Thoughts on Signing Day

Iowa’s basketball team continues to show enough signs of life to keep me interested in next year. They recently lost to OH St by 10 points, but played competitively throughout the game. Freshman Eric May has really stepped his game up.

The most interesting Hawkeye related story lately was national signing day last week. In addition to some big names (Andrew Donnal, Marcus Coker, and AJ Derby) that I’ve discussed previously on here, there were a few other exciting signings.

First, CJ Fiedorowicz, one of the top tight end prospects in the nation switched his commitment from Illinois to Iowa. The guy is 6’7” 240 lbs with great hands and speed. The skinny is that his blocking could use some work, but he’s come to the right program to learn that. Ferentz and co. seem to do well with project TEs, so a guy with this kind of talent should blossom. He is considered by the recruitophiles to be Iowa’s best prospect this year.

Second, Solon, IA native James Morris committed to Iowa in his sophomore year. Because of that, most other teams stayed away from pursuing him. Due to the lack of attention thrown his way, few recruitophiles took notice of his accomplishments. Everything I’ve heard about him indicates that he will contribute quite a bit for Iowa over the next few years. He’s coming in as a Linebacker, but ran the ball quite a bit in high school too.

I’m probably overlooking some future All-Big Ten player, but I think these guys are going to be a solid core for years to come. They aren’t considered the best class in the Big Ten, but that’s not Iowa’s style either. It’s fun for the fans to get excited about players but the bottom line is that “recruiting rankings” don’t really mean much.

For example, look back at the year 2002. Only 4 out of the top 10 prospects in the nation (all 5 star recruits) according to Rivals.com played in the NFL this year. Compare that to Iowa’s class of 02, ranked 42nd nationally (no 5 star recruits and only two 4 star recruits). 2 from that class are currently in the NFL. Think about that for a minute…it’s a pretty amazing stat.

Well, now that the Superbowl is over, it’s gonna be a while until football is on TV again. I’m fine with that as long as there is some good basketball on TV. So I probably won’t be watching the Hawkeyes anytime soon…

Darkest before the Dawn

Prior to this year, my memories of Hawkeye basketball have been limited to about 2 things. 

• First, the team with Luke Recker and Reggie Evans caught my attention during the NCAA tournament while I lived out in New York.
• Second, the team with Jeff Horner and Adam Haluska made some waves about 5 years ago but fell short in the first round of the tournament.

My introduction this year has been pretty disappointing.  Coach Todd Lickliter had his work cut out for him at the beginning of this year.  The biggest issue over the past few years has been retaining the talent that has come through the program and system.  Solid role players and veterans (Jake Kelly, Jermain Davis, Jeff Peterson, Chanse Creekmur, Tyler Smith, Tony Freeman just to name a few) have parted ways with the team and Coach Lickliter has been forced to give some very important minutes to very young players, namely Brennan Cougill and Cully Payne.

All this has meant some slow progress on the court.  He’s had to basically start at square one with new players this year.  He’s had to keep his finger in the dam all the while battling some serious health issues and accusations of favoritism with this son, who is also on the team, John Lickliter.

Here’s my advice to all Hawkeye basketball fans out there...Be patient and be supportive.

In Todd We Trust

Coach Lickliter may not have swept you off your feet when he came to Iowa City, but he is doing his job.  Consider this, recently the team has lost to Top 25 teams OH St and MI St by 8 and 7 points respectively.  Strangers to the situation are probably already clicking away from this page in disgust, but the truth is that that is quite an accomplishment!

Coach Todd is doing this with younger, less experienced and, let’s be honest, less skilled players.  He is getting more out of these players than most coaches could.  Hopefully these guys will stay around long enough to see some positive results in the win column.

Meanwhile, fans need to understand that this is a process.  Everyone had hoped that the program would be further along, but a lot of what happened was outside anyone’s control.  It’s not perfect, but it’s always darkest before the dawn.  Right?