*** Official #2 IOWA STATE vs Kansas Game(Day) Thread ***

[iowastatefan1929]

TJ teams usually peak in December. Then last year by the time the tourney started we were a shell of our December selves. Reality is harsh hopefully the pattern gets bucked here.

 

[Cupped]

Wow! The sun came up here this morning!

btw the last NCAA Division I men’s basketball team to finish an entire season undefeated — including winning the national championship — was the 1975–76 Indiana Hoosiers. Also no men’s DI team since then has won the national championship with exactly one loss so don't give up NC hopes if we lose another game.

 

[fsanford]

The issue isn't schematic, it's personnel at the moment. Killian has lost confidence in his jump shot. Blake and Pleta are not threats from the outside. Tamin is a guy you kind of guard at the 3 point line but aren't too worried about his jump shooting. When they can sag on our 5 and Killian, and only half guard Tamin deep it allows the defense to play no-help and faceguard Milan and to dig on JJ. We become a really easy guard at that point.

I think you just have to see Batemon take some of Killian's minutes. He's put enough on tape that you have to respect his outside shot, and that's going to open things up for everyone.

Each game is different. TJ needs to adjust match ups, you cannot be over commit one way or another. And still think end of day Jefferson needs to get back Jeff level. Maybe a Batemon would help this

Self had an interesting comment last night. To paraphrase it was the fewest in game lineup changed he has made all season

Now Peterson's health impacts that, but he decided to shorten his bench even with a big lead.

 

[rosshm16]

Yeah...lots of coping going on. Not only was it a 20 point loss, ISU was down by 26 points in the first half...that's like DII-playing-DI bad. Yet it was the supposed #2 team in the country playing an unranked team. How many times a year does a top-10 (or top-25 for that matter) get down 26 points in the first half of a conference game? Maybe it happens more than I think.

Yeah I think it's a bit disingenuous to try to compare last night's loss with "other highly ranked teams over the years having bad losses" as some sort of coping mechanism.

It reminds me of the post-game thread after the Auburn game last year. So many of our loser-mentality fans were so happy that we'd "almost won".

"Auburn is really good!" Well what are we?
"Teams blow 19-point second-half leads all the time!" I'm pretty sure that's not accurate.

The strength of the Iowa State fanbase by far is we are supportive of the team (e.g. showing up for games) even when they aren't very good, but I also feel we are often too accepting/apologetic of losing and poor play.

 

[madguy30]

It's likely that the team is about as good as we'd hoped they'd be but not as good as the undefeated record, and Purdue win especially, made it look. There is more to fix that it appeared a few weeks ago but a lot of reason to believe this team can beat anyone. Just be at the best in March and it should be fun.

I've said it earlier but there's been parts of games where the team looked about more like it was probably assumed with the new pieces, youth, etc. and they just happened to still win despite that.

There's still room for some rocky moments and hopefully in the end they're in a good place and can win a bit in mid-late March.

 

[madguy30]

TJ teams usually peak in December. Then last year by the time the tourney started we were a shell of our December selves. Reality is harsh hopefully the pattern gets bucked here.

You can't take injuries into account or the lack of athleticism with the first two teams?

What's your rationale for this with the 23-24 team?

 

[MartyFine]

TJ teams usually peak in December. Then last year by the time the tourney started we were a shell of our December selves. Reality is harsh hopefully the pattern gets bucked here.

Your Hoks are a solid March squad having not been to the Sweet 16 since last century...

 

[jbhtexas]

But got blown out the 2nd half not sure if it really matters what half you got blown out in. You got blown out you got stomped,.
ISU and KU played to a draw 2nd half, Self kept starters in with like a minute to play


In KenPom that year CU was ranked 79th

Which loss is worse?

Believe Zona was a #1 seed in the tourney. Now, as others have pointed out, you get blown out regular season, you might get as far as elite 8. Zona that year lost to Houston in the sweet 16. So in terms of that it's not a good omen

The largest CU lead in that game was 16 points. It was a 6-pt game with around 5 minutes left and a 10-pt game with 3 around minutes left. Agaisnt KU, ISU was humiliated in the first half, and managed to make the loss less humiliating in the second half.

