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Todd Lickliter

JAMAM

HB All-State
Sep 26, 2017
656
549
93
Anybody see what is Evansville purple aces are up to these days? Okay so he's an assistant but still the irony is unreal!
 
There was another story I saw today that he returned there last year after doing scouting for the Celtics and was trying to help rebuild the Evansville program
 
Todd Lickliter is 64 years old and took early Social
Security benefits. So he is an unpaid volunteer coach
at Evansville. His wife is happy to see him stay active
in the community and stay out of their house.
 
from the courier press....Guy has a .586 winning percentage and has a coach of the year trophy. That is a pretty good resume on the surface. He is perfect for a mid major. Or a low major in this case.

Lickliter formerly was the head coach at Butler and Iowa, as well as Marian University (an NAIA school in Indianapolis). His head coaching record is 218-154, including a 131-61 mark at Butler, where he led the Bulldogs to a pair of Sweet 16 appearances.

He was the 2007 NABC National Coach of the Year.
 
He was BEYOND AWFUL during his tenure at Iowa, however, he was sucessful at Butler so you just never know. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has some success at a mid major again, but it’s unlikely based on the failures we witnessed.
 
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His Iowa tenure is certainly a mystery. I mean you could see a guy losing at Iowa but the chaos, transfers, ineligibilities? The antithesis of everything about Butler, regardless of the coach.

He's a good guy. Wish him well.
 
This is the kind of move a school makes when they have no other moves.

At least he brings a completely different code of personal conduct than the toxic individual they just booted. He was a disaster as a coach at Iowa, but I don't think there have ever been any issues with his personal behavior.
 
He was BEYOND AWFUL during his tenure ate Iowa, however, he was successful at Butler so you just never know. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has some success at a mid major again, but it’s unlikely based the failures we witnessed.

He was successful at Butler because Brad Stevens was his main recruiter....Todd Lickliter has zero idea how to recruit nor does he give a rats ass how to recruit. The only way he will succeed at Evansville is if Evansville already has capable assistants. I wish Evansville nothing but misery with him at the helm.
 
Lick's recruiting is overly criticized, with one tremendously big exception. He brought some pretty good players but he couldn't keep them here. That kid that went to USC was good, Peterson was good, Jake Kelley was good. His last class proved to be four good players.

Had a knack for the kind weird kid too. That Minnesota guard was good he crashed, Big Cougs, Cully Payne all showed some nice potential but KBLAAAM that crashed out of the program.

With the injuries to May, Tate and Cole the perfect shirt storm nested over Iowa City. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, all at once. The Lick years are better forgotten than anything else.

…. and I know some of those guys were initially Alford recruits just like F Mac kept 3 of Lick's 4 guys on campus.
 
Imagine being an AD and hiring Todd ****ing Lickliter to be your basketball coach.
In all fairness the guy was the National coach of the year before Barta hired him. I could understand the critisism for hiring him after what we saw at Iowa, but not before. I know hindsights pretty cool huh......
 
How he got the job was Lickliter got a job with the Celtics as a scout thanks to Stevens and McCarty was working for them as an assistant at the same time. So that's how Lickliter was connected to Evansville and helped him land the gig when he joined McCarty's initial staff. I do find the CBS sports write up on him when mentioning Iowa to be very accurately summed up and sad at the same time.

"Lickliter agreed to a 7 year deal and would be paid $1.2 million per season. He wouldn't last long in Iowa City. His slow inefficient offense and lack of defense resulted in Iowa going 38-58 during his 3 seasons at Iowa. He was fired after going 10-22 during the 2010 season."
 
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I was sitting at a beach side bar in the Virgin Islands during that magical Michigan game in the ol’ B1G Tournament. It morning time when the announcers said there were rumors going around press row Lick was done. I couldn’t drink fast enough to keep up with my excitement.
 
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Lick's recruiting is overly criticized, with one tremendously big exception. He brought some pretty good players but he couldn't keep them here. That kid that went to USC was good, Peterson was good, Jake Kelley was good. His last class proved to be four good players.

Had a knack for the kind weird kid too. That Minnesota guard was good he crashed, Big Cougs, Cully Payne all showed some nice potential but KBLAAAM that crashed out of the program.

With the injuries to May, Tate and Cole the perfect shirt storm nested over Iowa City. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, all at once. The Lick years are better forgotten than anything else.

…. and I know some of those guys were initially Alford recruits just like F Mac kept 3 of Lick's 4 guys on campus.
Peterson, Kelly and Cole all committed to Alford
 
How he got the job was Lickliter got a job with the Celtics as a scout thanks to Stevens and McCarty was working for them as an assistant at the same time. So that's how Lickliter was connected to Evansville and helped him land the gig when he joined McCarty's initial staff. I do find the CBS sports write up on him when mentioning Iowa to be very accurately summed up and sad at the same time.

"Lickliter agreed to a 7 year deal and would be paid $1.2 million per season. He wouldn't last long in Iowa City. His slow inefficient offense and lack of defense resulted in Iowa going 38-58 during his 3 seasons at Iowa. He was fired after going 10-22 during the 2010 season."

so we aren’t paying him anymore?
 
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He was BEYOND AWFUL during his tenure at Iowa, however, he was sucessful at Butler so you just never know. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has some success at a mid major again, but it’s unlikely based on the failures we witnessed.
Little guy named Brad Stevens was his assistant at the time.
 
