Seniors set foundation for program
Tom Kakert | Editor
Iowa's four seniors helped set a foundation for Fran McCaffery's program
USA Today Sports
The end for a college basketball season is never a good feeling. Only one team truly feels good at the end of the season and that's the team that wins the national title. Everyone else is left to wonder what might have been.
The end of the Iowa Basketball season has a similar feeling to one year ago when the Hawkeyes saw their year end in Seattle. This time the end came on the east coast in Brooklyn, but it was just as swift and equally as painful.
On Sunday, Villanova raced out to a 54-29 lead and never looked back. Last year, Gonzaga ran away in the first half to a 46-29 lead, so it was almost the exact same feeling. The game was essentially over at the break, as it was today. The final margin was 19 points, but in many ways it felt larger after the lead for the Wildcats grew to as many as 34 points early in the second half.
As ugly and painful as the end was on Sunday for the Iowa Basketball team, this squad has been sending up the warning signal that the end would probably not be comfortable. While Iowa hadn’t lost by double figures since last year’s season ending defeat to Gonzaga in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament, they ended the season stumbling what turned out to be a 3-7 record in their last ten games.
However, that shouldn’t take away from what this program has accomplished in the past four years. When the trio of Adam Woodbury, Mike Gesell, and Anthony Clemmons committed to Iowa, they were coming off an 11 win season and the NCAA Tournament was almost a dream world for the Iowa program.
The trio of four year seniors won 89 games in their Iowa career, which is the third most by any group of four year players in Iowa Basketball history. Joined by Jarrod Uthoff for the past three years, this group has made the NCAA Tournament three years in a row for the first time since the 1990-91-1992-93 seasons. They won two NCAA Tournament games for the first time since that same time frame. To put that in perspective, none of the four seniors were born the last time that happened for the Iowa Basketball program.
What many will get stuck on with the accomplishments of this group is what might have been. They certainly teased Iowa fans with potential greatness during the last three years. In the 2013-14 season they moved into the Top Ten nationally before fading down the stretch and losing their first NCAA Tournament game in Dayton. This season the teasing became a bit more serious with the Hawkeyes rising to as high as #3 in the country and spending several weeks in the Top Ten in the polls. But, again, they faded down the stretch, losing seven of their last ten.
The frustrations of fans are natural and challenging, but the rise from obscurity to relevance in college basketball is never easy. Sometimes the lighting will strike and you get the perfect season where everything falls into place. The past three years have been filled with moments where it appeared to be falling into place and then falling to a struggling and frustrating finish to the season.
Going from bad to average to good to great is almost always going to have its ups and downs and it’s certainly never easy. This group helped to set the foundation for the future of the Iowa program and that is a great accomplishment given where it was when they were being recruited.
While the frustration may be remembered by some, it’s the return of Iowa Basketball to the national stage that should also be celebrated. While the losses and late game meltdowns are at the forefront of the minds of some fans and what might have been, there is no denying the success that this group has brought back to the program.
Iowa Basketball is back and that’s a good thing. At minimum it’s back to the days of Dr. Tom Davis where NCAA Tournament appearances are were expect in four out of five years and a win in the Big Dance most years should occur. That’s a positive step. That’s a foundation being set. Now the task for this next group is to move the program even further along than this group of seniors has taken it.
Tom Kakert | Editor
Iowa's four seniors helped set a foundation for Fran McCaffery's program
USA Today Sports
The end for a college basketball season is never a good feeling. Only one team truly feels good at the end of the season and that's the team that wins the national title. Everyone else is left to wonder what might have been.
The end of the Iowa Basketball season has a similar feeling to one year ago when the Hawkeyes saw their year end in Seattle. This time the end came on the east coast in Brooklyn, but it was just as swift and equally as painful.
On Sunday, Villanova raced out to a 54-29 lead and never looked back. Last year, Gonzaga ran away in the first half to a 46-29 lead, so it was almost the exact same feeling. The game was essentially over at the break, as it was today. The final margin was 19 points, but in many ways it felt larger after the lead for the Wildcats grew to as many as 34 points early in the second half.
As ugly and painful as the end was on Sunday for the Iowa Basketball team, this squad has been sending up the warning signal that the end would probably not be comfortable. While Iowa hadn’t lost by double figures since last year’s season ending defeat to Gonzaga in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament, they ended the season stumbling what turned out to be a 3-7 record in their last ten games.
However, that shouldn’t take away from what this program has accomplished in the past four years. When the trio of Adam Woodbury, Mike Gesell, and Anthony Clemmons committed to Iowa, they were coming off an 11 win season and the NCAA Tournament was almost a dream world for the Iowa program.
The trio of four year seniors won 89 games in their Iowa career, which is the third most by any group of four year players in Iowa Basketball history. Joined by Jarrod Uthoff for the past three years, this group has made the NCAA Tournament three years in a row for the first time since the 1990-91-1992-93 seasons. They won two NCAA Tournament games for the first time since that same time frame. To put that in perspective, none of the four seniors were born the last time that happened for the Iowa Basketball program.
What many will get stuck on with the accomplishments of this group is what might have been. They certainly teased Iowa fans with potential greatness during the last three years. In the 2013-14 season they moved into the Top Ten nationally before fading down the stretch and losing their first NCAA Tournament game in Dayton. This season the teasing became a bit more serious with the Hawkeyes rising to as high as #3 in the country and spending several weeks in the Top Ten in the polls. But, again, they faded down the stretch, losing seven of their last ten.
The frustrations of fans are natural and challenging, but the rise from obscurity to relevance in college basketball is never easy. Sometimes the lighting will strike and you get the perfect season where everything falls into place. The past three years have been filled with moments where it appeared to be falling into place and then falling to a struggling and frustrating finish to the season.
Going from bad to average to good to great is almost always going to have its ups and downs and it’s certainly never easy. This group helped to set the foundation for the future of the Iowa program and that is a great accomplishment given where it was when they were being recruited.
While the frustration may be remembered by some, it’s the return of Iowa Basketball to the national stage that should also be celebrated. While the losses and late game meltdowns are at the forefront of the minds of some fans and what might have been, there is no denying the success that this group has brought back to the program.
Iowa Basketball is back and that’s a good thing. At minimum it’s back to the days of Dr. Tom Davis where NCAA Tournament appearances are were expect in four out of five years and a win in the Big Dance most years should occur. That’s a positive step. That’s a foundation being set. Now the task for this next group is to move the program even further along than this group of seniors has taken it.
