[I have been avoiding this and most message boards since Illinois' colossally disappointing loss to Loyola ... too much other stuff going on to take my beatings online from anonymous A-holes, too!]
I lived in Iowa for a long time and have a LOT of Hawkeyes friends, so I follow Iowa basketball fairly closely. I just cannot make up my mind about Fran. On one hand, he's taken Iowa basketball to a spot where - in terms of national relevance - it has not been for MANY years, and that's even more impressive considering the sorry state of the program during the Lick years. Even with a "Fran Fade" in some of those years, Iowa has had a lot of teams ranked in the top 25 for stretches, and they were a bona fide "top 10 team" this past year. On the other hand, he has been there for a very long time, and I think it's totally fair to wonder if he's near his ceiling, especially without some new assistant to drastically improve recruiting.
So, the question really becomes what Iowa fans expect. Illinois fans quite simply want/expect SOME coach to win us a National Championship. We are pretty easily (by metrics) the best program all-time to never have won it, and our fairly impressive regular season history as a program has depressingly little to show for itself come March Madness ... so that is the goal. Plain and simple. We're realistic enough to know that can't be a YEARLY goal, but that is the END goal, always, with a baseline of consistently ranked teams that are in the upper half of the Big Ten and able to threaten a deep NCAAs run every 3-4 years. Given the resources/potential at Illinois, I think that's a fair goal, but it's also why our fan base can come across as "delusional" or "insecure" or "crazy" to those that don't like the Illini.
Having lived in Iowa City, I PERSONALLY have perceived somewhat of a divide between fans that see no reason Iowa couldn't do whatever a school like Wisconsin could do and fans who practically take pride in the fact that "little ole Iowa" is as consistently good as it is in both major sports, given the lack of instate talent and whatnot (i.e., they don't expect much more). I happen to be in the middle. While Iowa might not enjoy as many "natural advantages" on paper (for basketball) as a school like Illinois or Maryland or something, that type of thing seems to matter less and less these days. An elite recruiter can ABSOLUTELY get top recruits to go play for a good Iowa program in a great B1G college town like Iowa City if recruiters have proven to be able to do the same for places like Ames, IA or Manhattan, KS. Wouldn't you have to think that if Fran can't sort of "reload" with some very talented freshmen over the next few years to get back to this level, his seat would start to get warm? Obviously, a Garza is a once in a lifetime player, but Iowa fans are passionately reengaged with the program, and I wouldn't think they would tolerate dropping back down out of the top of the conference for too many years in a row.
