Hell of a season
- Thread starter ChickenNuggetMan
- Start date
At the beginning of the season I thought we would be eating at a Chilis.
A poor desert? Can't you at least say average desert? We made the sweet Sixteen. I don't think our fanbase warrants being so spoiled we turn our nose up at delicious chocolate cake because it's not creme brule.
IDK that i'd say 'poor' but i probably wouldnt say 'average' either. Somewhere in between i guess. A 'successful' run for a 2 seed is probably an elite 8.
To belabor the restaurant analogy, its one thing to have the chocolate cake when you're at chilis, but if they serve you the same chocolate cake at a high end restaurant it'd probably feel fairly disappointing.
1 out of 4 of the higher seeds won tonight. The success was the whole season. One game elimination tournaments are a crapshoot.
Eh, I see little difference between sweet 16 and elite 8 program wise. The benefit is getting talked about on a national scale, and you get that from 32 to sweet 16 because of the long break. The only team that's going to get talked about next week is whoever makes the final four. If that's UCONN, which seems likely, hardly anyone is going to care about ISU or Illinois.
Felt like we didn't get much of that tbh. Felt like one of the more ignored matchups and all the talk was Illinois because they were the flashy offensive team.
It's college ball.
Sometimes things don't go your way. It They lost by 3. Halftime adjustments were great.
They had shot at the end l, it didn't work out. It's sports sometimes the other guy hits the big shots or makes the free throw
Great season, great coach, great players.
To say otherwise is ignorant.
Thanks, I'm surprised it is that many. I was thinking 10-15. Still a pretty good accomplishment as there are around 350 teams so ISU is still in elite company.
And of those 350 teams, only 3 will finish their season with a win. So when that season ending loss comes, you can’t stew over it. Enjoy the season you had and forget the loss that ended it.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
Today I learned the postseason College Basketball Invitational still exists (all hail the Seattle Redhawks).
(Also, being nitpicky, but in digging around I discovered Dartmouth, Ball State, and Southeast Missouri State each won their final regular-season game and didn’t make the postseason, either conference tournament or otherwise, so it’s slightly more than three
. Not much of a flex to win your last game and still not be good enough to make your conference tourney, though.)
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It's not just TJ, this is the 4th time since 2000 we've made it this far then looked like a deer in headlights.
We were never really in this game at all, but at least it looked better than Hoiberg, Prohm, and Tjs first team who all got completely embarrassed.
We underperformed our seeding for the 2nd year in a row after overachieving in the first year.
A trend has now developed where we get to play a bad defense in the tournament then have no answer for their bad defense. Miami, Pitt, and Illinois were both good scoring teams with dog*** defenses and we struggled to score.
We won't take the next step and have a chance at a national title until we get a better offense.
Underwood himself said IL played better defense last night and it showed. They can play defense, they just haven't with leaning on offense so much.
They aren't just 'bad at defense' because they have been.
And re: your earlier post: getting to two with several chances to take the lead isn't getting it close?
ISU missed shots at the hoop they usually connect on.
It sucked but they had their chances.
Completely agree on the last point. We need a go to scorer. A guy like Niang that if you need a bucket, just clear out and let him go to work. I really think Tamin could become that sort of player, but we’ll see if he can take that next step.
The three interior players were fine, but they weren’t what we need to win big games. Hopefully the new guys can be a step up.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
Not sure I really agree with this. Yes, the team looked off-balance most of the game, and really didn’t ever have an answer for Shannon - but three times in the final 9 minutes they had the chance to tie the game with an easy layup and couldn‘t make it fall. I’d say the opportunity to tie the score like that multiple times late in the game means you’re still “in” the game, even if you weren’t playing well. Once you’re tied all sorts of things can happen, for either team.
This is what always scares me about playing a team with an elite offense in the tourney like Illinois.
My theory is they might be bad on D all year, bit get in a 1 game situation and all bets are off. You can make up for it in a 1 game setting with intensity and hustle.
Unfortunately i don't think the opposite is true when you have a bad offense, you can't just will your way to making more shots.
ISU's offense wasn't even that bad on the season though. Not a burner but certainly reliable. Last night...just tight everywhere.
Underwood said they at one point had a Top 10 defense (not sure of the time frame) and got away from it.
With their size and length they can certainly play it and to add they were a bad matchip for ISU's smaller guards.
