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Never Saw That Coming...Basketball

cyclones500 said:
It has become exaggerated through the years ... 99-00 was projected much higher than legend suggests. (Of course, way below what actually occurred).

Media poll, ISU picked 7th:

cyclones.com

Fizer Selected to Preseason All-Big 12 First Team - Iowa State Athletics

DALLAS - Following media day last week in Dallas, Big 12 reporters, just as the league coaches last week, have chosen Kansas over defending champ Texas to wi...
cyclones.com cyclones.com

Coaches poll (first one I found w/ random search, from OU site)

soonersports.com

Sooner Men Tabbed Fourth In Preseason Big 12 Coaches Poll - University of Oklahoma

S - The University of Oklahoma men's basketball team was picked to finish in fourth place in a poll of Big 12 coaches, the league announced. The Sooners, who...
soonersports.com soonersports.com

It's possible fans are confusing it with 2000-01 ... Maybe that was the team predicted at 9th (?) I'd have to look into it.
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Wasn't the Willoughby Pratt Cato team picked to finish last?
 
Sigmapolis said:
That team had some talent and potential. The starting five wasn't winning the Big 12 but they were good enough to compete for a slot in the NCAA tournament behind an excellent scoring PG, an excellent SG, an excellent shooting big man, a "do everything" guy in Anderson, and freshman Ejim.

They had two flaws, though, which were exposed in the conference season --

(1.) No depth. Calvin Godfrey was okay in bursts off the bench, but they just needed two more replacement-level players in the Big 12 to chew minutes and keep the starters going late in games. One guard and one big would have been fine. I remember that team playing tough the first 30 minutes or so during many games but fading down the stretch as their lack of depth and talent was exposed by opponents.

(2.) Didn't play much defense. Hoiball was never about getting stops, but this team was particularly bad at defense even by those standards and couldn't afford to foul due to reason #1, so they hoped to win shootouts but didn't have enough ponies to really play that style for a whole 40 minutes.

The blueprint was there, though, and Fred would start it singin' the next season.
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At least with Fred's first team you could tell what they wanted to do and what the general plan was for the program.

In what little I saw of McD's teams it was never quite clear.
 
madguy30 said:
At least with Fred's first team you could tell what they wanted to do and what the general plan was for the program.

In what little I saw of McD's teams it was never quite clear.
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I've said this before, but the first Fred team was essentially the supposedly low-end starters and bench (e.g., Garrett, Christopherson, Vanderbeken) from the previous season plus a transfer from Northern Illinois, a three-star freshman in Ejim, and a few "emergency" guys to fill out the roster.

They'd lost their supposedly three best players in Brackins departing for the NBA draft, Staiger departing to go pro in Germany, and Hamilton needing to be "closer to home" in Baton Rouge.

Yet Fred still put together a team that was just as good (not very in absolute terms but at least as good as the bad McDermott teams with far less talent and depth) and a thousand times more interesting.
 
Sigmapolis said:
Naz played 124 minutes and scored 25 points as a true freshman overall.

He played 17 minutes and scored 2 points in Big 12 games.

He'd eventually be a second-team all-Big 12 SG and one of the most beloved players in school history.

As a super-senior, he played 1,164 minutes and scored 530 points.

As a super-senior against the Big 12, he played 625 minutes and scored 307 points.

I don't know if there's been more of a "nobody" into "somebody" story in program history.
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His ability to finish at the rim his super senior year was unreal. He was a man amongst boys
 
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madguy30 said:
At least with Fred's first team you could tell what they wanted to do and what the general plan was for the program.

In what little I saw of McD's teams it was never quite clear.
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When you are taught 3,176 set plays........nothing is ever very clear.
 
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Sigmapolis said:
I've said this before, but the first Fred team was essentially the supposedly low-end starters and bench (e.g., Garrett, Christopherson, Vanderbeken) from the previous season plus a transfer from Northern Illinois, a three-star freshman in Ejim, and a few "emergency" guys to fill out the roster.

