Thank you bench!!

[Dannynoonan]

If you would have told me Jeff/Milan/Tamin only score 29 I would say we got curb stomped. Pleta/Heise/Bateman go off for 25, and throw in Buchanan for 10- amazing by those guys!

Obviously this can’t work every game, but they were ready and blew their nut at Houston tonight. This was a great coaching effort by the staff as well.
Give them two or three days of just shooting free throws now- that is needed.
Only three turnovers against a crazy good defense.
I hope we can get the big three to be firing and keep the others playing at a high level and who knows…

 

[t-noah]

I'm sure they practice free throws plenty. At this point, I'm afraid we are what we are, a bad FT shooting team.

Keep practicing though. Maybe it will click a little down the stretch.

 

[GoSTATE71]

I’m pretty bought in that Heise is the X factor to this team, Batemon close behind, pleta continues to improve. When those 3 give good minutes were elite. Hope they continue the trend.

Ps - I absolutely LOVE that Batemon just lets it rip with zero fear, his defense has gotten so much better as the season has gone on too

 

[nrg4isu]

We had 4 players that had a positive +/-.
Toure = 1
Jefferson = 9
Pleta = 12
Heise = 13

That is wild.

 

[burn587]

I’m pretty bought in that Heise is the X factor to this team, Batemon close behind, pleta continues to improve. When those 3 give good minutes were elite. Hope they continue the trend.

Ps - I absolutely LOVE that Batemon just lets it rip with zero fear, his defense has gotten so much better as the season has gone on too

10 games ago if you had told me that Batemon would be spelling Milan for defensive reasons I would’ve been shocked. That part of his game has come so far so fast.

 

[ISU4Life]

I’m pretty bought in that Heise is the X factor to this team, Batemon close behind, pleta continues to improve. When those 3 give good minutes were elite. Hope they continue the trend.

Ps - I absolutely LOVE that Batemon just lets it rip with zero fear, his defense has gotten so much better as the season has gone on too

Can't say I disagree with any of that. Buchanan going for ten and being active was great. I'll beat the dead horse but the ******* free throws..

 

[jspeels]

Maybe bring in a sports psychologist for free throws. I can’t believe we aren’t practicing them and I don’t believe these guys are that bad at them in practice.

 

[madguy30]

I'm sure they practice free throws plenty. At this point, I'm afraid we are what we are, a bad FT shooting team.

Keep practicing though. Maybe it will click a little down the stretch.

Lipsey and JJ both significantly lower than last season is kind of baffling.

It's probably a tricky balance on how to approach it; you can't just put more pressure on the guys if they're missing, but you have to find a way to work through it and find success.

 

[MTCyclone43]

This is how Championship caliber teams perform. When the stars are not producing the bench guys pick them up.

 

[rosshm16]

Pleta in the first few games was an "Okay this guy's a project" type of player. Granted he's not a typical freshman age, but I've never seen a post develop so fast from "this guy's a project" to "I'm confident when this guy comes in for minutes against Houston." His rapid development has been huge for us.

Same thing with Batemon but I expected he'd be pretty good pretty fast.

Milan returning is the elephant in the room (seems unlikely at this point, and good for him) and who knows what the portal brings, but if we have all of Toure, Batemon, Pleta, and Buchanan back next year, if any of them take even a modest step forward, and if Mason Williams is a Big 12-level player, that's a solid core even without Milan. Probably have to give most of those guys raises to stay, maybe big ones, but I assume even after that, Milan/JJ/Tamin are freeing up a lot of budget to add some more dudes.

Future's bright!

 

[NWICY]

Pleta in the first few games was an "Okay this guy's a project" type of player. Granted he's not a typical freshman age, but I've never seen a post develop so fast from "this guy's a project" to "I'm confident when this guy comes in for minutes against Houston." His rapid development has been huge for us.

Same thing with Batemon but I expected he'd be pretty good pretty fast.

