When 'mediocrity' at ISU means being ranked a bunch of the season and a tourney bid.
What a time to be alive.
*** Official #13 IOWA STATE vs Texas Tech Game(Day) Thread ***
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When 'mediocrity' at ISU means being ranked a bunch of the season and a tourney bid.
What a time to be alive.
I do agree with this. But, where the team is at right now, a conference championship is possible. But to get that, these games have to be won. If we lose, that doesn't mean the season is a failure. It just means we won't really be in contention for a conference title. Something no one was even considering in November. So it's not a must win for a successful season or even making the NCAA. But it's a must win if this team is going to blow expectations out of the water and win a conference championship. That's all I am saying.
FIFY.
And before this goes any farther, no further corrections necessary. LOL
At times people sell this team short and lower realistic expectations based on what we THOUGHT we had versus what we actually have.
The reality is we probably have the best 5 in the conference, one of the best shooting guards, one of the best point guards, one of the best shooters (when healthy), and a really solid slasher with Holmes.
Our biggest issues are teamwide athleticism/quickness, depth, and having a consistent shot-creating player. Of those depth is probably the biggest issue especially when we aren't healthy. Right now we have 5 guys we can rely on, consistently, for positive contributions while Watson and Ward have sporadic moments (Jones even moreso). When playing a high intensity brand of basketball it's hard to have that, night in and night out, with 5 guys. If and when Grill and Kunc get healthy that becomes 7, which is much more doable.
As long as we keep bringing effort and stay relatively healthy, I see no reason why we won't contend. We've had two complete stinkers (Iowa and Mizzou) while UConn (at the time) was a much better team than we were. Having those game when the opponent has one of their best makes things look worse than they really were/are.
It won't be easy but I expect us to win tonight, be at or near the top of the conference, and end up with no worse than a 5 seed for the tournament (likely 3-4). The keys are health and reducing Jones' minutes as much as possible (Osun/King play the 5). That and a healthy Grill make us a very dangerous team.
The reality is we probably have the best 5 in the conference, one of the best shooting guards, one of the best point guards, one of the best shooters (when healthy), and a really solid slasher with Holmes.
Our biggest issues are teamwide athleticism/quickness, depth, and having a consistent shot-creating player. Of those depth is probably the biggest issue especially when we aren't healthy. Right now we have 5 guys we can rely on, consistently, for positive contributions while Watson and Ward have sporadic moments (Jones even moreso). When playing a high intensity brand of basketball it's hard to have that, night in and night out, with 5 guys. If and when Grill and Kunc get healthy that becomes 7, which is much more doable.
As long as we keep bringing effort and stay relatively healthy, I see no reason why we won't contend. We've had two complete stinkers (Iowa and Mizzou) while UConn (at the time) was a much better team than we were. Having those game when the opponent has one of their best makes things look worse than they really were/are.
It won't be easy but I expect us to win tonight, be at or near the top of the conference, and end up with no worse than a 5 seed for the tournament (likely 3-4). The keys are health and reducing Jones' minutes as much as possible (Osun/King play the 5). That and a healthy Grill make us a very dangerous team.
Cyclone Warning......
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I think the caution stems from no one wanting to give Tech their first conference win. Pop might be their most high ceiling player but as we saw with him in Ames, he can play them out of games too. Freshmen extremes.
They seemed to get a nice bump from some reserves this weekend. Granted, LSU is terrible. We'll see I guess.
They seemed to get a nice bump from some reserves this weekend. Granted, LSU is terrible. We'll see I guess.
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Had a thread about it being ok to lose to Missouri and see how that worked out. Let's not make this the same.
There were a couple of posters who said that but more in the thread said rest Grill for this one if necessary because conference games are more important than random non-con games. If the rest of the team would have played up to their abilities they could have beat the Misery team without him.
Regardless, ISU's standing in the conference race has not changed.
That's likely to cause a huge debate on this site. Caleb Grill has the biggest fan following I've seen an ISU men's basketball player have since Georges.
If you go back not that far, there was lots of "he sucks" too. Grill really following the Matty Ice fan love trajectory...
I don't know who would fit this bill but Georges was well liked from the word 'go' and Caleb was in the 'why is he even playing?' column along with Gabe for plenty of people before Portland.
