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It's too bad all these threads turn into Fred vs Prohm.

The fact is Fred did a great job, but the way he recruited and left at the end didn't help. He was overall great for our program, but he wasn't perfect.

Prohm faced totally different circumstances than Fred. Fred's trajectory was coming in at a low point, and quickly turning it around.... Kudos to that.

Prohm came in replacing a legendary COACH AND FORMER PLAYER (*not easy). He maintained success with Fred's players.... Kudos to that.

Now we'll see how Prohm does in the next phase which is to rebuild a recruiting foundation and regain success. Jury is still out on that, but we need to give him at least 2 more years to see what he can do.
 
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jereseib said:
It's not that I don't like him, I just feel that first year we massively underacheived for how much talent we had coming back.

10-8 with Monte and Niang entering their final years is a bad coaching job. Not to mention we had the Big 12Defensive POY back and an NBA player in Nader, Burton as the 6th man.

Last year I'll give him some credit, we got hot in February and March, mostly due to the fact he finally realized Bowie and Holden were overmatched and put Young in as a starter.

I'll give him some credit for his high school recruting also, but you have to remember Niang and Thomas were highly rated hs recruits that Fred pulled in also. Prohms transfers have been huge busts so far in a 3 year sample size.

Overall I'll give him a C.
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They lost a couple regular season games they they probably shouldn't have but still got a good seed. Losing Naz hurt and they had no bench and McKay regressed because he was a little too full of himself. That team met expectations in the end though. And the team they lost to in the Big 12 tournament was one of the best teams in the country.

Last year I think they met expectations.

I think if there is one complaint from the first couple years is that they didn't exceed season expectations which they did a few times with Hoiberg. In reality, last year was a bonus year. A lot of people expected Morris and Long to be gone. Prohm has shown he is a good coach. This year will be the first year as a head coach that he probably won't have a winning record. Is he a great coach? Not yet but if he could be if he makes the necessary adjustments. He has really picked up recruiting the last two HS classes. Wigginton and Horton-Tucker are two of the highest rated commits that ISU has ever gotten.
 
Saturday is about as mad as I can remember being watching Iowa State play basketball. I was frustrated as well, and I've been guilty of questioning Prohm's abilities in my mind. However, when I took a step back, you have to consider several factors:

1) We are in the midst of an unprecedented run at Iowa State. Prohm deserves some of the credit for that. Sure, we had great players. I would also characterize 15-16 as a disappointment-- but that also was such a weird deal. Chemistry issues, plus the underlying frustration of losing your coach in the year everyone had been building towards. Last year, however, I think he did a great job with a team full of good players, but a limited bench and total lack of size. He deserves some credit for the last two years.

2) Along those same lines, and this may come as a surprise to some, but we are not Duke, Kentucky, etc. We have been successful lately, but we simply aren't of their ilk. We aren't going to reload with 5* talent, and we never had. We had to build the team with a combination of development and transfers. So as we have some very, very talented guys developing, we just didn't hit on the transfers. I would take the approach we did of grabbing guys like Brase and Beverly over making a 4 year commitment to a lesser player. This is the problem Iowa is dealing with now-- filling recruiting classes with low-ceiling guys and being stuck with them.

3) I was shocked by the statistic we are returning the 2nd fewest starts in all of college basketball. I knew we were inexperienced, but I didn't know it was that bad. Whether or not Fred is to blame, the class balance has been atrocious. We all knew this day was coming. It's not like there was much else Prohm could have done. We were destined for a bad year, and this is it.

4) Help is on the way. If next year's team isn't a NCAA tournament team, I think you may be able to ask some questions, but I'd still stop well short of suggesting he be fired. I think he's earned the ability to have a handful more years before we seriously question him.
 
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jereseib said:
Losing by 18 to Milwaukee has to rank up there?
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Not even close, although the fact that in Year 3 we don’t have a sufficient combination of talent and coaching to stay within 10 at home to a bad UW-Milwaukee team is a much more valid criticism than anything regarding previous seasons.
 
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CyTwins said:
I'm a big fan of you Roch but saying 2015-16 was a disappointment isn't a good look.
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CyTwins you and I have discussed this before and you know I respect your opinion. Regardless, I will always feel like 15-16 wasn't the success that it could have been or should have been. I don't really think I enjoyed watching many of those games that year. Expectations can oftentimes make fandom almost unenjoyable and I actually enjoyed 16-17 and to some degree this year (apart from 5-6 games) a lot more because of the lack of expectations.

I understand that my opinion is in the minority, but it's my opinion. People will have to judge my posting history on whether I'm a Prohm hater or just thin-skinned when it comes to the attacks on our best coach in school history.
 
TheJackWePack5 said:
Yeah, i'm not sure it gets any worse than losing to Milwaukee by 18 in Hilton.