Maybe I missed it in Batemon's 1st few games but to me he kind of seemed to be a black hole on offense, the ball would go there and never leave. Over the course of the season he's sharing more and his defense has really ramped up. We are blessed with this freshman class.

 

[rosshm16]

JB still seems to struggle a little on our draconian sequence of rotations, and still gives up more blow-bys than I'd like, but the effort/ability is clearly there, I think he'll be a dog/demon on defense in the future.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Pleta in the first few games was an "Okay this guy's a project" type of player. Granted he's not a typical freshman age, but I've never seen a post develop so fast from "this guy's a project" to "I'm confident when this guy comes in for minutes against Houston." His rapid development has been huge for us.

Same thing with Batemon but I expected he'd be pretty good pretty fast.

Milan returning is the elephant in the room (seems unlikely at this point, and good for him) and who knows what the portal brings, but if we have all of Toure, Batemon, Pleta, and Buchanan back next year, if any of them take even a modest step forward, and if Mason Williams is a Big 12-level player, that's a solid core even without Milan. Probably have to give most of those guys raises to stay, maybe big ones, but I assume even after that, Milan/JJ/Tamin are freeing up a lot of budget to add some more dudes.

Future's bright!

Coach Green is one of the best big man coaches in the country

 

[CycloneVet]

I’m pretty bought in that Heise is the X factor to this team, Batemon close behind, pleta continues to improve. When those 3 give good minutes were elite. Hope they continue the trend.

Ps - I absolutely LOVE that Batemon just lets it rip with zero fear, his defense has gotten so much better as the season has gone on too

The one he missed coming down the stretch that was probably a bad shot unless it went in would have probably caused the roof to cave in

 

[CycloneVet]

Lipsey and JJ both significantly lower than last season is kind of baffling.

It's probably a tricky balance on how to approach it; you can't just put more pressure on the guys if they're missing, but you have to find a way to work through it and find success.

The guys know they need to get extra free throws up. No need for pressure to get that done. The problem is replicating game situations. Part of the issue is I’m guessing that they are tired when attempting them. Throw that in with maybe having the tips right now and this is what you get.

 

[CycloneVet]

This is how Championship caliber teams perform. When the stars are not producing the bench guys pick them up.

That’s why this style of play will give us more success than we have ever had. The way they get after it defensively even if shots aren’t falling helps when a team wants to grind us. We can get in the gutter with them and be comfortable.

 

[madguy30]

The guys know they need to get extra free throws up. No need for pressure to get that done. The problem is replicating game situations. Part of the issue is I’m guessing that they are tired when attempting them. Throw that in with maybe having the tips right now and this is what you get.

I'd also guess they practice shooting them when they're tired/end of practice and pre-season conditioning.

That's a high school level concept and I can't see how it's not the norm in college.

They've missed in the first half too plenty so it's just kind of what they do so far.

It's an unpopular opinion but outside of Milan ISU's players are pretty sporadic in overall shooting and imo it's not shocking that it follows to the line.

Some will say 'it's just 15 feet straight ahead, how hard is it!?'. Well, if it were that easy there would be a ton of 95-100% FT shooters.

 

[Letterkenny]

10 games ago if you had told me that Batemon would be spelling Milan for defensive reasons I would’ve been shocked. That part of his game has come so far so fast.

If he gets beat on defense, it's never for a lack of effort.

 

[Letterkenny]

I'd also guess they practice shooting them when they're tired/end of practice and pre-season conditioning.

That's a high school level concept and I can't see how it's not the norm in college.

They've missed in the first half too plenty so it's just kind of what they do so far.

It's an unpopular opinion but outside of Milan ISU's players are pretty sporadic in overall shooting and imo it's not shocking that it follows to the line.

Some will say 'it's just 15 feet straight ahead, how hard is it!?'. Well, if it were that easy there would be a ton of 95-100% FT shooters.

That's part of the problem. Our best FT shooters don't shoot them very often.

 

[madguy30]

That's part of the problem. Our best FT shooters don't shoot them very often.

Yeah Milan doesn't draw them much if he's getting in for the Dirk step back.