It isn’t about one game or even one season, right?

[RagnarLothbrok]

Surely, there is near unanimous agreement that certain things will never improve under Fran.

At this point, apathy is just so high. I’m not a huge basketball fan but even I can see Fran’s MO of wanting to play an NBA style game with slow, lanky white guys with minimal athleticism or toughness is not a winning formula.

No defense and no athleticism = no success in March. Rinse and repeat. That is Fran ball. He has to be done after this season, right?

 

[QChawks]

The program is stale

The fans know it to, and it shows in the attendance

 

[Heathen Raider]

Surely, there is near unanimous agreement that certain things will never improve under Fran.

At this point, apathy is just so high. I’m not a huge basketball fan but even I can see Fran’s MO of wanting to play an NBA style game with slow, lanky white guys with minimal athleticism or toughness is not a winning formula.

No defense and no athleticism = no success in March. Rinse and repeat. That is Fran ball. He has to be done after this season, right?

White has nothing to do about it race baiter , it is not teaching defense, rebounding and not playing to Your Teams abilities , Wisconsin made Yearly runs as many other Teams have with White majority rosters so did Dr Tom , Some of Iowa's best all time Players have been white. Take the race hate out of Your pathetic arguments and shove em up Your ass, it is bad Coaching not the color of a Player skin moron .

 

[dekhawk]

It’s year 14. One big tournament championship and that’s basically it.

 

[fivecardstud14]

White has nothing to do about it race baiter , it is not teaching defense, rebounding and not playing to Your Teams abilities , Wisconsin made Yearly runs as many other Teams have with White majority rosters so did Dr Tom , Some of Iowa's best all time Players have been white. Take the race hate out of Your pathetic arguments and shove em up Your ass, it is bad Coaching not the color of a Player skin moron .

While this provided plenty of laughs, I can only scratch my head at how you choose what words to capitalize.

 

[curtisj157]

White has nothing to do about it race baiter , it is not teaching defense, rebounding and not playing to Your Teams abilities , Wisconsin made Yearly runs as many other Teams have with White majority rosters so did Dr Tom , Some of Iowa's best all time Players have been white. Take the race hate out of Your pathetic arguments and shove em up Your ass, it is bad Coaching not the color of a Player skin moron .

It absolutely has something to do with it!! Only 5-10 of the top 100 high school basketball players each year are white!!! If you consistently recruit in ranked, 3* white guys, you get a MAC level basketball team each year. That is where we are…a MAC team. You can count on one hand the number of white McDonalds All-American high school basketball players over the past ten years. Just like if you’re recruiting a swim team, you better stick with skinny white guys.

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

White has nothing to do about it race baiter , it is not teaching defense, rebounding and not playing to Your Teams abilities , Wisconsin made Yearly runs as many other Teams have with White majority rosters so did Dr Tom , Some of Iowa's best all time Players have been white. Take the race hate out of Your pathetic arguments and shove em up Your ass, it is bad Coaching not the color of a Player skin moron .

Lol.

Derp.

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

It absolutely has something to do with it!! Only 5-10 of the top high school basketball players each year are white!!! If you consistently recruit in ranked, 3* white guys, you get a MAC level basketball team each year. That is where we are…a MAC team. You can count on one hand the number of white McDonalds All-American high school basketball players over the past ten years. Just like if you’re recruiting a swim team, you better stick with skinny white guys.

Well, yeah, this is all true.

Funny thing is I was more focused on the lankiness and lack of athleticism. It’s just a correct observation most of them are white.

Raider needs a chill pill.

 

[Underscore2]

It absolutely has something to do with it!! Only 5-10 of the top high school basketball players each year are white!!! If you consistently recruit in ranked, 3* white guys, you get a MAC level basketball team each year. That is where we are…a MAC team. You can count on one hand the number of white McDonalds All-American high school basketball players over the past ten years. Just like if you’re recruiting a swim team, you better stick with skinny white guys.

This team could be NCAA bound, with these players, under a good coach. There are enough pieces. Yes the recruiting is not great under Fran, but with some noticble exceptions. Nothing to do with race at all I agree.

 

[uihawk82]

Surely, there is near unanimous agreement that certain things will never improve under Fran.

