It's on Fred

wonkadog

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True. I remember seeing a really poor shot by UAB that hit the back end of the rim (from a baseline shot) and it looked like our guys had good position but the wonky rebound went straight to a UAB player. UAB's offense was really poor. Their last two made shots at the end of the game were as improbable as Naz's wide open misses.

Agreed. I remember watching that big, tall, lanky guy who hit that last jump shot outside the free throw line just stumble around and set moving screens the next round against UCLA. Ugh.
 

Incyte

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Apr 12, 2007
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Scoring wins games. Nearly all of the sweet 16 are in the top 40 in scoring efficiency. We lost the UAB game due to ****** offense, not bad D. Edozie would have only made that worse.

If we had our normal offensive production we win by 10+.
 

RubyClone

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Mar 21, 2014
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Scoring wins games. Nearly all of the sweet 16 are in the top 40 in scoring efficiency. We lost the UAB game due to ****** offense, not bad D. Edozie would have only made that worse.

If we had our normal offensive production we win by 10+.

True - But I'm still maintaining that the 16 second chance points for UAB was the difference. And to your point, bad defensive rebounding has as much to do with our transition offense as anything as well. That's saying nothing about Edozie. Guys on the floor got manhandled by UAB too often and that shouldn't have happened.
 

Luth4Cy

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Sep 19, 2012
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For the record, it was a one point game so I'm pretty confident that Edozie being in for a couple minutes could have indeed made a difference.
 

Section110

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For the record, it was a one point game so I'm pretty confident that Edozie being in for a couple minutes could have indeed made a difference.

Absolutely. The difference was a one possession game. If Edozie plays for 30 seconds and grabs one board the Cyclones didn't get otherwise that could have been the difference. No one, absolutely no one, is saying Edozie should have played even half the game. Just saying he could have been used to inject some energy and send a message at the same time. If you aren't going to give everything you have for the team then you can sit until you decide to play with your best effort. You can't tell me the starters were playing with their best effort when they got outrebounded like that.
 

Cyballzz

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Feb 1, 2010
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Absolutely. The difference was a one possession game. If Edozie plays for 30 seconds and grabs one board the Cyclones didn't get otherwise that could have been the difference. No one, absolutely no one, is saying Edozie should have played even half the game. Just saying he could have been used to inject some energy and send a message at the same time. If you aren't going to give everything you have for the team then you can sit until you decide to play with your best effort. You can't tell me the starters were playing with their best effort when they got outrebounded like that.

Fred Hoiberg... a guy who watches Daniel Edozie EVERY SINGLE DAY in practice clearly didnt feel that way.

Honest question... were the first 3 minutes of the OU game on senior night not broadcast?

Daniel Edozie, F30-00-00-0000000000

The "energy" Edozie brought us that night had us losing 10-2 and the poor kid looked lost.
 

Luth4Cy

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Fred Hoiberg... a guy who watches Daniel Edozie EVERY SINGLE DAY in practice clearly didnt feel that way.

Honest question... were the first 3 minutes of the OU game on senior night not broadcast?

Daniel Edozie, F30-00-00-0000000000

The "energy" Edozie brought us that night had us losing 10-2 and the poor kid looked lost.

You think Daniel Edozie is incapable of boxing out and grabbing a rebound?
 

Incyte

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Apr 12, 2007
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For the record, it was a one point game so I'm pretty confident that Edozie being in for a couple minutes could have indeed made a difference.

Good point - would have lost by a 5-10 if he had played.
 

CyTwins

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Jan 20, 2010
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I love Daniel and all he did for us but I'm sure not going to miss hearing his name after every loss.
 

Cyballzz

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Right, the guy who played solid against Kansas and UNC last season would have definitely made us 5-10 points worse in several minutes of play.

Reference games from last year... ignore game from 2 weeks ago...
 

Luth4Cy

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If that's your criteria for whether someone should see the floor you are a terrible critic. I mean awful.

Of course it's not my criteria of whether he should see the floor, it's my criteria of whether or not he could have made a difference. In a one point game a lot of people could have made a difference. Playing somebody one possession less or one possession more could have made a difference in the score. That's the point I'm trying to make.
 

Sigmapolis

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Some people just can't accept basketball has changed from the 1980s and 1990s and can't accept we aren't going to play the same "basketbrawl" that many college teams play to slow down the game, level the playing field, minimize differences in athleticism, and kill offense while grinding on defense. Fred is playing a modern, professional style, kind of the opposite of Hackball that you see from teams like WVU. Their tactics might be effective, some of the time, but it is a "legacy" style of play, does not prepare players well for the professional game, minimizes individual ability and initiative, and is just horribly ugly and boring to watch.

Seriously, watch CBB outside of like ISU and Notre Dame and the like. It's awful, hack-ish, clang-fests that remind me way more of high schoolers playing than pros.

