we have years of evidence to suggest this is not even close to being true.
Observations Heading into B1G
- Thread starter BirdistheWord
- Start date
Agree 100% on that. Understand Nunge's situation, but that really hurt Iowa for this year. Would have been a terrific complement to Murray.
I agree with your basic premise......but if the coach hired an assistant with the specific intent to improve the teams defensive performance and the team knew that was the purpose of the hire....then that leadership by the coach and the renewed emphasis on VALUING good defensive play would help to institutionalize the value of good defense right?
I agree with your post....value good defense, is a mindset (not viewing it as an afterthought) and bringing in the right assistant coach could very well help to change that mindset. I think John B did that at Michigan. I'm not saying that will happen or that it is the only solution....just one possible solution.
Mid post face up is his sweet spot and he almost never gets the ball there because thats also one of Keegan best spots.
It would actually make more sense to play Rebraca as Keegans back up.
Then they could run plays for him.
I disagree,.. Our coaching staff simply doesn't value defense,.. never have under Fran.
That's a different problem. UCF might actually be a better team than Michigan right now.
Nebraska pushed OSU to the limit last night (OT)....Northwestern took MSU to the wire. Michigan is a year removed from the team that John B put together and coached up and then turned over to Juwan Howard. They have a LOT of talent...but are not playing as well this year by any stretch.
Penn St and Indiana had a tough and tight game....
Penn St and Indiana had a tough and tight game....
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I would argue that the 3rd year was pretty good defensively, as was Woody’s senior year. Those were defense oriented teams. But yeah, Fran is definitely an offensive minded coach. I do also think that he doesn’t emphasize defense until the Big season, especially the last half when it becomes a grind. I think that is intentional to curb burn out.
He's only had 3 games against P5 teams so far, and that ISU game was just awful. I'd bet he's closer to 18/19 PPG throughout BigTen.
Of course not. It doesn’t fit your narrative. If you believed that you would have one less thing to criticize and complain about.
Correct. Hardly a great sample size.
Virginia - 18 points and 9 rebounds. on 13 shots. Good performance against a team that values defense (although they aren't very good this year).
Played against Illinois after not playing against Purdue. Not 100% against Illinois. Scored 19 points on 7-15 from the field. Went 4-7 from line. Played well down the stretch.
ISU - 4-17 and 9 points. Entire Iowa team was bad, got blown out.
Utah State is ranked higher in Pomeroy ratings and he had 35 on 13-17 from the field against them. Utah State is ranked higher in Pomeroy than Nebraska, Penn State, Minnesota.
Anyone that expects Murray to go for 25 per game against Big 10 competition, probably not realistic. He's tremendous and a great NBA prospect, but that is due to his versatility and overall ability, not the dominating offensive skill like Garza. The better Big 10 teams will certainly make it more difficult for him to score. This is not new news.
You're correct, he is average but he doesn't fit my initial point of what Fran needed.
That being a guy whos skill set is defense and rebounding.
Rebraca is the opposite of that.
Theres a whole lot of those guys out there that don't have any offensive skills but they can rebound and defend.
Theres so many of them in college basketball that its hard for me to believe there were no options available.
Whats more likely is that Frans love of offense lead him to get the wrong type of player for this particular groups needs.
And I think Rebraca could be a fairly productive player in the big as a 4 man. He's just not filling the particular needs of this team.
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I don't think Fran's offensive brain-set was the reason he offered Rebraca. I think he saw a pretty good player that could help us at a position of need, and others had already moved on.
You end up making different arguments. Who are these guys you speak of who are great at defense and rebounding, and who want to come to Iowa? They don't just pop out of the ground magically. Like has been said many times, the people who are good, everyone wants. More so than even high school players. Rebraca's recruiting story talks about offers from Minnesota, Virginia Tech, South Carolina, Iowa, Utah. Not the blue bloods of hoops, but all pretty similar to Iowa.
Tanner Groves from Eastern Washington was excellent last year in the NCAA tournament against Kansas. He hit the portal. I believe Iowa showed interest, but it wasn't mutual. He's at Oklahoma, averaging 14 and 6 while hitting 40% of his 3's. Would be a great fit at Iowa, but he has to want to come here. I liked Liam Robbins a lot, so did Fran. They offered him. He followed his uncle who is an assistant at Vanderbilt.
I wish Iowa had a Gabe Olaseni on this team. But they don't. Or Doug Thomas from back in the Alford days. Would also be a good fit. But we have who we have.
It all kind of sucks. Iowa was set up to have another really good year and then the Nunge and CJF things happened. Those two would have helped this team tremendously, at what we are weakest.
I don’t think the loss of CJ really impacted us. I do think losing Nunge depriveEd us of potentially being a top 10team.
Again, I've been very consistent and coherent on this.
An average player that can rebound and defend. Not a great rebounder or a great defender or a scorer.
The type of player that just about every other team in the country has. They're all over the place at mid majors.
Just a guy who can be physical and rebound.
Every big ten team besides Iowa and Northwestern has multiple guys that fit this bill every year.
There were hundreds of players in the portal.
Lets be realistic. Fran, to this point has been to picky.
Hes even made comments about not wanting players that he didn't recruit out of High-school.
Well CJF would have been playing instead of Jabo, and that would have been good.
If he was healthy, maybe. CJ started off last year playing great then faded substantially with his injury. He also played on a team with a lot of offensive weapons. Not sure how we will ever know his true worth to a team.
So Rock...."Senior Filip Rebraca had a season-high, scoring 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field. Rebraca matched Murray’s game-best eight rebounds as the Hawkeyes outscored the Terrapins, 40-34, in the paint."....the Terps have what you describe as very talented front line players, always have the talent.....but they did not impress me. I like Filip's game better...
And the most important stat that trumps any point some one wants to make.....we won the game. PU lost at home with arguably the best two and biggest front line talents in the country....can't say Wisky has impressive front line talent but like Iowa with Keegan.....they have Johnny Davis....it's a win in Mackey with Johnny....we didn't have Keegan in Mackey.
Heck Blue sucks right now with a very talented big in Dickenson and many other very talented front line players. We'll see what happens tonight with the Illini traveling to play the Gophers....UM has to play at Rutgers.
Point is.....it's really tough to win in the B1G and in basketball in general....ask Blue, go UCF. So many ways to skin a win in BB too and that's what teams like Wisky, Iowa, Minny and few others are doing cause they certainly are not loaded on the front line with big real talented players in 21/22.
Last thought....give Filip some more rope learning playing against B1G talent...cause he certainly gives a lot of effort....I see that and works hard.....good things happen, he's a pretty good player.
I've never posted anything but positive reviews of Philips game.
I said in this thread he's more capable of scoring than he's being given a chance to show because he doesn'tget the ball very often. Last night showed that.
I've only said I don't think he's a great compliment to the rest of Iowas undersized front line.
Bringing in Rebraca wasn't the mistake. The mistake was not bringing in a big body to defend and rebound.
There were two scholarships and one went to Ash.
So with the W against the terps now in the books, moving on to the game against wisky. When it comes to basketball, they are the team I despise the most in the league. sparty and Izzo's whining take a backseat to the nut punching tool now in his 10th season with wisky.
I don't see them coming out of madison with a win, but I also don't think that they're overmatched either. Hoping they put up a good fight.
I don't see them coming out of madison with a win, but I also don't think that they're overmatched either. Hoping they put up a good fight.
I am going to eat some crow on my above statement. There just is no way to hide JBo's deficiencies for an entire game. Maybe for mini spurts. He should be situational off the bench guy and get heavy minutes against teams like Northwestern.
