**** you , their inability to toughen up and grab boards is what cost them the game. Prohm and I’m not sticking up for him isn’t out there rebounding
*** Official Iowa State Season Thread ***
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**** you , their inability to toughen up and grab boards is what cost them the game. Prohm and I’m not sticking up for him isn’t out there rebounding
I mean if your walkon with 4 career steals and 8 career points is better than your scholarship player by all means play him, but damn.
Bolton is really good.
130.5 ORTG, 32.2% USG (!), 46% EFG but a 64% TS (!!) because he was 13/13 (!!!) from the line
5 assists : 2 turnovers, a respectable 2.5 ATR, 2 steals, 6 rebounds, and 26 points
I shudder to think how bad we'd be without him. He's the only reason we've even had a chance.
Bolton is an absolute stud and one of the best guards in the conference.
Young, Johnson, and Coleman-Lands would be bench/rotation guys on a good team.
Jackson and Harris might get some spot minutes as bench shooters.
Everybody else is "meh." We really only have one guy who is Big 12 starter quality.
I just wanted to write a post appreciating Rasir. He's fast becoming one of the most underrated Cyclones on the court of my lifetime. It is a shame he doesn't have a real PG and has to do it all himself.
But he was. Defense not so much but he is an elite offensive coach. There is a reason other coaches stole his plays and why ISU was really good at what is deemed special teams in basketball, after time out and out of bounds plays.
Great to see it, but hoping Dubar is sitting due to an undisclosed injury. Really bad look for him to ride pine for a 2nd straight game, simply because we had a shot at the W. The best way to chase players from your program is to not give them due playing time. I wouldn't have minded seeing 5-10 minutes out of Dubar last night, maybe it would have saved us from seeing 3-4 Johnson bricks.
Good coaches overcome bad luck, bad coaches are defined by it.
Bolton is pretty good but I don't think he is one of the best guards in the conference.
He has also had some good luck. I mean you can definitely take Long's injury as good luck because it improved the team the following year and Morris also stuck around ensuring with those two players that his second year would be good as well. He might already be out the door by now if those two things hadn't happened.
There were both small college coaches and high school coaches who traveled across the entire country every week to come watch Iowa State's practices and soak in information.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
He'd be a really good role player/instant offense guy off the bench for a team with good options, like an option to give better guys a breather.
For Big 12 play only...
This has him as the eighth best guard in the conference.
I think that qualifies as "one of the best" when a conference with ten teams is probably going to have roughly 50 guards that see significant playing time. He's also doing this with absolutely no help around him.
Our next best guy is Solomon Young at #28 -- just to prove that point.
Most of the other guys on the list ahead of Rasir have help from other guards or big men at or near the top of the conference in their productivity and efficiency, which is what PRPG! measures.
So I stand by what I said.
Bolton rocks. The rest of the team bites.
This is still underselling him. Unless a team is already loaded with elite guards (e.g., the Morris, Naz, Thomas, and Burton year), then there is not much a way he isn't a starter, playing a high level of minutes, and one of the most important options on offense for a competitive basketball team. He really is a nice piece.
This is exactly what I mean when I say he is fast becoming terribly underrated.
Yes he was lucky in what he came into, but it was obvious that Williams was referring to him once he took over.
NWB getting injured and never being really the same, Naz getting injured his first year, Wiggs get injured, Long getting injured, Tyrese getting injured, Solo getting injured 2 or 3 times. You have Malou not enrolling. DJ’s dad passing. Foster getting hurt, Hinson not being able to play right away.
To be fair, every coach in every league would have a similar list. The difference is you’re close enough to ISU to be able to recite them whereas you wouldn’t know 99% of those at other programs.
Saying Prohm has largely failed because of bad luck would be the same as Hoiberg only succeeded because of good luck. I don’t think either is correct.
How about we consider the extensiveness of the same list for the Hoiberg era -- given we all know it well.
-- Chris Babb being out against Ohio State and thus unavailable to guard Aaron Craft
-- Melvin Ejim missing part of the start of the 2014 season with a knee injury, but ultimately being fine
-- Georges' foot in the NCAA tournament
-- Naz and Hogue clearly not being 100% at the end of the 2015 season
I can't think of any others or any big commitments followed by de-commitments, like Manny Malou.
I might have missed some other, minor ones, but certainly nothing big like @Tlyon listed.
Two of those were terrible luck but at the very end of the season. One ultimately did not end up affecting that team very much (they were undefeated when Melvin was out). Naz and Hogue were relatively minor given neither of them missed any extended amount of time, though I think both of them were off just a little bit.
I can't think of any others. I can't think of any "the NCAA screwed us!" appeals.
Hoiberg did have some important guys go down, but it was usually only for the postseason.
The Prohm era is a MASH unit in comparison.
A stat that doesn't have Cade Cunningham as one of the best guards in the conference is extremely flawed. Bolton also is bad defensively which most of the top guards in the conference are good on that end as well. I guess we just have different definitions of best in the conference.
Thought exercise to think about Bolton:
1) Imagine Bolton playing with Monte at PG.
2) Imagine Matty Ice playing point guard on this team.
That's what Bolton COULD be vs what he HAS to be.
I know the pedigree that Cunningham has, but he frankly has not been that good this year.
But if you care to know, he's next on the list (#16) right after where I cut it off.
He's certainly a tier or two down from the top-eight that includes Bolton.
I agree with you Bolton is hardly an elite defender, like many of the guys above him are, but he's pretty productive for a guard his size in terms of generating steals, blocks, and rebounds.
He'd probably start for most everybody in the conference save maybe Baylor and West Virginia, where he would probably still play starter-like minutes as a bench gunner and excel at that role, and he'd be the best player on any of the teams in the bottom-half of the conference, especially us. I know some of you are temperamentally taking anything good from this season, but I prefer to acknowledge the few good things we have. And Bolton is that.
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I’ve seen Cunningham play twice now and both times he actually hurt his team. He’s a ball hog who throws up bad shots. Maybe it was his two worst games, but he was terrible in my opinion. He was 5-22 in one game and a lot of his shots was just him driving into triple teams and throwing up a terrible shot. The other game he was 5-13, but he was doing the same thing as the other game and it was him hogging the ball and driving into triple teams and throwing up bad shots. He was lucky and got a bunch of fouls called. He actually hurt his team in both games by being a ball hog. Maybe it was his two worst games of the year, but based on what I saw it doesn’t surprise me he’s not on that list.
The game I watched was the exact opposite. Moved the ball well, played with pace, and was able to get his shot up when he wanted to.
Agree and I think we can agree Bolton puts in great effort every game and he averages 5 rebounds a game out of the guard position. Rebounding is so much related to effort and many of the players don't want to put in the effort to rebound. I suppose Prohm could bench them and remove all hope of winning but is that fair to Bolton? I feel bad for Bolton and others who are putting in really good effort in all aspects of the game.