MikeyJoe
has a big head
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- Aug 26, 2007
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Last night's dose of online Iowa fan self loathing really bugged me, so I thought I'd take a look at Iowa's actual results under Fran by year. TL;DR: The "Fran Fade" is a myth.
My first theory was that in terms of overall results, of course Iowa loses more in January & February because they're not playing North Kennesaw Valley State, they're playing Big Ten teams. Kenpom has a game "resume" type rating, which takes into account both your opponent's rating and where the game was played, identifying A and B tier games as games that really help your resume in terms of the committee. If you segregate Iowa's results by month in terms of who they were playing, it's all over the place:
You can see straight off that there's no drop off at all between January & February, which tells you right away that most of the perceived "Fran Fade" really just comes down to scheduling. If you play better teams later in the schedule, your record will be worse later in the schedule. Interestingly, their best month against A tier opponents is December, which includes wins over teams like Iowa State, North Carolina, and Syracuse and Cincinnati in 2020. They're better against high quality non-conference opponents in December than they are against similarly skilled Big Ten teams. But then at the same time, Iowa under Fran is worse against decent teams in December than they are against similar quality teams in January & February. That just tells you that there's no actual conclusions to be drawn here. All of these things are small sample sizes. December, their "best" month, and March, their "worst" month actually each come down to about 2-3 games over a decade of basketball swinging those off of the overall average.
So then I thought, let's ignore opponent rating and just look at Big Ten games. Iowa actually improves under Fran as the season goes on, until they hit the Big Ten Tournament. (That's one actual conclusion in all of this - Iowa has been awful under Fran in the BTT):
So then I was really wondering why do people keep repeating this? It basically comes down to 2 years out of 10, in my opinion. If you divide the schedule in half (setting aside the BTT where Fran is an abysmal 4-13), Iowa has only really actually had 2 nose dives under Fran. In fact, they've improved in the 2nd half more often than they've gotten worse. The reality is, almost all of this is based on 2016 and 2014, where the 2nd half declines were particularly disappointing.
Even if you call the BTT a 2nd half conference game, the story doesn't change - it really just makes the 2016 and 2014 collapses look worse:
If you average it out overall, including the BTT, Fran's teams have a .467 winning record in the first half of the Big Ten schedule, and a .476 record in the 2nd half. If you exclude the BTT, it's .467 in the 1st half, .500 in the 2nd half, but then .308 in the BTT. Yikes.
All that to say, if you really want to draw any conclusions here, there's no reason to think that losing a road game against a ranked conference opponent at the end of January is evident of some made up "fade". This did highlight for me how shitty Fran's teams have been in the BTT, though.
My first theory was that in terms of overall results, of course Iowa loses more in January & February because they're not playing North Kennesaw Valley State, they're playing Big Ten teams. Kenpom has a game "resume" type rating, which takes into account both your opponent's rating and where the game was played, identifying A and B tier games as games that really help your resume in terms of the committee. If you segregate Iowa's results by month in terms of who they were playing, it's all over the place:
You can see straight off that there's no drop off at all between January & February, which tells you right away that most of the perceived "Fran Fade" really just comes down to scheduling. If you play better teams later in the schedule, your record will be worse later in the schedule. Interestingly, their best month against A tier opponents is December, which includes wins over teams like Iowa State, North Carolina, and Syracuse and Cincinnati in 2020. They're better against high quality non-conference opponents in December than they are against similarly skilled Big Ten teams. But then at the same time, Iowa under Fran is worse against decent teams in December than they are against similar quality teams in January & February. That just tells you that there's no actual conclusions to be drawn here. All of these things are small sample sizes. December, their "best" month, and March, their "worst" month actually each come down to about 2-3 games over a decade of basketball swinging those off of the overall average.
So then I thought, let's ignore opponent rating and just look at Big Ten games. Iowa actually improves under Fran as the season goes on, until they hit the Big Ten Tournament. (That's one actual conclusion in all of this - Iowa has been awful under Fran in the BTT):
So then I was really wondering why do people keep repeating this? It basically comes down to 2 years out of 10, in my opinion. If you divide the schedule in half (setting aside the BTT where Fran is an abysmal 4-13), Iowa has only really actually had 2 nose dives under Fran. In fact, they've improved in the 2nd half more often than they've gotten worse. The reality is, almost all of this is based on 2016 and 2014, where the 2nd half declines were particularly disappointing.
Even if you call the BTT a 2nd half conference game, the story doesn't change - it really just makes the 2016 and 2014 collapses look worse:
If you average it out overall, including the BTT, Fran's teams have a .467 winning record in the first half of the Big Ten schedule, and a .476 record in the 2nd half. If you exclude the BTT, it's .467 in the 1st half, .500 in the 2nd half, but then .308 in the BTT. Yikes.
All that to say, if you really want to draw any conclusions here, there's no reason to think that losing a road game against a ranked conference opponent at the end of January is evident of some made up "fade". This did highlight for me how shitty Fran's teams have been in the BTT, though.
