The guy didn't even get on the team, weird situation, and no Iowa fans really wanted that problem. He was back home before he was even on the team. I do believe the guy turned his life around though and has been ok since his youth.
Jamari Sibley
- Thread starter GunnerHawk
- Start date
So clearly Fran has out-recruited his two immediate coaching predecessors, by a lot.
It's funny how a certain segment of our fanbase can't seem to come to grips with that reality.
His 2 predecessors sucked, so there is that. I like Fran but he does have to do a better job with recruiting and closing on some big recruits, we are not going to get to a final 4 with the guys he keeps pulling in, IMHO.
Go back and look at some Alford and Lick classes. Alford had as many signs never play a minute at Iowa as played a traditional 8 consecutive semester career. The Lick recruits speak for themselves.
We all want better players but McC has produced a better recruiting history, a much better recruiting trajectory and better results on the court than his two predecessors. Each of the predecessors left a much worse situation: Alford inherited a very solid B+ program coming off a Sweet 16. Lickliter inherited a program in freefall. McC had to clean off the corpse and fill in the hole where the freefall hit the parking lot before he could even begin selling good players on Iowa.
Alford inherited a junior Dean Oliver and that is it. Tom had 7 seniors to lead Iowa to the Sweet 16. If you recall, Settles finished his 12th year that year. Alford got Rob Griffin for sure and I really don't recall a lot of relevance beyond one year of Griffin and Oliver.
He said "program", not team/players. The program was in a great place following Lute, George and Dr. Tom. All are legends among basketball coaches. Alford dragged the program into the mud and Lickliter wallowed in it. All McC has done is bring it back to a respectable level. Still more mountain to climb.
As I've previously asked others, don't you think it is much easier to sell a recruit on a program coming off a Sweet 16 than the mess Alford left? Also, junior Dean Oliver and junior and starter on Alford's only NCAA winning team Duez Henderson.
Rob Griffin...the quintessential Alford recruit. Only eligible one season. Let's not forget the Joe Fermino experiment. Another Alford guy that could only stay eligible one season. Kind of started the carousel that became the Alford/Lickliter rosters.
Which would have made a class like this excusable early in the Fran era.
In year 10, a class with Iowa being the only P6 offers for the entire class shouldn't happen and this excuse doesn't fly anymore.
Ulis has a DePaul offer. They are a P6 Team on the rise. They will be a tough out this season for most teams. Their talent level is somewhat close to Iowa's. With DePaul being my 2nd Team behind ISU I can't wait to take in my 1st game in Carver to watch them play. May be the only chance I get in my life since I won't be driving to Chicago to watch them play ever. Should be a hell of a game.
I've never heard the phrase "on the rise" associated with a team that has finished last in their conference for 3 straight seasons.
I posted this on the pay board this AM when someone said DePaul was a decent offer:
