The magic is gone

[Urbandale2013]

I mean you can throw around ifs all we want. We are talking about a coach that lost to UAB in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Fred's teams played no defense so its nearly impossible to say we would have won it all.

In college basketball winning a national title takes getting hot in March. Really you need to be elite either offensively or defensively. It is extremely helpful to be good at the other too.

in Fred’s 5years he made the tournament 4/5 years and one at least a game in 3/4 tournaments. He also had some tough luck in the tournament. Royces year we got stuck playing one of the best Kentucky teams. In the sweet sixteen year of Georges doesn’t break his foot we all think we had a good shot at minimum to the final four if not the championship. The UAB loss was bad but upsets happen. Compare this to Prohm who starts out with two of the most talented teams in school history (even with the flaws people point out). He made the sweet sixteen his first year but that felt like just meeting expectations. The next year he only got to the round of 32. In those two years he only beat double digit seeds. Then you had the next year which was a struggle and he gets a fair amount of a pass for that. Last year he had another really talented team. They did win the Big 12 tournament but aside from that they had a pretty disappointing year plus a bad end by losing to OSU.

I don’t dislike Prohm I think he seems to be a great guy. I want him to succeed immensely. I have seen no evidence that he can though.

 

[moores2]

Why do you guys think Iowa ran us out of the gym last night? Iowa State has more talent, its because theyve been playing together for 3 or 4 years now.

Hoiberg's players havent been here for 3 seasons now. A trend has now developed of Prohm scrapping together new a roster every off-season and next year will be more of the same with Haliburton gone.

You can make fun of Fran and Iowa all you want but he knows how to build a program.

Yeah, but he didn't recruit Haliburton to be a 2 year guy (outside of top 100 in rankings). This team will struggle again next year with trying to get 4 new guys into the game for sure, but after that I am guessing this team takes off.

 

[NoCreativity]

Ejim, Niang, Thomas, Naz, Monte, all guys who started and finished their careers as Cyclones and were players the program was built around under Hoiberg.

Solomon Young, the one comparable guy in the Prohm era in which you are trying to build sustainability. Hmm, cant figure out why the last 3 years have been brutal.

 

[johnnydugouts]

If the refs let Garza get away with traveling and shoving his way to the basket for the rest of the year, the guy is going to be an all-american first teamer. Their guards are terrible, but they cut hard and make three pointers off of doubles in the post. You don't have to have a lot of physical talent to be a good team, but they certainly played together a lot better than Iowa State did last night.

iowas guards are not terrible. None of them may be the total package but they are all good at what they do.

The big surprise is I can’t believe how good the Fredrick kid is. He was going to take a 4-for-5 at Iowa over some decent schools because his uncle played for Fran at Notre Dame. Crazy. Granted he played for a big time AAU program but he was still way under the radar until his senior year.

 

[riceville98]

A couple other points here:

1) Who knows best what the ISU/IU rivalry feels like? Iowa Kids. We are a team that is full of new guys and guys who have not been around the rivalry. Iowa has more kids right now that knows what the CY-Hawk means

2) Some teams feed off of the magic better than others, This team is bad at that. The magic isan't dead, this team has to learn to embrace it

 

[BringBackJohnny]

Think of it this way. Harry Potter needs his wond to be bomb A at magic. Hilton is still really magical but our wond "Steve and the Gang" isn't really good maybe even broken. The magic is there and can come back but you can't keep trying to use your busted wond.

 

[pdxclone]

JoBo's three to push it back to 10 was an absolute dagger. But no defense is going to stop that kind of shot from that distance. If that one clanks, we could have very well won that game.

Kinda disagree ... I think it was Jacobson’s missed 3 that could have cut it to 4 that was the dagger. It was what lead to the JoBo 3 you mention. Momentum was killed at that point.

 

[CascadeClone]

That is not to defend Prohm's coaching tonight, but teams do get beat at home.

Home losses last 10 years:
10-11 6
11-12 2
12-13 1
13-14 1
14-15 1
15-16 2
16-17 3
17-18 7
18-19 4
19-20 ? (bold prediction - 4 or 5 total this year)

Teams get beat at home. GOOD teams RARELY get beat at home.

 

[isutrevman]

Even with crowd support, he can’t get it done.