At this point, apathy is just so high. I’m not a huge basketball fan but even I can see Fran’s MO of wanting to play an NBA style game with slow, lanky white guys with minimal athleticism or toughness is not a winning formula.

No defense and no athleticism = no success in March. Rinse and repeat. That is Fran ball. He has to be done after this season, right?

I have always been a huge Iowa BBall fan and watcher since about 1963. I stayed up until about 1 AM to listen the the hawks and George Peeples upset #1 ucla in Chicago, iirc. Zabel of the call.

But Miller's teams were awesome and played defense. Jump a few years to Lute who demanded defense. The hawks stayed good after Lute and very good at times. Not a huge alford fan but his teams were good. The Lick years were a throw away like the early 1970's.

Fran, well Fran has exciting offense but the total lack of defense, lack of recruiting just ONE top flight point guard in all these years, it just has made me hardly watch them until February. Even with Garza and the Murray brothers hawk football overwhelmed Bball until mid Jan.

And then all of Fran's teams post season failures.

I personnally still think the regular season Big Ten title is worth much more that the tourney title. Fran is hardly ever close to winning the regular season title and the number of Feb-March collapses is rough.

Apathy for me.

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

I have always been a huge Iowa BBall fan and watcher since about 1963. I stayed up until about 1 AM to listen the the hawks and George Peeples upset #1 ucla in Chicago, iirc. Zabel of the call.

But Miller's teams were awesome and played defense. Jump a few years to Lute who demanded defense. The hawks stayed good after Lute and very good at times. Not a huge alford fan but his teams were good. The Lick years were a throw away like the early 1970's.

Fran, well Fran has exciting offense but the total lack of defense, lack of recruiting just ONE top flight point guard in all these years, it just has made me hardly watch them until February. Even with Garza and the Murray brothers hawk football overwhelmed Bball until mid Jan.

And then all of Fran's teams post season failures.

I personnally still think the regular season Big Ten title is worth much more that the tourney title. Fran is hardly ever close to winning the regular season title and the number of Feb-March collapses is rough.

Apathy for me.

Yeah, I agree with the apathy. I’m a casual basketball fan, but even I would take more of an interest if Fran teams didn’t have the same failures year in and year out.

No program is perfect and every coaching tenure will have ebbs and flows, but Fran Iowa teams are consistently atrocious in the aspects of the game you need to be good at to have any hope of postseason success. And at this point it’s painstakingly obvious Fran either can’t or won’t 1) recruit players capable of playing defense and/or 2) developing/coaching players to play defense at a high level. It’s just baffling how every season Iowa is trash at defense, has minimal athleticism, and possesses no toughness whatsoever. None.

It’s time for new blood after this season. Fourteen seasons of Fran ball is enough.

 

[83Hawk]

Yeah, I agree with the apathy. I’m a casual basketball fan, but even I would take more of an interest if Fran teams didn’t have the same failures year in and year out.

No program is perfect and every coaching tenure will have ebbs and flows, but Fran Iowa teams are consistently atrocious in the aspects of the game you need to be good at to have any hope of postseason success. And at this point it’s painstakingly obvious Fran either can’t or won’t 1) recruit players capable of playing defense and/or 2) developing/coaching players to play defense at a high level. It’s just baffling how every season Iowa is trash at defense, has minimal athleticism, and possesses no toughness whatsoever. None.

It’s time for new blood after this season. Fourteen seasons of Fran ball is enough.

Iowa fans are a curious lot. "Good enough" is good enough. Sure, there are some fans that want more, but Bernie and Hazel down on the farm or in Pig Stench, Iowa population 5,246, are so afraid that any change will mean a return to Lickliter-level awfulness, they are perfectly happy with the status quo.

 

[DewHawk]

Surely, there is near unanimous agreement that certain things will never improve under Fran.

At this point, apathy is just so high. I’m not a huge basketball fan but even I can see Fran’s MO of wanting to play an NBA style game with slow, lanky white guys with minimal athleticism or toughness is not a winning formula.

No defense and no athleticism = no success in March. Rinse and repeat. That is Fran ball. He has to be done after this season, right?

Unfortunately, I do not think this will be his last year. But I personally, do not have any information either way.

I certainly agree nothing will ever change with McCaffery as head coach. He is totally blind and/or ignores his areas of incompetence.

