Former Hawkeye Acie Earl talks Lickliter

Had a chance to catch up to Acie Earl at the boys' state basketball tournament this week. He was gracious enough to share a few of his thoughts on the Todd Lickliter-Iowa basketball situation.

Earl, of course, played for Tom Davis at Iowa and went on to play professionally in the NBA and Europe. He is at Iowa now pursuing a Master's degree in recreational management and helps out Solon by coaching the freshmen.

Here are a few of Earl's thoughts:

“You hate to see anyone lose their job, number one. He's a great guy. I think he came in with a lot of upbeat things about him, had a teaching type of coaching style. It's just unfortunate he couldn't turn it around faster.”

Acie talked about the youth of this Iowa team and how he thought there was some young talent onboard.

“I think he was on the right path. In the old days, you get six or seven years. Now you get two or three. That's kind of the way of the world.”

He also said he had one of Lickliter's sons in a grad class.

“Sometimes he'd come in and have a bad face on him. It's a tough situation.”

This is what Earl had to say when asked what Iowa needs to turn around its program.

“Everybody is an expert, everybody has an opinion. There are a lot of things you could probably point to. Maybe top-tier talent, but everybody doesn't feel that way. Look at Kirk Ferentz … His (recruiting classes) are in the 50s and 60s sometimes, and he's able to win.”

“As an outsider not really into the collegiate coaching world, I really couldn't speak on what we need. We just need to win. How you do it is trivial, I guess.”

Earl was asked if letting go of Davis is what started the downward spiral at Iowa.

“There are some repercussions there with that that people fail to realize. One, (Davis) was a class guy, ran a class program, had success, went to the NCAA tournament, had winning seasons. He didn't get to the big, big show, to the Sweet 16, Elite Eight or Final Four. But he graduated most of his players, didn't have a lot of off-court problems. So a lot of (colleges) would take that hands down.

“The key with that is when (Davis) leaves, Kyle Korver leaves the state, Nick Collison leaves the state, Kirk Heinrich leaves the state … that paved the way for leaving, when in the past, guys never left the state. Or if they did, they came back.”