Siena coach Fran McCaffery was announced as the new Hawkeye basketball coach. Fran who? Another mid-major coach? I’m not sure what Barta was thinking with this hire. Sure, McCaffery has taken three different teams to the NCAA tournament, including the last seasons with Siena. While that sounds great, I would point out that each time Siena won the MAAC tournament, no at-large bids. Does dominating a small conference impressive if they are never in the top 25? They have a 2-3 record in the NCAAs in the past three years, which is better than we did with Lickliter or even Alford.
The one positive I take from this is he coaches an uptempo style, which will be huge improvement over Lickliter’s lull them to sleep strategy.
We’ll see. McCaffery will have a two year pass to build the team. In year three there needs to be progress or McCaffrery and Barta are gone.
The Lickliter death watch has started. My guess, he is gone in the next week. The Hawks have grown worse each year. It doesn’t help that Alford is doing well at UNM. Lickliter can’t recruit and the players he does recruit don’t fit his system very well.
So who is the dream candidate for the next Hawkeye basketball coach?
I don’t think any of us saw this coming. Tony Freeman spoke about why he was leaving the team and according to him, it was because of a lack of respect from Lickliter. The coach even suggested the Freeman transfer. Hmmm. What would the cause of this be? We’re hearing only one side of the story, but there seems to be some evidence backing Freeman up. Cole and Tate were named co-captains for next season, in spite of Freeman being the only Hawkeye to get any All Big Ten honors. I’ll admit that expectations are low for next season, but I seriously hope that Lickliter has a plan.