 

[JRHawk2003]

My thoughts (and I think a lot of Iowa fans have the same)

- Thanks Fran for pulling out Iowa out of the Lickliter hole. Made Iowa respectable again.
- Fran wont change his system when its proven statistically that his type of system wont lead to NCAA success. You cant be offense only.
- Fran had two high level players and didnt sniff a Big 10 regular season title or Sweet 16 with either, and one of them is one of the NBA's young featured players now.
- After so much time fans can see the flaws and they get sick of it. Its time for him to go. Tom Izzo has been there forever, but has a bunch of FInal 4's!
- The fan apathy is high and they are voting with their feet.
- I really like Tony Perkins, he has played his ass off for us.

 

[TampaHawkfan]

I feel that we've seen the best that Fran is going to deliver. His program is solid but unspectacular. High floor, low ceiling. Some people will always say "Just wait! Good recruiting class coming in!" Sure. I remember clearly that some people thought Lickliter should have been given more time, for that same reason. Cody Larson will save us! Now it's Cooper Koch.

In the attendance thread from yesterday, the CHA year by year attendance numbers were posted. Fran got a good bump around the 2014-15 seasons, averaging nearly 15000 in 2014.. At that time, the program trajectory had been quickly climbing, and it seemed fans were excited again. Then, things leveled off, and so did the attendance. Here we are, averaging around 12K or so, for the last several years in a row now. Decent enough product to not totally empty the place like the Lickliter years, but the attendance, much like the program, has plateaued. Or stagnated, if you prefer. There just seems to be no buzz around the program anymore.

 

[TampaHawkfan]

And in response to the thread title, speaking for myself, it absolutely is not about 1 game or 1 season, with regard to my apathy. It's 35+ years with only one... ONE... Trip past the NCAA second round, and nothing in the 21st century. Simply making the NCAA tournament doesn't move the needle for me anymore. Could it be worse? To be sure. But, I need to see a solid tournament run to excite me as a fan once again.

For me, a strong regular season is nice, but it's the NCAA Tournament results that I really remember, both good and bad. NWST and Richmond put a stain on what were otherwise fun seasons.

I'm old enough to remember the excitement of the 1987 and 1988 tournament runs, and also the 1999 Sweet 16 game against Uconn, and also some of the heartbreak (eff UNLV!). Great fun, though. I want to experience that again. Nothing that happens in the regular season can match that IMO.

 

[uihawk82]

Yeah, I agree with the apathy. I’m a casual basketball fan, but even I would take more of an interest if Fran teams didn’t have the same failures year in and year out.

No program is perfect and every coaching tenure will have ebbs and flows, but Fran Iowa teams are consistently atrocious in the aspects of the game you need to be good at to have any hope of postseason success. And at this point it’s painstakingly obvious Fran either can’t or won’t 1) recruit players capable of playing defense and/or 2) developing/coaching players to play defense at a high level. It’s just baffling how every season Iowa is trash at defense, has minimal athleticism, and possesses no toughness whatsoever. None.

It’s time for new blood after this season. Fourteen seasons of Fran ball is enough.

The most successful coaches in the Big Ten going way back are Bobby Knight who was not shy about taking players out who made defensive mistakes. His teams, Gene Keady's teams, Izzo demands tough defense and Izzo's boss Judd Heathcote played that suffocating zone, 1-3-1 and 2-3 , all the time with very athletic players who just took it to the other team. Lute preached tough defense.

I guess I cant name too many of the latest coaches, Bo Ryan and Wisky coaches play tough defense even to the point of it being like hip and hand check roller derby.

 

[NI hawk]

It’s year 14. One big tournament championship and that’s basically it.

5 losses to double digit seeds in first game.

 

[cmhawks99]

White has nothing to do about it race baiter , it is not teaching defense, rebounding and not playing to Your Teams abilities , Wisconsin made Yearly runs as many other Teams have with White majority rosters so did Dr Tom , Some of Iowa's best all time Players have been white. Take the race hate out of Your pathetic arguments and shove em up Your ass, it is bad Coaching not the color of a Player skin moron .

Yes, the “unathletic” white guy part is meaningless, as Fran is pretty uniformly lifted up for his offense and his ability to teach it and play it and develop guys to play it….

