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Basketball talent....

CYphyllis said:
I'm going to act as if that statement has absolutely anything to do with the original comment and isn't just petty deflection. Here is the logical response:

I can point out 5-6 wins for ISU that were much more impressive than their win over Iowa.

I see one win for Iowa in Purdue that I would consider a better win. I'm sure you're trying to add in Michigan State, but that was a down team this year, possibly because their backcourt is currently in Ames.

I'm not really sure why you would even attempt to bother to compare the two. Iowa is returning a good chunk of the team from last season. ISU is returning two regular contributors.

It's like comparing apples (ISU) to dog **** (Iowa). I can be petty too.
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Don't forget about Iowa's win over Alabama. Other than that, your response is perfectly understandable since this is a Cyclone message board. I wouldn't expect you guys to view as reasonable what I think is reasonable.

Actually since starting this thread, I think your team will be better than what I was thinking coming into this.

At the very least, give me some credit for stating I was a Hawkeye fan from the very start. Where else can we get this kind of discussion?
 
CYphyllis said:
Huh?

Put me in the camp that would rather be bringing in the group of talented guys on paper over the group of guys that have proven that they can manage 11 wins in a season.
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11 wins is not that much different than 16 wins when you consider the weakness of ISU's schedule last year. I guess it's what you consider important in the equation.
 
TheBigLug said:
A 11 win team that had at least 3 wins better than anyone ISU beat last year.

A nearly intact 11 win team from last year may seem like a curse to some, but to others it may be a blessing! If you want to go by last years results, there's probably more potential with this Iowa team than a re-tooled ISU team who has yet to prove anything.
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I think that you're crazy here. ISU has huge potential. We're talking about big time recruits in White and Booker...higher rated recruits than anyone on iowa's roster. Not to mention proven Big 11 players in Babb and Allen who were more accomplished in that conference than anyone on iowa's roster outside of Basabe, Gatens and Cartright.

You're right that ISU has a lot to prove, but most of their players HAVE proven something and they have been practicing with the team almost a year now. Just my opinion, but ISU has the potential to be a Sweet 16 team while iowa maxes out in the NIT. Now, iowa is going to have an easier time reaching their potential just because they have more players returning who have played together. ISU would have to catch lightning in a bottle to reach their potential...and by that I mean that the potential is there, but it will be almost impossible to reach it.
 
Neither Iowa or Iowa State are NCAA teams next year. I think both will be better, but neither are sniffing the NCAA tournament.
 
ozzie8 said:
Neither Iowa or Iowa State are NCAA teams next year. I think both will be better, but neither are sniffing the NCAA tournament.
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I don't think even hurricane winds will be enough to waft an NCAA Tourney scent Iowa' way. I think the Clones have a fairly good chance of making it if the players play up to expectations.
 
Frak said:
I think that you're crazy here. ISU has huge potential. We're talking about big time recruits in White and Booker...higher rated recruits than anyone on iowa's roster. Not to mention proven Big 11 players in Babb and Allen who were more accomplished in that conference than anyone on iowa's roster outside of Basabe, Gatens and Cartright.

You're right that ISU has a lot to prove, but most of their players HAVE proven something and they have been practicing with the team almost a year now. Just my opinion, but ISU has the potential to be a Sweet 16 team while iowa maxes out in the NIT. Now, iowa is going to have an easier time reaching their potential just because they have more players returning who have played together. ISU would have to catch lightning in a bottle to reach their potential...and by that I mean that the potential is there, but it will be almost impossible to reach it.
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You make reasonable points. Everyone is jumping on my comment, but the first part of that comment was "If you want to go by last years results" and nobody is including that in their responses.

Definitely, both teams have to discover their identity this coming season. There is no certain predictability with either team.
 
Hawkeye11en1 said:
I don't think even hurricane winds will be enough to waft an NCAA Tourney scent Iowa' way. I think the Clones have a fairly good chance of making it if the players play up to expectations.
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Neither team has a fairly good chance of making it. Iowa State is a longshot and Iowa has almost zero chance of making it next year. Its not a knock on either program as I think both will be improved, thats just my opinion on where it is right now for both programs.
 
