PSA: Iowa State’s Ceiling In Any Sport

[Jer]

My annual reminder for those in pain and pointing fingers.

Our coaches don’t swing between COTY candidates to sucking on a game by game basis in MBB and FB. They are great, and way too much is put on Xs and Os daily.

People really need to come to terms with the fact that we can compete with anybody and get a great starting five every year, but with NIL, anything beyond starters will always be a big drop off. Especially with regards to scorers or skill position that are going for the price of 50% of our entire athletic NIL.

That means you have little to no margin for injuries, slumps, etc. You will have years where it’s enough and goes well (ie FB 20) and others when not with the same roster and schedule (ie FB 21).

That is the same for football.

It has been this way forever, but amplified by magnitudes with NIL. We can win championships, but there is never room for error or injury, or even a dud star.

 

[cstrunk]

Agree, my friend. No room for error... especially injuries.

 

[Cyched]

My college sports fandom now has less room for error then

 

[ClonesTwenty1]

Big facts

 

[Erik4Cy]

We Will Collective · We Will Collective Giving

 

[GoSTATE71]

To make a positive - we’re consistently competing in football and basketball and I’d argue basketball is very much on the upswing. We have made a few sweet 16s lately, highly ranked teams, big 12 tourney titles but we need to break through to an E8 of final 4 year eventually. Reality is that it’s extremely difficult to make deep runs year after year in basketball.

With that said, this year feels like a huge disappointment. I think fans will always be curious what the true story of Gilbert was and if that impacted any of the downfall

 

[tim_redd]

Definitely need to be a little bit lucky and unfortunately it seems like the only luck we had this year was bad luck.

 

[Jer]

1 - To clarify, I’m not saying coaching doesn’t matter, but you have to have enough skilled depth or it doesn’t work.

2 - Correct, this isn’t my annual state of cyclones post, there likely won’t be one. I don’t have the cognition for that anymore.

 

[LivntheCyLife]

Overall, I agree with you. But this one hurts more than most. You expect injuries in football but for basketball, you often can have a year where nobody has to miss more than a game or two. To have both Momcilovic and Gilbert hurt for extended periods is more than a little unlucky. This team was considerably deeper than many ISU teams.

And for this season's disappointment, I place a large majority of the blame on injuries. I don't know what the future holds for NIL but I don't really think more NIL could have assembled pieces that fit together that much better than when this team was really humming. I'm 100% behind TJ, I'm sure he'll continue to assess what's working and what isn't, and I'll continue to cheer them on into the future.

 

[jdoggivjc]

We Will Collective · We Will Collective Giving

That's great that you can post a link... but unless ISU comes up with several more megadonors, We Will will never be able to compete with what schools in the Big 10 and SEC... and hell - several schools in our own conference. I know you want to say "every dollar matters", but small donations via We Will isn't going to cut it.

 

[Darius Bieber]

That's great that you can post a link... but unless ISU comes up with several more megadonors, We Will will never be able to compete with what schools in the Big 10 and SEC... and hell - several schools in our own conference. I know you want to say "every dollar matters", but small donations via We Will isn't going to cut it.

Yeah, grassroots is great and all but when you have BYU spending millions on one player for a one year rental…. We just can’t compete.

 

[GoSTATE71]

Alternatively KU spent a ton of cash on NIL and got nowhere.

 

[Darius Bieber]

Alternatively KU spent a ton of cash on NIL and got nowhere.

There will always be outliers. 2024-2025 KU basketball, 2024 FSU football, A&M football etc. But they have the talent to compete. (KU beat Duke this year). They just can’t put it together.

We don’t have the raw talent. But somehow we’ve put things together. For us to take the next step, we’d need the raw talent + put it all together.

 

[Drew0311]

I think the problem is we had expectations in basketball and we had realistic expectations and came nowhere near those. The good thing is we can expect great things now. The bad thing is we can expect good things and when they don’t go well, it’s a huge disappointment

 

[awd4cy]

And this is why my interest is fading. We have a bigger hill to climb, and same for a lot of college basketball. This tournament has sucked and I’ve watched a record low amount of basketball this March. I still think it’s going to get worse. More blowouts, and less Cinderella runs. Look at year 1 of the college football playoff. Incredibly boring.

 

[JCity]

100% this is the sad truth.

 

[Drew0311]

And this is why my interest is fading. We have a bigger hill to climb, and same for a lot of college basketball. This tournament has sucked and I’ve watched a record low amount of basketball this March. I still think it’s going to get worse. More blowouts, and less Cinderella runs. Look at year 1 of the college football playoff. Incredibly boring.

With the transfer portal is definitely took a lot of talent from the little guys which means less upsets. Which means a worse tournament

 

[85clone]

Yeah, grassroots is great and all but when you have BYU spending millions on one player for a one year rental…. We just can’t compete.

The equivalent of a middle school bake sale

 

[NATEizKING]

That's great that you can post a link... but unless ISU comes up with several more megadonors, We Will will never be able to compete with what schools in the Big 10 and SEC... and hell - several schools in our own conference. I know you want to say "every dollar matters", but small donations via We Will isn't going to cut it.

Waiting for the top to break off into their own conference that none of us watch, so the rest of us can get back to college sports.

 

[Cyientist]

I think the problem is we had expectations in basketball and we had realistic expectations and came nowhere near those. The good thing is we can expect great things now. The bad thing is we can expect good things and when they don’t go well, it’s a huge disappointment

Agreed, and that’s alright. Let us dream big and also let us vent and be honest that it can be disappointing.