Rules

Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing in the rules that requires Iowa State to spot the other team a 15- point head start.

On the plus side, we have a heck of a 30 minute team on our hands.

Peter

Slumpbuster

Hopefully we don't fill that role for CU tonight.

Peter

Six Degrees

I always love this kind of thing.

Hail Coe!

Peter

Three Quarters

The fellas played 30 minutes of solid basketball- but the lapse at the end of the first half did them in.

While I think they are still short-handed the rest of the way, solid effort and sticking to the gameplan will bring in some wins.

I have no problem cheering for a team that works its butt off. In a way, hard-working and undermanned is the typical ISU sports team.

Peter

Hosed

Lucca has left the team.

I take back everything written below.

Peter

Body Of Work

Personally, I think the roadie to Lubbock is much more important than Saturday's visit by the Jayhawks.

Right now, Sagarin has ISU eighth in the B12 between Okie State and Tech. Beat Tech on the road, while they are in turmoil, and you move up a few notches. Lose to KU, and you really don't change. A loss to a Tech team that may be in the process of tanking may be the biggest anchor on your tourney resume come March.

If you don't beat KU at home, you still have a ranked KSU along with Mizzou, a$m and Okie State all making the trip to Ames for you to try to burnish your resume with.

Best case? Sweep CU and NU, win at Tech and OU, beat a$m, Mizzou and OSU at home, and somehow knock off KU or KSU to finish at 10-6. 8-8 with no "bad" B12 losses and I think we're in.

Beat everyone below in the standings and we'll be fine.

Peter

Not The Best Plan

Page 14 of the How To Lose Your Job As A College Coach reads:

"Call out your fans for not being supportive enough of your lousy team".

Pat Knight plays it perfectly.

(Honestly, I forgot he was still their coach.)

Do we consider the attendance Wednesday night as a referendum? What's the over/under?

Peter

Insight Ratings

Why didn't anyone watch the Insight Bowl?

Nobody gets the NFL Network.

Two details from The Wiz of Odds:

The Insight's ratings were unchanged from last year. The teams that play the game don't matter.

The Texas Bowl, which moved from NFL Network to ESPN, saw its ratings go up 2000%!

That 20 times more viewers than last year. That's how much being on The Mothership matters.

Peter

Insight Ratings

Why didn't anyone watch the Insight Bowl?

Nobody gets the NFL Network.

Two details from The Wiz of Odds:

The Insight's ratings were unchanged from last year. The teams that play the game don't matter.

The Texas Bowl, which moved from NFL Network to ESPN, saw its ratings go up 2000%!

That 20 times more viewers than last year. That's how much being on The Mothership matters.

Peter

Overcome

Its nice to see the good guys win one they easily could have lost. Success at defeating Brackins double teams helps.

Peter

Insight pics

Really strong work. Nice technical explanations, too.

Peter

Driving

A wonderful effort was undone by an inability to defend the dribble drive or the pick-and- roll.

Play like that every night and the wins will come.

Peter

Public

I did a lot of growing up when I was at Iowa State. I was able to do it out of the public eye, which was nice.

Chris Colvin gets to grow up in public.

I hope he is better for it. Initial reaction is positive.

Peter

Too Late

The fans of The School Without A National Championship Most Deserving Of One are going to be insufferable until they play Northwestern in November.

The upside? We can only help fuel the insanity.

Personally, I think Iowa will win every game by 35 points. If they don't someone should be fired.

Peter

Improvement

I watched the Minnesota game this afternoon, and a couple of things stuck out:

- If Austin can get any consistency to his passing game, he will be a devastating runner.
- Tackling, until the last Minney drive, was 100% better than previous years. Lots of solid open field stops, almost always by the first player to make contact. Why that disappeared late is a puzzle.

Cyclone Fanatic analyized the numbers from the year. The biggest one for me, and in the annual rant about it, it's hard to win when your points-per-game is 20+ spots below your yards-per-game. I don't care if you are rolling up 700 on the other team, if you can't muster more than 14 you are in for a tough year.

Likewise, the defense must be saluted for improving so much in the points category.

Peter

Upon Further Review

The Iowa State men's basketball team is crappy, in a not-playing-up-to-potential way.

Down the stretch, I was kinda cheering for NDSU. They played with heart, hustle, had movement on offense, and looked like they were following a game plan. The deserved to win.

ISU looked like a rec team from the Y.

I can't really argue with any of this.

I see an 0-5 start to the B12, which the conference wins O/U at 4.

And next year will probably be worse. Ugh.

Peter

Oops

I love reading things like this after the fact.

Peter

Good, Great

Iowa State didn't play badly against Duke- Duke just played really well.

Exhibit A was how Duke never never panicked after getting a shot blocked. Somehow the ball ended up in the hands of someone who got it in the bucket. No problem.

Does ISU have room for improvement? Certainly. But sometimes you just get beat.

Peter

Flip Flop and a Dead Horse

Ron Maly heaps praise on Paul Rhodes and the Cyclones, in an apparent turnaround from September when he compared Rhodes to Walden and Criner.

But nowhere do you read a "I've changed my mind about the guy" or "I was wrong".

Not surprising, coming from a guy who keeps beating up a coach he's asked exactly one question of in 15 years.

Peter

"It"

Keeler declares Rhodes restores "It" to Iowa State.

Peter

Minney Recap

"...an extraordinarily beatable Iowa State team .." won anyway.

The defense held when it needed to.

Scoreboard.

Peter

Update:The comments to the recap are epic.