*** Official #16 Texas Tech vs #4 IOWA STATE Game(Day) Thread ***

Lets be honest here, where's the athletic talent? You see other teams have guys that fly around the court, can beat guys off the dribble and create wide open shots for others. The most athletic Cyclones are freshmen and even though Batemon has come on a bit as of late, they're not ready to be impact players. Lipsey, good love him, isn't very athletic and has a hard time beating guys off the dribble, JJ and Momcilovic are slow, Heise is a try hard guy who doesn't score much, the bigs are pedestrian. Just about everything funnels through JJ and it's just too much of a burden at times, he needs help.

My general point is that I think Iowa State has overachieved when you look at their talent level. I think a Sweet 16 appearance would be a good year but I just don't see the firepower to go beyond that depending on matchups.
Yeah the thing that’s frustrating is we’ve now elevated to a really good team that is consistently top 15 and top 10 ranked. We’re fortunate but now it’s people wanting to break through the next level. I’d love an elite 8 but I just don’t see it happening this year and we’re gonna regress a bit next year if I had to guess
 
You need a guard who can score and right now Toure isn’t that guy.
Yeah, batemon needs like 30 minutes, can't run with any combination of 3 of...Buchanan, toure, lips, and Heise. Just way too easy to guard with 3 of those guys in there. and after the first round the trap won't get us anything other than dunks against us. So if you insist on trapping, you gotta have batemon out there basically the whole game.
 
I didn't know it was a big secret that Greene is the x and o guy and recruiting/rah rah is what TJ does
Rah rah is an interesting way of describing setting up a culture and operations that fosters excellence.
 
I think some of the responses you are getting is you are choosing to go on the attack against one of (if not THE) best coaches Iowa State has ever had in basketball. Critique and analyze away, but calling him a "figurehead" is an awful take.
He's the right man for the job but I don't think he's one of those guys that's a brilliant strategist.
 
I think Toure airballed 3 threes too

Toure with 0 points hurts. Gotta make at least a few shots. Tech is one of those teams that can look like a national title contender when they’re locked in. Look no further than their wins against top 5
We basically got zero production from Toure and Lipsey, especially in the first half. Thats never going to make things easy, especially when “not so great” Jefferson showed up in the first half.
 
Love Lipsey but he’s had 1 good year shooting the ball. It’s been brutal the other 3. Under 30% this year as a senior.
As much as we love Lipsey, the criticism is warranted. He’s not immune from that despite playing 4 years here. It sucks to say it, but it’s true.
 
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Yeah the thing that’s frustrating is we’ve now elevated to a really good team that is consistently top 15 and top 10 ranked. We’re fortunate but now it’s people wanting to break through the next level. I’d love an elite 8 but I just don’t see it happening this year and we’re gonna regress a bit next year if I had to guess
And, honestly, that's great for a program like Iowa State.
We can complain about T.J. all we want but he's elevated this program to its ceiling tbh. There's still an NCAA tournament left and who knows, they can get hot but I think it's important for us all to take a step back and set realistic expectations for what this team is.

The hot start to the season, the blowout at Purdue namely (a Purdue team that looks a bit fraudulent in retrospect) then the top 5 ranking set our expectations to a stratosphere that this team is incapable of reaching so when we look at the season as a whole thus far, the team is doing well all things considered. The loss today sucked though so there's no sugar coating that.
 
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NCAA tournament success is what the team will be measured by but it is incredibly disappointing we aren’t even going to be a top 4 seed in our own conference tourney for the second year in a row.
 
And, honestly, that's great for a program like Iowa State.
We can complain about T.J. all we want but he's elevated this program to its ceiling tbh. There's still an NCAA tournament left and who knows, they can get hot but I think it's important for us all to take a step back and set realistic expectations for what this team is.

The hot start to the season, the blowout at Purdue namely (a Purdue team that looks a bit fraudulent in retrospect) then the top 5 ranking set our expectations to a stratosphere that this team is incapable of reaching so when we look at the season as a whole thus far, the team is doing well all things considered. The loss today sucked though so there's no sugar coating that.
It would be nice to have a higher ceiling at some point. Recently even teams like NC State, SDSU, Loyola Chicago all had magical runs in the tournament but we can’t even sniff anything past the second weekend.
 
They’re both good defensively but when any team can sag off because a 4 year senior still has no jump shot is tough. I hope Toure develops one while he’s here it’s obviously too late for Lipsey. Again Lipsey is one of the greats and hustles like crazy but if could be a threat from 3 it’d be such a game changer

So now we are relegating TJ to "rah rah" and recruiting?
I wonder what these posters think of Johnny Orr?
 
NCAA tournament success is what the team will be measured by but it is incredibly disappointing we aren’t even going to be a top 4 seed in our own conference tourney for the second year in a row.
Are people just automatically assuming we’re gonna lose at Arizona?