Fran McCaffery not planning on retiring anytime soon
- Thread starter Franisdaman
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Any chance hiring a defensive coordinator or giving minutes to point guards would be too much to ask?
Full text of tweet:
Fran McCaffery asked how he and Tom Izzo, who have been in the profession a long time, continue to stay on top of their jobs:
"We don't know anything else. We got into coaching right out of college and grinded our way up in the coaching profession. And being around young people on a daily basis keeps you young... We come in and we try to figure out how we're gonna try to get better. How are we going to get each individual better? How are we going to get our team better? How are we going to prepare for our next opponent? What are we doing in recruiting? How are our guys doing academically? Is there anybody struggling? Is there anybody that needs help? Is there anything going on in their lives that might need to be addressed? And then you just continue to go to work. And it sorta never ends. Even when the season ends, the job doesn't change... We enjoy it. Tom loves it. He's really good at it."
Fran McCaffery asked how he and Tom Izzo, who have been in the profession a long time, continue to stay on top of their jobs:
"We don't know anything else. We got into coaching right out of college and grinded our way up in the coaching profession. And being around young people on a daily basis keeps you young... We come in and we try to figure out how we're gonna try to get better. How are we going to get each individual better? How are we going to get our team better? How are we going to prepare for our next opponent? What are we doing in recruiting? How are our guys doing academically? Is there anybody struggling? Is there anybody that needs help? Is there anything going on in their lives that might need to be addressed? And then you just continue to go to work. And it sorta never ends. Even when the season ends, the job doesn't change... We enjoy it. Tom loves it. He's really good at it."
Next year looks bright and hopefully we can finish out this year with a bang! Go Hawks!
If he can land a couple of high recruits for the following year, Owen's jr & sr years could be very very good. Go get'em Frannie!
C’mon fellas. This isn't a great team. It's not a bad team. Everyone had to know this was a rebuilding year. If Perkins and Sandfort come back and Fran doesn't have to worry about minutes for his offspring, they could have a very good couple of years. Maybe even that Sweet Sixteen that everyone keeps pining for. Who's with me? 😀
Fran isn't walking away from his contract and Iowa isn't firing him and buying him out.
Personally, I am excited about Harding and Freeman.
Personally, I am excited about Harding and Freeman.
Apathy regarding Iowa men’s basketball will continue to grow the longer Fran continues to stay.
Exactly. He has roughly 9.5 million reasons to not retire. Who would?
He doesn't have to retire. Take a job elsewhere or an asst on his son's team. Has Jack committed anywhere yet?
Jack doesn't want to play for Fran. The entire family understands the scrutiny that coach's kids get put under isn't exclusively an Iowa thing.
Money isn't everything when you already have enough as Fran surely does. I was offered a very lucrative position but we were already in a good position financially and it meant a fair amount of travel and my priorities were different. I walked away and never regretted it.
I am with you time time to get MAD again
Only if he doesn't produce. I believe you can build a team around Freeman and Dix with transfer help. Every member of the fanbase is aware it's year 14 but all it takes is one season to get everyone back on board. If Beth doesn't push him out then it's on her to go balls to the wall.
If he can land a couple of high recruits for the following year, Owen's jr & sr years could be very very good. Go get'em Frannie!
Fran has offered 41 prospects for the 2025 class
Well it looks like I’m going to be apologizing profusely for some dogshit info.
Who can he close on is always the question. He offers a lot of guys every year just like most coaches.
Not quite. That would have been really hard considering it was a long time ago. I need to noodle on that one. At the same time it's all relative. If Fran has let's say $20 million today, another $7 mill (after taxes) isn't going to change his life. I've been very fortunate in business and in life. There is nothing I want that I can't buy and I have no concerns about leaving my kids in a good place. If someone offered me several million to work the next 3 years I would probably say no thanks. I have other priorities.You turned down $9.5 million?
I think Jack has said he wants out of Iowa City and with the accidental death he was involved in, makes a lot of sense. That doesn't mean Fran couldn't go to a mid major and there he could play his kid and his kid probably would be one of the best players on the team. It will be interesting to see how Jack's career goes...he's supposedly the most talented, but he won't have his Dad guaranteeing PT and he'll have to earn it. He's going to have to have to play a lot better defense than PMac or be a better shooter to get a lot of PT at a good P5 school. He's mentioned Notre Dame and that would be a competitive situation for PT.
We are going to need some guards for next year.
Tony and PMac have indicated they won't be back next year.
As of now, we have 11 scholarship players on the roster for next season, where Dasonte (assuming he's back) & Brock are the only true PGs.
As of now: 3 guards & 8 forwards/centers on next season's roster.
And I would argue we only have 1 guard who can shoot well from distance (Dix).
Freshmen
6'7" PF Cooper Koch
6'8" PF Chris Tadjo
Sophomores
6'10" C Owen Freeman
6'0" PG Brock Harding
6'7" PF Pryce Sandfort
6'8" PF Ladji Dembele
Juniors
6'3" PG Dasonte Bowen
6'5" SG Josh Dix
6'11" C Riley Mulvey-- on Nov 13, 2023 it was announced that Riley was redshirting the 2023-2024 season. He was originally scheduled to graduate in 2025
Seniors
6'7" F Payton Sandfort
6'9" F/C Even Brauns
That’s fine but he needs to get serious about the portal, Krikke notwithstanding. Needs to play the game.
Any chance Jack changes his mind? Butler, Bryant, Wake Forest, and Virginia Tech aren’t a bad offer list, but it seems like the only thing they have over Iowa is that he wouldn’t be playing for his dad. And maybe that is his and the family’s priority.
Yep, No one cares about top half finishes anymore.
He'd have to do something in the tournament to get people excited again.
And to do something in the tournament would probably require a change in his approach.
Almost every major college football and basketball coach eventually walks away from money, unless they get fired. Nick Saban left more than $70 million on table by leaving Alabama when he did. You always want to have your coach with several years left on his contract, for recruiting purposes. You almost never see a coach stay to the end of his contract. Tom Davis is one exception. I don’t know of any others.
Fran may or may not walk away from Iowa at some point. But you can be sure that money will have very little to do with it.
You need money to play the game. Right now, that’s the problem.
It's kind of a rebuilding year but 4 of the 6 primary guys are upperclassman and 2 or 3 might be gone.
Owen and Dix progressed quite a bit but if Tony's gone it will still be a largely inexperienced team next year.
His Siena teams average defensive efficiency ranking was 116th in KenPom.
At Iowa, his teams have averaged 107th in KenPom.
Notably, the defense was significantly improved for the four years Gesell and Woodbury were at Iowa. In those years, Iowa's average was 41st. In Fran's other 10 years at Iowa, the average has been 133rd.
On May 10, 2023, SWARM CEO Brad Heinrichs explained why they currently are unable to support the men's basketball program like they need to.
Fran has embraced SWARM but there's only so much money to go around & SWARM clearly has earmarked a lot of their resources for the football program (look at the haul of football transfers that they brought in).
As a result, Iowa men's basketball is having a hard time competing against "basketball schools" and against schools that don't have a football program (where collectives spend more or all on basketball).
Fran gets criticized a lot for not landing highly rated prospects but the lack of money that the SWARM can offer has made his job that much harder.
If Tony stays and we lose Krikke and Pmac we'll be fine. I know everyone thinks we need guards (and we will if Tony leaves) but after Freeman the cupboard is really bare down low. Dembele has the body but needs to improve drastically to make himself a high minutes player. Maybe Fran strikes gold again with one of the 2 players coming in next year?
