You don’t want to put yourself in a position where you have to beat a good team in a hostile environment to have a decent non con resume. One really bad performance later and you’re on the outside looking in.
This is why you don’t load up on cupcakes in the non con
- Thread starter HawkAssassin
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If it weren’t for cupcakes this team would be almost winless.
Iowa played Virginia and Purdue on the road before this game.
This team is mediocre. Plain and simple.
If you thought this wasn’t going to be a rebuilding year after losing two players to the NBA, you have no one to blame but yourself.
And they showed potential in those games.
Remember the blowout loss to DePaul 2 years ago. Didn’t matter because that schedule gave them opportunities to make up for a bad performance. This schedule doesn’t.
I understand what you’re saying, I’m just at the point I don’t care anymore. The Fran experiment has had its moments but it’s time for new blood. Iowa is going to be mediocre this year regardless.
Good talent + bad coaching = mediocre.
Exactly. There's a reason Fran scheduled a bunch of crappy teams. Going 3-22 gets you fired. Going 10-17 let's you coach another year.
I agree to an extent. The talent, outside the Murray twins, isn’t that great IMO, though. Nepotism and favoritism also hurt this team.
With these two drafted players, Iowa got blown out in the round of 32 by Oregon. Last year was Fran’s big chance, and it should be classified as a failure.
Correct. I think that’s the bigger point many Fran apologists are missing. Even with the NPOTY, they were mediocre in March. The program is only going to continue to decline under Fran. If he isn’t fired after this year, Iowa basketball is going to gradually sink to real mediocrity, and Lickliter-level indifference with the fans will soon emerge.
based on last year, ISU was supposed to be a cupcake. A 1st year coach can hit the portal and come up with
a better team and then teach them how to play defense better than a coach that has been at same place for 12 years perfecting his system.
I dunno. I think there’s talent there. Bohannan is a great shooter. Perkins and Touissant are good players. The press is tough. This was a tough assignment tonight. Cyclones are good on defense, Brockinton was on fire and the crowd is worth a lot.
I predict ISU will not go 0-18 in the league this year.
You’re right, Fran apologists haven’t noticed that Iowa hasn’t made it past the first weekend of the Dance… even the most naive people would acknowledge that the expectations for last year were higher than what was achieved
And I know that you don’t really believe what I quoted. Iowa’s best players are all sophomores and we’ve got an awesome PG coming in and a big man that we landed over pretty much every other team in the Big Ten the following year. We ain’t sinking to Lickliter’s level, no matter how much you may want us to so that Fran gets shown the door
Bohannon has regressed a lot. Perkins is decent. You are smoking rocks if you think Joe T is good.
I’ll second that bold prediction.
They are what I thought they would be........not sure what everyone else expected.
I didn’t say we’d sink to Lickliter results. I said fan enthusiasm would wane to those days.
I’ll believe Bowen is that good when I see it. Fans raved about Joe T and Ulis too. We’ll see. Same for this big man that was so “coveted” by other B1G Ten teams.
Also, the fact you suggest an Iowa coach has to reach Lickliter futility to get fired is a great encapsulation of why Iowa basketball has been largely mediocre over the past two decades.
Ulis has been fine. He led Iowa in assists again tonight and is Iowa’s best defensive point guard. He just needs his scoring ability to catch up. You act like he should be outclassing senior guards that he’s gone up against the last three games
Why do you put “coveted” in quotes? Go look at his offer list lol
What is line at which an Iowa coach should be fired? Once you come up with that, explain why Ferentz shouldn’t also be fired. Because he won an Orange Bowl against the most one dimensional football team in FBS in 2009?
I’ve been on record as saying I want Kirk to retire if he is unwilling to upgrade the offense. Under no circumstances should he be fired. His resume speaks for itself.
Fran should have been fired after 2017.
Kirk’s resume, meaning what? What of consequence has Kirk won or accomplished since Fran started coaching at Iowa that Fran hasn’t? I’m not asking this to indict Kirk, but it seems like good but not great play in the regular season and letdown games when the games matter most (I don’t mean the meaningless bowl games) is pretty much SOP for both coaches
Usually I hate the cupcake games. And I'd still like to see them get a better class of teams than the dregs of D1. But I can understand the strategy when you're trying to figure out lineups after losing the two biggest contributors to your team from the prior year.
Fran didn't do a good job of using those games to develop lineups or work on deficiencies.
Before the season started, I thought this team was a borderline tourney qualifier and would most likely fall short and wind up in the NIT. That hasn't changed.
Fran didn't do a good job of using those games to develop lineups or work on deficiencies.
Before the season started, I thought this team was a borderline tourney qualifier and would most likely fall short and wind up in the NIT. That hasn't changed.
I'm not worrying about the tournament. I just want to see them navigate the B1G with some success. If we started the conference with Michigan St's schedule, the clone game would most likely be our only blemish. I still get some sense of hope for our performance at Purdue, probably the toughest venue on our schedule and the Illinois game, facing one of the best teams in the B1G. They have nine days off now before Utah St. Hopefully the coach and the players can work out some of the serious kinks that are showing up in our game.
I wouldn’t annoint this ISU team the Big Twelve champs yet. They are playing great defense but it’s a long year and they have some questions on offense. i don’t think people realize how big of a blow it was to lose Nunge in a developmental program like Iowa. He would have gone a long ways to improving our rebounding and rim protection. Winning at Hilton is always extremely difficult and rhe talent on our team is young. There will be better days.
I don't know about that. The reality is Fran teams have been consistently a 60-75 range team every year of his career. Even his best years, did anyone really think they had a shot at going deep in the tourney when it came to tournament time? I knew I did, in January last year. But by the time March came around it was clear the team was not in good enough shape to make a serious run. My only guess is Iowa just never has enough depth to carry momentum through the end of the season. Even the good year's teams constantly struggle to get through February. I think I can remember 1 year where they didn't suck during that month. (The only exception to that might have been 2020 when I thought they were playing their best basketball at the end of the season for once, but then everything was canceled).
But, I don't think Fran will have a terrible team either. I think what we've seen the last 12 years is what we get. And no, I'm not claiming I'm satisfied with that, but that's where we are. I just wish he'd pull in somebody that could teach these kids to play good defense and rebound effectively.
My only exception to what you say is I think we would have done better in the tournament had we had Nunge and a healthy CJ. With Nunge, we're a pretty damn good team. And I like the trend in recruiting athletes the past 3 years.
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We sat behind the bench, Fran made an ass of himself complaining about every call with one of the best crews in the country
Fran's teams have never been able to effectively handle teams that play in your face defense. It's shocking how soft his teams are for as big of an ahole as Fran can be. But his teams are always soft, it's a mentality, they can't handle physical play.
I don't think the 3 prior games were cupcakes, and the two losses were winnable at the end. Sorry doesn't fly
You mean like the one at mid-court where the guy took a hop, skip, and jump, and then called timeout? If that was the best crew in the country, CBB is fu*#ed.
Thats Fran. Iowa falls asleep on D, Iowa State gets all the way to the rim easily, and Fran's bitching at the ref about the foul call at the rim at the end of the play🤣
Actually I blame Fran for not capitalizing on the transfer portal to avoid this year being a waste. How you don't ride the success of Garza and Weiskamp in luring some of these dudes who are chasing that same recognition is beyond me.
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