I agree. Just makes the loss that much more painful like 2000. I do think getting to the Final Four is probably a different feeling though. Last night wasn't nearly as bad as the losses where we pissed it down our leg like Michigan State 2000 or UCLA 97.
*** Official #23 Tennessee vs #6 IOWA STATE Game(Day) Thread ***
- Thread starter CycloneRulzzz
- Start date
We can’t win a tightly called game if we can’t make free throws. I’m sure TJ is second guessing many of his decisions, wondering if he’d done this or that if we could have pulled through…but if Jefferson wasn’t going to be good to go against Michigan (which it sounds like he probably wouldn’t have been based off his comments), there was no shot of us beating that team. It would have been marginally better to beat Tennessee, but we still always would have been asking “what if?”.
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Extending the season by another week…and getting to see two more games does seem appealing. Plus it would give fans a chance to go to one more venue. I mostly wanted to win yesterday to silence some of the noise from Hawk fans, but otherwise 16 vs 8 doesn’t move the needle in a meaningful way for me.
Final Four is just the next level. Even though the Elite 8 is one round more it's really not that much different. Like you say the final four is another week of anticipation, another venue, etc ..
That is the one thing that slightly softens the blow from last night, is I think we lose by double digits easy against Michigan without Jefferson. When I heard he was still limping badly as of yesterday I thought “well the season ends this weekend”
Would have been great to get to the Elite 8, but that was the absolute ceiling imo without Jefferson. It’s not like we had a good chance at a title and just pissed it down our legs (without Jefferson).
This is what got me through the Broncos AFC championship loss after we lost Nix. Well we weren’t going to beat Seattle without him anyway.
I would have rather seen us play with Jefferson fully healthy than not. I just really think Tennessee would have locked down on Jefferson and it would not have been a great game for him. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have been better than nothing. We still would have needed Milan to have a good game. In theory he should have had more room, but I still think this was the most clear it has been that Milan’s game needs to develop more. I’m really not that mad, but if there is one thing I’m frustrated about, it’s that knowing he was locked down from getting open looks from 3, that he wasn’t able to pivot and do more of what Heise did.
And I do get that this doesn’t give Heise enough credit. He’s a very good player. If he was 3 inches taller and could shoot like Milan, he would almost certainly be a top 5 pick in the draft.
We have had problems historically with long, athletic, and strong teams. Especially in this tournament. There are plenty of small teams that figure out how to overcome that.
ISU desperately needs some of these long, athletic bigs that can create havoc in the paint, and they need an athletic slasher that can take it to the rim and score. Hasan Ward, Kelvin Cato-type body for the one; Burton or Kane type guy for the other. Did we even get any dunks on the year that weren't alley oops? We're not getting to the next level with a team full of 3-point shooters. And the free throws, cripes!!! I think Milan was the only guy to shoot better than 70%.
That what everyone is looking for. That's like defensive lineman in football. We need more guards that can shoot the ball and score.
Need to cut back on the top of the key hand off that is 99% of their offense and run more motion and ball movement with slashers and cutters. This will make the defense have to chase and eventually get them out of position catch a defense out of position. Too easy to defend if all you do is try to pick and roll or run the weave moving the ball side to side with guys just standing around.
The very few times they ran motion with slashers and cutters they were unstoppable.
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I don't even think you on have to be that creative. Dribble drive penetration is the key. We can go 4 out 1 in with the right guys. Just get some guards that have the ability to drive and shoot the ball. If they can shoot you have to play out on them. If they can drive they'll be in a lot of one on one situations.
100% agree on losing to Michigan.
What I don’t fully agree on is the FTs. Of course that was a glaring weakness and was going to doom them eventually. However, I think a game called differently could have opened things up for the offense. It may have even flipped the script a bit and put UT on its heels so ISU could get a big second half run.
Jefferson draws doubles. The impact of Jefferson as a scorer, passer and guy that draws a ton of doubles can't be overstated. It's really hard to faceguard Milan when there's a guy like Jefferson out there. You can't faceguard one guy and bring doubles against another.
Jefferson being out had a massive impact on Milan and everyone else.
This Iowa thing is stupid. George Mason made a final four. San Diego Staye made a final four. Are those better programs? Did they continue to succeed? No. Iowa just happened to get lucky.
Not with Heise and Toure playing agressively like they were in the past 5 games and last night. That was what was so frustrating with Jefferson’s injury. We were playing our best ball all year which is all you can ask for in the tourney.
We lost to those teams when Toure wouldn’t shoot and guys were playing 10’ off of him clogging the lane, and when Heise was incredibly passive on offense.
When Toure was in attack mode offensively early in the year ISU was incredible. He started slumping, then totally got passive on offense. Heise wasn’t really shooting or attacking either. ISU become much easier to guard. ISUs offense was great once again when those two started getting aggressive again starting in KC.
Yes, but his presence yesterday would have made Tennessee’s gameplan untenable.
