HONEST QUESTION: Will Iowa get a serviceable 5 in the transfer portal?
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Creighton is a private school with NO football team. It's not a better job than Iowa unless someone wants to live in that armpit known as Nebraska. It's perfect for their current coach.
Also, the kid is from Nebraska and stated that he was happy to find a new spot so close to home.
Creighton is in a basketball power conference as well. Let's not act like they're still in the Missouri Valley. They go up against Villanova, UCONN, Providence, etc twice a year. They have very wealthy alumni with a religious institution that really cares about basketball in the Jesuits (Gonzaga, St Mary's, Xavier, Georgetown, etc). And as you mentioned, they only have basketball to care about. Just yesterday on the CBS CBB podcast, Matt Norlander said that the teams without a football program are succeeding exceptionally well in the NIL space because they don't have to try and divvy up funds across multiple sports.
I believe that the answer is yes……like the B10 tournament before this last year….it’ll happen.
VA Tech, Minnesota and South Carolina also wanted that undersized guy with no compensatory athleticism, too. And he did pretty well for his first year. Not great, but he did ok. I expect he'll do better next fall.
The transfer portal has been around for 3.5 years. In those 3.5 years Iowa will have landed 3 players (assuming one arrives this year). I fail to see how that is unsuccessful. Planning a roster around transfers isn't the way to build any sort of long term success. I'm also not sure how you can simultaneously say Rebraca had few power five options and paint him as a miss while stating in your next paragraph that Fran should be able to get kids from mid majors or dumpster fire P5 programs. If a transfer isn't better than the the incumbent then you'd be able to claim another failure. I'm not sure I follow any of the logic in your post at all.
Creighton has been a solid basketball school for over 50 years. I used to watch them when they had Paul Silas and Chuck Officer (you've heard of the first, probably not the second). Drew big crowds. Still do.
And although it hurts a little to say so, because I grew up 20 miles from Omaha and used to make fun of it regularly, it's turned into a hell of a nice town. Not the part where Creighton is located, but in general.
No football. That says a lot.
Abd I suppose you would think Omaha is a nice town compared to Ames, yeah.
🤣
I’m a Creighton grad…..same floor as Gene Harmon, Ralph Bobek, Bimbo Pietro etc. Always good basketball there, but grew up with Ralph Miller and Hawkeyes. My allegiance always goes black and gold.
People are in for a shock, Omaha is growing like crazy and has always had good bones for becoming a major metro area. The real estate in the area was exploding even during the pandemic years and hasn't slowed down.
One thing holding Omaha back is that it has sucky suburbs. There’s Bellevue and that’s pretty much it. Omaha all but wants to disown Council Bluffs.
That is on Josh. Whether it is his health, or work ethic, I do not know...
Josh O in August last year was not the same Josh O in March. At least a 30lb difference. What happened there...?
Illness, and it isn't a secret. But carry on.
As long as Fran is unwilling to recruit from the portal players that could possible be better then the players he has on scholarship, Iowa will not advance past the first week of the tournament under Fran. Loyalty has it's faults.
Rebraca was a player of need with Garza graduating and Ogundele and Mulvey not ready for prime time. Still there was probably centers taller, better on offensive and defensive then Rebraca last year in the portal, but Fran took the player that would not hinder the development of the Murray brothers or Patrick. Rebraca did get better has the season dragged on as did Evelyn but neither of those two were difference makers in the long run.
I don't follow the thinking on Fran being unwilling to recruit portal guys that are better than current players. Of the number of post players Iowa has been after, it appears that everyone of them could be, or would be, better than Rebraca.
I don't think that Rebraca had anything to do with the development of the Murray's or Patrick....but I may be missing the point completely (I am very capable of missing a point being made).
I think that Fran is careful on who he selects/pursues in the portal or in recruiting in general. In the end I think he takes whoever meets his selection criteria and is interested in coming to Iowa.
I don't follow the unwilling part either. Without being a part of the coaching staff how can you possibly say they are unwilling? Is there a chance that said players aren't interested in Iowa? Sometimes I think people believe the transfer portal is like a menu and a team can just order and receive whatever player they like. As with recruiting, Iowa isn't always the first or second choice for everyone.
Iowa has recruited centers from the portal who were better than what Iowa has - what are you talking about? This year losing out to Texas Tech and Ole Miss isn't exactly "not recruiting", especially when the playing field is not level. Last year Iowa was in on Robbins until he followed his uncle. Was that Iowa's fault?
