Comments on: Season Over; What of Lickliter Era?

By: pmchawk

pmchawk — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:59:28 +0000

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.

By: seepig

seepig — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:45:54 +0000

Oh forgot to make this point….Want fans to show up at games?

WIN SOME OF THE TIME. Winning cures many ills.

By: seepig

seepig — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:43:14 +0000

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.

By: rdwars

rdwars — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:50:36 +0000

Iowa needs to hire a big conference coach. No more SW Missouri States and Butlers. Get it done Barta

By: rdwars

rdwars — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:48:55 +0000

BRUCE PEARL!

By: Cardhawks

Cardhawks — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:35:22 +0000

To iloveyoularrystation,
First off continue to drink the Kool-aid and whatever else you want to put in it. Secondly, don’t blame Alford for the failures of the Lickliter era. The two regimes are like night and day, you can’t compare the two. I’ll admit the Alford era wasn’ t the greatest, but to blame him for the low attendance the last few years and the pathetic product that is on the floor is idiotic. I attended the U of I during the first four years of the Alford era and I never once felt the way I do now. Carver might not have been sold out every year but we still saw on average between 11,000-12,000 fans for each game. Also some of the games were sold out. I saw Iowa win one big ten tournament title and make the championship game the following year, they also won it again in 2006. I don’t remember that happening at anytime during the Lickliter era. Also to blame Barta for the seats being empty, that to is idiotic. Did you watch any of the games this year? Barta could have tried all the marketing schemes possible this year and they still would not have drawn over 10,000 fans. College students and frankly most fans don’t want to watch a team that runs the same offense as the Hickory Huskers. It’s not fun for anybody, just look at the players the last half of the season, there was no sign of life and they acted like they didn’t want to be there.

If he is brought back there will be more backlash from alumni like myself and the gap between the football and basketball program will continue to grow.

By: iloveyoularrystation

iloveyoularrystation — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:06:19 +0000

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.

By: Billso

Billso — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:19:37 +0000

Lick is gone and the announcement will come next week. Why do I believe that? The statements by Barta and Lickliter. They are NOT statements either man would make if they knew Lick was coming back next year.

The most plausible explanation for yesterday’s events is that an athletic dept source leaked Barta’s intention to fire Lick, before a deal had been completed and/or before Iowa was prepared to announce it. The B10 may also have a moratorium on major announcements during the tourney, much like MLB during the World Series.

By: hawkfandan

hawkfandan — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:11:45 +0000

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.

By: 83Hawk

83Hawk — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:47:31 +0000

I agree that bringing Lick back is an invitation to disaster. The spotlight next season will be on Lick and his job security..not on the games. The media will be relentless.

While I still believe Barta won’t fire Lick now because of yesterdays rumor and that he will be back next season, I agree the whole situation has gone too far.

Here is a scenario that I think will work: Barta tells Lick he is gone. He is given a choice: either be fired outright or else Lick announce he is stepping down…not for health reasons…but for the good of the team….that all the controversy that will be present in the next season will make it impossible for the coaches and players to focus on playing.

Lick gets his full buyout…he is not publicly fired…Barta does not give the impression of caving in to the fans. Win-win all around.