Ben on Pat McAfee Show, live, from Iowa City
- Thread starter Franisdaman
- Start date
Got to make sure there is no confusion since Missouri thinks we are the atlanta Hawks.
Ben McCollum has made me proud to support Iowa basketball again, win or lose. Why? Because of the Iowa culture he’s brought back. He’s a high character guy who values the right things—particularly toughness and heart. I never felt that way with Steve Alford or Fran. And those qualities—toughness and heart—always characterized Tom Davis teams. It’s great to have that back.
I liked Fran but his absolute refusal to hire someone to help them improve defensively was ego driven and cost his teams, repeatedly, year after year. I wasn't sad to see him go. Wish him well, he came to Iowa when they were at their lowest level in, ever? But, bye.
Fran was not actively looking for those type of guys. Sure some came through the program, that’s inevitable. Ben says that’s the first prerequisite for guys on his teams. Pretty easy to see that by the way his team competed in year 1 compared to 15yrs of Fran ball
In 15 years, or whatever it was, those guys were few and far between.
Fran’s teams generally being soft is not debatable.
Ben won more NCAA tournament games in his first year than Fran won, combined, in 15 years with all those great players that you listed.
I don’t know that they were few and far between. I think Fran’s philosophy held a lot of players back who would’ve excelled in Ben’s system
During the Fran era, “toughness” was generally defined as “a willingness to run one’s mouth.”
There were exceptions to that, but it was generally true.
They had heart, but you can’t deny they didn’t play great team defense.
Fran lost to Richmond in the NCAA first round despite having the National Player of the Year. But then we do know Spiders can be menacing. LOL
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