Rope-A-Dope

If Pat Forde is correct, then ISU's Rope-A-Dope defense is matched by its Rope-A-Dope offense: Give the fans hope of scoring, then fail.

Peter

Big 12 Gifts

ESPN has good suggestions.

Peter

More Brewster Questions

Now ESPN jumps on the Brewster speculation bandwagon.

Remember, Brewster was too good to take the ISU job in '07.

I made a joke then about Brewster playing too many snaps without a helmet. I think it still applies.

Peter

Rankings

They are Bull. The Wall Street Journal shows you why.

Four of the ten teams in BCS bowls have no players in the Top 100 of their classes. None.

Iowa and Ga. Tech have two each.

Neither Ingram or McCoy were Top 100. How is that possible?

The rankings are bull because they are self-fulfilling. If a kid isn't being recruited by, say, Texas, then he must not be any good. Therefore, he isn't Top 100. See how that skews everything?

Just step away.

Peter

Bowl Costs

The Wiz has an ugly chart of the amount of money schools normally lose on bowl trips.

The worst example is Ohio- losing a couple hundred grand on a trip to Detroit, the same year you cut three sports.

I hope ISU can at least break even.

Peter

Torched

The Peoria paper lowers the boom.

Its fun to read when its someone else on the receiving end.

Peter

Intros

I liked the "Little kid dreaming of wearing an ISU uniform" open to the men's game, it needs to be seriously shortened. The setup needs to be cut to 10 seconds, and get to the archival stuff quicker.

The ending also begs the question: does the kid die at the end?

Peter

Overwhelming

I caught both sides of the double-header Sunday, and Iowa State overwhelmed Bradley (men) and UNI (women) in the same manner: tough D and good shooting.

I thought both teams looked sharp, and BF had the luxury of going deep into the bench early, trying some odd combinations.

The men were surprising in how quickly they dispatched the Braves. It was good to see how immediate Brackins responded to a weak-side double team by dribbling away from the basket and rotating the ball to the open man. While the double did get the ball out of his hands, ISU scored enough points to send the message: that's not going to work.

Not that others won't try it.

Peter

Brewster Hotseat?

The Wiz thinks so.

The bit about Mason getting canned after the 2006 Insight is kinda funny foreshadowing.

Maybe both teams have motivation for this game after all.

Peter

Scoring

Iowa State is 75th in total offense, but 102nd in scoring offense.

That's been the offensive problem since Seneca left- lots of yards, not enough points.

Minnesota has a decent scoring defense (56th), and an offense that looks bad on paper (113th overall) but one that scores 30+ when they are not playing a Top 10 Defense. Can ISU slow them down?

At least ISU has the "Happy to be here" angle. The Gophers clearly aren't.

Peter

D

The only game ISU didn't win when they held their opponent under their season scoring average was Okie State.

Minnesota's average: 21.5.

Peter

Expansion

So the Big 1011 has cranked up expansion speculation again. Some thoughts.

A. It ain't Iowa State. No way, no how. Big picture, we bring nothing to the table. That's how it is. Deal with it.

B. I don't think the checks would be big enough to draw Texas or Mizzou or Nebraska or any other Big 12 team in. The checks would be big, but not big enough. Besides, aside from Texas, no other school increases the net eyeballs, which is all that matters. And Texas runs the B12, anyway, so why leave?

C. Not Notre Dame. See above, add NBC to the mix.

D. Just end this "School X doesn't match up academically" myth. Aside from Northwestern and Michigan, the Big 1011 is just a bunch of Public State Universities. Nothing to be ashamed of, but a long way from The Ivies. Look up the incoming ACT scores of Freshmen. No big thing.

E. It will be either Rutgers or UConn. Both play decent football now, but neither did in 2003, the last time we went around with this.

Peter

Big Step

The Fighting Fennellies added an impressive notch to their NCAA belt Sunday, downing Minnesota in Minneapolis.

That's the kind of win that The Committee likes to reward teams for scheduling.

Peter

Thump

The win over the Goblas played out about as I hoped: SUI would show some spunk, and keep it close with the 3, but Iowa State's athleticism would win in the end.

I like what SUI does on offense, but then again I'm a fan of the drive-and-kick-for-3 style. Given their skill set, that's about all they can do. Their early success witht he high screen was nice basketball. Gatens is the only guy from their team I would want on mine.

My only disappointment is that the final margin wasn't bigger. While ISU was much better in the half court (against inferior opposition, but still) they didn't defend the drive or the 3 as well as I would have liked. ISU should have won by 30, but missed free throws and running the clock took the starch out of the offense.

I know its smart hoops, but when you have a chance to make a statement and blow someone out, blow them out.

But given Greg's struggles, a win is a win, efen if it wasn't as close as it appeared.

Peter