Now the stale part is just fan stuff, I neither agree nor disagree, it’s all just what have you done lately BS…

If he leaves, I don’t care, if he stays I don’t care but my general mantra in recent years is hoping the Nebraska effect takes over for any fanbase who forces out a winning coach….

I think everyone should experience hitting rock-bottom if they’ve got to the point, they want to chase off a coach that wins more than he loses….

Incidentally don’t you and @RagnarLothbrok typically agree with each other or am I confused.

 

[LukaDuka]

It absolutely has something to do with it!! Only 5-10 of the top high school basketball players each year are white!!! If you consistently recruit in ranked, 3* white guys, you get a MAC level basketball team each year. That is where we are…a MAC team. You can count on one hand the number of white McDonalds All-American high school basketball players over the past ten years. Just like if you’re recruiting a swim team, you better stick with skinny white guys.

The top recruit this year is white, so there's that....

 

[LukaDuka]

I have always been a huge Iowa BBall fan and watcher since about 1963. I stayed up until about 1 AM to listen the the hawks and George Peeples upset #1 ucla in Chicago, iirc. Zabel of the call.

But Miller's teams were awesome and played defense. Jump a few years to Lute who demanded defense. The hawks stayed good after Lute and very good at times. Not a huge alford fan but his teams were good. The Lick years were a throw away like the early 1970's.

Fran, well Fran has exciting offense but the total lack of defense, lack of recruiting just ONE top flight point guard in all these years, it just has made me hardly watch them until February. Even with Garza and the Murray brothers hawk football overwhelmed Bball until mid Jan.

And then all of Fran's teams post season failures.

I personnally still think the regular season Big Ten title is worth much more that the tourney title. Fran is hardly ever close to winning the regular season title and the number of Feb-March collapses is rough.

Apathy for me.

The Big 10 tourney title is an automatic bid to the dance, so there's room for debate there.

 

[Hawk_4shur]

Iowa fans are a curious lot. "Good enough" is good enough. Sure, there are some fans that want more, but Bernie and Hazel down on the farm or in Pig Stench, Iowa population 5,246, are so afraid that any change will mean a return to Lickliter-level awfulness, they are perfectly happy with the status quo.

I'm not sure why you say that - judging by the attendance year in and year out, "good enough" is not good enough. Right now Iowa fans don't care enough about Iowa basketball to get too worked up over it.

 

[LukaDuka]

Yes, the “unathletic” white guy part is meaningless, as Fran is pretty uniformly lifted up for his offense and his ability to teach it and play it and develop guys to play it….

Now the stale part is just fan stuff, I neither agree or disagree, it’s all just what have you done lately BS…

If he leaves, I don’t care, if he stays I don’t care but my general mantra in recent years is hoping the Nebraska effect takes over for any fanbase who forces out a winning coach….

I think everyone should experience hitting rock-bottom if they’ve got to the point, they want to chase off a coach that wins more than he loses….

Incidentally don’t you and @RagnarLothbrok typically agree with each other or am I confused.

Tradjo replaces PMac next year. Instant upgrade on quickness, defense & rebounding.

 

[cmhawks99]

The most successful coaches in the Big Ten going way back are Bobby Knight who was not shy about taking players out who made defensive mistakes. His teams, Gene Keady's teams, Izzo demands tough defense and Izzo's boss Judd Heathcote played that suffocating zone, 1-3-1 and 2-3 , all the time with very athletic players who just took it to the other team. Lute preached tough defense.

I guess I cant name too many of the latest coaches, Bo Ryan and Wisky coaches play tough defense even to the point of it being like hip and hand check roller derby.

Quite true….incidentally how many NCs did Keadey win and Izzo has won one in 20 years. I’m surprise he hasn’t been chased off…

I’m beginning to question why any coach would ever stay in the same place for more than five years… If you think about it if you’re not winning conference championships and NCs eventually people think they can do better with a new coach…

I’d stay ahead of that…

 

[cmhawks99]

Tradjo replaces PMac next year. Instant upgrade on quickness, defense & rebounding.

I do agree with that

 

[cmhawks99]

I'm not sure why you say that - judging by the attendance year in and year out, "good enough" is not good enough. Right now Iowa fans don't care enough about Iowa basketball to get too worked up over it.

