I just read in the KC Star that Ben Askren is in the hospital with a serious bout of pneumonia. Doctors are even considering a lung transplant. While I wasn’t a fan of his when he was helping to make Mizzou an actual wrestling program, my prayers go out for his full recovery.

...from Tracy McGrady, better handles than Kyrie Irving
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I'm still bummed about Tyrese's injury, and heard he had successful torn achilles repair surgery yesterday, Monday. I ran across this and thought we could give some thoughts and love also, to another Pacer, and Iowa State great, Jamaal Tinsley. What a fun player to watch!

I react to Tyrese Haliburton‘s injury in Game 7 and looks back on his historic postseason run.

Ahead of the 2025 season, every Big 12 team's win total is set between 5.5 and 8.5. Who's going to separate themselves from the pack?

Voting is open for the Cyclone Fanatic Movie Villain Tournament Round of 32.


How to vote:
To select the favorite (the show seeded highest), choose the Heart emoji.
To select the underdog, choose the Rainbow emoji.
No other emojis will be counted.

Deadline to vote: Now through Friday at 10 PM

Any chance on getting Bo Bassett?

Jefferson is our top returning scorer, so he is the favorite though I think it will be Milan. From last year:
Jefferson - 13 PPG
Milan - 11.5 PPG
Tamin - 10.6 PPG
Heise - 5.1 PPG

Incoming transfers:
Buchanan - 5.4 PPG
Mulder - 8.4 PPG
Nelson - 14.4 PPG

Jake Brend and Rob Gray fill in for Williams & Blum to dive into Matt Campbell's ideas for Ireland before discussing how the Cyclones will handle their trip across the pond. Basketball transfer portal player comps and more presented by Mechdyne.

Iowa State announces that transfer guard Mason Williams underwent successful hip surgery earlier this week and will most likely miss the 2025-26 season.

Jake Brend reacts to Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers forcing a Game 7 in the NBA Finals with a dominant win over Oklahoma City. Hear from Brend and Haliburton as we look forward to the biggest game of the former Cyclone's life.

Been helping my parents move out of their house that they have been in for 30+ years. This has resulted in some interesting finds. Here are a couple of them.

Been helping my parents move out of their house that they have been in for 30+ years. This has resulted in some interesting finds. Here are a couple of them.

Thanks so much to @Cyclones_R_GR8 for this thread topic:

“ How are your dreams, Scary, pleasant or just plain weird?
Do you have recurring themes to your dreams?”

I am going to let him share his, but it is really good.

I just have had recurring dreams over the years that I accidentally never quit the job I had in high school at a small supermarket in our tiny town, I suddenly needed to show up and work a shift after working my grown-up job. The dream just goes through that day.

How about you?

What are the differences between the 2? Other than the obvious. STL is slightly older and has a metro of 2.8mil vs 2.3. My gf is from STL and I've been trying to tell her that STL may be in the Midwest but it has more of a East/slightly smaller version of Chicago vibe. Not that that's a bad thing(I've always enjoyed my times there). KC is more like a smaller version of Dallas. I feel like KC is on more of an upswing while St. Louis City gets stuck in limbo in terms of city projects due to most of the money being in St. Charles County. While the snobs in KC suburbs in KS and MO may still be stingy in terms of projects in KCMO they still realize it's the flagship city of the metro. Same state and only 3 hours of highway between them but 2 totally different places imo.

Wrote today that former Cyclones Naz Mitrou-Long, Jiří Hubálek, Sherron Dorsey-Walker, Dustin Hogue, Tyrus McGee, Zoran Talley and Tre Jackson have won titles around the globe this season (2024-25).

Haliburton and Rasir Bolton are both in the finals of their respective leagues.

Cam Lard one win away from the finals in El Salvador’s Liga Mayor de Baloncesto.

Jake Brend gives you the Iowa State Athletics news of the day with Audi Crooks earning a spot on Team USA for the 2025 AmeriCup Games, new football helmets and an update on Tyrese Haliburton‘s injury status for Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

Audi Crooks selected as one of 12 players to represent Team USA at the 2025 FIBA AmeriCup Games starting on June 28 in Chile.

I think an improved pass rush is possible in 2025 and could be a key to defensive improvement next year.