For being unwilling participants, it sure seems as though McCaffery and his staff do everything legally in their power to convince these players to visit and then sign on to Iowa. If for some reason, they think the "grass" is greener at other locations, then Iowa is going to have to revise their approach to NIL.
I wouldn't say unwilling to use the portal. There seems to be enough anecdotal information that there is at least some effort on Fran's part.
What I could agree with is that Fran's use of the portal so far hasn't been terribly successful from a player performance perspective. Rebraca is an out of position 4 who would be fine as a 7th or 8th guy off the bench at that spot, but doesn't really move the needle at the 5. Evelyn was OK as a deeper bench reserve. That's not a lot out of the portal.
One thing I wonder about with Fran and the portal is the same thing I have questions about with Kirk. That is, what are the self imposed limitations that they are setting up when looking at potential transfer players. How wide or narrow the parameters are can make a big difference in the pool they are selecting from.
This isn't an argument for opening things so wide that anyone and everyone, like those with active criminal investigations, are on the targeted list. But there could be room to cast a wider net.
What I could agree with is that Fran's use of the portal so far hasn't been terribly successful from a player performance perspective. Rebraca is an out of position 4 who would be fine as a 7th or 8th guy off the bench at that spot, but doesn't really move the needle at the 5. Evelyn was OK as a deeper bench reserve. That's not a lot out of the portal.
One thing I wonder about with Fran and the portal is the same thing I have questions about with Kirk. That is, what are the self imposed limitations that they are setting up when looking at potential transfer players. How wide or narrow the parameters are can make a big difference in the pool they are selecting from.
This isn't an argument for opening things so wide that anyone and everyone, like those with active criminal investigations, are on the targeted list. But there could be room to cast a wider net.
Iowa previously had a Center from the portal visit, that came down to Iowa and Ole Miss...he didn't choose Iowa BUT he never even considered ISU.....
CU is a better BB job than Iowa.
Huge wealthy alum group that average close to 20k in attendance in a great arena for BB.
Big East is strictly a BB league with strong TV package in urban locations which is where urban recruits want play.
McDermott can recruit nationally in urban areas and not have to tackle cornfield myths.
And they have a rich NIL program in place that bought them their latest big transfer from So.Dakota St.
Huge wealthy alum group that average close to 20k in attendance in a great arena for BB.
Big East is strictly a BB league with strong TV package in urban locations which is where urban recruits want play.
McDermott can recruit nationally in urban areas and not have to tackle cornfield myths.
And they have a rich NIL program in place that bought them their latest big transfer from So.Dakota St.
Still waiting...and if you were thinking it was Basile, he's off the table now. ISU's time-frame is shrinking fast and they lost a hell of a lot.
I would guess he means Osun Osunniyi, who reportedly visited recently. Haven't heard much more,
I know he mentioned that a year ago he didn't know if he would be able to play basketball. But that was not last fall.
Here's an article from last November where McC says that Josh is recovering from illness and injury: https://www.hawkcentral.com/story/s...-josh-ogundele-through-five-games/8668611002/
I read a quote from Josh where he said that he thought he might have to quit playing because of health reasons. I will post that if find it.
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Fran has his faults, for sure. But not going after top talent is not one of them. You can question the results, that's certainly fair, but to question the effort Fran puts into recruiting is ridiculous.
There’s also Papillion, La Vista, and probably the most wealthy being Elkhorn. I had no clue to all of this either, but recently have spent time in the area and came away surprised as heck. Cannot disagree about Council Bluffs, its status is really odd.
I suppose calling Omaha's suburbs 'sucky' is a bit unfair (though I think one can safely call CB 'sucky'), but I don't think calling them 'underwhelming' is unfair. Bellevue is Omaha's one true large suburb that's still fairly nice, and Papillion is getting there, but most of the rest of Omaha's suburbs are historically small, sleepy towns that suddenly found themselves on Omaha's doorstep.
And for what it's worth, Elkhorn isn't a suburb per se, it's technically a neighborhood of Omaha. I believe a big reason why Omaha doesn't have a lot of suburbs is because Omaha itself is growing fairly rapidly, and this is done by acquiring hundreds of acres of land on a fairly regular basis. Omaha could potentially have remained its 1990 size of 350K and have 5 or 7 extra suburbs, but I suppose the people living in the formerly unincorporated tracts of land preferred to become Omaha residents instead of incorporating the new municipality of say, East Omaha.
