Now that GMac is HC, what does next year's squad look like?

[MSOrange]

I meant GMac should be taking cues from him. Trying to take what they do on offense and use the best practices from a fantastic coach.

I agree with you. Coaching matters the most. I pointed to him as an example of why having a huge war chest and being a portal beast isn't everything.

Agree I think he's a good example of that. From what I have read, Iowa does pretty well with NIL with football and women's basketball. But it was seriously only $1.5 million for Fran's last year according to several things I read. People were just over him and not excited about the program.

I imagine Ben got a decent bump on that from "new coach excitement" but I don't think they had a huge war chest by any means.

 

[Scooch]

This isn't rocket science. You need enough money to acquire the players you most want. Doesn't have to be $20M to get a bunch of 5 stars.

By all accounts, we had enough money to get who we most wanted last season. But it was all for naught because Red was a terrible coach.

According to a multitude of sources, we'll have even more money this offseason to allow Gerry to get (and retain) who he wants.

My expectation is that we'll make the tourney next season. Roughly 50% of P5 teams get a bid every year, and if we get who we want, we should be one of them.

Hopefully we acquire several top-end starters, and don't just bring in a bunch of low-major and mid-majors. That simply won't cut it.

 

[Bayside44]

You can get over it, too. Y'all take this stuff way too seriously, yelling "fake news!" about basketball.

Posting fake / nonsensical Twitter stuff gets delated to the best of our ability.

 

[Scooch]

FWIW, I don't think the $9 million that Gerry has quoted is enough. Most folks think P5 tourney teams will spend $10-12M this offseason, between direct comp and NIL.

If we largely hired him because of the donors promising a windfall then they need to dig deeper.

 

[Scooch]

Posting fake / nonsensical Twitter stuff gets delated to the best of our ability.

You guys do the Lord's work to manage that garbage.

I'd start suspending people for doing it. It's not too difficult to ferret out when an account is fake. But people are lazy and rush to post trash. Or they're just trolls.

 

[Cusefan0307]

FWIW, I don't think the $9 million that Gerry has quoted is enough. Most folks think P5 tourney teams will spend $10-12M this offseason, between direct comp and NIL.

If we largely hired him because of the donors promising a windfall then they need to dig deeper.

From my understanding It's more. The 9 gets repeated almost like they are holding back on purpose.

 

[Orangezoo]

This isn't rocket science. You need enough money to acquire the players you most want. Doesn't have to be $20M to get a bunch of 5 stars.

By all accounts, we had enough money to get who we most wanted last season. But it was all for naught because Red was a terrible coach.

According to a multitude of sources, we'll have even more money this offseason to allow Gerry to get (and retain) who he wants.

My expectation is that we'll make the tourney next season. Roughly 50% of P5 teams get a bid every year, and if we get who we want, we should be one of them.

Hopefully we acquire several top-end starters, and don't just bring in a bunch of low-major and mid-majors. That simply won't cut it.

Exactly. Also we don’t have to copycat anyone’s offense. Winning means a hard working defense and an efficient offense. How he accomplishes that just needs to be within the vision and plan he has for both sides of the ball, a staff that helps craft it and teach it and then the right players at the highest talent level for their roles that fit to execute.

I don’t think it’s worth getting too hung up on what everyone else does. Studying and learning what’s working and then applying his own version- if it’s successful then great but no need to over think it and try being some other program.

 

[Scooch]

From my understanding It's more. The 9 gets repeated almost like they are holding back on purpose.

I sure hope it's more. If not the core rationale for hiring Gerry is out the window.

 

[pearl31]

I'm not going to say Fran McCaffery was a total disaster and McCollum's team has had some growing pains - they lost to really bad Maryland and Penn State teams. But as someone who watches every Iowa game like I do every Syracuse game, the difference when things are clicking under Ben and what they were like under Fran is night and day. The offensive execution and passing last night was really impressive when they got going after the slow start.

And they actually play a modicum of defense!

 

[Scooch]

Exactly. Also we don’t have to copycat anyone’s offense. Winning means a hard working defense and an efficient offense. How he accomplishes that just needs to be within the vision and plan he has for both sides of the ball, a staff that helps craft it and teach it and then the right players at the highest talent level for their roles that fit to execute.

I don’t think it’s worth getting too hung up on what everyone else does. Studying and learning what’s working and then applying his own version- if it’s successful then great but no need to over think it and try being some other program.

Yeah, great coaches are constantly tweaking their strategies on both sides of the ball to gain an advantage. If Gerry has the chops he'll do that, and not be dogmatic about a singular "system".

 

[MSOrange]

And they actually play a modicum of defense!

Definitely! Fran was most certainly a "defense-optional" coach. Just something to keep you busy until you get the ball back.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I sure hope it's more. If not the core rationale for hiring Gerry is out the window.

Read the article again. It looks like he’s saying you need 9 or 10 million, not that we have 9 or 10. Very confident it’s more than that. And that was as of a week ago.

