There's a possibility we'll hear publicly from Iowa basketball coach Todd Lickliter soon about Tony Freeman's departure. At the very least, Lickliter will be in Burlington next Thursday for the Des Moines County I-Club spring banquet, so hopefuly I'll get the chance to ask him about it. My guess is Lickliter will take the high road, wish Freeman the best wherever he goes, and moves on. There's no sense in getting into a back-and-forth with Freeman in this situation. There's nothing wrong with telling your side of the story, but as I wrote Sunday, such fires can rage into a conflagration that can consume an entire program — the 2001-02 Hawkeyes never recovered from Cortney Scott's noisy transfer and then-coach Steve Alford's petty sniping in response. But since Freeman's announced departure last Friday, and his comments that he felt "disrespected" by Lickliter in their postseason one-on-one talk that the coach had with all of his players, there's been plenty of side-taking online, on the sports talk shows, and in print. Some buy into the idea that Lickliter was right to give Freeman the my-way-or-the-bench speech. Some buy into Freeman's theory that he was forced out, and can't understand why a coach who is trying to rebuild a program would want to run out his best player. Those of us who have been around the program continuously in the last year know this — Tony Freeman is a good guy, easy to deal with, a great quote, and someone who has a lot of talent, but can be quite headstrong. Todd Lickliter is a coach who doesn't have much patience for freelancing and bad decisions. It wasn't a good fit from the beginning, but last year, with a short roster and not a lot of experienced talent, Lickliter tried to mold Freeman into a perfect fit, and Freeman tried too hard to be a leader. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Some in the media (print or broadcast) and some bloggers have been quite critical of Lickliter's handling of the situation, yet some of these same people have given a virtual free pass to Greg McDermott's revolving door on his roster at Iowa State. McDermott has had plenty of transfers and dismissals from his program, for much of the same reason — the players going aren't a good fit for his program, on or off the court. What McDermott is going through, what Lickliter is going through, and what Jim Molinari likely will be going through in his first season at Western Illinois, is common to programs that are being rebuilt by someone new. Until they get their players in, and get their systems installed, there will be growing pains. Lickliter can coach. So can McDermott. So can Molinari. But it is going to take some time for their systems to click. Lickliter will eventually speak on this subject. Rushing to judgment on what happened in the Freeman situation isn't fair to player or coach.