I just want to focus on this sentence, because people don't pay attention to this at all. Even this season, Kenpom has Iowa State's offense at 30, Barttorvik has it at 42. That's with awful three point shooting, which I still think will be better. If it does get better (let's say average or slightly below average), the offense will be top 15 or 20 again. One complaint about Prohm that I see a ton is the lack of offensive structure. Well, the results have been pretty good, so I'm not sure that complaint is valid. There might be instances where more structure would have been helpful, but I think the free-flowing offense has been beneficial on the whole.
This is why Prohm must go........
- Thread starter ohly2311
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I just want to focus on this sentence, because people don't pay attention to this at all. Even this season, Kenpom has Iowa State's offense at 30, Barttorvik has it at 42. That's with awful three point shooting, which I still think will be better. If it does get better (let's say average or slightly below average), the offense will be top 15 or 20 again. One complaint about Prohm that I see a ton is the lack of offensive structure. Well, the results have been pretty good, so I'm not sure that complaint is valid. There might be instances where more structure would have been helpful, but I think the free-flowing offense has been beneficial on the whole.
Who gives a crap who 'starts'? Who plays the most minutes is what matters.
Prohm transfers...
Ashton -- awful, but was really a walk-on who got put on scholarship, so who cares
Weiler-Babb -- went from a scrub at Arkansas to a solid Big 12 PG, underrated
Bowie -- in over his head as a starter, but an okay 7th or 8th man
Holden -- bust, did not belong on the team, but nice kid
Jackson -- great bench gunner, decent starter, would take his shooting anytime
Kasongo -- bust, not even sure what happened here
Brase -- taken in desparation, might have been good if not hurt
Beverly -- basically reduced to meme status/emblematic of that year
Shayok -- 12/10 would buy again destroyer of worlds
Jacobson -- solid 7/10 sort of guy in the Big 12, would always like to have an MJ
Talley -- okay bench depth, kind of on that Bowie tier, troublemaker
Nixon -- jury is still out... love his defense and energy, hate his shooting... if he stops trying to make his own shot, I think I will end up rating him a plus
Plenty of guys up there were worth having or would have played significant roles on any of the Hoiberg teams. There are very few teams in school history where Shayok would not have been a starter if not the best guy on the team.
Is the above record perfect? Far from it. There are plenty of good players up there, though. Nobody lets a recruiting whiff on Nkereuwem Okoro tarnish the Hoiberg era for some reason, so we do not need to worry about the back of the bench.
The team last year ran a lot of "clear it out, ISO it to Shayok/THT/Wigginton" stuff, yep. Why? Because it worked. That is how basketball works nowadays -- you find the match-up you want through screens and movement, and then you pick on the weak link matched up against your lion. Hoiberg did it, too, and 90% of NBA offense is like this. Lots of offense under Fred was isolation for White or Niang against some poor sap.
I will agree with you on one thing, though -- Prohm is very hesitant to run in the full-court. I am not sure why. Our half-court offense this season is not likely to be great, so trying to play more of a full-court game makes sense to me.
As for your request about blowing leads, I would say...
-- The ESPN and Basketball Reference data has final totals, but I do not know a way to filter for the score at some arbitrary point like 2:00 left in the game.
-- Even if it did, 2:00 is pretty arbitrary... Why not 1:00 or 5:00?
-- You have zero evidence... Just vague insinuation... That Prohm is any better/worse at protecting late game leads or making late game comebacks than any other coach or program in college basketball. If you are going to try to make that as a point, you are the one who has to provide the evidence.
I wrote way more than two paragraphs about what I'm going to do to you down in front of a roaring fire late at night on Christmas Eve... <3
Prohm has said numerous times that we need to run and create quick points via the fast break. In fact he says this on nearly every pre-game interview with John Walters. He wants to run, but that doesn't mean the guys are (other than George) working hard enough to do this.
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I think a lot of it has to do with getting stops. The best way to run is by forcing turnovers and getting rebounds. The second of which we aren't very good at. Can't have more than 1 guy leak down the court fast break if you can't get the rebound.
I have said this before but I will say it again --
Our problem has never been the offense under Hoiberg or Prohm. We score plenty -- inconsistent defense is what holds the program back every year.
Imagining zooming out from the program and single games with that in mind. I have talked to plenty of intelligent, informed college basketball fans on the East Coast who are not specialists with Iowa State and the Big 12 like we are. They are generally Big East and ACC types, but they know the basics when you ask them...
-- KU streak, finally ended
-- Texas Tech and the "kill drill" defense
-- Huggy Bear, all that stuff
What do they think when you ask them about Iowa State?