He honestly is a shithead… He’s toned it down quite a bit this last year but that’s just his MO. He thinks if people aren’t rip roaring mad as hell and yelling on a message board about it, they are apathetic & “don’t care”….

There’s a major difference between being compassionate and empathetic and understanding of circumstances and change…

I will tell you for his sake I would be perfectly fine with Fran leaving and us returning to Lickliter type status. He is one I would take joy in seeing him get what he wants….

Honestly, I have never been the same level of basketball fan as I was since the Internet came about…

They ran off Tom Davis, which I guess I was mostly OK with that, then they hired Alford who had some decent seasons and then the fan blow up on that PP incident and the gross fallout from all that followed by TL. I just don’t care about basketball like I used to & fans are the biggest part of that….

As I’ve already said, my hope, is that every fanbase that runs off winning coaches gets the Nebraska effect for the next 10+ years…

And I say that with absolutely no love for Fran, McCaffrey I’m sure he’s a decent enough guy, as players and people in the industry seem to really like him, but he’s a boorish ass on the sidelines and it is frustrating knowing his teams can’t guard a fire… But still these fans are over the top at this point in time!

So I enjoy them firing, decent coaches, and falling backwards!

 

[Hawk_4shur]

I have always been a huge Iowa BBall fan and watcher since about 1963. I stayed up until about 1 AM to listen the the hawks and George Peeples upset #1 ucla in Chicago, iirc. Zabel of the call.

But Miller's teams were awesome and played defense. Jump a few years to Lute who demanded defense. The hawks stayed good after Lute and very good at times. Not a huge alford fan but his teams were good. The Lick years were a throw away like the early 1970's.

Fran, well Fran has exciting offense but the total lack of defense, lack of recruiting just ONE top flight point guard in all these years, it just has made me hardly watch them until February. Even with Garza and the Murray brothers hawk football overwhelmed Bball until mid Jan.

And then all of Fran's teams post season failures.

I personnally still think the regular season Big Ten title is worth much more that the tourney title. Fran is hardly ever close to winning the regular season title and the number of Feb-March collapses is rough.

Apathy for me.

Yeah, apathy for me as well.. But if you look objectively at Iowa basketball since the 50's, the overall results haven' really been a lot better than Fran's years. Sure, 69-70 was amazing, as was 79-80 and 86-87 (3 different coaches) Iowa hasn't done a lot in basketball.

BTW, that fabulous 69-70 team that averaged over 100 points without the 3 pt shot? They gave up more than 95 points 6 times, and more than 85 points 14 times. They simply outscored teams.

Alford's teams weren't very good. His career record in the B1G is 61-67. Fran is 115-109.

Iowa has been to the Sweet 16 or beyond 6 times since 1956 - almost 70 years.

But, I'm ready to see if the next guy can do better.

 

[uihawk82]

The Big 10 tourney title is an automatic bid to the dance, so there's room for debate there.

If your team wins the 18 or 20 game regular season title you are going dancing 100% and maybe with a better seed.

 

[cmhawks99]

Yeah, apathy for me as well.. But if you look objectively at Iowa basketball since the 50's, the overall results haven' really been a lot better than Fran's years. Sure, 69-70 was amazing, as was 79-80 and 86-87 (3 different coaches) Iowa hasn't done a lot in basketball.

BTW, that fabulous 69-70 team that averaged over 100 points without the 3 pt shot? They gave up more than 95 points 6 times, and more than 85 points 14 times. They simply outscored teams.

Alford's teams weren't very good. His career record in the B1G is 61-67. Fran is 115-109.

Iowa has been to the Sweet 16 or beyond 6 times since 1956 - almost 70 years.

But, I'm ready to see if the next guy can do better.

Bingo on ALL ACCOUNTS…. I’m OK with something different… But I see things for what they are. Most of our fans do not. And I don’t care if it’s football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, etc. etc..

Quite frankly of all the sports, where it would seem normal for them to be mad as hell is wrestling, and they have been afforded the most grace…

Until recently, I do see that TOM and Terry are getting talked about negatively a little bit more than they were, but they won 15+ championships in a 20-25 year period and now…

These fans act like we have a glorious history of conference and national championships in these other sports…It’s irritating as hell, and quite frankly, we really both want the same thing I just get tired of their ungratefulness & perspective….🤷‍♂️

 

[Hawk_4shur]

Bingo on ALL ACCOUNTS…. I’m OK with something different… But I see things for what they are. Most of our fans do not. And I don’t care if it’s football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, etc. etc..

