Saturday, March 20, 2010

Boy was I wrong and a big surprise

Boy was I wrong. Lickliter is out as U of I basketball coach. Now the question is who to hire. First and foremost, I think it has to be someone with Iowa ties. Neither Lickliter nor Alford before him had those ties or seemed to develop them.

My short list includes Bruce Pearl, the head coach at Tennessee, who was an assistant to Tom Davis at Iowa; but to expect him to leave a successful program and rebuild at Iowa? I think not.

Then there is Tom Davis's son Keno. He continued his dad's rebuilding at Drake and took them to the NCCA tournament before leaving for a bigger school out east.

The big surprise this year is Ben Jacobson's UNI Panthers. Just a few minutes ago they upset #1 Kansas! The man can obviously coach. Go Panthers!

My first choice would be Keno Davis. He lived here for a long time. His dad still lives here, and the Davis style of basketball with constant pressure is nothing if not exciting to watch.

Second would be Ben Jacobson, almost sure to be named coach of the year after advancing his team to the sweet 16. But then I remember that Lickliter was also named coach of the year after coaching a mid major team to the sweet 16.

The key is to make Iowa basketball fun to watch again. The hard pressing Davis system provides that and success besides. We'll see what happens. For now good night.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Hawkeye basketball

Speculation is rife about the future of Iowa basketball coach Todd Lickliter. The Hawks have suffered through the two worst seasons in history the past two years. Some of that is not Lickliter's fault.

Steve Alford is a good coach as he is proving at New Mexico, but he was never a good fit for Iowa. His star system won a few Big Ten titles and some NCAA tournament bids, but it also produced the Pierre Pierce fiasco. That's not how we do things in Iowa, and every rumor of an opening at Indiana proved a distraction to the team. So good riddance to Alford. The decline in attendance began and only accelerated during his tenure.

Now on to Lickliter. He had a very young team this year who gained valuable experience and has a good recruiting class coming in next year. Transfers have been a problem which brings up two questions. Could he have done more to encourage these guys to stay? I'm not inside the program and so have no idea.

The question of should he have done more only requires my opinion, and I would say yes. That has been his biggest failing.

My guess as to Lickliter's future? Based on this young team's effort and the recruiting class coming in next season, I'd say he has one more year to produce at least a winning season if not an NCCA tournament bid.

My personal preference would be that Tom Davis had never been unceremoniously let go. Davis then began building the program at Drake and handed it off to his son last year who then took Drake to the tournament. Shortly after, he took the coaching job at a higher profile school out east. Does anyone seriously think that if Tom Davis had been retained and handed the program off to his son that the son would have left for greener pastures? You can't get much more big time than the Big Ten.

Enough. It is what it is, but I do miss those days when Hawkeye basketball was fun to watch. I'll give Lickliter another year. For now, good night.

About Me

I work in health care, love books, love music, enjoy the internet, my friends, and my routine. 8-)