I will just say, compare the first 3 years of the KF era, and the Lick era……they are so many parrallels, and to me, very similar ways of rebuilding going on….patience is a virtue people…don’t let fellow talk show buddies, change your views!!!
There was no fire, just smoke bombs going off today. It was interesting to see fans chasing their tails today….
Lick will be back next year, he will finally show us what we’ve been waiting to see, great improvement, and we will see the foundation is finally bulding in the BB program. Maybe I’m the only fan left drinking the Koolaid, but I also hope, I’m the only one who said, I told you so after all of this smoke blows over…..

I am now very skeptical about these rumors. I am now of the belief they may have been exaggerations by people who wanted Lick gone. From what I heard tonight, nothing is happening. Of course that does not mean it won’t all change by tomorrow.

During the first three years of the KF era the team played well, even in defeat. You could tell that thinga were heading in the right direction. I’ve been a Lickliter apologist but I’ve never had the feeling this year that the basketball team was heading in the right direction.I don’t think it’s accurate to comnpare the first 3 years of the KF era with the first 3 years of the TL era.

I think comparing the first three years of the Ferentz era to the first three of the Lickliter era as the reason to bring Lickliter back is akin to standing in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa hoping to get struck by lightning because it happened to someone else once.

I can cite far more examples, probably 10 to 1, where people who had a three year record such as Todd’s that didn’t work out…there will be little evidence to the contrary, because most of those coaches do not get a year four.

I am struggling for an answer as to why “the Butler way” is not working at Iowa? That system puts winning/exciting basketball on the floor at Butler. It works at OH St so don’t tell me it won’t work in the Big 10, but why not Iowa? Is it the coach or is it the players on campus? I think it boils down to players and you have to be able to recruit and that more than “X’s and O’s could be the problem and demise of this coaching staff.

Butler over the years has recruited athletic, tough minded perimeter players who can hit the gaps in the defense to either get to the basket off the dribble or kick the ball to the corners. Ohio St. obviously has athletic kids on campus in Columbus. Both teams play exciting/winning basketball using the “Butler way”. It all boils down to getting kids on campus.

Stevie Hairball “raped” the program in more ways than one and now someone has the job of returning Iowa Basketball to the “Iowa Way”.

Go Hawks!

Rickhawk….you won’t be the only one to say “I told you so”. I’ve been saying all along these rumors are FALSE.

Lick is NOT going anywhere. He WILL be our coach next season and…if the team wins 14-15 games….will be here the season after that.

Last night I was thinking this hullaballoo may have forced Barta into pulling the trigger. This morning I’m thinking just the opposite….these “planted” rumors are going to backfire and Barta is going to stand even more firmly by Lick’s side.

Get used to it Hawks fans….the Lickliter era is far from over.

The comparisons of KF and Lick should stop. The football team got progressively better in 3 years under KF. The basketball team got progressively worse in 3 years under Lick. Lick had some players when he came in, KF was left with a bare cupboard.
Lick had the three best players leave the program each of the last three years. KF did not.
Players do not like Lick, I’m sorry but there is something about him they do not like. Davis, Palmer, and Petersen are prime examples of this. Freeman too. They did not want to play for this guy. His playing time patterns are horrible, players do not know their role. It is apparent watching this team for the last month, they have given up on him.
Lick will depart. This is like a marriage citing irreconsiliable differences in the separation. There has been too much smoke for the ties to be repaired. At this point Lick has to be gone. I can’t believe so many people think he will be back.

83,

The fans are the ones that allow for there even being an athletic department. The fans allow there to even be a Carver Hawkeye (and certainly a renovation project) and a Kinnick Stadium. The fans pay the bills. Gary had a front row seat all year long in Carver Hawkeye to see who wasn’t there any more. I am guessing he has fielded 1000+ emails on Iowa basketball this year, with how disappointed people are. I guarantee you he has had hundreds of conversations along those lines.

Gary Barta, Sally Mason, pick your administrator over there; their time will come and it will go. The fans were here before they were and they will be here after they were, long after they have traded in their black and gold clothes for the next color of clothing whose name is on the paycheck they draw. Same as it was for Bob Bowlsby…there are some exceptions to this, those folks that were either born and bred Hawks, or those that retire Hawks (like Bump Elliott, Hayden Fry). Regardless of how much I genuinely like Gary, he is a Hawkeye because the job came open, he applied, and he was hired. While the fans didn’t hire him per se, the fans are the lifeblood of any athletic department.

And while football is the engine that drives the entire athletic department, basketball is a source of pride for Iowa fans…and the fact that something many of us have held near and dear for our lives is at its worst point in not just our lifetimes, but its history, the mood of the fanbase can sour opinions on everyone just as fast as football, even if it doesn’t carry the same financial implications.

In the game of PR, the failure that has been the Iowa basketball program for the better part of the last decade risks spoiling the entire soup…he cannot let this mess go on any longer. If he chooses to, that is his call. But if he does that, my guess is the fans will begin to raise more questions, and they won’t just be about Todd Lickliter.

Which is why I cannot possibly see Gary bringing him back another year now with what has transpired publicly, yesterday. There is no bridge to cross, and the goodwill funds are not there to try and rebuild it.

I believe this is moot, because I believe Gary has been at work with what he will ultimately do, and that is replace Todd.

It’s all about the money folks. So stop kidding yourselves the Hawks are big business and profits are down. Thats just the way it is. Coach Lickliter must go. Its just business.

Seriously the worst thing that ever happened to Coach Lickliter is Steve Alford being successful at New Mexico. All of a sudden everybody forgets that Lickliter took over a trashed program that lost the fan base before he ever got here. The students stopped coming to games and attendance started down into its death spiral during Alfords administration. When you lose the students, you’ve lost the fanbase. The mistakes Barta has made have nothing to do with Lickliter they have to do with marketing. If Jamie Pollard who say what you want to is a marketing genius, was Iowas AD the last two years we would not be having these conversations. Jamie Pollard got me to buy an Iowa State football package for goodness sakes. 3 games, 100 bucks, including the hawk game. Sold my Colorado ticket and made up for the other two games. I mean the various packages and possibilities ticket wise with Iowa Basketball right now are limitless. Frankly if I was him the students would get in for 5 bucks every game just to get the place packed. When people see on TV empty seats they think its not worth going to, they hear the students and see it packed, people will show up. Nobody had great expectations for this team this year, nobody thought they would play this hard. Yeah they had two games at the end of the season where they got destroyed, a week before that Jon you and everybody else were talking about seeing improvement.

BRUCE PEARL!

People need to grow up. Bruce Pearl is NOT coming to Iowa he made that clear when we were looking for a coach after Alford departed. Kevin Stallings is NOT coming to Iowa City….I believe there was a ton of chatter when we hired Alford over him. Fact is we have a pretty darn class coming in next year with Brust, Marble, etc. Why get rid of him now (and I have personally penned on forums here that we’d be better off with Lisa Bluder as head Hawk)? If his team doesn’t get 6-10 games better next year and finish 7th or higher in the Big 10 next year THEN I think we can call the Lickliter era an unequivocal FAILURE.

wow. This is weird to me. in the last week I’ve learned that Dace’s daughter shares a birthday with my Sister and Jon’s daughter shares a birthday with my wife.