They'd lost their supposedly three best players in Brackins departing for the NBA draft, Staiger departing to go pro in Germany, and Hamilton needing to be "closer to home" in Baton Rouge.

Yet Fred still put together a team that was just as good (not very in absolute terms but at least as good as the bad McDermott teams with far less talent and depth) and a thousand times more interesting.
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GMAC had the players shackled in his set play offense. Fred just let them go.

Looking at GMAC's tenure it's almost like he didn't really want to be in Ames(other than getting his son to play with Barnes and Bubu)...................or lost on purpose. Even Prohm had a good season or two. Morgan never had a losing season. It's just baffling.
 
CycloneRulzzz said:
Wasn't the Willoughby Pratt Cato team picked to finish last?
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Yes, Coach Floyd's 2nd year, coaches vote I think, still the Big 8. Maybe AP article, article in the DM Register.

ISU finished 2nd in the regular season, as I recall, and beat regular season 1st place KU in the conference tournament championship game, by a point or something like that.
 
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Clone83 said:
Yes, Coach Floyd's 2nd year, coaches vote I think, still the Big 8. Maybe AP article, article in the DM Register.

ISU finished 2nd in the regular season, as I recall, and beat regular season 1st place KU in the conference tournament championship game, by a point or something like that.
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Yeah it was Big 8 and yeah I believe picked last but finished 2nd.
 
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That team had it all in the starting lineup. A solid and steady pg in Jacy, a offensive sharpshooter in Willoughby, a jack of all trades in Pratt, a defensive stopper in Bankhead and an enforcer in the post in Cato.
 
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Sigmapolis said:
I've said this before, but the first Fred team was essentially the supposedly low-end starters and bench (e.g., Garrett, Christopherson, Vanderbeken) from the previous season plus a transfer from Northern Illinois, a three-star freshman in Ejim, and a few "emergency" guys to fill out the roster.

They'd lost their supposedly three best players in Brackins departing for the NBA draft, Staiger departing to go pro in Germany, and Hamilton needing to be "closer to home" in Baton Rouge.

Yet Fred still put together a team that was just as good (not very in absolute terms but at least as good as the bad McDermott teams with far less talent and depth) and a thousand times more interesting.
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Yep BB became fun to watch again.
 
Cyinthenorth said:
Would Fizer have been fine in the NBA were it not for his nagging knee injury he suffered his rookie season? I'm not going to deny he was a bit of bust, but I think it was primarily due to the injury
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His injury. Plus he played for a God awful Bulls organization. Healthy Fizer probably has a solid career.
 
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Clone83 said:
Yes, Coach Floyd's 2nd year, coaches vote I think, still the Big 8. Maybe AP article, article in the DM Register.

ISU finished 2nd in the regular season, as I recall, and beat regular season 1st place KU in the conference tournament championship game, by a point or something like that.
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Last Big 8 Tourney ever.
 
I can remember a few games where a 6' 5" guard was asked to play in the post. Didn't seem to bother him...Jeff Grayer scored and rebounded anywhere you put him.
 
Cupped said:
I gotta go with Johnny taking the HC position. In March 1980, he surprised everyone by leaving Michigan for Iowa State. He said Iowa State had offered him the highest salary of any college basketball coach in the country: $45,000, a substantial raise from the $33,665 he was earning at Michigan.
Over the next 14 seasons, Orr brought speed, success and a measure of spectacle to Ames, Iowa, and the arena the Cyclones called home, Hilton Coliseum. Fans would stomp and cheer as Orr entered the arena for home games to the theme from Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.” He would respond by giving a succinct fist pump to the crowd — and often by leading his teams to victory.
Teams coached by Orr won a remarkable 76.7 percent of their games at the arena, including 20 victories over teams ranked in the top 25. “Hilton magic,” it began to be called. According to the university, the average attendance at home games the season before Orr arrived was 6,470. In the 1985-86 season, the average was 14,024.
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Wow. The money in sports has gotten nuts. That 45k is still less than 200k today. I nice salary to be sure but idk how far down the list of head basketball coaches you'd have to go to get to under 200k.
 
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