Problems in the locker room?

[Steamboat529529]

Fran's teams don't play aggressive defense primarily because they are coached not to foul,.. This mindset affects every player on the floor, no matter their current foul count...

Watch Creighton play. They play aggressive defense in the half court and are coached not to foul. They are in the top 3 in division one basketball in least amount of fouls per game. You can play aggressive defense and still not foul.

 

[Bulldogs1974]

Heard on a podcast that one of the hosts is a buddy with a former high level college basketball player who keeps tabs on a lot of different teams around the country, including Iowa, watching them a d breaking them down from a player's perspective based on what he sees from his own experience.

He said two things stuck out to him watching Iowa...............

- they refused to hustle back on defense as a team

- he hasn't seen another team of players, not coaches, but players this season that complained after calls more than Iowa did.

That all goes back to Fran......

he obviously didn't watch any SEC basketball. I think the new trend is to foul like crazy and complain after every call.

 

[Rifler]

Watch Creighton play. They play aggressive defense in the half court and are coached not to foul. They are in the top 3 in division one basketball in least amount of fouls per game. You can play aggressive defense and still not foul.

Of course you can,.. But when a team is primarily coached to not foul, it's really easy to just dial back from an aggressive defense...

 

[Steamboat529529]

Of course you can,.. But when a team is primarily coached to not foul, it's really easy to just dial back from an aggressive defense...

I think the big problems this year defensively we didn’t have a true point guard or a center. Rebraca was awesome but he should be defending the four. That wasn’t fair to him. And then everyone else has to guard someone bigger on down the line.

 

[the notorious r.d.m.]

Michigan State and Izzo play pretty aggressive defense, yes? Izzo pretty much implements the same 2 foul rule.

Yeah he does. 10 of the 16 remaining teams are also in the bottom 100 of 2 foul minutes too interestingly.

But Michigan State also commits 6 more fouls than Iowa per 40 minutes. So while you might sit in the first half, you won't be sitting in the second under Izzo.

Mady Sissoko commits 5.3 fouls per 40 minutes. Izzo isn't afraid to let him foul out or play in trouble in the second half.

Izzo is a better coach than Fran (and pretty much anyone else) so obviously these numbers don't tell the whole story but I think this philosophy is where Fran lacks when it comes to defense.

 

[bumper52]

They were too busy watching their head coach whine, cry, and stare down the officials when he doesn’t like a call instead of coaching them up.

There was someone else crying all the time, and he was on the floor. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Connor’s whining on practically every call was way out of line. Of course, because of who he was, the head whiner allowed it.

 

[iahawks10]

There was someone else crying all the time, and he was on the floor. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Connor’s whining on practically every call was way out of line. Of course, because of who he was, the head whiner allowed it.

Rebraca whined way more than Connor and it wasn’t even close.

 

[Jizzer]

There was someone else crying all the time, and he was on the floor. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Connor’s whining on practically every call was way out of line. Of course, because of who he was, the head whiner allowed it.

Have you watched any other bball? The whining that goes on after every foul is so annoying. Connor was on the absolute light side.

 

[bumper52]

Yes, I watch a lot of basketball. Yes, I see a lot of players question calls, talk to the officials, etc. etc. But not the SAME player doing it on every foul. Congrats, Connor. You are this year’s recipient of the Brad Davison award.

 

[RocknRollface]

Michigan State and Izzo play pretty aggressive defense, yes? Izzo pretty much implements the same 2 foul rule.

Difference is you don't even get to play for Izzo unless you're playing defense the way he wants.

For Fran there's no baseline expectations on that end.

 

[KcTo]

Fran's teams don't play aggressive defense primarily because they are coached not to foul,.. This mindset affects every player on the floor, no matter their current foul count...

I think it’s more they are “conditioned“ not to foul as they get an immeadiate and consistent negative outcome, restriction of playing time

 

[RocknRollface]

I completely agree with you and I will go further to say that Fran's philosophy of not fouling is a really big detriment within itself. Prime example is Michigan St. vs. Marquette, look at the box score:

MSU shot 24-54 overall (44.4%) and 2-16 from 3 (12.5%). They committed 19 total fouls in the game.

Offensive rebounds, total rebounds, turnovers and assists were all fairly even and no huge advantage there. MSU shot 2 more shots and 9 more free throws and win the game by 9.

Marquette shot 11-27 from 3 for 40.7% and held a +27 in 3 point shots. Yet they only scored 60 points.

MSU won on a day they couldn't shoot by mugging the shit out of Marquette, fouling the shit out of them, getting away with some of them and getting called for some of them, and overall just slowing the game down and taking Marquette out of any rhythm, all while dragging them down in the mud with them. Now this is the stat that shows how deliberate it was: MSU fouled 19 times while Marquette fouled 18 times, yet, MSU went to the line 23 times to 14 for Marquette. I can guarantee you what the plan of attack was. Hand check them, reach, grab and be overly aggressive on screens, do whatever you have to do, especially deeper in the shot clock. Reason why is that for a rhythm team like Marquette (or Iowa) you can make them reset their offense with single digits on the play clock and that is a killer for them. You get 6 fouls each half that you can do this with before it is a one and one. But don't foul shooters, don't put them at the line. You then limit possessions by slowing things down on offense and those 12 possessions that you disrupted with aggressive fouls, not counting the ones that you maybe got away with, loom large at the end.

And that is the last point. For a team like Iowa that does not hand check, reach or grab, it is so obvious when they do and they get called for it most if not all of the time. So Iowa has to earn everything the hard way. Now a team like MSU, Auburn or the rest of these teams that are still in the tournament, they get called for more fouls but they get away with so much more than that. If you judged those teams by the Iowa standard of foul they probably commit 40-50 fouls a game, but, no referee crew is ever going to call that. So what the refs do is they call fouls relative to the team and not relative to the rules. Of course it is not fair, but, that is the way it is. You have to hand it to a coach like Izzo for taking advantage of that, it is only smart.

This is a great summary of the foul constantly strategy employed by most college coaches.

This is just about the only way you're going to advance in the tournament short of shooting the lights out.

I don't ever want a coach to try and play like Lickliter but trying to win the way Fran wants to, by ignoring the reality of the way things are doesn't work either.

 

[intrepodor]

he obviously didn't watch any SEC basketball. I think the new trend is to foul like crazy and complain after every call.

Hawks are good at complaining