I think all Raptor is saying is that continuing to bring in classes where Iowa has is not a recipe for long-term success. As he pointed out, it's not very often that a guy like Garza way, way outperforms his ranking and becomes a runner-up for national POY. And even with Garza playing at that level, Iowa was 5th in the conference. That's just reality.
Payton Sandfort announcing October 1st
- Thread starter Blair Sanderson
- Start date
I think all Raptor is saying is that continuing to bring in classes where Iowa has is not a recipe for long-term success. As he pointed out, it's not very often that a guy like Garza way, way outperforms his ranking and becomes a runner-up for national POY. And even with Garza playing at that level, Iowa was 5th in the conference. That's just reality.
Yep and what I am saying is that, though I stress about lower ranked classes, we are doing pretty well. In this last class early reports are that Ulis and Perkins are looking like the real deal. If we sign two of that level of player every year along with a Devin Marble, Jarrod Uthoff, Aaron White, Luka Garza, etc.....every few years we can compete at a pretty high level.
In fact, we have guys on the roster right now that we haven't had a chance to see yet how good they really are....Patrick M, Josh O, and more. CJF was really good last year....how good can he be? I would LOVE to sign 3 top 50 guys every year and hope that is where we get to, but we might be pretty good without doing that.
I am in the camp that Fran knows talent when he sees it, and I like to evaluate recruiting classes by what they do on the court. Except for one bad class that contributed almost nothing (I lose track of time, but I think 5 or 6 years ago), Fran's recruits have generally overachieved versus their recruiting rankings. I like the guards in last year's class, but I am much less sure about the twins and Big O, who seems to be an important project for future years. I hope Fran can find another big man to bring in, because we are pretty good shape at the other positions. We have the most depth and variety of talent on the perimeter in a very long time. I haven't spent enough time on this board to remember names, but I have been disappointed that the two big guys, who looked like really good fits and had high interest in Iowa, were suddenly snatched away. Sandfort seems like a damn good pick up, if we get him.
Personally I go off what I've heard so far about Jack, and looking at him as the Third son. Its very common for the youngest of three or four sons to be the best athlete, barring any physical shortcomings. I raised three sons and the youngest competed with brothers 3 and 6 years older and it matured him immensley as an athlete. Look at some one like JBO. He and his brothers are all relative to each other in stature. Who's the best shooter of the four boys? I'd say Jorden easily. Youngest brothers always strive harder to keep up with their older siblings, and they practice against kids much older, (brothers and their friends).
In general I would agree. Especially early in Fran's career guys like White, Olaseni and Marble way over-performed their rankings.
Looking at Fran's history, where he got into trouble was the 2013 through 2015 classes. Players in those classes:
Peter Jok
Trey Dickerson
Dom Uhl
Brady Ellingson
Dale Jones
Christian Williams
Isaiah Moss
Ahmad Wagner
Andrew Fleming
Brandon Hutton
Those classes led to 2016-17 (NIT year) and then the 14-19 season once the Bohannon/Cook/Kriener/Pemsl class and the Garza/Conor/Nunge classes had to shoulder the load. But then last two years (along with adding Wieskamp and Frederick) happened, which was a return to NCAA play.
It's okay to believe that multiple things can be true. Fran is good at evaluating talent and getting more out of his roster, given the recruiting rankings. And that it becomes very difficult to compete for conference titles and deep tournament runs without recruiting well.
Indeed. Fran has averaged recruiting classes that are about 10th in the league and averages 6th-7th place actual finishes.
Most fans are cool with that. Some fans think that’s kind of sad. Me? I watch Wisconsin winning yet another league title while we’ve been waiting over forty years since the last one and I wonder... can this really be as good as it gets?
wut
Lol
My argument is that actual success on the court tracks closely with class rankings, and that doesn’t bode well for us.
Your argument as far as you have one seems to be “recruiting rankings don’t matter and our players are better than average because ... well... because they’re our players and I say so.”
I know you’re embarrassed because I posted the actual numbers which made you look silly but you really should’ve quit while you were less far behind.
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I’ve never seen him play nor do I plan to. I really couldn’t care less so I’ll take your word for it.
Agree. I think Jok was a one person class, so that class actually turned out well. In the other two classes there were more misses than all of his other classes.