There was a nice stretch for about 10 minutes at the end of the first half/beginning of the second half where ISU played well, but then the play reverted back to the play of the first 15 minutes. These extended wheels-off stretches are puzzling, given how well ISU *can* play.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

TJ teams usually peak in December. Then last year by the time the tourney started we were a shell of our December selves. Reality is harsh hopefully the pattern gets bucked here.

Injuries were a huge part of the drop-off last season, how many games down the stretch were we playing the starters from earlier in the year. The key to this years team is getting production from someone that we so far have not gotten it. We need one of the other players to step up and help the team. Maybe that is one of the freshman, who knows but the talent is there,

 

[madguy30]

It reminds me of the post-game thread after the Auburn game last year. So many of our loser-mentality fans were so happy that we'd "almost won".

"Auburn is really good!" Well what are we?
"Teams blow 19-point second-half leads all the time!" I'm pretty sure that's not accurate.

The strength of the Iowa State fanbase by far is we are supportive of the team (e.g. showing up for games) even when they aren't very good, but I also feel we are often too accepting/apologetic of losing and poor play.

Watch other games and you'll know it's pretty accurate. All the time? No, but they happen.

Michigan was up 14 on Bucky on Saturday. It's not 19, but it's a big lead.

Guess what happened?

ISU was down 26 last night and were *this* close to getting it to 7 if the ball drops.

If you're going to rip on pointing out things that happen is it fair to call out the assumption that because a team is playing well (or not very well) in one game or week that it will just stay that way?

 

[3TrueFans]

It reminds me of the post-game thread after the Auburn game last year. So many of our loser-mentality fans were so happy that we'd "almost won".

"Auburn is really good!" Well what are we?
"Teams blow 19-point second-half leads all the time!" I'm pretty sure that's not accurate.

The strength of the Iowa State fanbase by far is we are supportive of the team (e.g. showing up for games) even when they aren't very good, but I also feel we are often too accepting/apologetic of losing and poor play.

What do you want to do about it? I don't know if crying on a message board is going to accomplish anything.

 

[iowastatefan1929]

You can't take injuries into account or the lack of athleticism with the first two teams?

What's your rationale for this with the 23-24 team?

23-24 team was a different pattern, choked against Illinois. But its part of a larger pattern that TJ teams for some reason or another play their best ball in December. Year 1 was the only oddity in my mind.

 

[rochclone]

The "it's just one game, stop overreacting" crowd is out in force in the postgame here as usual. This is of course just one loss and one loss is of course not a big deal in the middle of the season, but this is not just one game, it's the continuation and culmination of about a month (ever since the Purdue game) of not playing as well as we played for the first month of the season. "We're 16-1, shut up!" No I will not shut up. We were 7-0 since Purdue because we were playing teams who we had a large talent advantage over. The first time we played like this against a good team (KU) we lost, decisively and badly.

I'd really like to see some changes next game against another inferior opponent. Stop getting punched in the mouth and outplayed for the first half of every game. There's an Einstein quote on doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.


Referring back to my list of complaints upthread: did TJ not have our team's full attention? This was a big game for us, would have been a huge win.

I'll now talk myself off the ledge here after this post.

You act like this is either a 10 or a zero with no spectrum in between. Of course, T.J. had the attention of our team. But being locked in at a 10 happens extremely rarely in sports. If we are being candid our current team likely has a slightly lower ceiling then this Kansas team but has a much higher floor and has played much more consistently this year.

Kansas was 1-2 in the conference. It was now or never for them from a Big 12 race perspective. You have the #2 team in the country coming into your building as the oddsmakers think Iowa State is going to win. Ask me how many times that Self has lost at AFH as a home dog. That answer is likely zero. Kansas beat Houston's 2023-2024 squad (that went 32-5) at AFH 78-65 and Kansas was a home dog. I can guarantee that Sampson's had that teams attention.

 

[Clonefan32]

TJ teams usually peak in December. Then last year by the time the tourney started we were a shell of our December selves. Reality is harsh hopefully the pattern gets bucked here.

I keep seeing this but let's actually look at what happened.

