Well, while we were in Minnesota this weekend for a wedding and a (brief, yet hopeful) tussle with graduate school bureaucracy, Iowa went and hired themselves a new Men's Basketball Coach- Fran McCaffery from Siena.
At first, I was a little taken aback. My initial thought was: 'Oh, a coach from a mid-major again? That worked out soooooo well last time, didn't it?' But I take that all back. All of it! The more I read about this dude, the more I like him. First of all, he makes no bones about the respect he has for the program, based on his prior experiences playing at Iowa and more importantly, he says he wants to get CHA 'rockin' again.' That got me liking him right away.
By all accounts, his style of play is fast and uptempo (and more than one-dimensional reliance on three point shots from beyond the arc) and he has had a good run of success at Siena. Seems like from the get-go, he wants to get this program back up and running to where it was. He wants to go out, get after it and more importantly, kick some ass. I like, like, like IT! (Plus, his wife has some fire in her belly too... even better!)
There are still some open questions to be answered: can he recruit? How much patience is the fan base going to have with him? How long does he have to show results before he gets chewed up and spit back out just like Licky and Alford were? But I think if he can manage to win more games than the football team next year, he'll be well on his way.
I'm cautiously optimistic about this. Almost can't wait for basketball season to be here again.
Almost.
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