Southeast Polk’s Sydney Milani reacts to winning one of her four state titles over the weekend. The future Cyclone set three all-time Iowa records during the three days at Drake Stadium. (Photo courtesy of @SoundOFF13 on Twitter)
Chris Williams is sitting on a beach somewhere in Florida so that means I’m taking the reigns of Monday Musings this week. I’m sure the end of the week will be busy with the inevitable run of major Iowa State news that generally accompanies a CW vacation so I’m knocking out some fan questions from Twitter and the forums at the end of this blog.
But, first, I want to start in a place we don’t usually go here on CF.
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If you were not following the happenings at Drake Stadium over the weekend, you missed out on one of the great performances our state will ever see by a high school athlete — and it just so happens that athlete will be a Cyclone starting this fall.
Southeast Polk’s Sydney Milani became the first girl to ever win the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, 400-meter dash and 800-meter run state championships in a single Iowa state track meet. To make it even more impressive, her times in those first three races were all-time bests in the state of Iowa.
I’ve seen some seriously special performances in my years both competing in and covering the state track meet (Logan-Magnolia’s Alex Gochenour winning the last four of her 13 career state titles comes to mind off the top), but I’m not sure we will ever see something like what Milani did over the weekend.
In fact, Milani was so good this weekend her performances would have put her squarely in the hunt at the Big 12 outdoor track meet earlier this month.
Event, Milani’s time, Big 12 place
– 100, 11.49, 5th place
– 200, 23.68, 6th place
– 400, 52.90, 6th place
That means Milani could have scored 10 more points for Martin Smith’s squad as a high school senior. Who knows what she will be able to do after working with college coaches and training in a college program.
I have a feeling we will be hearing her name a ton in the next several years.
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A few more quick shoutouts to some people and schools near and dear to my heart with St. Albert winning the 1A boy’s team title and Atlantic finishing second for the 3A boy’s title. Love seeing the Hawkeye 10 schools show out at the highest level.
Also, Milani’s coach, Chad Willeford, was my seventh-grade homeroom teacher so that’s kinda cool too.
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Alright, enough about track. Let’s take some questions.
CyTwins on the forums: Starting five for basketball next year?
I think CW and I have talked about this roughly 600 billion times, but I’ll give you my top five again real quick.
1 – Lindell Wigginton
2 – Talen Horton-Tucker
3 – Marial Shayok
4 – Mike Jacobson
5 – Cameron Lard
I’m not sure that is how the starting five will look for game one, but I think that will be Iowa State’s best lineup by the time conference tournament season rolls around.
cyclones500 on the forums: What’s your early bowl projection for Iowa State in 2018 (assuming you think ISU will be bowl-eligible)?
Man, this is a hard question to answer due to the number of variables involved with the other teams and the bowl selection process.
With that said, I’ll roll with the Cactus Bowl. It is lower on the bowl selection totem poll than the Liberty Bowl, but I think a trip to Phoenix in December sounds pretty damn sweet and would roughly fit with where I envision Iowa State finishing in the conference standings.
Dream scenario for me (outside of the CFP obviously) would be the Camping World Bowl in Orlando. I need an excuse to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios.
Sigmapolis on the forums: Your starting five from the Hoiberg era?
Damn, this is tough, but here is how I would lean.
G: DeAndre Kane
G: Chris Babb
F: Royce White
F: Georges Niang
F: Melvin Ejim
We would probably be undersized, but I’ll roll with that lineup and expect to win most any day of the week.
Daserop on the forums: Are you going to see Deadpool 2?
I don’t think I’ve seen a superhero movie in theaters since 2012 and I know for sure I haven’t seen the first Deadpool. Going to have to lean towards no on this one.
JM4CY on the forums: Assuming it made sense financially etc., who would you pick for a home and home for football in the next decade?
I think a home-and-home between Iowa State and Minnesota would be awesome. The Campbell vs. Fleck storyline would make the week leading up to the game interesting at least.
Gunnerclone on the forums: How many titles are the Warriors going to win in a row starting with this year?
I’ll give them next year for sure so (assuming they win this year) that will give them three straight and four in five years. I think it gets murkier after that though with some of the young teams expected to come into their own in the next couple seasons. Hopefully, my Sixers will have something to say about ending that streak around 2019-20.
How long until massive Iowa State news breaks?
— Jake Vos (@Jake_Vos_) May 21, 2018
Honestly, I’m shocked some didn’t break while I was writing this. I better stop just in case.
Peace.