5th out of 14 te
@Raptorpeeps :
"Aww. Don’t take your ball and go away mad. You seem to think the last few years have been middle of the pack recruiting results. I think they have been worse than that."
Ok....
Dude...
Did you even read Dodger’s post? He pretty much paraphrased mine.
Lots of not so bright folks here wasting space.
95% of this board is “HAWKS ARE THE GREATEST!!!!” Which is fine. That’s pretty much how they’re supposed to operate.
You would think most adults could tolerate 5% dissent every once in a while...
There’s a solid minority here who just don’t have the candlepower or constitution to do it though.
#funny
Yes I did re-state what you were saying. You and I have been on the opposite sides of opinions plenty, but I can parse out logic when I see it and agreed with you
Iowa's record last year (11-9 in conference and 20-11 overall) was probably why Garza didn't win NPOY over Topin. Fair or not. The perception is if you have a national player of year type player on your team, you should be better than 5th in your league, as good as that league might be. It is not controversial to say that Iowa's roster is not all-worldly when you have a legitimate NPOY and 5th. But apparently if we all aren't on the Final 4 train we hate Iowa.
McCs recruiting, on balance has been good but with a big donut. Two years with only the Baer and Isaiah Moss to show for it. Other than a walk on turned player we got nothing for two seasons . Two seasons without decent upperclassmen. The TC/Jordan class turned it around and since then we've recruited ESPN 4* Cook, Bohannon, C McC, Garza, P McC and Joey T. Joey T and Jordan ESPN nation top 120 the rest top 100. Plus CJ who is hard not to see as a 4* but obviously was a good recruit. This season, coming off a previous good year doesn't have much recruiting panache but several intriguing possibilities, and 21 is unknown. The Woody/Mike G/Ute teams were well recruited teams.
I stick with ESPN for apples to apples from year to year.
The lesson to be learned is Iowa cannot afford back to back nearly empty classes. A class like the 20-21 freshmen carries some risk based on their recruiting profiles. The odds of 5 diamonds in the rough are low but I'm an optimist and think this class will have a couple of spectacular stories. But I could be wrong, which seems impossible I know.
I stick with ESPN for apples to apples from year to year.
The lesson to be learned is Iowa cannot afford back to back nearly empty classes. A class like the 20-21 freshmen carries some risk based on their recruiting profiles. The odds of 5 diamonds in the rough are low but I'm an optimist and think this class will have a couple of spectacular stories. But I could be wrong, which seems impossible I know.
An ESPN 4* national 120 player is never a fall back recruit for Iowa. Iowa rarely taps that talent level and that's always been true.
Yes I did re-state what you were saying. You and I have been on the opposite sides of opinions plenty, but I can parse out logic when I see it and agreed with you
Iowa's record last year (11-9 in conference and 20-11 overall) was probably why Garza didn't win NPOY over Topin. Fair or not. The perception is if you have a national player of year type player on your team, you should be better than 5th in your league, as good as that league might be. It is not controversial to say that Iowa's roster is not all-worldly when you have a legitimate NPOY and 5th. But apparently if we all aren't on the Final 4 train we hate Iowa.
Congrats to you and @Raptorpeeps on your new-found bromance!
One interesting, very interesting aspect of the 20-21 class is the trajectory of the players. While no one ended up highly ranked Tony, Ahron and the Ks all moved ahead of at least 100 players in their positions.
Covid ended the rankings so they'll end where they ended. Those four kids ultimate trajectory won't be known but all were climbing fast and getting better when the principal shut down the dance.
Covid ended the rankings so they'll end where they ended. Those four kids ultimate trajectory won't be known but all were climbing fast and getting better when the principal shut down the dance.
So you feel he doesn't really care if his kids are on shitty teams as long as they're playing? Doesn't care if he'll be coaching crappy teams as long as his kids are on them?
How is it those three classes have Iowa ranked highly preseason? Even without Garza Iowa is likely ranked inside the top25.
Is Fran a great coach/developer? Or are the recruiting rankings off?
Not sure why you're including 2013 as Pete was the only kid in that class and turned out pretty darn well. Other than that I'd agree.
In general, I have been fine with Fran's overall work at Iowa ... it's not great but I have been a fan for 35 years and realistically, I haven't seen better than what he's established (on a consistent basis). I was one who when I was younger put Dr. Tom on a pedestal but now when you look back, it's obvious that without Raveling's recruits, Dr. Tom really didn't have any more success than Fran has been having.
