I'd like to sincerely thank Gessell, Woodbury, and Uthoff for almost always being a bit worse (and in a lot of cases, a lot worse) than Iowa State. Remember 3 years ago when Iowa came into the season nationally ranked and everyone in this state's media was fawning over them and then they played their way almost into the NCAA? Or this year when on Super Bowl Sunday, everyone thought Iowa was going to be the overall number 1 seed?
Every year, I thought maybe this will be the year Iowa is better than us in basketball. It's bound to happen sometime. But those 3 made sure it didn't happen on their watch. it's hard to pick which win over Iowa is better. Mikey missing FT's at the end? Or Iowa State without (at the time) a key player taking it to Iowa at Carver. Or a 22 point comeback complete with Iowa blowing an 8 point lead in a minute or something. It is hard to decide what Georges Niang troll job was better. The kiss? The cup of coffee? The It's a Cyclone State? The subtle jab this year? All so good and all so perfect.
I'll end on a serious note though....Uthoff is probably a better athlete than Georges. Obviously he is not a better player. But I've never watched someone play that seems to enjoy it less than Uthoff. It's sort of sad to see. Georges has worked really, really hard, but I don't think anyone can watch him and not think that he just hasn't had a blast playing college basketball. I'm glad that Fred and Steve were able to create an environment that he could do that in. And I'm glad that Georges is who is is.