At least UAB and Hampton were tourney teams (though still bad losses).
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UAB was UW Milwaukee, and they were playing against a Top 10 ISU team. They were 19-15 coming into the tourney. That means they probably were close to a .500 team going into the tourney.

"The Blazers (20-15) came in with the youngest team in the NCAA Tournament and with nobody having played in this tournament before. They wound up winning the program’s first NCAA game since 2005."

A bunch of young inexperienced guys playing in a lesser conference with a .500 record, beat a veteran ISU team.
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The UAB loss accomplished the ISU name being posted twice on the biggest upsets in NCAA history.

I can buy a bad game in November, regardless of the opponent, but losing to a .500 psuedo mid major team late in the season when you are number 9 in the country. That is pretty sad.
 
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rochclone said:
CyTwins you and I have discussed this before and you know I respect your opinion. Regardless, I will always feel like 15-16 wasn't the success that it could have been or should have been. I don't really think I enjoyed watching many of those games that year. Expectations can oftentimes make fandom almost unenjoyable and I actually enjoyed 16-17 and to some degree this year (apart from 5-6 games) a lot more because of the lack of expectations.

I understand that my opinion is in the minority, but it's my opinion. People will have to judge my posting history on whether I'm a Prohm hater or just thin-skinned when it comes to the attacks on our best coach in school history.
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I enjoyed the 15-16 season. Yeah there was some frustrating times (UNI and Baylor at home ring a bell) but we won at Cincy that year, grinded out a win at Okie State with Simeon having to play, housed KU at home and played lights out in Denver which was an awesome trip. No shame in losing to Buddy Hield and Tom Eades in KC either that year IMO
 
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acgclone said:
It's too bad all these threads turn into Fred vs Prohm.

The fact is Fred did a great job, but the way he recruited and left at the end didn't help. He was overall great for our program, but he wasn't perfect.

Prohm faced totally different circumstances than Fred. Fred's trajectory was coming in at a low point, and quickly turning it around.... Kudos to that.

Prohm came in replacing a legendary COACH AND FORMER PLAYER (*not easy). He maintained success with Fred's players.... Kudos to that.

Now we'll see how Prohm does in the next phase which is to rebuild a recruiting foundation and regain success. Jury is still out on that, but we need to give him at least 2 more years to see what he can do.
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I think the kick him to the curb crowd is what precipitates the Fred vs Steve thing.

But its the culture we live in, 2 NCAA tourney's a few wins in the NCAA, do not offset what was expected to be a down year in some individuals mind.

They are who they are, they are passionate about ISU and do not like seeing losing. Thing is if you fire a coach after a disappointing season at most programs you will be firing coaches on a pretty regular basis.

If we get through Wiggintons and Lards sophomore year and we are not sniffing any post season have at it.
 
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CyTwins said:
I enjoyed the 15-16 season. Yeah there was some frustrating times (UNI and Baylor at home ring a bell) but we won at Cincy that year, grinded out a win at Okie State with Simeon having to play, housed KU at home and played lights out in Denver which was an awesome trip. No shame in losing to Buddy Hield and Tom Eades in KC either that year IMO
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A few people keep mentioning the Big 12 tournament loss like we didn't lose to a future 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament that went on to the Final Four.
 
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One thing I think people are underestimating is Babb's knee. You can tell he isn't right. Him not being able to turn the corner is absolutely killing us. We don't have anyone who can get all the way to the bucket. Instead, our guards have to settle for 10-15 foot pull up jump shots. That makes us much easier to guard, both on the perimeter and on our post ups.
 
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CyTwins said:
I enjoyed the 15-16 season. Yeah there was some frustrating times (UNI and Baylor at home ring a bell) but we won at Cincy that year, grinded out a win at Okie State with Simeon having to play, housed KU at home and played lights out in Denver which was an awesome trip. No shame in losing to Buddy Hield and Tom Eades in KC either that year IMO
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Rewatched the replay of that ISU vs. Oklahoma (DVR) Big 12 quarterfinal on Saturday night. The calls by Eades on Georges second foul was one of the worst I have ever seen.
 
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rochclone said:
Or it could be late in-game coaching. Specials, quick hitters, etc. Or it could be lack of execution by players. Could be lots of different explanations, but depth best fits the narrative.
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They played 7 players, less when McKay was out.

They lost close tough games. But he also beat the number one team in the country.
 
Clonefan32 said:
One thing I think people are underestimating is Babb's knee. You can tell he isn't right. Him not being able to turn the corner is absolutely killing us. We don't have anyone who can get all the way to the bucket. Instead, our guards have to settle for 10-15 foot pull up jump shots. That makes us much easier to guard, both on the perimeter and on our post ups.
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Agree. Also, really not having a stretch 4 that can hit a consistent 3 point shot from the top of the key is really hurting ISU's offensive flow this season. If we had that stretch 4 that could pull that extra defender out, Babb could find the lane a little easier. As a result, our offense has struggled this season.
 
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