I agree you have to wonder can it be a little better (closer to what Wisconsin does). Wisconsin does have a few minor advantages to Iowa recruiting-wise but shouldn't be that big of difference.
I think as others have stated, Fran has missed out on those big fish he has tried to get but done a really good job finding under-the-radar talent and developing them. But to get to that next level, he is going to need to land a big one every couple of years (I think Cook was supposed to be that guy - and without rehashing his Iowa career - he didn't quite reach the level that they probably expected).
To me, this year is a very telling year. Yes, it stinks that COVID might get in the way and cause potential issues but really, there is no excuse for this team to not be a Top 4 Big Ten team (and the Big Ten is LOADED this year) and at least a Sweet 16 team (anything can happen in one game in the tournament and I am not going to say Final 4 or bust). If they can't get past the 2nd Round of the tourney with this team, than I am more inclined to believe that is the ceiling of Fran's teams at Iowa.
The difference between you and I, is that you are only focused on rankings coming out of highschool. It's ok to do, for those that lack comparative analysis, but it's not the end all be all that you are making it out to be.
Small example from 2017 as to not overwhelm you, Michael Porter was the #2 recruit, Garza was the #118. Who was the better recruit. Porter because he had a higher # coming out of highschool? Thomas Allen was #103, Connor #152, who was the better recruit? There are countless other examples on Iowa's roster alone. Morris and Gessell were ranked almost the same for crying out loud.
MSU and MD will finish at the top of the rankings every year, as well as the standings, but they are the outliers in the big ten. It's almost not fair, and we are never going to recruit like them. It's just not realistic. Every single Iowa fan would love to get top 50 recruit after top 50 recruit, but after Woodbury, there just aren't any going to commit here. Whether it's culture, color, geography, or just a crappy combination of the 3, we aren't a popular destination. But, it isn't just an Iowa problem.
Other examples on how success on the court doesn't track closely with class rankings for Mr. Numbers.
Wisconsin's 2016-2019 classes ranked 12th, 5th, and 13th, and 14th, yet they won the big ten.
Iowa's 2016-2019 classes ranked 7th, 9th, and 12th, and 11th, and we tied for 5th.
Illinois 2016-2019 ranked 12th, 2nd(only Frazier remained last year), 5th, and 11th and finished 4th.
PSU 2016-2019 ranked 4th, 13th, 11th, and 12th and finished 5th.
OSU 2016-2019 finished 8th, 1st, 6th, and 1st and finished 5th.
Michigan ranked 6th, 6th, 3rd, and 9th and finished 9th.
In 2020, out of the top 75 recruits in the country, 5 went to Big Ten schools not MSU. 5!
Lander from Indiana, went to Indiana.
Miller from Illinois, went to Illinois.
Omuruyi from NJ went to Rutgers .
Only 2 committed to big ten schools not from within the same state.
Dickinson to Michigan.
Curbelo to Illinois.
You're supposed to put quotes around something someone actually says, so quit with the pretending to be embarrassed garbage. But going off of you're quote of our players not being better than average, who in our starting five is not better than average? Enlighten everyone, Mr. Numbers.
lol
No.
Iowa finished 5th last season with Garza contending for National Player of the Year. Without him we would have finished 6th or 7th, right?
smh...
Except for 2017 (Wisc. 5th, Iowa 9th), marginally. From '15-'20 Wisconsin has averaged 9th and Iowa 10th. Recruiting has been pretty even really.
The only difference is that Wisconsin has broken into that top 5 class threshold twice 2017 and 2020. Fran did not. His highest ranked class in that period was 7th.
This coming year yes. Nunge, Wieskamp, Frederick and Bohannon along with Toussaint are a top 25 team.
We will never know. Forgot about Patrick McCaffery, kid will be good.
He wasn't ranked as a 4 star when Iowa recruited him. That came well after commitment if I remember correctly. Not bashing Joe as he earned his minutes, but he was a fallback recruit at the time. His offer came after several previous offers at that position were off the board or appeared unlikely for Iowa.
Meh a 7ft. 4 star is the bigger need. Looks like a decent prospect but losing my crap if he chooses Drake.
Since we've not gotten any news tonight to say differently I'm just going to assume that he's committing to Iowa tomorrow
