WBB: How would you rate the 24-25 season?

[ZorkClone]

EDIT: THIS IS FOR THE WBB TEAM. Probably should have not posted this after last night's MBB loss.

Now that we've had some time to cool off from the end of the season. How would you rate it? I left off +/- but feel free to comment with those included.

Preconference: C-

Pretty disappointing, but not disastrous.

I'll admit I was one who was foolish and bought the preseason hype. Audi, Addy, and Emily back with transfers who should shore up our 3 pt shooting. Me Gusta.

Losing to UNI and Iowa hurt. We had decent leads in each of those games and blew it. Losing to SCAR and UCONN was expected, but man they blew any idea that this team should be ranked out of the water.

The wins against Drake and MTSU saved this section of the season from being a D or F.

Conference: B-

Underwhelmed, but performed when expected.

We won every game we should have and lost every game we should have. Barring one exception KSU. The inability to "punch up" made our getting into the tournament a big question mark until the KSU win. One more loss and we probably would have missed the tournament.

Gave this a B- as opposed to a B because the team regressed from winning against the odds and some of the losses were not great showings.

Postseason: B

Satisfied, performed to my expectations.

As a repeat to the last section, we won every game we should have and lost every game we should have. The ladies had good/great performances against ASU and Princeton and made the games against Baylor and Michigan toss ups.

Wished for more but got what I expected.

Overall Season rating: B-

I can't help that the preseason expectations have colored my perception on this entire season and is the reason I have to give it a B-. Picked 2nd in the XII to fall to 7th, and from top 10 to PIG was disappointing. A 23-12 season is a pretty good record and is our 3rd (or 4th depending on if you want to count by win% or total wins) best season in the last 10 years.

 

[Cyfan1965]

This is what 2024-2025 team needed and I think the staff thought one of the new guards could make shots. They have all proven that they could in previous stops but not this year and not here. I hope Hare is that guard.

 

[kcdc4isu]

Voted C the preseason hype was to high and we under performed to many times. The way we finished last year in the tourney was really good but this year over all we did not step up our game but then again you never know what will happen when you take the court.

 

[CycloneRulzzz]

C and it would be a C+

We weren't a top 10 team but that's not on the team. Experts overvalued us based off the tourney a year ago.

Non conference was disappointing losing to UNI and Iowa who is not as good as the CC teams. No shame in losing to big name programs but not even being competitive was disheartening.

Outside of KSU at the end conference was a little underwhelming. Beat who we should but didn't fair well against teams above us.

 

[mj4cy]

B-

Made the tournament but we really only had 2 threats and were so slow.

 

[awd4cy]

B-

Made the tournament but we really only had 2 threats and were so slow.

This is about women’s basketball

 

[mj4cy]

This is about women’s basketball

Fixed it before you had to correct me...

 

[acoustimac]

Nothing to argue with so far.
Preseason…I’ll say it again…there should be no rankings until a month into the season. I too was overjoyed to see them get respect, but logical me said “wait and see.” UNI loss was a harbinger of things to come. It was a game that illustrated our newcomers weren’t ready for prime time. Of course the UNI guard had a game she never duplicated the rest of the season. If she scores her average…well…thats history. The blowouts weren’t unexpected, but not to the degree they happened. Again it illustrated the inconsistency of this team. Realistically, this team should have only lost to UConn and USC. In the long term, Iowa was a better team with their one and done gun for hire.

Conference. Lots of “almosts.” Games we easily could have won? Utah. KSU away. TCU at home. OSU away. The rest…fell like they should have.

Conf. Tournament. First round good. Second round another toss up that could have gone either way. Hoped for and thought we could beat a wounded Baylor, but our shooting died in the late fourth ending any hope.

The Dance. Good first round game. Second game one of the best to watch all season. But, like the Iowa, Baylor and several other games…our offense disappeared late.

So, good season by most standards? Yes. Should it be weighed against the preseason ranking? NO. That was nonsense (being ranked 20-25 would have been more sensible). They made the Dance meaning they were in the top 17% of all teams in the country. That's good. Watching the dance I saw a bunch of teams that the Sisters were clearly better than. Being relegated to the playin round was ridiculous.

 

[Havs]

I wish the SC/UConn slots could have been filled elsewhere. Adding a home chance for an easier-yet-good home win could have done wonders for this team. This team never got a big win until K-State at home, and it remains the only good win. I do worry this program is stale, but its far from bad.

For a program that has prided itself in big wins forever, I can't get over that. C

 

[cyclone13]

View attachment 145996 This is what 2024-2025 team needed and I think the staff thought one of the new guards could make shots. They have all proven that they could in previous stops but not this year and not here. I hope Hare is that guard.

Yup, I always said that we really missed Belanger. She was probably our MVP last season.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Probably a B-. High expectations, but young team with some adversity sprinkled in.

 

[CYdTracked]

I voted D but in some aspects I could maybe go C. We essentially ran back the same team as last year minus Bellanger who nearly made the Sweet 16 last year. Sprinkled in some transfers we thought would fill the voids we were missing last year with the assumption returning the core players and their development would lead to significant improvement. We looked terribly outmatched when we played good teams and at times struggled against teams we should beat. Last year we at least were competitive against ranked teams and this year we pretty much got smoked in every ranked matchup except the win late in the season against KSU.

