win a conference championship. I thought last year, it was there for the taking, but we somehow fumbled it away. McCaffery has shown that he can put together a team with the talent to get there. Now they just need to demonstrate the stamina over the course of the season.
physical and mental stamina. the mental aspect was a missing piece of the puzzle last year.
Back to the original question. We'll get close, but right now I see one potentially great player and a whole bunch of decent players. Since it's been 27 years since we've won the title, I'd say no. Cook hasn't played a game and will make a bunch of freshman mistakes this year, but should approach Jok in his ability right away. I'm not sure that Garza and Nunge will turn out to the the all-world players next year that some think they will be but they should be at least solid in a couple of years. We're a middle of the pack BIG team this year and will be a bubble squad for the NCAA's. I've been around awhile and this team has a lot of learning/improvement to do before it'll be as good as a dozen or so of our better teams in the last thirty years.
Probably less than a 5% chance Iowa wins a championship in the next 5 years. As someone earlier mentioned, they haven't done it since '79 and Iowa had some very talented teams during the 80's (and they had a HOF coach for some of those years). The B1G is an extremely tough conference to win. You have a HOF coach in Izzo, who's teams are always loaded with talent, and he will likely still be at MSU for the next 5 seasons. OSU is always stacked with talent, it's just a matter of attrition (guys going early to the NBA) with them.
Iowa has yet to prove they are a great halfcourt team. They do an excellent job in transition but the best teams take that game away from Iowa. We've still yet to see Iowa play elite defense that you usually see from teams like Wis, MSU, who are usually competing for the title. Iowa plays avg D, but they lack the quickness at guard to play elite D. Maybe that will change but I don't see the emphasis on D from Fran that I did from Ryan and I do from Izzo.
The other thing is Fran doesn't have a stellar record in recruiting above avg PG's. This is part of the reason Iowa's offense is so putrid at the end of games in close games. Maybe we'll see improvement in this area but that would be based more on hope than a proven track record so far in Fran's tenure.
Honestly, I'll be pleasantly surprised if Iowa finishes in the top 3 of the conference sometime during the next 5 years. Iowa has an avg B1G coach who recruits avg B1G level talent. Last season was the golden opportunity to win the B1G because they had so many seniors starting and who had played together for so many games.
Iowa has yet to prove they are a great halfcourt team. They do an excellent job in transition but the best teams take that game away from Iowa. We've still yet to see Iowa play elite defense that you usually see from teams like Wis, MSU, who are usually competing for the title. Iowa plays avg D, but they lack the quickness at guard to play elite D. Maybe that will change but I don't see the emphasis on D from Fran that I did from Ryan and I do from Izzo.
The other thing is Fran doesn't have a stellar record in recruiting above avg PG's. This is part of the reason Iowa's offense is so putrid at the end of games in close games. Maybe we'll see improvement in this area but that would be based more on hope than a proven track record so far in Fran's tenure.
Honestly, I'll be pleasantly surprised if Iowa finishes in the top 3 of the conference sometime during the next 5 years. Iowa has an avg B1G coach who recruits avg B1G level talent. Last season was the golden opportunity to win the B1G because they had so many seniors starting and who had played together for so many games.
Agree that chances of a championship are slim. There are few for whom that's not true. We've gotten close with the elite quickness PGs but agree that hasn't gotten done. Yet somehow the program keeps going forward. Tell Izzo about the lack of D last season. We just faded down the stretch due to lack of depth and lack of strength in JU. That's why he's fighting to stay in the league.
Defense and pg play are the two things that will have to improve for us to win the BIG.
Now, the good news is we have a few strong athletic types that MSU usually has. I'm talking about guys like Cook, Pemsl, Wagner, and possibly Kreiner. These guys aren't stick figures and they aren't plodding bigs either.
Depending on how they develop and if we can get or develop a really good point guard then the chances increase dramatically.
I think when this current freshman class are upper-classmen, it will be very interesting with the young guys like Weiskamp, McCaffery, and others.
Now, the good news is we have a few strong athletic types that MSU usually has. I'm talking about guys like Cook, Pemsl, Wagner, and possibly Kreiner. These guys aren't stick figures and they aren't plodding bigs either.
Depending on how they develop and if we can get or develop a really good point guard then the chances increase dramatically.
I think when this current freshman class are upper-classmen, it will be very interesting with the young guys like Weiskamp, McCaffery, and others.
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