Lucky Seven.
by Bellanca on Mar 28, 2009 1:15 PM CDT
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PrintJust seven questions:
1. When was the last time 40% of an Iowa scholarship group in any varsity sport quit?
2. When was the last time Iowa's leading scorer posted 11 ppg?
3. Who, among anyone who ever played a game, watched players who had big games in big wins (e.g., Palmer, Davis) buried while starters played 45, 47, 50 minutes -- and didn't think that was a little odd?
4. Assume you run a company. 40% of the company quits in three days. Do you say, "A quarter of that is personal. The rest, an accident. Buy our stock, because everything is on track. I like how things are going."
5. What seminal event occurred, unreported, before Iowa lost by 30 (to a team Iowa beat once) in the first round of the Big Ten tourney?
6. Sure, we don't have a "basketball facility". NCAA qualifiers: UNI, Xavier, Gonzaga, blah blah blah. Oh, and Butler. What prevents Iowa from recruiting and retaining successful athletes who instead choose conferences we can't even name?
7. You're on scholarship (you are an employee, kinda). You do whatever you are asked to do for your four years -- as evidence, you have not been run off the team. It's senior day. You're on the court for zero seconds. Do you conclude that this is a classy move by a coach who understands that people play basketball, not coaches? Do any of your teammates notice this graciousness?
Net: something is unreported here. This is an extraordinary situation.
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My sentiments exactly
There’s obviously something going on behind the scenes with Lick and the players. Shit like this just doesn’t happen if there’s not.
HMMMMM
I know there is no changing you rmind but your math is a litle off.
1. There were four indidviduals who left. There are 15 scholaship athletes avaaible that is 26.66667% DOnt know were 40% came from.
2. I dont know tell us when that really happened???
3. Yes did seem odd but no one knows about Mr. Palmer. He certainly had lots of baggage when he arrived. So He isnt all inncoent either. Davis (the only TL recruit) excuse is garbage…. He knew the System and the style of play well before stepping fooy in IC.
4. It all depends. Its all situational. But more over my company would never be made up of 17, 18, 19 yr olds. SO your annology just isnt there.
5. I dont know maybe said employees took he day off or had the blue flu….
6. You are correct we dont have a facility. Those teams that do are where we want to be. Besides our conference rivals whom we want to be like MSU, have facilities that dwarf IC.
7. In my company there is no Senior day…. Every day is senior day you prove yourself and you play you dont and wont. Besides your compensattion is your education that you recieved complements of my company. That is the contract no to be able to play on certain days. The contract is you come practice we give you an education. There is NOTHING stated about playing time.
You are correct something is a miss. Don’t know what that soemthing is but something definately is…
dont kid yourself
palmer was not a good player, and davis was a role player at best.
that said, I agree with you.
As far as #4 goes
judging by many financial companies right now, that’s exactly what you say.
But as customers and shareholders, we should be pretty upset with that answer. I think we are. There is an expectation for growth, and when there is a step backwards with little to no serious explanation of what went wrong and the exact steps that will be taken to correct it, then at a bare minimum, they should expect hard questions and lack of faith.
Well...
1. Men’s basketball gets 13 scholarships, though we only used 12 last year. (I don’t believe John Lickliter used the last one, although I’ve seen some conflicting info on that.) So technically it was 4 out of 13, or 4 out of 12 actual scholarships used.
2. Not sure what this has to do with the rest of your points. Our offense sucks. And? For the record, going back to 00-01, the lowest leading scorers before this year were Brunner in 05-06 (14.1 ppg) and Freeman last year (13.8 ppg).
3. The substitution patterns were very odd this year, no question. I can see why Palmer and Davis would get limited minutes, because they did have some very obvious and clear limitations in their play. That said, I don’t know why they would get 0 minutes in some games, particularly in some of the OT thrillers we played late in the year – it’s not like they were completely useless.
4. Have Barta and Lickliter actually said “everything is fine” or “things are proceeding how we’d like”? It would be nice if they would be a little forthright with what they’re doing to fix things, but I suspect the answer is also in their actions: finding new players who will (hopefully) be more productive/effective.
5. I have no idea what you’re talking about.
6. All those teams were also automatic qualifiers from much easier conferences. I don’t think the facilities argument is the be-all/end-all argument, but it IS a factor. We have fallen behind most of the teams in our conference, which is definitely a problem. Even Alford recognized it as a problem and wanted it be improved while he was here, but Bowlsby blithely ignored him. (Which was par for the course with BB – he didn’t do shit for any facilities at Iowa except Kinnick.)
7. If I was said hypothetical “employee,” I also got five years of free education and presumably contributed something behind the scenes, so it wasn’t a complete waste. But, yes, said “employee” probably should have seen a few minutes of action on Senior Day.
Especially when you're correcting someone else.
Iowa had 12 guys on scholarship, right? 2 were seniors. As was said, if you’re counting them as your total, then you count them as leaving, too. So that’d be six of the 12. Or you could not count them and only count the 10 guys that were eligible to return, and then count the 4 that left.
Or you could correct someone while being incorrect yourself. That’s pretty hilarious.
Viva la nuance! Reading comprehension rules!!!
"I don't know my role"
Under Lickliter there has been entirely too much confusion about player’s roles, the rotation. I have never seen anything like this at major college level. Bellanca is right too, that Michigan loss in the tourney was a red flag.
Peterson leaving is a red flag. This guy has gotten way more playing time than I ever thought he deserved. I get a sense he was asking to play down the stretch and Lickliter used his injury to keep Kelly at the point.
I thought Lickliter had a system, but over the course of the year I saw him (for lack of a better wway to describe it) “breaking down” players HE RECRUITED. I understand him breaking down Cole and Palmer, but Brommer and Fuller?
I think we all agree that Steve Alford was a dick. But, did we upgrade here? I fear for this basketball program right now. We could be going down a road where we could be in serious trouble. I don’t see recruiting changing with Lickliter. I don’t see a group of 4-star players coming. I find myself wondering if we can get 3-star players with this guy (unless they play at Iowa City High). PLEASE remember that Gatens recruited himself to Iowa, this guy did nothing to make that happen.
And, you can only imagine what this would all like if football was going south too.
"When you don't know that you don't know, it's a lot different than when you do know that you don't know." Bill Parcells
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