Bill Fennelly

[OWLCITYCYFAN]

Ya, take out the good years and it's, well, not as good.

Average 20-12 or 19-13 over the past decade - who cares, neither one is "special".

I wouldn't stake my life on this exact count, but it's very close if not perfect. From Warren Nolan for his final 2024-2025 WBB rankings:

362 Teams in Division 1
108 Teams won 20 or more games (30%). Another 20+ teams finished on 19 wins.

If you're in the SEC, B1G, ACC or Big XII, winning 20 games should be a minimum expectation, not rationale for a lifetime contract.

 

[ZorkClone]

Average 20-12 or 19-13 over the past decade - who cares, neither one is "special".

I wouldn't stake my life on this exact count, but it's very close if not perfect. From Warren Nolan for his final 2024-2025 WBB rankings:

362 Teams in Division 1
108 Teams won 20 or more games (30%). Another 20+ teams finished on 19 wins.

If you're in the SEC, B1G, ACC or Big XII, winning 20 games should be a minimum expectation, not rationale for a lifetime contract.

Looked at this a bit. 53% of P4 teams finished with 20+ wins, drop that to 19 wins and 60% have 19+ wins.

After looking at this I agree with you fully that 20 wins is much closer to the minimum expectation rather than an indicator of a good season.

 

[Yaz]

Looked at this a bit. 53% of P4 teams finished with 20+ wins, drop that to 19 wins and 60% have 19+ wins.

After looking at this I agree with you fully that 20 wins is much closer to the minimum expectation rather than an indicator of a good season.

View attachment 168636

I carried it a bit further too.

Using the 68 teams in the Power-4 women’s basketball conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC), a typical season distribution by win threshold looks approximately like this:
P4 WBB Teams by Win Threshold

Win Threshold​	Approx. Teams​	Percentage of P4 Teams​
24+ wins	~16–20	24–29%
23+ wins	~22–26	32–38%
22+ wins	~30–34	44–50%
21+ wins	~36–40	53–59%
20+ wins	~40–45	59–66%
19+ wins	~45–52	66–76%

 

[2speedy1]

Average 20-12 or 19-13 over the past decade - who cares, neither one is "special".

I wouldn't stake my life on this exact count, but it's very close if not perfect. From Warren Nolan for his final 2024-2025 WBB rankings:

362 Teams in Division 1
108 Teams won 20 or more games (30%). Another 20+ teams finished on 19 wins.

If you're in the SEC, B1G, ACC or Big XII, winning 20 games should be a minimum expectation, not rationale for a lifetime contract.

Looked at this a bit. 53% of P4 teams finished with 20+ wins, drop that to 19 wins and 60% have 19+ wins.

After looking at this I agree with you fully that 20 wins is much closer to the minimum expectation rather than an indicator of a good season.

View attachment 168636

Ok, now what percentage of those 362 teams average 20+ wins over those 15 years? Better yet how many average more than 21 over 30 Years?!?!? I guarantee that percentage is far lower.

You are comparing a long term average over expected 1 year expectations. Sure teams can have a down year and be sub 20, and a good year and be above 20, but how many can average a good year over the long term is far different.

 

[ZorkClone]

Ok, now what percentage of those 362 teams average 20+ wins over those 15 years? Better yet how many average more than 21 over 30 Years?!?!? I guarantee that percentage is far lower.

You are comparing a long term average over expected 1 year expectations. Sure teams can have a down year and be sub 20, and a good year and be above 20, but how many can average a good year over the long term is far different.

You have a point in average wins over a longer time period. In the Big 12 Only 5 of 16 (31%) teams have an average of over 20 wins per season over the last 10 seasons.

I still maintain if half of the P4 is getting 20 wins, 20 wins isn't an indication of a good season. There is more context to look at regarding that like conference strength and non-conference strength.

I think making the tournament could be an indication of a good season which Bill has done 24/31 which really is very good.

 

[2speedy1]

You have a point in average wins over a longer time period. In the Big 12 Only 5 of 16 (31%) teams have an average of over 20 wins per season over the last 10 seasons.

I still maintain if half of the P4 is getting 20 wins, 20 wins isn't an indication of a good season. There is more context to look at regarding that like conference strength and non-conference strength.

I think making the tournament could be an indication of a good season which Bill has done 24/31 which really is very good.

Yes, and if you stretch that out more than 10 years like the 15 that was first used, or better yet 20-30 which is his career just at ISU, that percentage would be even less with his numbers.