Peterson, Kelly and Cole all committed to Alford

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Lick's recruiting is overly criticized, with one tremendously big exception. He brought some pretty good players but he couldn't keep them here. That kid that went to USC was good, Peterson was good, Jake Kelley was good. His last class proved to be four good players.

Had a knack for the kind weird kid too. That Minnesota guard was good he crashed, Big Cougs, Cully Payne all showed some nice potential but KBLAAAM that crashed out of the program.

With the injuries to May, Tate and Cole the perfect shirt storm nested over Iowa City. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, all at once. The Lick years are better forgotten than anything else.

…. and I know some of those guys were initially Alford recruits just like F Mac kept 3 of Lick's 4 guys on campus.

I think you maybe over hyping some of these former Lickliter players. Aaron Fuller was the one who went to USC. He was a hybrid player who went from 10ppg as a JR to 4 his SR year at USC. He was good not a great player. Same for Anthony Tucker the G from Minnesota who after leaving Iowa went to Winona St and got kicked off the team.

As for Cully Payne and Cougill. It was addition by subtraction with both leaving the program. Neither was good and put up avg #s at mid major schools. There is a reason Fran didn't take Cougill back after he had to go JUCO for a year.

As for May, Cole and Tate. Cole and Tate were both Alford guys as has been mentioned before. As for his last class. Marble was a stud, Brust did well at Wisconsin. But McCabe was nothing more than a role player and Larson flamed out at Florida and ended up playing at SDSU.
 
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Wasn’t it Chasson Randle who visited Iowa and came away saying he never even spoke to Lickliter once during the visit?
 
I was sitting at a beach side bar in the Virgin Islands during that magical Michigan game in the ol’ B1G Tournament. It morning time when the announcers said there were rumors going around press row Lick was done. I couldn’t drink fast enough to keep up with my excitement.

I remember the HR board back then and there were a majority of Iowa fans ready to give Lick another year. It was very disgusting. The narrative has completely changed since then, but there was a very small vocal minority calling for Lickliter’s firing here.
 
I remember the HR board back then and there were a majority of Iowa fans ready to give Lick another year. It was very disgusting. The narrative has completely changed since then, but there was a very small vocal minority calling for Lickliter’s firing here.

I wanted him fired as it was apparent he not only wasn't getting it done...but he had no interest in ever getting it done.

I however thought he was going to be given another year.
 
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Wasn’t it Chasson Randle who visited Iowa and came away saying he never even spoke to Lickliter once during the visit?

I don’t remember if it was Randle but have heard this happened with recruits during his tenure.

I think Lickliter came in to collect the big time money and really didn’t care or give the job his best effort.

That’s the best conclusion one make IMO when you hear / read stories like the one above, him sitting with his head in his hands during the game, and the team dissension resulting transfers (both actual and threatened in the case of Gatens).
 
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I also seem to remember that the assistant coaches were wanting Lick to open up tryouts to guys to walkon but Lick had no interest in that....more than likely because he wanted his kid to play.

I do know the his boy would get taken to the woodshed in pickup games at the Field House.
 
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I think you maybe over hyping some of these former Lickliter players. Aaron Fuller was the one who went to USC. He was a hybrid player who went from 10ppg as a JR to 4 his SR year at USC. He was good not a great player. Same for Anthony Tucker the G from Minnesota who after leaving Iowa went to Winona St and got kicked off the team.

As for Cully Payne and Cougill. It was addition by subtraction with both leaving the program. Neither was good and put up avg #s at mid major schools. There is a reason Fran didn't take Cougill back after he had to go JUCO for a year.

As for May, Cole and Tate. Cole and Tate were both Alford guys as has been mentioned before. As for his last class. Marble was a stud, Brust did well at Wisconsin. But McCabe was nothing more than a role player and Larson flamed out at Florida and ended up playing at SDSU.

I never said they were "great", just good players that couldn't stay on campus for various reasons-some of which constitute general weirdness. Definitely could have used Cougs, Kelley, Cully and Fuller McC's first couple of F Mac seasons. Tucker had some skills and a nice looking shot but apparently couldn't stay out of the bars. A lot misfits and malcontents.

Look at it like this. Andrew Brommer made Cougs look like Wes Unseld.

That first FMac team was awful, almost any healthy bodies would have helped. To go from that collection to the talent on the NIT final was an amazing roster turnaround.
 
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I think he cared. I think by season two he understood he was in over his head. He was stressed out and having severe migraine headaches. He later had some sort of procedure to fix a clogged vein in his neck that may have caused the headaches. I kind of feel bad for the guy but it still upsets me that he wanted nothing to do with the players. Had no real relationship with them. You can't be successful that way. Not at Iowa.
 
I think he cared. I think by season two he understood he was in over his head. He was stressed out and having severe migraine headaches. He later had some sort of procedure to fix a clogged vein in his neck that may have caused the headaches. I kind of feel bad for the guy but it still upsets me that he wanted nothing to do with the players. Had no real relationship with them. You can't be successful that way. Not at Iowa.

That is the single weirdest thing about the Lick years. He was a friendly, likeable guy. Seemed like a coach that would get tight with the players. The Butler guys liked him but just no real relationships at Iowa-other than the Gatens. That might explain so many flaky recruits-he didn't pay close attention to the kids.
 
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