At the very start of CF the domain name firewaynemorgan.com redirected this site. I probably still have the nasty email I sent Jeremy at the time about that as his intent was to keep someone from putting up a negative site about Wayne.
LE podcast
- Thread starter Marcelason78
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Like 100s of thousands of others, I've read a ton about Lincoln.Williams & Blum: The Larry Eustachy interview - Cyclone Fanatic
An interview that was years in the making … a special treat for your holiday travel. Williams and Blum interview the legendary Larry Eustachy.cyclonefanatic.com
Imagining Lincoln wearing aviators, saying "Dude" to someone, cracked me up. Thanks for that.
That bit caught my attention too. He was talking about how tough it would be to coach today because players play the victim and is hard to coach them as tough as he did back in the days. First thing that came to my mind was have you seen how hard TJ runs his team, it's very similar to how Larry ran things. Lots of work on tough defense and rebounding as well as trying to build strength and stamina to play that way an entire season. The part where he said they'd run them until they were ready to puke the 1st 30 minutes of practice and Jamaal sat down with his back against the wall and said "I didn't sign up to be a track star." That story made me laugh as I could picture that happening.
Would like to hear more about what is going on with him and Paul Shirley as it sounds like he thought he had a good relationship with Paul at ISU then what Paul has been saying about him since has him confused why he thinks of him that way now. I got to meet a former player on that team several years ago, I won't share the name of who but he told me several interesting stories about that team and season that proably aren't as well known as others. One thing I remember he said was as a team they didn't hang out together much, especially Fizer and Tinsley kind of did their own thing outside of basketball and there were some smaller groups within the team that did stuff together but rarely did they all do something together as a team unless it was a planned team thing.
Regardless was one heck of a season and would make for a good series of podcasts to interview some of the former players and staff from that team between now and next season and get some of the different behind the scenes stories from their perspectives.
Cyclonepride
Thought Police
There are definitely kids out there that are willing to work their butts off and be pushed uncomfortably hard, but I'd guess it's a lower percentage than it was 25 years ago. I think TJ is excellent at identifying those guys and then making it clear that the identity of the program is based on working really hard.
And there is a difference between pushing guys to play hard/tough and bring an *******. TJ pushes guys but Larry definitely could be an ******* as is clear by his time here and at Colorado state.
Cyclonepride
Thought Police
True, but for some players, the net experience with Larry was undoubtedly a gain for their lives. For some, it probably wasn't. They'd each have to say for themselves
CloneMaster was a Cyclone Board back in 1998/99 which I followed religiously for recruiting news. I can't recall if it was a message board or just a platform which the moderator posted Cyclone information.
I have a feeling cell phones with cameras/video capability ended open practices.
Right after the Big 12 champion teams I was just sure TInsley was the greatest player in ISU history…then I got a little older and figured I was biased because that was my junior and senior year at ISU and I was so close to that as “my” team while I was at ISU. Maybe players before or after were better, I got more and more that way the further it got in the distance.
Listening to Larry though…remembering JT didn’t lose at home and he didn’t lose to Kansas, then remembering the very few times he did lose in Big 12 play it took overtimes or multiple overtimes, I start to think maybe I was right back then and Tinsley really is the greatest Cyclone basketball player in terms of his impact at ISU.
You want to think it has to be a four year guy, and if you look at career stats guys like Grayer, Morris, Niang, Hoiberg and Ejim have the career stats. Even Fizer in three years is up there for total stats. But there was something about Tinsley and actually watching how he controlled a game where maybe he really is the greatest we had. His two points that was a steal and runout layup could often have a greater impact than a typical two points.
Larry is quick to point out rightfully so just how good Nurse and Horton were. We had an elite backcourt both of those years beyond just Tinsley but he really broke teams down.
I especially liked him pointing out how they almost played Horton after semester that 15-15 year and what a great decision it was. Probably a decision that turned one B12 title into two. His comments about how he burned the team out chasing that second title is what I always suspected but it’s wild to hear right from Larry himself.
He mentions they found Tinsley out in the desert and he’s not lying, living in SoCal I go to Mount San Jacinto hiking sometimes (it’s a legit mountain) and at the base of the mountain you are definitely out in the desert a good 2.5 hours from actual LA. It was certainly a bizarre place to find an NYC playground legend or any starting Big 12 point guard. Once on a hiking trip I google mapped the college and I think my wife probably thought I was crazy but I had to drive by for some reason.
Listening to Larry though…remembering JT didn’t lose at home and he didn’t lose to Kansas, then remembering the very few times he did lose in Big 12 play it took overtimes or multiple overtimes, I start to think maybe I was right back then and Tinsley really is the greatest Cyclone basketball player in terms of his impact at ISU.
You want to think it has to be a four year guy, and if you look at career stats guys like Grayer, Morris, Niang, Hoiberg and Ejim have the career stats. Even Fizer in three years is up there for total stats. But there was something about Tinsley and actually watching how he controlled a game where maybe he really is the greatest we had. His two points that was a steal and runout layup could often have a greater impact than a typical two points.
