Fare Thee Well, Anthony Tucker

In football, much like war, having a good general makes all the difference. And Ferentz is one of the goddamn best.

It’s be hard not to look up to him.

…how do we know this wasn’t the plan all along. It’s possible Lick saw the potential in Tucker, but knew Iowa wasn’t right for him so he allowed Tucker to “earn” his spot back before transferring rather than having the mark of someone who was kicked off a team (raise his stock so-to-speak).
I don’t know. We’ve had a lot of people leave due to A LOT of very interesting reasons. I hate to see it, but let’s not do the jump-to-conclusions-claim-we’re-DOOMED message board thing. Feelings are great and all, but they have no bearing on the reality surrounding a college kid playing ball in an empty arena.
I just don’t see anymore guys leaving. Just my feeling.

I think I said back in January that I thought there were two scenarios where the university would pretty much have to give him his walking papers:

1) Go 0-18 in conference play and/or just be hopelessly uncompetitive
2) Endure another exodus of players

Thankfully (for the sake of everyone’s sanity), 1) didn’t happen and they’ve actually been playing much better. If Tucker’s departure is a prelude to 2), though, all bets are off. Lickliter will never ever be successful here if he’s in a state of perpetual rebuilding.

Of course, none of that changes the fact that if he does get the boot after this season, it’s not going to be easy to find a great replacement.

….Tucker played how many games for the Hawks?
(Not an attack on you, but…) He wasn’t exactly an experienced, program player. Tuckers history gets Lick a pass on this one (from me), but my eyes are open for any other signs of defection.
You (and many others) are right that this cannot continue, but the guys who’ve been on the floor are looking up. They seem to be more comfortable and are having more fun, and I just don’t see a reason for any of the remaining guys to walk.

I don’t necessarily agree that it comes as a result of John Lickliter getting minutes over Anthony Tucker.

I like the way the offense has flowed better with a slightly stronger starting lineup (May + Fuller), but there is zero doubt in my mind that we would have been a better team with Tucker getting Lickliter’s 5-10 minutes per game.

Tucker leaving could be a weight off the shoulders of all involved. He appears to be a kid who needs to get his life squared away.

Anymore defections, though, and we’re probably talking about the end of the Lickliter era.

They’ve been better than “god awful-shitty” that they were, but being sort of competitive against a bunch of average teams isn’t anything. We’ve been that for all of Lick’s tenure. Hell, one of those 4 wins was a game where they were back and forth at home against (5-20) Tennessee State.

And why would anyone assume that the team hates Tucker anyway? From all my interactions with the team they seemed to get along great.

Like in the film Biloxi Blues.

in basketball, you only have 4 or 5 coaches that can make those connections or relationships. If one or two of those guys act like your boring uncle, then you might not feel exuberant about putting in all those hours of hard work/conditioning/shooting/etc.

Also, in football, the game itself is so violent, that if your coach is a bit mellow (as Ferentz seems to be), it is cool. In football, you might interact with a recruiting coordinator, your position coach, a grad assistant or something similar, the coordinator of your side of the ball (offense, defense, etc), at least one or two members of the strength and conditioning staff, and hopefully your head coach.

Also, the head coach is the “ultimate” leader in both sports. And when I say ultimate, I mean the guy everyone is eventually looking to.

- He makes $1.2 million a year, until this year, more than Matt Painter and Bruce Weber.
- He has the losingest record among all Big Ten coaches (14-34 in the Big Ten).
- He has personally recruited 8 players to the campus prior to the current freshman class, and three of them (as of today) have chosen to transfer (60% retention rate).
- He inherited six players, five of whom did not graduate with Iowa or go pro (16% retention rate).
- Including the current freshman class Lickliter has brought in fewer players than have left Iowa prior to graduation.
- Men’s basketball attendance is at an all-time low with paid attendnace at 9,165 and ACTUAL attednance at 4,591 (every game was sold out as recently as 2000-01).
- The leading scorer by average has chosen to transfer in each of his three seasons. (Gatens has a .3 ppg lead on Tucker and has been trending down and will likely be below Tucker by season’s end).
- Iowa is 196th in offensive proficiency. They are 257th in defensive FG % effectiveness. That is called not having an identity.
- Iowa is 1-5 against the spread in games they were favored (9-16 overall). Yet, Iowa’s SOS is #85 nationally.

Summary: This coach has not conveyed to the paying public, to the Iowa fan base, a vision plan for how he plans to get Iowa back to a winning team. He cannot retain players, even those who are leading scorers with ample playing time. He is, as of today, still “breaking down the team” and rebuilding the roster. He has had player distractions almost every week of his three seasons coaching this team. He has struggled with multiple incidents of team chemistry issues, whether it be transfer rumors, players arrested for drinking, illness and injury mysteries, and, of course, losing.