All great points! But–forgive us our trespasses–Fran still makes a delicious target. And ‘Franbuary’ is a spectacular coinage.
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Side note: I love that the Iowa dialog has shifted to “his collapses aren’t always in February, sometimes they are in March.” Incredible stuff.
Iowa isn’t terrible… Iowa is one of the fourth or fifth-best teams in the Big Ten which is arguably the best league in college basketball. Since Jan 1, Iowa is 11th on Torvik - 2nd in offense, 133rd in defense – that seems kind of accurate to me?
It was all of the 3rd in the country rankings early in the season that was the ridiculous thing about Iowa IMO.
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I’m curious as to why you “need to actually win the games against good teams”? I mean sure in the tournament you will have to beat somebody good, but there isn’t any evidence that having more quality wins in the regular season leads to greater odds of NCAA tourney success in comparison to overall adjusted efficiency margins. Plenty of teams have made deep NCAA tourney runs that were not nearly as impressive in the regular season in regards to resume of wins and losses and were more impressive by efficiency margins.
Other Twos taking a beating today
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Made shots taking a real beating in general.
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They just have a terrible coach who will never achieve anything remotely resembling national success. Fran is worse than Chris Collins and Mark Turgeon. Fran is worse than Ed Cooley. Worse than Brian Ellerbe. You have no idea just how bad Fran actually is.
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Is this your way of resuscitating him?
You can’t resuscitate a pile of dust
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Real barnburner here at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Dang, dude! You big mad!
Well for starters, to achieve any goals - winning the conference and/or making a run in the tournament you need to beat good teams. Also, if you’re Iowa and just generally want to be taken seriously as a legitimate contenders, you should win some games too. Weird position to take to say you don’t need to actually win games.
And with regard to your efficiency numbers magically making you win games in the tournament argument, I believe Dylan posted a chart of teams that had similar statistical profiles to Iowa and most of them had early tournament exits. Are there some teams that you are thinking of that lost a bunch of games toward the end of the season, didn’t beat many really good teams, but had a nice computer profile and made a deep run in the tourney?
Announcer says that Northwestern having 5 players with 6 points means everyone is a threat to score. I would say that means no one is a threat to score when the highest individual scorer has 9 points in 32 minutes.
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I’m honestly not sure if you’re serious or going for hyperbole. I don’t want to come across as defending Fran because I think he is a mediocre coach at best. But to call him worse than Chris frickin’ Collins? Ed Cooley? Ellerbe? Come on man…
Given the resources he’s working with, Fran is a replacement level coach in my opinion. Recruits okay…not great. Has shown the ability to develop good-to-elite offenses. Has a total blind spot to defense. Will likely never hang a meaningful banner but will win more games than he loses.
Iowa is a good team…they aren’t and likely never will be a great team. Agree with Dylan.
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Of course if you want to win the conference you have to win the games. That’s implied, no?
But as for NCAA tournament success, there is no predictive ability (or minimal at best) between quality wins in the regular season and advancing deep in the NCAA tournament. The actual adjusted efficiency margins are about the best predictor you will find.
The similar profiles to Iowa that Dylan referenced from T-rank are teams that were dominant on offense with terrible defense, not teams that had a pretty efficiency metric but lacked marquee wins.
LOL, worse than Ellerbe? Ellerbe was so bad that 20 years after being fired from Michigan he still hasn’t gotten a head coaching job. Fran would slink back to a mid major job relatively quickly.
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Okay, was not sure if serious until the “worse than Ellerbe” bit. I’m not sure that is literally possible.
Fran isn’t the worst, but his program seems to be forever spinning its wheels. When you’re on year 11 and your career highlight is … a couple of round of 32s? Meh.
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Fran is literally worse than Steven Izzo.
That may have been a clean block by TJD.
Ten times worse than Ellerbe. You can’t even fathom Fran’s badness. I understand, it’s a complex situation.
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