Since Iowa State sends fewer pass rushers than the rest of the league and every team faces a different number of passing plays, it can be hard to compare raw stats across teams without context. I tried to add some context to ISU's 2024 Pass Rush performance, compares to 2023, and some opportunities & challenges we may have in 2025.

The table below breaks down the pass rush stats and ISU's B12 Rank and ISU vs. Avg B12 Team:

1) Number of pass rushers per pass play (ISU send 0.6 fewer pass rushers than the B12 average and ranks 15th in pass rushers sent per pass play; they also faced 60 fewer, or 13% fewer, pass plays than the average B12 team in 2024; both of these impact raw stats like sacks and pressures)
2) Total Sacks
3) Total Pressures (Sacks+QB Hits+QB Hurries)
4) Pressure% (Total Pressures / Total Pass Rush Snaps, ISU was 4th)
5) Sack% (Total Sacks / Total Pass Rush Snaps, ISU was 13th)
6) %Pass Plays w/Pressure (Total Pressures / Total Pass Plays)
7) %Pass Plays w/Sack (Total Sacks / Total Pass Plays)



A couple things I would note:

First, ISU sends fewer pass rushers and this scheme accounts for much of the gap between ISU and the rest of the B12 in terms of pressure and % of plays with pressure. You can see, even in what I would consider a down year for ISU we were 4th in Pressure% which normalizes for both number of pass rushers sent each play and number of pass plays faced by a defense.

Second, ISU converted fewer pressures into sacks. Sacks can be volatile year to year. ISU only converted about 10% of it's pressures into sacks in 2024 (very low). B12 Average was 14%, top teams were close to 20%. Last year ISU was at about 13%. So, a bad sack year for sure, they ranked 13th in sack% (sacks/pass rush snaps).


Looking at 2024 vs. 2023, we can see our pressure% improved, but our sack rate declined. Looking more closely, you can see this was driven by the LB position, where Caleb Bacon and Will McLaughlin were missed. In 2023, they combined for 4 sacks and 24 pressures on 101 pass rush snaps. The two combined for a Pressure% of 24%, and a Sack% of 4% (much higher than the 2024 ISU averages of 10.4% and 1.1%).



Change in LB Production Year to Year:




2025 Opportunities & Challenges:

LB
Iowa State's LBs are an important part of ISU's pass rush. They accounted for about 1/3 of the team's pressures and sacks in 2023. But in 2024, this dropped to about 1/4 of the teams production. Getting Bacon and McLaughlin back in 2025 should boost the production from the LB's in 2025.

EDGE:
On the edge, ISU lost 4 of their top 5 pass rushers from a year ago. Three transfers will attempt to replace them along with other younger players on ISU's roster. Vontroy Malone (Tulsa), Cannon Butler (UNI), and Tamatoa McDonough (Yale) will all be competing for time. Their stats were similar to the players we are losing but they will need to do it at the B12 level (Pressure% 9.7% v. 9.5%, Sack% 1.2% vs. 1.1%). One note on Butler, although he only had 1 sack on 25 pressures in 2024, he has 8 sacks on 68 pressures over his 3 seasons at UNI. So, last year he had a low pressure to sack conversion rate (4%) vs. his career average (12%).

Will be in Des Moines today, looking for a nice lunch option, somethiing like the Cafe in Ames maybe, ideally with some gluten free options.

Fire away!

yo dudes,

With my job I am in many middle and small cities with colleges and universities..

I would like to start keeping a list and invite anyone else to add their experiences...


Tonight I will be staying in Bloomington, IN for the first time.





Cool towns:
NIU (Dekalb, IL) - Has a HyVee felt like central iowa
University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY) - awesome city (had shots with little horse riding guys)
University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE) - Runza
University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI) - THE OLD FASHIONED!!!

Meh towns:
Illinois State (Normal, IL)
Vincennes University (Vincennes, IN)
University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana, IL)
Notre Dame (South Bend, IN)


I'm sure i will remember more


please feel free to add any you've visited!!!!!!!!

Voting is open for the Cyclone Fanatic Movie Villain Tournament Round of 64.


How to vote:
To select the favorite (the show seeded highest), choose the Heart emoji.
To select the underdog, choose the Rainbow emoji.
No other emojis will be counted.

Deadline to vote: Now through Sunday at 10 PM

This week, we are looking for songs with the following in title or lyrics: pride and proud.


"On That Note” is presented weekly by @MeanDean, @cyclones500 and myself.

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