Point is, BF is a very good coach, and has been very consistent for 30 years. He is not perfect, he is not an exceptional coach, but he is very good. The list of exceptional coaches is very very small, the list of coaches better than him is also pretty small. So what are the chances ISU goes out and hires one of those exceptional coaches, especially with the money we will have to offer? what are the chances we even find a coach that does equal where it ends up being no gain? The chances of us getting a coach that is worse, is far greater than that we find someone far better.

If you look at all the available coaches, out there, then only take the ones that are exceptional, or at least to be better than what we are now, then finally take only the ones that not only we can afford, but are basically unknown as being good, so others dont grab them for more than us, that list is basically tiny. So for us to go out and find that coach that we can afford, that is far better than BF, its going to be like getting struck by lightning. We did that with TJ, we hope we did that CJFR, considering our history how many times does lightning strike ISU in that short of time. The odds of it dont seem great.

 

[OWLCITYCYFAN]

Ok, now what percentage of those 362 teams average 20+ wins over those 15 years? Better yet how many average more than 21 over 30 Years?!?!? I guarantee that percentage is far lower.

You are comparing a long term average over expected 1 year expectations. Sure teams can have a down year and be sub 20, and a good year and be above 20, but how many can average a good year over the long term is far different.

Yawn - who cares. The premise is that twenty is nothing special - decent schools in the top conferences should win twenty.

The fact I find interesting which is hated on this site. No other NCAA basketball coach, other than CBF, has stayed at the same school for 30 years without winning a single stand-alone regular season conference title. One shared regular season title in 30 years. You play the game to win titles, not to accumulate gaudy win totals. It’s been long enough - time to pass the torch.

 

[Jnecker4cy]

Yawn - who cares. The premise is that twenty is nothing special - decent schools in the top conferences should win twenty.

The fact I find interesting which is hated on this site. No other NCAA basketball coach, other than CBF, has stayed at the same school for 30 years without winning a single stand-alone regular season conference title. One shared regular season title in 30 years. You play the game to win titles, not to accumulate gaudy win totals. It’s been long enough - time to pass the tory

Yawn right back at ya,.........BF us going no where so you can complain about all next year also.

Maybe TCU can go buy a few Cyclones then you would love them even more.

 

[2speedy1]

Yawn - who cares. The premise is that twenty is nothing special - decent schools in the top conferences should win twenty.

The fact I find interesting which is hated on this site. No other NCAA basketball coach, other than CBF, has stayed at the same school for 30 years without winning a single stand-alone regular season conference title. One shared regular season title in 30 years. You play the game to win titles, not to accumulate gaudy win totals. It’s been long enough - time to pass the torch.

So you admit your data was flawed, and really didnt show what you wanted it to, cool.

 

[rosshm16]

Regardless of what happens with the head coach, our WBB S&C needs a look. To my amateur eye we have quite a few players playing quite a bit of time who aren't at a major-conference level in the S&C department.

 

[2speedy1]

Negative - I pointed out that 30% of Div 1 teams win 20 games, rendering it not that important. You want to stretch it out thirty years - for what purpose?

You play sports to win titles - Period. Oh wait, Speedy repeatedly says it could be worse! There’s not much worse than failure to win or even share a regular season conference title in 25 years.

There are plenty of young female innovative coaches out there who would love to regularly play in front of 8000 fans, at a fraction of what we pay Bill to go thru the motions.

We have Bill for at least another year. He has 1,600,000 reasons to stay thru July 2027. Let’s hope he does something with the time remaining, however unlikely.

And BF has had 20 or MORE wins 19 or 20 times since coming to ISU, with only 1 year being actually 20 wins, the rest of those all being MORE than 20.

The point is taking a long term average, is always going to be lower than any 1 off year. So as I said you cant compare 1 persons long term average, with any 1 year. You also cant then say well also throw out the best years of that AVERAGE and compare it to any 1 off year.

That my boy, is an extreme form of confirmation bias, in you data.

That being said, you are right BF hasnt won an outright championship for years. But how many schools have won a B12 title outright in the last 15 years... your metric.... that would be 3. Baylor, OU, TCU, out of something like 20 teams that were members in that time.

You are right a lot of coaches would want to coach for ISU..... but are they actually any good. We hired a young inexperienced coach for Gymnastics.... how did that work out? Just because they are young and innovative doesnt mean they are going to be better than BF. And it sure isnt like we are going to go pay and poach SC caliber coach.

You are right winning is the point. But are you saying we should fire every coach we have? Because we havent won a championship for a decade and that was XC. So if that is the case win it all or go home, we should fire everyone. Dumbest thing I have ever heard.

We havent won a FB championship in more than 100 years, we should fire anyone that doesnt. We havent won a MBB championship in 25 years!

TJ hasnt won a championship, should we fire him too, because its only about championships and nothing else.