Larry is quick to point out rightfully so just how good Nurse and Horton were. We had an elite backcourt both of those years beyond just Tinsley but he really broke teams down.
I especially liked him pointing out how they almost played Horton after semester that 15-15 year and what a great decision it was. Probably a decision that turned one B12 title into two. His comments about how he burned the team out chasing that second title is what I always suspected but it’s wild to hear right from Larry himself.
He mentions they found Tinsley out in the desert and he’s not lying, living in SoCal I go to Mount San Jacinto hiking sometimes (it’s a legit mountain) and at the base of the mountain you are definitely out in the desert a good 2.5 hours from actual LA. It was certainly a bizarre place to find an NYC playground legend or any starting Big 12 point guard. Once on a hiking trip I google mapped the college and I think my wife probably thought I was crazy but I had to drive by for some reason.
I remember my college roommate (massive Cyclone fan) reading and posting on the rivals site in 1998 in our dorm and kind of asking him “what is that” and he explained what a message board was to me…little did I know an embarrassing amount of posts and a quarter century later.
My dad is a massive Iowa fan and I went to Iowa practice with him as a kid and got BJ Armstrong and Acie Earl’s autographs after practice in Tom Davis years.
LE seemed to be more of a break or grind someone down to build them up type wheras TJ seems to go more toward a collective build one another up with really grinding work approach.
The former may have less than positive retrospect and Larry himself realized it.
Currently players know what they're getting into. Heck there's videos of the 5 a.m. workouts; it's no secret that a lot is demanded of you if you choose ISU.
I've heard @brentblum theorize this a few times and I'm less convinced. Absolutely Pete, had he lived another couple of months, might have had the political clout to keep Larry from getting fired in the spring of 2003. But that only answers the question of whether or not Larry keeps his job and does nothing to address the underlying issue.
Given their close relationship, Pete surely knew about Larry's alcohol problem. Perhaps behind the scenes Pete was leaning on Larry to clean up his act, but if he was it clearly hadn't worked by winter/spring of 2003.
Maybe going to rehab would have been a condition of Larry not getting fired. And maybe it would have worked. The counterargument to that is that Larry said himself in the podcast that he was immature and getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to him. (I'm paraphrasing, I don't remember exactly how he said it.) It's not hard to imagine him taking his sobriety less seriously had he kept his job.
Hell of an interview regardless, and I too hope there can be a reunion of sorts. It makes me really happy that ISU can rebuild bridges to all these old coaches, even when it doesn't end well, and they all have such good things to say about their time here.
It would be interesting to know if Pete did try to get LE to clean up his act. Thought an article from the time quoted Larry as saying that his wife was the only person who came forward telling him he had a drinking problem.
There's a little bit of "kids these days"-style complaining in Larry's comments that every generation makes about generations that follow it. A lot of old school coaches were just guys with anger issues who took it out on their players and are upset because kids have enough power not to sit there and take it anymore.
There's a way to coach your kids hard and instill toughness without being abusive. TJ seems to walk that tightrope pretty well.
I'm a huge Larry fan. And what you say isn't necessarily wrong.
However, we did win two outright B12 championships, a B12 tourney, and made the Elite 8. Haven't been close since.
Maybe he is right.
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I have a huge soft spot for Larry myself, so don't misread what I'm saying.
But if the argument is that the singular formula to achieve high-level success at Iowa State is that particular coaching style, I don't buy that. Fred was the epitome of a player's coach and had a team that is pretty much universally believed among this fan base to be Final Four, if not national title, worthy were it not for Niang's broken foot. We've played for a shot at the Elite Eight twice and won four conference tournaments. There is no singular season as good as 2000, but that's still high-level success.
And even the argument in favor of Larry's coaching style is weakened by the flameout at the end of the '01 season.
Again, like I said. What you are saying isn't necessarily wrong.
What is the highest place in the B12 standings Fred ever got? Lotsa coulda woulda shoulda..
2nd and KU wasn't in a rebuild like 99-2001.
Having the players like Fizer and a post like Shirley helped a ton.
His grind down style also led to a complete implosion and the first round game in 2000 got weird for a spell.
With all due respect, the fan base believes they would have been final 4 contenders without Niang breaking his foot. It could have happened, it might have happened but tbh Dustin Hogue made up for Niangs absence with his performance against UCONN.
Truth of the matter is we didn’t play enough defense to make a final four most likely, again not saying it couldn’t have happened.
This is why I absolutely love TJ. We play defense with final four capable intensity. Now the recruiting is catching up offensively. I believe we are potentially gonna be hitting all time highs is basketball fairly shortly. TJ blends strategies of defense and offense. He also gets the most out of his players without breaking them.
Good point.....but to be fair, I also think the students have changed too (AAU culture, family involvement, NIL, etc).
As another poster said, TJ seems to balance the directness, honesty, and hard work approach and finding guys that get it.