 

[pearl31]

Definitely! Fran was most certainly a "defense-optional" coach. Just something to keep you busy until you get the ball back.

yep. The 2 definites with fran:
Defense is optional...
Scream at the refs non-stop with language that'd make a longshoreman blush

 

[Orangezoo]

Yeah, great coaches are constantly tweaking their strategies on both sides of the ball to gain an advantage. If Gerry has the chops he'll do that, and not be dogmatic about a singular "system".

This is why I am optimistic. The plan they had vs Duke was not the plan they used vs Merrimack and so forth. While offensive efficiency must be better and should with more talent and depth, the offensive and defensive toolbag appears to be pretty deep watching them throughout the year. Execution of course is what matters as anyone can have 30 plays and 7 defenses but I was glad to see he wasn’t one dimensional game after game beyond heavily relying on one player in key situations.

 

[Scooch]

Read the article again. It looks like he’s saying you need 9 or 10 million, not that we have 9 or 10. Very confident it’s more than that. And that was as of a week ago.

I saw that. I think he’s a little short in quantifying what we need.

 

[rrlbees]

FWIW, I don't think the $9 million that Gerry has quoted is enough. Most folks think P5 tourney teams will spend $10-12M this offseason, between direct comp and NIL.

If we largely hired him because of the donors promising a windfall then they need to dig deeper.

i don't know the real number but that $9m is nil only so total funding with rev share, we'd be at about $12-$13m. and that $9m would be about double what we had last year.

 

[Cusefan0307]

i don't know the real number but that $9m is nil only so total funding we'd be at about $12-$13m. and that $9m would be about double what we had last year.

13 tracks...

 

[phil77]

Like I said if we do get to the 11-13 million dollar range, I would hope for a serious upgrade of talent and we should maybe have 1 kid starting that was from last year's Syracuse team or the Siena team. The entire starting lineup needs to be revamped in a major way.

 

[JSCuse]

i don't know the real number but that $9m is nil only so total funding we'd be at about $12-$13m. and that $9m would be about double what we had last year.

Thank you for clarifying this.

 

[Orangezoo]

So taking a look at Louisville and Kelsey-

Kelsey brought in 3 players for his first year from Charleston. 1 was a starter , the other was bench rotation and the other never saw the floor and didn’t do much at CofC either. Overall while Charleston is a bigger mid major than Siena, going with 2-3 guys from his mid major program would fit honestly and Moesch would already come in better on paper than the third guy who did nothing for Kelsey. As we know the Ville then had a nice war chest to build their team around the portal which went very well for them with that combination.

Digging further Kelsey brought no one back from the previous squad under Payne( that team sucked way worse than we did talent wise last year) and added portal additions mostly from mid majors minus their three big P4 gets of Hepburn from Wisky, Waterman from BYU and Hadley of Colorado plus a couple freshmen too.

Overall that would probably stack up similar to what would be a winning roster approach for Gerry just maybe a couple more names in the returnee category that would then pair with a similar approach to going after portal big fish. Their biggest portal add was actually a JMU guy not P4 as well.

So I think it’s fair to say that a similar approach with the money being floated we have is reasonable and could work out well.

 

[sutomcat]

McCollum won 4 National Championships in DII, got Drake to the round of 32 in one season, and now has Iowa in the Elite 8. It's the x's and o's, not the transfer portal and NIL that got him here.

How does that translate to SU & Gerry McNamara? Genuinely.

McCollum took 6 transfers with him from Drake. 4 are regular starters. A fifth has started 5 games.

Their sixth man played at Robert Morris last year.

The transfer portal absolutely has propelled Iowa deep into the tournament this year.

McCollum is a solid coach but without the portal, he would be a disaster.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that it isn’t the end of the world if a new coach brings players with him and wants them to play right away.

 

[Cusefan0307]

McCollum took 6 transfers with him from Drake. 4 are regular starters. A fifth has started 5 games.

Their sixth man played at Robert Morris last year.

The transfer portal absolutely has propelled Iowa deep into the tournament this year.

McCollum is a solid coach but without the portal, he would be a disaster.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that it isn’t the end of the world if a new coach brings players with him and wants them to play right away.

A lot of those guys came with him from D2. I think he's a great coach, but it will be interesting to see how he does without Stirtz next year.

 

[Orangezoo]

A lot of those guys came with him from D2. I think he's a great coach, but it will be interesting to see how he does without Stirtz next year.

Oddly enough a team like Iowa is exactly the kind of team you might have seen pursue Doty if he wasn’t going to follow Gerry. It will be interesting to see how he does. With that said even watching them in the tournament you can see how he’s made adjustments and leaned more on other guys. I think the signs point to him being very adaptable and he can still be successful when a guy like
Stirtz leaves.

 

[rrlbees]

Oddly enough a team like Iowa is exactly the kind of team you might have seen pursue Doty if he wasn’t going to follow Gerry. It will be interesting to see how he does. With that said even watching them in the tournament you can see how he’s made adjustments and leaned more on other guys. I think the signs point to him being very adaptable and he can still be successful when a guy like
Stirtz leaves.

doty seems like a uva type player.

 

[Orangezoo]

doty seems like a uva type player.

That fits too.