That style... feed Wilt, feed Kareem, feed Charles, feed Ewing, feed Shaq, feed Robinson, feed Hakeem, with most of the offense coming through post moves and put-backs... just isn't the modern game at the professional level anymore. The best teams in the league, be it the Warriors, Hawks, Cavaliers, Rockets, the Spurs, etc. play a game based on spacing, pace, that relies on efficiency on offense and help-oriented man defense. No long two's. Drives are designed less to finish at the rim than to create opportunities for easy shots down-low in the form of a layup or dunk or spacing for shooters on the outside. Drawing fouls is encouraged. Make your free throws. And while chicks dig the long-ball, though the scoreboard and efficiency stats love it even more.

And, yes, those modern "pace and space" teams are dominating the league, while those who reject it (the Knicks, the Lakers) are on the bad side of things nowadays. I know there are talent differentials, but you can't argue "the system" doesn't basically make some of these teams:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/...playoff-odds-eight-teams-three-playoff-spots/

A lot of this reminds me of the hate directed at somebody like, say, a James Harden. Harden is a great player. One of the most efficient in the world, if not *the* most efficient. I am stealing this from Bill Simmons, but it rings so true on this forum to me:

http://grantland.com/features/2015-nba-trade-value-part-3-the-final-countdown/

Important note: The Harden Experience wouldn’t have made sense even 25 years ago. We would have been saying stuff like “He needs to post up more†and “He’s killing them with all those dumb 3s.†But over everything else, Harden’s ability to repeatedly beat defenders with what seems to be the exact same move makes him the most unique.

Fred's teams just don't "look" like what a successful basketball team looked like from the 1970s through at least the 1990s if not into last decade. They're tall at guard but short at post, everybody kind of "looks" roughly the same in terms of lanky body type and medium height between 6'4" and 6'8", and they aim for speed and shooting ability over raw strength. We are almost all "tall guards," really. I have to think that some people just haven't gotten that through their heads. That's where, I think, much of the frustration and the calls for somebody like Edozie come from. Edozie looks like what a successful player at a lot of schools, like a Ryan Spangler, and like the greats of the 1990s NBA heyday looked like. Big, tall, strong maulers who wouldn't back down in the post but with limited athleticism and no real offensive ability outside of stuff from within 4'.

I love Edozie, his story, and the minutes he gave us (won us that BSU game two years ago), but McKay's efficiency ratings are off the charts--a PER of 23.9, best on the team, in conference. Are you really wanting to take a guy off the court who averaged 11.9 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks per game in ~25 minutes out very much for anybody? Are you really going to take Georges Niang, one of the best scorers in the country and a first-team all-conference player, out much? I know Edozie looks the part, and Niang had an awful game against UAB, but Hogue, McKay, and Niang offer that mixture of speed and offense that make our system thrive.

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/iowa-state/2015.html

I don't think we're a flawless team or have a flawless coach. Far from it. I do think we have to, as a program, commit to learning more about and playing harder on defense. It's 95% hustle and positioning. We lacked in each this year. I'm sure Fred's already working on it, though. Funny, too, how the defensive criticisms sound a lot like those of Harden in the past:

And Harden’s night-to-night defense used to be somewhere between “reprehensible†and “he’s trolling us,†but he took enough guff that he actually started trying on both ends this season. Great for the Rockets; terrible for everyone who loved reading 1,200-post NBA Reddit threads centered on GIFs of Harden standing in cement as his man darted by him for a layup. He’s the most well rounded of the three.

Sounds a lot like us, no? Thing is, though, Harden is *much* better on defense this year for making some minimal adjustments and trying harder. I don't think it would take too much to bring us up to average with the length and speed we have coming back. I just think lots of people, consciously or not, want us to be something that we're not. They want big brawlers like Edozie, not finessee players like Dustin Hogue down low. Something that's a successful throwback for many teams in the NCAA, but not the wave of the future in the NBA. Things are going to change in our direction over time (shorter shot clock, more of an orientation towards NBA preparedness, independence of major conferences in CBB like in CFB, etc.). We'll be ready for it.

Way more fun to watch in the meantime with a Top 20 program, too. Not that we haven't been stupendously successful by the standards of our history, too.
 
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Luth4Cy

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Sep 19, 2012
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Ah so you take 19 minutes last year in 2 cherry picked games? Why not take the 7 minutes he played vs UConn last year? Doesn't fit your narrative?


2014-03-28Iowa StateNConnecticutNCAAL1700000000000000000

You really don't understand my original point, which was that it was a one possession game and he could have then made a difference. Kourtlin could have made a difference for crying out loud. That doesn't mean Kourtlin is better than anybody on the court, just that in a one possession game the difference is minimal and as a result any player on any possession can make a difference.
 

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