Quite frankly of all the sports, where it would seem normal for them to be mad as hell is wrestling, and they have been afforded the most grace…

Until recently, I do see that TOM and Terry are getting talked about negatively a little bit more than they were, but they won 15+ championships in a 20-25 year period and now…

These fans act like we have a glorious history of conference and national championships in these other sports…It’s irritating as hell, and quite frankly, we really both want the same thing I just get tired of their ungratefulness & perspective….🤷‍♂️

Yessir. Iowa has had 7 coaches since 1970 (54 years). Only 2 of them has a better record in B1G play than Fran. That would be Tom Davis and Lute Olsen. The other 4 (Lick, Alford, Schultz, Raveling) coached 18 seasons and had a combined record of 122-170 (.417). Fran is .513.

No, Fran is not the greatest coach ever, nor is he the worst. Lots of room in between.

As they say though, next man in!

 

[cmhawks99]

Yessir. Iowa has had 7 coaches since 1970 (54 years). Only 2 of them has a better record in B1G play than Fran. That would be Tom Davis and Lute Olsen. The other 4 (Lick, Alford, Schultz, Raveling) coached 18 seasons and had a combined record of 122-170 (.417). Fran is .513.

No, Fran is not the greatest coach ever, nor is he the worst. Lots of room in between.

As they say though, next man in!

Really when I think about it, it’s a human nature, where we are now in society thing for me…..

Nobody looks around, looks up, looks down and thinks before they say some of the stupid shit they say….

If Iowa state chased off a solid, but not spectacular, Coach, which, honestly, Matt doesn’t have quite the same love affair with the fans as he used to, but the point being… We would laugh at them for chasing off by far the best coach they really have ever had…

At least in this extended period of time anyway .

They laugh @ Nebraska fans for chasing off 9-win Bo Pelini, and yet there they are. 10 years later still not recovered.

They somehow think we are immune to that and it’s irritating enough that I’ve got to the point I’m just gonna sit back and see what happens… and if we get even better, bully for me. If we get worse I’ll shrug my shoulders and tell them they got what they deserved…

 

[ChiPackHawk]

It absolutely has something to do with it!! Only 5-10 of the top high school basketball players each year are white!!! If you consistently recruit in ranked, 3* white guys, you get a MAC level basketball team each year. That is where we are…a MAC team. You can count on one hand the number of white McDonalds All-American high school basketball players over the past ten years. Just like if you’re recruiting a swim team, you better stick with skinny white guys.

I didn't realize "MAC level" teams make the tournament pretty regularly? Wisky and Purdue are pretty pasty too, I believe.

 

[83Hawk]

I'm not sure why you say that - judging by the attendance year in and year out, "good enough" is not good enough. Right now Iowa fans don't care enough about Iowa basketball to get too worked up over it.

I don't think the people who are likely to attend games in person are the same as the "average" Hawkeye fan. But that's just my opinion.

Even though I am apathetic towards the program right now, I'm not calling for Fran to be fired. Would I be upset if he moved on? No. Would I be upset if he stayed another 5 years with similar results? No. I'll just continue to not care.

 

[Barnbomber]

Tradjo replaces PMac next year. Instant upgrade on quickness, defense & rebounding.

It's only an upgrade if Fran plays him. I don't have confidence in Fran playing him in the right roll, seeing Tadjo is a defensive minded energy guy. Without a jump shot Fran will anchor him to the bench. It could very well be like Touissant where he gets pulled at the first mistake.

 

[3ZSDAD]

It absolutely has something to do with it!! Only 5-10 of the top high school basketball players each year are white!!! If you consistently recruit in ranked, 3* white guys, you get a MAC level basketball team each year. That is where we are…a MAC team. You can count on one hand the number of white McDonalds All-American high school basketball players over the past ten years. Just like if you’re recruiting a swim team, you better stick with skinny white guys.

How many McD burger boys has Purdue recruited. It's not about five stars, it is about having a system and recruiting to that system and having a culture. All things you could say Iowa football, wrestling and womens basketball has.

 

[HoustonREDHawk]

Surely, there is near unanimous agreement that certain things will never improve under Fran.

