2024-25 ISU WBB Season Thread
- Thread starter mred
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Looks like not too exciting home slate other than Drake. I predict 3 loses coming into conference play South Coralina, Iowa, and UConn.
The home slate is pretty boring but the national TV for those marque "not-Hilton" games way more than makes up for it. Been waiting decades to see a good Cyclone team play teams like that in non-conference. Those three games will be very interesting and huge "Look at us" events with the national audience. Significant Audi/Cyclones fan building opportunity.
23-24 NET ratings of our opponents:
Central College (D3 -- 11-14 record last year)
Chicago State (359)
Indiana State (251)
Southern (226)
St. Thomas (239)
UNI (99)
Drake (65)
South Carolina (1)
MTSU (40)
USC-Upstate (315)
Central Michigan (317)
Iowa (4)
Eastern Illinois (256)
UConn (2)
Basically you can put them in these categories:
Very good: South Carolina (1), UConn (2), Iowa (4)
Do not sleep on these: MTSU (40), Drake (65), UNI (99)
Pretty Mediocre: Southern (226), St. Thomas (239), Indiana State (251), Eastern Illinois (256)
Bad: USC-Upstate (315), Central Michigan (317), Chicago State (359)
You could put Chicago State in it's own category. 359 out of 360 with an 0-26 record. Their power-conference games were 100-42 @ Minnesota and 113-35 @ Notre Dame.
Side note: Chicago State joined the WAC in 2013 with UMKC as part of a plan to expand the WAC to the midwest, but that never panned out. When UMKC left a few years ago, Chicago State did as well. After spending the past two seasons as an independent, they join the Northeast Conference this season.
Central College (D3 -- 11-14 record last year)
Chicago State (359)
Indiana State (251)
Southern (226)
St. Thomas (239)
UNI (99)
Drake (65)
South Carolina (1)
MTSU (40)
USC-Upstate (315)
Central Michigan (317)
Iowa (4)
Eastern Illinois (256)
UConn (2)
Basically you can put them in these categories:
Very good: South Carolina (1), UConn (2), Iowa (4)
Do not sleep on these: MTSU (40), Drake (65), UNI (99)
Pretty Mediocre: Southern (226), St. Thomas (239), Indiana State (251), Eastern Illinois (256)
Bad: USC-Upstate (315), Central Michigan (317), Chicago State (359)
You could put Chicago State in it's own category. 359 out of 360 with an 0-26 record. Their power-conference games were 100-42 @ Minnesota and 113-35 @ Notre Dame.
Side note: Chicago State joined the WAC in 2013 with UMKC as part of a plan to expand the WAC to the midwest, but that never panned out. When UMKC left a few years ago, Chicago State did as well. After spending the past two seasons as an independent, they join the Northeast Conference this season.
I don't mind scheduling St. Thomas even though we will curb stomp them. It helps them get a little exposure in their effort to move up to Div I and maybe get competative in the Summit League. After the game this last season one of our player alumni (now a HS coach) noted "They just aren't ready or have the talent yet." when I said I was a little surprised at how easy that 40 point win was. And it might remind Minnesota HS kids that we are still here even though we don't currently have any Minnesota players.
Generally feel the same way about playing the other Summit League schools. Good exposure and keeps the money in the region, plus low trvel costs and the SD schools are no pushovers at all.
Chicago State DID win one game last season. They beat something called "Kuyper", 105-37. Even held Kuyper to a single point in the 3rd quarter. No idea what division that school (?) is in or what. But it's on their regular season schedule when you look at the wbb standings page at ESPN.com. But yeah - they're a terrible program right now. Lots of 20, 30+ point blow-out losses to mid major programs last season.
Good point. I was looking at their record on the NET rating page, which is Div I record only.
Kuyper is apparently NCCAA Div II. That's NCCAA, not NCAA. Their tallest player was 5'11" and they shot .356/.233/.588 for the season on FG/3FG/FT.
Kuyper did go 4-0 in the state of Iowa, beating both Central Christian College of the Bible and Faith Baptist Bible in a tournament in Ankeny, and then beating Faith Baptist Bible (again) and Emmaus Bible College in a tournament in Dubuque. Average margin of victory in those games was 11 points.
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I think we beat Iowa. South Carolina and UConn would be huge upsets.
Point of contention:
Our schedule says Central on October 30th.
Central's schedule says Winona State on October 30th.
Who's telling the truth?
Our schedule says Central on October 30th.
Central's schedule says Winona State on October 30th.
Who's telling the truth?
We beat Iowa and one of the other two biggies is decided at the wire
Welp it looks like I'm headed to CF on Nov 20th unless the men play at home that night.
Split squad like in baseball spring training?
Or maybe it'll be like a bad sitcom plot where a guy is on two dates at the same time, switching back and forth between the dates and trying to keep the girls from finding out about each other. Kind of difficult to pull it off when the two venues are hours apart, but they'll find a way to make it work
The only reason Iowa could be favored is their home venue.
Home court used to be more of an advantage in this series before the recent Iowa streak. Continuing on that, I'd think we should be favored even in Carver this season. Hawks will end up being pretty good but might take a while for their freshman to get up to Div 1 speed. Audi will be a big challenge for their freshman center to defend. We will also be integrating new folks but they are mostly transfers and our returning core has played together.
Since we're all making guesses I'll say 13-0 heading into conference play. Don't let me down!
Really nice interview article with Audi here: https://andscape.com/features/iowa-...exceeds-her-goals-as-a-freshman-all-american/