TheBigLug said:
A 11 win team that had at least 3 wins better than anyone ISU beat last year.

If you want to go by last years results, there's probably more potential with this Iowa team than a re-tooled ISU team who has yet to prove anything.
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Even if this were true, (and I disagree anyway)

But even so, I always like this argument. So should we also talk about the fact that maybe those wins might have had a little more to do with luck than any measure of skill. Do you honestly believe that Iowa didn't play way way above themselves, and purdue, didn't play one of if not their very worst game of the season.

Do you think that game is anything but yet another 15-20pt drubbing, if that game is played with purdue believing that iowa is more than a joke of a speed bump? That game was lightning in a bottle. ISU in GM's last year beat a number five team on the road. I would completely disagree if you were to say that that team was better than last years team.

Same goes for '10 ISU and '10 Iowa not very close. Of course you want to compare the total outlier that looks good. Lets also talk about the multiple 200ish rated rpi teams that the hacks lost to or squeaked by at home. Doesn't that mean that you also have even more potential to sit closer to those outliers and win only 4 games this year.

All that marginally better SOS really means is that Iowa played better teams and got their ***** handed to them and then rode the rpi bump up. It really could easily be argued that Iowa was much worse than their ranking last year because 8 of the 10 biggest RPI bumps were riding on losses often complete drubbings that improved their RPI and Power Rankings.

Iowa was not very close to ISU last year by almost all recognizable measures. ISU handled Iowa at iowa city fairly easily. Its always fun to look at the outliers and pretend that it meant anything, but your notion that Iowa and ISU were not very far apart because you can point to a couple of outliers is very weak.

The SOS's were a lot closer than the teams rankings ever were.
 
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Wow, this thread has been an epic fail.

The simple fact of the matter is that the u will have a better record this year due to the fact that frannie took any but the mandated good teams off the non-conference schedule, and the fox 12 will be really down this year. The kool-aid is flowing in hawk land right now, because they over value their talent, just like people do on here.

The thing that Iowa State fans are hanging their hats on is that the new guys come with a much higher pedigree than the ones that they are replacing. The other fact that our u "people" seem to always fail to mention is that these guys have spent a year together already. Add the trip to Italy to build more cohesion and chemistry, and there is a real chance that this group will compete at a much higher level.

I get that this "person" who started the thread ultimately wanted to come over here and tell us how much better the u will be, and how we won't be as good as people on here think. He rambled all of the same old lines that you can read on the u sites.

Then ozziebred wanted to chime in and tell us that we are going to be bad so he can sleep at night. Because when the reality that the rebuilding project that frannie has in front of him won't show the immediate results that Freddie's will sinks in, it will be tough for his standard bred arrogance to handle.

It is pretty funny, really. The idea that Iowa State fans are looking forward to basketball with justified optimism really bothers these "people."
 
mikem said:
Wow, this thread has been an epic fail.

The simple fact of the matter is that the u will have a better record this year due to the fact that frannie took any but the mandated good teams off the non-conference schedule, and the fox 12 will be really down this year. The kool-aid is flowing in hawk land right now, because they over value their talent, just like people do on here.

The thing that Iowa State fans are hanging their hats on is that the new guys come with a much higher pedigree than the ones that they are replacing. The other fact that our u "people" seem to always fail to mention is that these guys have spent a year together already. Add the trip to Italy to build more cohesion and chemistry, and there is a real chance that this group will compete at a much higher level.

I get that this "person" who started the thread ultimately wanted to come over here and tell us how much better the u will be, and how we won't be as good as people on here think. He rambled all of the same old lines that you can read on the u sites.

Then ozziebred wanted to chime in and tell us that we are going to be bad so he can sleep at night. Because when the reality that the rebuilding project that frannie has in front of him won't show the immediate results that Freddie's will sinks in, it will be tough for his standard bred arrogance to handle.