At this point, apathy is just so high. I’m not a huge basketball fan but even I can see Fran’s MO of wanting to play an NBA style game with slow, lanky white guys with minimal athleticism or toughness is not a winning formula.

No defense and no athleticism = no success in March. Rinse and repeat. That is Fran ball. He has to be done after this season, right?

Mostly agree, but some much more athletic guys gives us a little different kind of team next year, especially if Tony returns. Dembele and Tadjo are NOT typical Fran recruits.

 

[HawkLogic]

This team could be NCAA bound, with these players, under a good coach. There are enough pieces. Yes the recruiting is not great under Fran, but with some noticble exceptions. Nothing to do with race at all I agree.

Yeah, I think Fran is underachieving with this roster. Payton Sandfort is one of the best high volume 3pt shooters in B1G and has developed a pretty good turn around mid range shot. Perkins is almost All B1G level Dix is breaking out and plays defense. Freeman is Freshman of the year. That is a pretty solid 4....it is how Fran uses/misuses these guys that is the problem. Dix only played 22 min. Perk 31. Freeman played 26 and finished with 2 fouls, so fran sitting him for 12 min in 1st half while PSU made a big run was not a good move.

There are three guys in the top8 that are horrible defenders on the team. They happen to be white and lanky. Two of them don't put out 100% effort on defense/rebounding and aren't asked to play hard on defense/rebound by Fran based on the fact they play a lot.

 

[HawkLogic]

Yessir. Iowa has had 7 coaches since 1970 (54 years). Only 2 of them has a better record in B1G play than Fran. That would be Tom Davis and Lute Olsen. The other 4 (Lick, Alford, Schultz, Raveling) coached 18 seasons and had a combined record of 122-170 (.417). Fran is .513.

No, Fran is not the greatest coach ever, nor is he the worst. Lots of room in between.

As they say though, next man in!

Frans 51% winning percentage in B1G conference/BTT is not much better than Alford and really is just average/mediocre result. Alford won two BTT in 8 years. Fran 1 in 14 years.


You combined Schults and LIckliter who were both terrible and both quickly fired with Alford and Ravelling who weren't terrible coaches.


Raveling recruited the players that Davis took to Elite8...can't really rag on Raveling that he left before getting the benefit of Marble/Horton/Armstrong along with Gerry Wright and Gamble.


I would say Fran is around average for what historically has been done at Iowa. One thing is he has a high basement...not a lot of terrible years. On the otherhand he has a low ceiling....he did win 1 BTT title, but other 13 years he was usually out in game 1 and sometimes game2. NCAA tourney wise, same thing....often 1 and done and definitely gone by game2.

I think Fran's contract runs until 2028. Iowa should not be extending his contract. Maybe Fran leaves on his own to coach Jack at some Mid Major.

I personally think ISU fans have a better coach and better results than what Iowa has had with Fran.

 

[SDHawkDoc]

14 seasons is a long time to be at a power conference school with nothing in the way of NCAA tourney performance. I would think that's not good enough even for those who care more about the regular season record.

 

[cmhawks99]

How many McD burger boys has Purdue recruited. It's not about five stars, it is about having a system and recruiting to that system and having a culture. All things you could say Iowa football, wrestling and womens basketball has.

Great point, though it’s worth mentioning. PU & Wisconsin are better than us, but there are also two coaches, right there, whose fan bases, routinely complain about, and regularly want them fired..

So if the next guy can get us to PUs level I’m all for it…We’d probably have 5-ish years before fans wanted more…🤷‍♂️

And I’m not really even being snarky here… Quite frankly, I’m all for it and I will wonder again why we’re getting rid of this coach per se, although I am ridiculously tired of this basketball teams defensive efforts over the years…

We have had some pretty high-end talent, even some high-end NBA talent, and on some “other” teams, one hell of a player can make a scary team, and not very often are we really scary per se…

We’ve had some stretches where we were pretty awe inspiring, during Uthoffs last couple years & then with Garza Weiskamp & the Murray boys. We had some moments, but eventually we show up somewhere where we absolutely have to be able to get some consistent stops and we can’t….

On those 1 star teams, they usually have some defensive stoppers and some quickness and athleticism…

Who the hell has ever really been a “defensive stopper“ for us?!