Except he did, 4 days ago.

 

[Shawker]

From an outsider's perspective I disagree with the premise of the original post. I was at the game last night. Hilton was packed and very loud during the times where there was reason to be. Heck, there was one point where ISU was down 20 I think and Lewis hit a 3 to cut the lead to 17 and the way the crowd cheered you'd have thought they had just taken the lead. That's a credit to the fans.

 

[moores2]

Kinda disagree ... I think it was Jacobson’s missed 3 that could have cut it to 4 that was the dagger. It was what lead to the JoBo 3 you mention. Momentum was killed at that point.

Wrong, Jacobson missed a 3 three to cut it back down to 7 after JoBo made his. Was a really bad shot.

Then fouled on a lay up for them to push it to 13. Game was essentially over after that.

 

[CoachHines3]

my o my what a difference from sunday night to now.

good job cf

 

[CycloneErik]

Prohm is far from a perfect coach. But I think he's certainly good enough. I need to see a lot more to say somebody killed Hilton Magic. I've had season tickets for the end of the Eustachy era, all of Morgan, all of McD... Trust me, you see a 8-10 year stretch like that and you'd be begging for a crowd like we had yesterday.

No one was calling it a fan problem.

 

[moores2]

Watching strictly Gaza, guy should have had 4 fouls in the first half. (shoving off with his elbow at the free throw line, the foul that was called, going over Grill's back (which initiated the 1 and 1 free throws) still don't know how grill got the foul on that one had perfect box out position and got ran over, and at least 1 more.

 

[cyatheart]

I mean you can throw around ifs all we want. We are talking about a coach that lost to UAB in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Fred's teams played no defense so its nearly impossible to say we would have won it all.

Fred was willing to sacrifice defensive matchups for an advantage offensively, generally that meant neutralizing the opponents big man by running him off the floor, just his philosophy, and he recruited guys to fit that.

It is true however, that the defensive numbers aren’t much if any better now than they were under Fred, at no point since steve has been here has Iowa state been a good defensive team.

 

[vortex]

The Magic of Hilton is not dead. The coach is dead from the neck up. I have been a supporter of Coach Prohm; however, what I saw last night convinced me that he cannot get it done. He was out coached by Fran McCaffery. Let that sink in. The Cyclones were out hustled by an athletically deficient Iowa team. For Coach Prohm to say that he did not prepare his team for this game is inexcusable.

I see what you did there.

 

[awd4cy]

We haven't won a conference title in basketball in nearly 20 years, don't act we are Duke or something. We are closer to winning a title in football today than we have been in basketball the past several years.

Highly disagree.

 

[jcisuclones]

Why do you guys think Iowa ran us out of the gym last night? Iowa State has more talent, its because theyve been playing together for 3 or 4 years now.

Hoiberg's players havent been here for 3 seasons now. A trend has now developed of Prohm scrapping together new a roster every off-season and next year will be more of the same with Haliburton gone.

You can make fun of Fran and Iowa all you want but he knows how to build a program.

Difference is difference is that Fran is a coach who coaches at a high-major level, but recruits at a mid-major level. Prohm recruits like a high-major should, but coaches like a mid-major coach.

 

[legi]

How do we know Prohm's plan wasn't good. I'm not here to criticize players but, the TEAM didn't stick to the plan. One of them admitted as much on the radio after the game. I truly believe Prohm had the right plan, Get the ball to the middle of the zone, Play with ball movement and pace etc. The guys just didn't do it

If the players are not executing Prohm’s plan then that’s on him. He recruited these players, he coaches them in practice and in games. If he can’t get them to follow his directions then he failed as a leader. Let’s just hope this is not a trend, and they can all learn from it and turn it around. But you could say 10 games in, you are who you are. Question is, is our ceiling high enough and can we reach it.

 

[riceville98]

If the players are not executing Prohm’s plan then that’s on him. He recruited these players, he coaches them in practice and in games. If he can’t get them to follow his directions then he failed as a leader. Let’s just hope this is not a trend, and they can all learn from it and turn it around. But you could say 10 games in, you are who you are. Question is, is our ceiling high enough and can we reach it.

Agreed that it's on him to get them to follow his plan. I'm just saying lets not rip the plan when the guys didn't follow it