Last year, Milan broke his hand January 15th. Tamin was not right all year. Gilbert was effectively out the last 1/3rd of conference play and the tournament. It was really only CuJo and JJ at the end of the year.

2023-2024 they go 13-5 from January through the end of the regular season and win the conference tournament and go to a Sweet 16.

2022-2023 they did not play well at the back end of the season, but truthfully that team just wasn't that good. Kind of a miracle we did what we did with Kalscheur and Holmes being your main options.

2021-2022 he takes a team of transfers and Hunter and has a bit of a rough conference play, but gets to a Sweet 16.

 

[eecyclone]

Well, dang. I wondered about that. What about #2 and #3 seeds?

The worry I have isn't that we can't start playing well again, nor is it that that we still can't beat anyone on any given night. Like others have said, were 16-1.

My fear was that this type of game was even possible. Most great teams that go on F4 runs just don't have this type of game even with their reasonable range of outcomes. Especially when healthy.

I see a lot of "everyone has games like this!". Well, no, not everyone. Not like this.

In '22 KU lost by 18 to Kentucky at home and went on and won the NC. It's one game, ISU will bounce back.

There are too many #2 and #3 teams with blowout losses (20+) to list but here are some notable tournament finishes:

2016 #2 Villanova lost by 23 at Xavier and went on to win the NC.

2019 #2 Auburn lost by 27 at Kentucky and made it to the FF.

2019 #3 Texas Tech lost by 31 at Iowa State and was NC runner up.

 

[jbhtexas]

The issue isn't schematic, it's personnel at the moment. Killian has lost confidence in his jump shot. Blake and Pleta are not threats from the outside. Tamin is a guy you kind of guard at the 3 point line but aren't too worried about his jump shooting. When they can sag on our 5 and Killian, and only half guard Tamin deep it allows the defense to play no-help and faceguard Milan and to dig on JJ. We become a really easy guard at that point.

I think you just have to see Batemon take some of Killian's minutes. He's put enough on tape that you have to respect his outside shot, and that's going to open things up for everyone.

The color commentator towards the end of the BU game (McClure?) said that ISU will need to get more scoring out of the Toure spot in conference to maintain success. That seems to corroberate what you are saying.

 

[fsanford]

It reminds me of the post-game thread after the Auburn game last year. So many of our loser-mentality fans were so happy that we'd "almost won".

"Auburn is really good!" Well what are we?
"Teams blow 19-point second-half leads all the time!" I'm pretty sure that's not accurate.

The strength of the Iowa State fanbase by far is we are supportive of the team (e.g. showing up for games) even when they aren't very good, but I also feel we are often too accepting/apologetic of losing and poor play.

I do think injuries and a post player shopping around for a bigger paycheck later in the season derailed things last year. ( Yes I know this for a fact)

That locker room was not in a good place later in the year. That team , when healthy and locker room was right, was a better than this group.

Its a bit of a unicorn for teams to overcome multiple issues like that.

This bunch is better equipped from lack of adversity standpoint to move forward and be successful.

Will see

 

[3TrueFans]

23-24 team was a different pattern, choked against Illinois. But its part of a larger pattern that TJ teams for some reason or another play their best ball in December. Year 1 was the only oddity in my mind.

Non-con teams mostly at home vs. Big 12 teams equally split home and away would be one obvious difference

 

[Clonefan32]

The color commentator towards the end of the BU game (McClure?) said that ISU will need to get more scoring out of the Toure spot in conference to maintain success. That seems to corroberate what you are saying.

Its alot like Tamin's freshman year. You love the intensity and defense and rebounding, but when you have a guard being completely ignored 15 feet and out it becomes really, really hard to run offense. There's just no room, and it allows Milan to be face-guarded.

 

[xr4ticlone]

Layups and bunnies huh? You’ve never played basketball and been under the basket with vultures circling have you?

Jefferson was ass, he couldn’t finish and nobody else could either… but layups and bunnies don’t exists in major basketball except on a rare occasion.

Played plenty of ball. Played post & you have to hit 50%+ of those shots.

You have to take it strong and finish or get fouled. Lack of concentration? Lack of effort? Both?

But no one’s winning **** shooting like that from 5ft in…