Monday, December 11, 2006

One Step Back

I watched the game twice off the TiVo. To say ISU struggled to find an offensive rythym in Iowa City would be nice.

For once, I thought Alford had a good game plan: Ball pressure. Whoever had the ball was forced to do something with it. In an offense that is still looking down, trying to follow the footsteps taped to the floor, it was a recipe for disaster. The result was 26 turnovers. The Cyclones looked somewahat confused on defense, and completely discombobulated on offense.

If you remove all the layups SUI got off of turnovers, ISU had a pretty good night from the defensive shooting percentage standpoint. They rebounded like mothers. SUI made some Every-Piece-Of-Garbage-Is-Going-In shots to boot.

SUI was clearly ready to go for this one, coming off their epic collapse against UNI. When they are in their usual Big 1011 free-fall in February we can snicker that they put waaaay too much emphasis on the ISU game.

Things will get better, but while this team is climbing the learning curve, there are going to be stinky stretches like we are in right now.

Peterclone

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