This year wasn't the worst thing in the world. Its the fact that we were a #2 seed with a lot of talent and losing one guy makes the team totally suck
Why? Just why?
- Thread starter Thomasrickj
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The Niang one still hits harder to me, because of WHEN we lost him and who we lost to (eventual camps UCONN). Still sucks. We need to recruit some bigs for games just like this.
That is another reason why I am not super bummed. As good as ISU can be on a given day (beat anyone), I did not think they were good enough to win the National Championship or likely get to the Final Four without running into a matchup issue. They simply are not Michigan good, Arizona good or Duke good (which would actually be the next three opponents based on seeding) to win 4-6 in a row. So, Elite 8 would have been realistic with Jefferson (IMO). Final Four MAYBE (with an Upset today), but without a favorable path due to Upsets - ISU would eventually go down to one of those three juggernauts IMO.
Yeah what I thought would make it hard this year was the number of quality teams. I also didn't really know who on this team was like the "unstoppable" player(s) that we've had in years past where I thought their will to win could carry us to the title. Really Nate Heise during the tournament might have been the closest thing, but he's not even a starter.
In those other years it was Tinsley/Fizer, Kane, and Royce White.
TN is not a matchup nightmare for everyone and @blutarsky didn't say that and I'm not sure who is.
You can contend all you want about the nuts and bolts of ISU losing but making **** up and using hyperbole in your transformation into some sort of heel on ISU is quite frankly pathetic.
I agree that ISU needs at least one guy what teams like Michigan, AZ (they might have 3-4) to really make a dent but who has been an 'unstoppable player' for ISU after Fizer?
The Kane team was so explosive at times throughout the season, and even though he wasn't the most talented player we've ever had, he was a man among boys. We had so many times that year where he would just kind of take over the second half and lead the team to victory. Really they were kind of doing that during the UConn game as well IIRC, but they had fallen too far behind and didn't have Niang.
Also that Kentucky team was literally impossible to beat (I think their bench players were first round NBA picks that year and they are regarded as like a top 3 college basketball team of all time), but Royce was taking over the game at certain points:
We probably played them closer at that point in the tournament than anyone else did. Kansas played them in the championship and got manhandled (and we had beat Kansas earlier in the year too).
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Both players had their moments for sure.
I wouldn't put either on the same level as Fizer although White was maybe closer.
TJ did everything he possibly could to win that game! He even did the Hulk Hogan thing and worked the crowd.
Yeah I generally agree. I don't necessarily think we need another Fizer to win the championship (although that would be nice), but I feel like this team was missing a dude. At the same time, if you look at this year's roster vs. those other teams, we had a lot of really good players this year.
If this was a down year in college basketball, and we had favorable tournament matchups, this team might have won it all without a dude lol. Or if someone emerged this year at the end, and we had no injuries, who knows.
It's like the base rating of this team is far higher than those other teams, but they don't have the "unstoppable player" perk lol
2026 Cyclones - Base Rating: 90, Turbo Rating: 92
2014 Cyclones - Base Rating: 81, Turbo Rating: 92
2012 Cyclones - Base Rating: 74, Turbo Rating: 90
2000 Cyclones - Base Rating: 92, Turbo Rating: 98
Or something like that lol
2026 Cyclones - Base Rating: 90, Turbo Rating: 92
2014 Cyclones - Base Rating: 81, Turbo Rating: 92
2012 Cyclones - Base Rating: 74, Turbo Rating: 90
2000 Cyclones - Base Rating: 92, Turbo Rating: 98
Or something like that lol
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I’m not going to lie. Iowa winning Thursday sent me into a small depression knowing that if we lost then we’d hear about it for a year. Then boom depression but definitely helped a ton that they didn’t make it to the final 4
So deadeye was correct in what they said in quoting someone?
Ah....got it. You're part of the anti-TJ that comes around to act like a p.o.s. since the season ended.
Why don't you post when ISU is winning?
I remember when ISU played at AZ, AZ's Awaka took an OR at about net level in the air all at once and dunked in a way that may have been top 10 in ISU history and it was almost nothing to him.
He's not unstoppable but if ISU just had one guy like that with a similar roster to this season it would change a lot of things imo.
Royce White was unstoppable. He just lacked the supporting cast. Even programs like Arizona don't have tons of guys you can say that about. Sean Elliot, Gilbert Arenas. UCONN has been the one program who seems to find that guy once every 4-5 years more recently. Even though they had several years of success it wasn't until they had Donyell Marshall they even had one. Even a lot of great programs don't have more than a handful of those type of guys. Carolina and Duke probably have 10 or so. You need a great PG and one other really good player. A rim protector helps too. TBH we had that Niang and Morris's last year. That team had National Championship talent. Even our role players were guys that played professionally somewhere.
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