It is pretty funny, really. The idea that Iowa State fans are looking forward to basketball with justified optimism really bothers these "people."
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I'd be willing to put money on the fact that this guy has at least one Herky stuffed animal with the eyes gauged in his domicile.
 
mikeiastat said:
Even if this were true, (and I disagree anyway)

But even so, I always like this argument. So should we also talk about the fact that maybe those wins might have had a little more to do with luck than any measure of skill. Do you honestly believe that Iowa didn't play way way above themselves, and purdue, didn't play one of if not their very worst game of the season.

Do you think that game is anything but yet another 15-20pt drubbing, if that game is played with purdue believing that iowa is more than a joke of a speed bump? That game was lightning in a bottle. ISU in GM's last year beat a number five team on the road. I would completely disagree if you were to say that that team was better than last years team.

Same goes for '10 ISU and '10 Iowa not very close. Of course you want to compare the total outlier that looks good. Lets also talk about the multiple 200ish rated rpi teams that the hacks lost to or squeaked by at home. Doesn't that mean that you also have even more potential to sit closer to those outliers and win only 4 games this year.

All that marginally better SOS really means is that Iowa played better teams and got their ***** handed to them and then rode the rpi bump up. It really could easily be argued that Iowa was much worse than their ranking last year because 8 of the 10 biggest RPI bumps were riding on losses often complete drubbings that improved their RPI and Power Rankings.

Iowa was not very close to ISU last year by almost all recognizable measures. ISU handled Iowa at iowa city fairly easily. Its always fun to look at the outliers and pretend that it meant anything, but your notion that Iowa and ISU were not very far apart because you can point to a couple of outliers is very weak.

The SOS's were a lot closer than the teams rankings ever were.
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Wow! That's quite the effort you put into that post! Where should I begin?

Maybe I'll start with the fact that ISU's non-conference schedule last season was so bad that only 5 other Division 1 NCAA basketball teams had weaker non-conference schedules.

Using your argument, we could call ISU's best wins over Colorado and Nebraska, "outlier" victories as well.

With ISU's schedule being so bad, is it possible that blowout losses to Texas, Kansas and Missouri had an "rpi bump" effect on the Cyclone team?

I'll give you that Iowa had the luxury of playing 10 more top 50 teams than ISU played.
 
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I think that ISU did have a weak nonconference schedule last year, but they needed it. New coach, 3 players returning...thing is, it almost worked. They came into the conference season with a bunch of confidence and if they just would have gotten that game vs OSU to go their way, I'd argue that they could have beaten OU and TT at home. Those three wins and they're in the NIT and right on track. Didn't happen, but I can't fault the strategy. The team didn't start getting back up off the mat until late when CU and NU (two legit bubble teams) came to town. And that all happened right when Godfrey started playing well after his suspension and Christopherson and JVB got healthy after sitting out.
 
Why are you debating between ISU/Iowa last season? When you put those two together, who cares what the OOC schedule looked like, they played head to head, at Carver, ISU won. End of discussion.

In six months they play again at the Hilton. If Iowa manages to stay within 15 points that game, I'll come away disappointed.
 
CYphyllis said:
Why are you debating between ISU/Iowa last season? When you put those two together, who cares what the OOC schedule looked like, they played head to head, at Carver, ISU won. End of discussion.

In six months they play again at the Hilton. If Iowa manages to stay within 15 points that game, I'll come away disappointed.
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I'd be interested in hearing the details of how you think this game will go. Would you care to give an overview?
 
TheBigLug said:
I'd be interested in hearing the details of how you think this game will go. Would you care to give an overview?
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Unfortuneately for you, I'm not interested in typing a full detailed account of my thought process.

We'll leave it simple:

ISU at home + ISU has more talent = easy win for ISU
 
What people are not talking about as well is the scout team's influence on the current season. ISU took a bunch of nobodies essentially and made them competative largely thanks to the transfers that will be eligable this season. Now, once again we have quality scout team players in Korie Lucious and Clayburn from Utah who will provide good competition in practice that can only make the current starters better. Also, these transfers had a whole year to play with one another so they only guys that would be questionable at this point would be the rookies and McGee who something tells me that he will be the leading 3pt shooter on the team next year. I don't know how anyone can look at this team and feel they wont make the tournament this year. It would be a failure if they didn't make it IMO.
 
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