-- "transfers transfers transfers, like that Kane/Shayok guy last year"
-- "I liked Niang, fun watching him play, doing all those goofy spin moves"
-- "great offense, sucky defense, kind of like the Mike Leech of CBB"
-- "seems like an inconsistent program -- some big wins, but some weird losses"
-- "good PG, that Morris/Haliburton guy has an NBA future"
None of those answers have changed between 2015 and presently. I know we like to enjoy the narcissism of small differences on here, but to outside observers, the Hoiberg and Prohm eras do not look very different. The statistical case from KenPom and Bart Torvik says a similar thing. Sometimes I think it might be Iowa State more than it is really any individual coach. The Johnny Orr era was the same thing.
when i say u i literally spell it how i say it. sorry
u spelled freak wrong, btw. clonefreek.
You should have used the word have instead of the word of.
So was last year acceptable to you? We had 3 great talents all playing professionally right now, 2 drafted, all 3 signed contracts. Finished 9-9 in conference, won the conference tournament then lost first round of the tournament. Conference tournaments are great but id rather win outright regular season titles.
Agree. He's got to change something up. But with Prohm's loyalty, which assistant does he replace?
Yeah, but your initial argument was that Prohm couldn't recruit though. Way to change the narrative.
I completely agree. My biggest criticism of Prohm is still on the defensive end. I do think that his teams care more about defense than Hoiberg teams, but it's still an obvious weakness. I also do think there's more effort on that end than we've seen from previous teams, so I'm somewhat optimistic. The teams most comparable to Big 12 teams that we've played so far (Iowa, Alabama, Seton Hall, Michigan) all play a pretty tough style of basketball and I don't think that Iowa State was run off the court in terms of effort in any of those games. (People would strongly disagree with me about the Iowa game, but this is just my perspective.)
One question I'd have about the defense and defense in general is the effect of player turnover on a team's defense. Over the past three seasons, the team has had a lot of player turnover, which might be pretty detrimental to how a team plays defense, since communication and feel/trust is so important. When I look at this team I'm not sure I'd say there is a single player who doesn't put in effort on the defensive end, but it's possible they just need more time to get better at rotations and switches.
Who recruited and coached up all that talent...? I forgot his name.
I would love to win a Big 12 regular season title. We have accomplished that exactly twice in school history, however. We still lionize those times, but that was almost two decades ago now. I do not know when that became the expectation. Our hope before the season last year was to make it back to the NCAA tournament, which we did. We let a good January go to our heads -- we kept hearing on the TV broadcasts that "Iowa State might have the most talent in the Big 12, and they are in the running for the regular season conference title." I am sure our brains added, "And be the ones to finally break the streak held by the hated Kansas Jayhawks." Man, I ******* hate those guys down in Lawrence!
Well, guess what. We let that go to our heads. We were talented, but I do not know how you could argue we were ultimately better or more talented than Texas Tech or Kansas State. Jarrett Culver, Matt Mooney, Dean Wade, and Barry Brown were bad dudes. We were certainly in the running for the Big 12 title, but our chance of winning the conference peaked around 40% on Bart Torvik. For comparison, Kansas has about a 55% chance of winning the conference right now, even before games have started.
We let a little success go to our heads and moved the goalposts way too far, and we are still killing a very good team that accomplished a lot (and its coach) because of it. I feel ashamed that some people attached a "wasn't good enough" stigma to great players like Marial Shayok and Lindell Wigginton. It was not like Monté Morris or Georges Niang really accomplished much they never did. Success in college basketball really comes down to three things, at least from what I have seen, long-term...
(1.) recruiting recruiting recruiting
(2.) staying old
(3.) the NCAA tournament is kind of random... see South Carolina and Loyola-Chicago in the Final Four... the key is to have as many bites as the apple as you can
Prohm is the best recruiter in school history. The five best recruits of the 247 era in school history are Brackins, Wigginton, Horton-Tucker, Thomas, and Foster. Prohm has landed 3/5 of them. Prohm has never had a veteran, experienced roster with long-term continuity across it of his own design. And he tends to make the NCAA tournament, which takes care of my third point. Missing the tournament this year would be very disappointing to me. Missing it the year after this one would be near-fatal to me. But that has not happened yet.
What I actually asked was what is prohm good at, and the typical answer is recruiting so I posted he has had a lot of busts as well. Thats all.
This is his 5th season, he should have a veteran roster of his recruits. When will he acheive this veteran roster? Wont be next year, so when will it happen?
Same could be said for Coach Calipari. Where are all of his veteran players. What an awful coach.
