What more do we need to see? His absolute ceiling here is 1 win in the NCAA every 3 or 4 years and mostly NIT crap. He isn`t the guy. We need to look for a different coach.
Fran has more than proven he can`t get it done here.
- Thread starter Carolina Hawk
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The whole coaching staff must go, but Barta first.
It sure is. Lets fire the guy who is in charge of that.. Right?
After his outburst at OSU showed me that he is not capable of taking us to the sweet 16 or beyond. He is a great mid major coach like Greg McDermott.
Hey we extended his contract though, so he will be around for more years thanks to our AD
Absolutely. Fran is a good coach, but he hasn't been able to construct a proper roster for his style.
Got burned with some really bad classes, then he went too big, and now he's not going to get great guards while Connor is on the roster. Unbalanced classes is also a huge issue since he started.
Edit: I've also been concerned about Connor and Patrick for the last few years. Highly rated coaches kids. If that turns out poorly, the fans will get ugly/disinterested real quick. Recruiting against Fran has to be so damn easy whether it's his tantrums, bad location, weather, his kids playing time, lack of success as a program last 20 years.
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Give him time and let him get his players in.
I'm sure Fran's dream was for Connor to be starting PG, but Connor needs to shoot the 3ball better than he does to be starting material for a Big10 team. Patrick might end up a tweener---not strong enough to play 4 and not quick enough to defend the 3. Sure you can go big and slow at the 3 position if you zone, but Zone defense is junk...you can't rely on it unless you staff it with ultra long athletes like Syracuse.
A big question I have always had about Fran was...well, actually two.
1) He has shown, as a head coach, that he is capable of elevating a program to the NCAA Tournament. But nothing consistently over time. Unfortunately we are finding out he struggles with that.
2) Why was Iowa his first big offer and why did it come so late in his career?
1) He has shown, as a head coach, that he is capable of elevating a program to the NCAA Tournament. But nothing consistently over time. Unfortunately we are finding out he struggles with that.
2) Why was Iowa his first big offer and why did it come so late in his career?
Fran’s roster looks a lot like every roster we’ve had at Iowa during my life, except for a couple exceptions when we magically got elite players out of Michigan.
We are always going to have a lot of white players. We need to learn to win with them. Fran has done a decent, if not great, job of that.
We are always going to have a lot of white players. We need to learn to win with them. Fran has done a decent, if not great, job of that.
Because the best players in iowa are typically white, and the best players in iowa typically go to Iowa.
1) I didn't.
2) Why does Iowa's team need Iowans on it? If there are some good players out of Iowa such as the ones I listed and others like Joe Weiscamp, fine, let's sign them. There's no requirement that Iowa basketball has to be stocked with locals as far as I know. Hence, my point about Iowa State.
Basically, the two points you attempted to make were easily refuted.
So Lute getting greats out of Chicago and Raveling attracting guys out of Michigan was just a magic trick? Well it seem to me then that all Fran has to do is go to school and learn to be a magician and "POOF" the recruits will suddenly appear.
Not trying to be combative, but I am trying to remember, were there any other "greats" out of Chicago that Lute got other than Ronnie Lester? I cannot think of any.
I think your problem is the school you are rooting for. Maybe Duke or UNC are more your type. Or maybe one of the Michigan schools...
No one was as great as Lester. According to Magic he was the best ever but he did get his slick handling and scoring back court mate Kenny Arnold from the area and Chicago area and Illinois high school hall of famer Steve Krafcisin who transferred from UNC. He also got the sweet shooting Vince Brookins out of Cleveland and they all played on the same team
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Off the top of my head, Kevin Boyle and Kenny Arnold were from Chicago. Lute was able to get Steve Carfino out of California.
Both were good, granted. I forgot about them. Carfino was good, too, but not from Chicago.
We got Toussaint so we need to see his impact and apparently his HS teammate (a quick stud) is interested in playing with Joe. We got a Brooklyn guy on staff. Focus there in NYC. I know neither guard is tall but Purdue did ok with short, quick athletic guards.
Is there some quota on white players that Fran has to meet? If Cook leaves pretty sure we will have 5 white guys on the floor a lot next year with the additions of PMac, Nunge and Frederick. Certainly see that helping out our athletic deficiencies.
The bar needs to be set at Wieskamp's level of athleticism. If they don't measure up and aren't a lights out shooter like Bohannon then pass. If an athletic guy never improves he still has raw athleticism to fall back on. So far our high basketball IQ and game management approach has netted 2 NCAA wins in 9 years. I opt for changing approaches and see what adding athletes to the roster does for us.
And listen, you can use the “9 years” if you want, but it’s completely disingenuous and manipulating stats to fit your argument. Fran walked in lot a steaming pile of crap in a competitive conference in a low talent state.
Don’t you think using the past 6 or maybe 7 years is a more reasonable measuring point of expectations going forward?
Don’t you think using the past 6 or maybe 7 years is a more reasonable measuring point of expectations going forward?
Not sure what you are referring to as there has been 9 years of precedence for Fran not connecting the dots. Why does Iowa struggle against tough man D? Why does Iowa grind offensively while getting torched defensively? Why is it so easy to neutralize Iowa's guards? This isn't because Fran has too many athletes on the floor. Case in point this season with Bohannon getting smothered while nobody else is capable of stepping up.
His absolute ceiling is one win every 3 or 4 years? Weird being that Iowa has two NCAA wins in the last four complete seasons. Mostly NIT crap? Also strange knowing that Iowa has been to the NIT once in the last five years.
In 2015 there were no instate kids seemed worthy of an offer so we recruited extensively out of state, going after athletes.
That class was so bad that it put us in the position we are in now.
Ahhh that had little to do with where kids were from and everything to do with Fran and his staff not being capable of evaluating talent. I doubt you could find another program that matched Fran's inept recruiting for the class you reference. "Those kids" were not paid well to recruit and evaluate talent. I thought this was a veteran staff of basketball junkies.
