Aaron Cosby
- Thread starter wags
- Start date
Hok theories.....
For anyone to look at this season as less than successful is unfortunate. My goodness- combine the hubris of Alford triggering departures, along with the absolute misery of watching Todd PaintDryer led teams and the mass departures there as well, and there was NOTHING other than R. Dev waiting for Fran. In three years, he has managed to bring in three Mr. Basketball recruits, depth at pretty much every spot on the floor, and an incredibly enjoyable brand of basketball to watch. Yes, a couple of good bounces this year would have probably gotten Iowa into the NCAA tournament, but such is life. We all started the season feeling the team was a year away. The lessons these players learned this season about not letting others decide the outcome for the team will pay huge dividends moving forward. My goodness, Iowa went several years starting the next season with less than 40% of the offensive scoring returning. No consistency. No building. Iowa State took a different path to get back to the tourney, and bully for them, it worked. I am far happier having the opportunity to see these kids progress for three and four years, watch their growth, and feel far more connected to the team as a whole than bringing in loads of JuCo and other transfer players. This season, by any metric, to all reasonable fans, has been a phenomenal success.
The thing with ISU, is that we are doing both. We have transfers playing a lot of minutes right now, but we also have a standout freshman playing well beyond his years and multiple solid HS players signed for next year. The transfer heavy approach is more of a transition strategy and it has worked out well. Now we can concentrate on HS kids and just take any possible transfers in the future on a case by case basis if they fit the overall plan.
I am far happier watching this fun team that loves Iowa State, transfers or not, in the NCAA tournament than watching the "growth" of guys who started here in the NIT each year. Must be fun.
Amardi and Hogue are the IHCC guys, and they had nothing to do with the thing that canceled IHCC's season. They were suspended 2 games for getting caught up in the fight, but so did 7 other guys on both sides. The IHCC player who started the fight got a 3-game suspension, and then IHCC got a postseason ban because the IHCC president bailed him out of jail that night.
If Amardi and/or Hogue somehow don't make it to Ames, it won't be because of the fight or the postseason ban. I covered that whole story down here in Ottumwa, and nothing ever came out that implicated them as anything more than players caught up in the scrum.
Not to mention that every year they don't make the NCAA their claims of how bad things were when Fran took over become more exaggerated.
More successful than when Alford was taking teams led by transfers such as Luke Recker, Reggie Evans, and Adam Haluska to the dance? 3 tourney appearances in 8 years for Alford. Zero since.
I have to admit, I like where Iowa is headed long-term. They should be an NCAA team next year.
Having said that, the counter to the Hok stance is this. Hoiberg came in and found a roster that had Garrett, Christopherson and practically nothing else. He also knew what was expected of him here: beat Kansas. (Face it, that's what we all want.) He told Pollard the only way to beat KU was to get KU-type kids. Problem is, McDermott left the program is such a state that ISU wasn't going to be able to attract top-level high school talent right away.
So, Hoiberg took chances. He grabbed every transfer he thought would be able to help raise the profile of the program...and once those guys were eligible in year two, it worked. Beat KU, make the NCAAs. He didn't quit with one class of transfers, either, because it was gonna take a couple of years to really start seeing the results he needed in high school recruiting.
Now, the formula is changing. Niang is the first big step, with more top-100 high schoolers coming next year. This Cosby kid might be a nice get, but the transfers from now on will be fewer Division I flips and more JUCO need-fillers. Hoiberg's long-term plan isn't to be Transfer U. until the end of time. He used the transfers to put ISU back on the map, and he'll always have a shot now to land any truly game-changing transfer that comes along, but the future of the program will be on the backs of the high school recruits.
Getting one recruit isn't transfer U, Jesus. We went from four, to two, to zero, to potentially one. Get over it and shut up about it. We are obviously going after HS kids too, there's no reason so settle for a lesser HS kid when you can get a better transfer. We aren't pulling in all five stars yet. Get the best players possible PERIOD.
Hopefully Fred gets the program to a point where he has to worry about not only transfers being one and done but some of the freshmen as well.
But...But....But...they feel far more connected to them team as a whole since they aren't bringing in JuCo or transfer players. I heard it was the player's ideas to give away free pizza to get these connected fans to come to games too
that would be INCREDIBLY busch league. you don't just strip a senior's scholarship because you found someone better. i'm sure to an extent this does happen at certain schools in some facet or another, but this would reflect very poorly on fred and the program.
sometimes problem/bad players will be told they should seek opportunity elsewhere for various reasons, but this will not happen with bubu unless bubu himself decided to volunteer his scholarship (which won't happen).
How do you not know that this was a one-year thing?
Fred may have sat Bubu down and told him, we have one open scholarship for one year and we want you to have it with the understanding that it is just for one year.
Or maybe Bubu did volunteer his scholarship since he didn't need it for two years anyway, maybe his family is covering all college costs.
The fact is that none of us know and judging Hoiberg for the (potential) decision without knowing the facts is what is actually "bush league."
Exactly. Bubu's scholarship initially came from having a one semester scholarship that was not being used, so Fred gave it to Bubu. Who knows what the agreement was. It would be perfectly reasonable to tell him he had a scholarship as long as there was an open one, but he would go back to being a contributing walkon if they needed it.
Bubu was not recruited to Iowa State and came here as a walk on, it isn't like he was a recruited scholarship player that would be getting his offer pulled.
We have no idea what the conditions of his scholarship are - i.e. is his scholarship yearly, is it dependent on their being one available, etc. I am sure they went over this with him one way or another when he was granted a scholarship. If the agreement did not indicated he would have a scholarship guaranteed through his 5th year, its not busch league for him to go back to walk-on status.
Yeah, I agree that most of us don't feel at all connected to players like Scotty, Tyrus or Babb.
