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.