Ever hear of University of Nebraska football? Ever hear what happened to them expecting absolute perfection, and how that worked out for 3 decades of coach firings?

And yep we will have BF for at least another year, plenty of time for you to continue crying about it. And he makes FAR less than what the top WBB coaches make.

There are some seriously flawed arguments here. But yep fire everyone!! Wooo hooo!!! I hope you are lined up to donate tens of millions of dollars to go out and pay for the best of the best to win championships in every sport every year! You want championships, Staley gets $4M+ at South Carolina... Pay up.

 

[acoustimac]

It’s easy to ***** when things are “bad.” It always escalates after a bad loss and those same people are not to be seen when good things are happening. Some people just like to gripe.

 

[DGC]

The team always has player talks at the end of each season. Some leave and those spots get filled via the portal. Will be interesting to see who does leave. It’s usually end of bench or previous transfers that didn’t work out as hoped. Last year it was Hansford and Joens, replaced by Paulk.

It’s anyone’s guess as to who will leave this year, but it’s likely someone will. Then it will be up to the staff to find an affordable transfer (we will never get a Miles type player unless someone wins the lottery) who is more of a Belanger type addition.

Just feels like Tanke will transfer out, end up at Drake, and put up about 6 3's against us next year.

 

[WartburgClone]

Ya, take out the good years and it's, well, not as good.

Hawk fans used to say the same type of thing about Troy Davis....if you take out his 60, 45, 70 yard runs, he really wasn't that good.

Bubble team for 15 years. Even in two of the three "good" years we lost in the 2nd round, including one at Hilton against Missouri State and barely escaped UT-Arlington in the 1st round in the Sweet 16 year, also at Hilton.

 

[WartburgClone]

It’s easy to ***** when things are “bad.” It always escalates after a bad loss and those same people are not to be seen when good things are happening. Some people just like to gripe.

They get told to "shut up and enjoy the win".

 

[bozclone]

Bill used to have really good scouting reports and creative game plans that created an advantage for his team. He would take away the opposing team’s best player or attack a weakness. I don’t see that anymore. Teams are now out game planning us. You have to respect what he has done at Iowa State, but we have been underperforming for a while now.

 

[kentkel]

It’s easy to ***** when things are “bad.” It always escalates after a bad loss and those same people are not to be seen when good things are happening. Some people just like to gripe.

Our team was playing extremely well until Addy (and AJ) went down with injuries. It's hard to get through a season, it seems, without a significant injury. But losing those two for a few games were significant losses. Then, factor in Beaty's injury during the season, as well as Paulk's current injury. If we had been fully healthy (or only slightly dinged up), I honestly believe we would have been top 3 in the conference & looking to host 1st & 2nd round Tourney games.

 

[RoseClone]

Bubble team for 15 years. Even in two of the three "good" years we lost in the 2nd round, including one at Hilton against Missouri State and barely escaped UT-Arlington in the 1st round in the Sweet 16 year, also at Hilton.

The debate on whether it is time for CBF to retire is a valid. To debate the success he's had at Iowa State isn't. Is it epic? Nope but there are only a few of those. And, consistently being in the top 10 in attendance is icing on the cake for any AD. You all are going to get your wish soon on a new coach. I hope you like who we get but if not you all can then ***** about Jamie .

 

[ZorkClone]

Our team was playing extremely well until Addy (and AJ) went down with injuries. It's hard to get through a season, it seems, without a significant injury. But losing those two for a few games were significant losses. Then, factor in Beaty's injury during the season, as well as Paulk's current injury. If we had been fully healthy (or only slightly dinged up), I honestly believe we would have been top 3 in the conference & looking to host 1st & 2nd round Tourney games.

IMO, we were not playing super well even before Addy was out. We only beat Kansas by a buzzer beater, and I recall not being impressed by our performance at Houston even though we won by 18.

But your point stands, a fully healthy Addy (and AJ) would have likely won us vs Baylor, @Cincy, @Colo, @BYU, and maybe have fended off @TCU. So, 3-5 more wins, I think. I'm glad Addy is back, but it she's not been back to early season form yet.

 

[Marcelason78]

……Point is, BF is a very good coach, and has been very consistent for 30 years. He is not perfect, he is not an exceptional coach, but he is very good. The list of exceptional coaches is very very small, the list of coaches better than him is also pretty small. So what are the chances ISU goes out and hires one of those exceptional coaches, especially with the money we will have to offer? what are the chances we even find a coach that does equal where it ends up being no gain? The chances of us getting a coach that is worse, is far greater than that we find someone far better…….

The haters just want him gone, and they’ll worry about this reality later.