I would not call this season a failure as we still made the tournament (barely) but I would categorize it as highly disappointing. That may be a harsh assessment but when you are ranked top 10 to start the season, expectations or not the way this season played out was a far cry from considering it a success.

 

[fsanford]

Voted B, means they got to tourney
A, would have been a deep tourney run.

Need to get a water bug guard or 2

 

[acoustimac]

this year we pretty much got smoked in every ranked matchup except the win late in the season against KSU.

.

UConn and USC. Yes
The rest…not so much
#21 Iowa lost by 6 not smoked
WVU lost by 14…handled decisively…yes As were every team they played at home
#11 KSU there lost by 8 in OT nope
#9 TCU lost by 13 in what was a close game down to the end. Nada
#19 Baylor…yep…this was being handled beginnning to end.
#14 KSU we opened up a can of whoop ass in a 22 point win
Baylor - lost by six in a highly contested game. Not even close

Thats it…3, maybe 4, games where the ladies were pretty well handled.

 

[BoxsterCy]

Nothing to argue with so far.
Preseason…I’ll say it again…there should be no rankings until a month into the season. I too was overjoyed to see them get respect, but logical me said “wait and see.” UNI loss was a harbinger of things to come. It was a game that illustrated our newcomers weren’t ready for prime time. Of course the UNI guard had a game she never duplicated the rest of the season. If she scores her average…well…thats history. The blowouts weren’t unexpected, but not to the degree they happened. Again it illustrated the inconsistency of this team. Realistically, this team should have only lost to UConn and USC. In the long term, Iowa was a better team with their one and done gun for hire.

Conference. Lots of “almosts.” Games we easily could have won? Utah. KSU away. TCU at home. OSU away. The rest…fell like they should have.

Conf. Tournament. First round good. Second round another toss up that could have gone either way. Hoped for and thought we could beat a wounded Baylor, but our shooting died in the late fourth ending any hope.

The Dance. Good first round game. Second game one of the best to watch all season. But, like the Iowa, Baylor and several other games…our offense disappeared late.

So, good season by most standards? Yes. Should it be weighed against the preseason ranking? NO. That was nonsense (being ranked 20-25 would have been more sensible). They made the Dance meaning they were in the top 17% of all teams in the country. That's good. Watching the dance I saw a bunch of teams that the Sisters were clearly better than. Being relegated to the playin round was ridiculous.

Top 17% is a pretty cooked stat. Of the top four power conferences in WBB (SEC, Big TEN, Big 12 and ACC) 54% made the dance this year. That is our real and actual peer group and not an added on collective of a couple of hundred really bad Div 1 minor conference teams. Just making the dance is sort of a C especially with a seed like ours. The round of 32 included only three teams outside those power conferences and those power conferences made up half of the field in the first round. One of those teams is UConn, sort of a standalone elite even though they are not in a top conference.

I'd give us an overall C for the season. That is totally discounting expectations even though we really shouldn't. Some people here were all bent in the fall when the coaches voted KSU a few votes ahead of us as title favorites. Say all you want about the expectations and early ranks being too high but the Big 12 coaches voted us a co-favorites, not some sports writers hyping their favorites or fans voting but coaches in our league.

 

[acoustimac]

Top 17% is a pretty cooked stat. Of the top four power conferences in WBB (SEC, Big TEN, Big 12 and ACC) 54% made the dance this year. That is our real and actual peer group and not an added on collective of a couple of hundred really bad Div 1 minor conference teams. Just making the dance is sort of a C especially with a seed like ours. The round of 32 included only three teams outside those power conferences and those power conferences made up half of the field in the first round. One of those teams is UConn, sort of a standalone elite even though they are not in a top conference.

I'd give us an overall C for the season. That is totally discounting expectations even though we really shouldn't. Some people here were all bent in the fall when the coaches voted KSU a few votes ahead of us as title favorites. Say all you want about the expectations and early ranks being too high but the Big 12 coaches voted us a co-favorites, not some sports writers hyping their favorites or fans voting but coaches in our league.

Not a cooked stat at all. Every single D1 school is eligible. Thats what I compared to. You may not like it, but reality is reality. I understand your desire to narrow the field to only teams that are worth a draw, but nearly half of the Big 12 and the lower part of the other bigs were terrible.

 

[NWICY]

I gave it a D, mainly because of preseason expectations.
It could be a C easy enough because we had our average season over .500, made the tourney and exited before the sweet16 and that's been our average year for quite awhile.

 

[CycloneT]

I'll give it a flat C.

Did everything you were suppose to do to pass, but nothing above and beyond.

 

[cycloneworld]

C or C-. Going 1-10 in Quad 1 games, even with the difficult non-con, with a unanimous All-Big 12 first teamer + 2nd teamer + honorable mention shows we weren’t very good. And we regressed from last year’s team somehow.

But the building blocks are there to get back quickly and greatly improve.

 

[BCClone]

Men have the portal going wild, any info on any ins or outs?