Iowa Beat Writers

So as someone who has played a crap ton of bball and played a bit in college I'll say you become very picky about basketball..

Brand new balls if they are not worked properly in the machine can be very slick and not have good tactile feel.

As a shooter you want some tackiness feel to the ball.. It matters honestly.

However...wts...every team has to use the same ball!!

What I didn't see much of yesterday is the ball slipping out of hands much at all.

What I think was a far bigger factor was all these rims look really really tight. You gotta be perfect on your 3's..

All that said teams have to adjust and everyone plays with the same disadvantages.
 
I loved how both Jorbo and Fran Jr. both had to say, repeat and emphasize that this was their worst game of the year "and it's not even close" because they couldn't admit that ISU beat them even worse and made them perform even worse. They gave up more points, scored fewer points, turned the ball over more, shot worse from 3, shot worse from 2, and got outrebounded even worse against the Cyclones. About the only thing they did better against the Cyclones was go 14-15 from the line while going 14-16 against Richmond.
 
So as someone who has played a crap ton of bball and played a bit in college I'll say you become very picky about basketball..

Brand new balls if they are not worked properly in the machine can be very slick and not have good tactile feel.

As a shooter you want some tackiness feel to the ball.. It matters honestly.

However...wts...every team has to use the same ball!!

What I didn't see much of yesterday is the ball slipping out of hands much at all.

What I think was a far bigger factor was all these rims look really really tight. You gotta be perfect on your 3's..

All that said teams have to adjust and everyone plays with the same disadvantages.

No s**t the ball makes a difference..... but both teams are shooting the same ball and playing on the same rims.

Does Richmond use a Wilson ball all season? If so, I could see that being a bit of an advantage.... but it's still the lamest excuse ever. Iowa seems to be the only team that ever comes up with these BS excuses all the time.

They blamed the balls, they blamed the physical play, and they blamed the refs for Iowa not shooting enough FT's. It's just the same thing all the time with these guys. Nothing is ever their fault. They never just play bad.... there's always so many lame excuses.

And don't even get me started with all the whining on the court and the horrible behavior from Fran. This is why they are losers folks.
 
It was at Maryland who uses the Under Armour ball- Peter Jok was one of them who was complaining afterwards.

Most programs with the budget that Iowa has order a couple of balls in each brand/model that they will play with at each road game so they can practice with them in the days leading up to that game. Iowa, as almost all of the Nike schools, use the Nike ball- so Ohio State, Michigan, Purdue, Sparty, Iowa State, etc. plus their own home games- would have been the ball they played with the most. Some of the adidas and UA schools use those brands- others use the new Wilson that just came out this year. Hardly anybody uses the Spalding ball at the DI level (West Virginia does) but surprisingly, the Spalding ball didn't throw the Hawks off last weekend in Indy where it was used for the league tourney. This is along the lines of Aaron White being sick of losing to "teams that we are better than". Come on, Fran and Chad- you can do better.
I had the chance to shoot around at the Sukup practice facility back when I was in school, and Iowa State has racks of all different types of balls from Nike, UnderArmor, Adidas, Spalding, Wilson, NBA, and FIBA. I remember we would never shoot well against Tech in Lubbock using the Under Armor balls, but don't remember any of our guys complaining about it.
 
So as someone who has played a crap ton of bball and played a bit in college I'll say you become very picky about basketball..

Brand new balls if they are not worked properly in the machine can be very slick and not have good tactile feel.

As a shooter you want some tackiness feel to the ball.. It matters honestly.

However...wts...every team has to use the same ball!!

What I didn't see much of yesterday is the ball slipping out of hands much at all.

What I think was a far bigger factor was all these rims look really really tight. You gotta be perfect on your 3's..

All that said teams have to adjust and everyone plays with the same disadvantages.

Which is why I always loved the Spalding balls compared to the Wilson Jet balls a lot schools used. I always felt the Wilson balls were a little slick where Spalding was soft and tacky.
 
I loved how both Jorbo and Fran Jr. both had to say, repeat and emphasize that this was their worst game of the year "and it's not even close" because they couldn't admit that ISU beat them even worse and made them perform even worse. They gave up more points, scored fewer points, turned the ball over more, shot worse from 3, shot worse from 2, and got outrebounded even worse against the Cyclones. About the only thing they did better against the Cyclones was go 14-15 from the line while going 14-16 against Richmond.
This stood out to me as well. Not saying they need to mention ISU by name, but they went out of their way to say it was their worst game by far.

Perhaps they feel ISU did more to disrupt and Richmond was more beating themselves? Who knows
 
I loved how both Jorbo and Fran Jr. both had to say, repeat and emphasize that this was their worst game of the year "and it's not even close" because they couldn't admit that ISU beat them even worse and made them perform even worse. They gave up more points, scored fewer points, turned the ball over more, shot worse from 3, shot worse from 2, and got outrebounded even worse against the Cyclones. About the only thing they did better against the Cyclones was go 14-15 from the line while going 14-16 against Richmond.

It's sort of a compliment to us, but still odd.
 
I loved how both Jorbo and Fran Jr. both had to say, repeat and emphasize that this was their worst game of the year "and it's not even close" because they couldn't admit that ISU beat them even worse and made them perform even worse. They gave up more points, scored fewer points, turned the ball over more, shot worse from 3, shot worse from 2, and got outrebounded even worse against the Cyclones. About the only thing they did better against the Cyclones was go 14-15 from the line while going 14-16 against Richmond.
Give Jorbo some slack. he was still feeling the effects of his big mouth concussion against ISU. He even forgot to take off his shoes and leave them on the floor.;)
 
  • Haha
Reactions: motorcy90
I do get a kick out of that new guy Kensington. You can tell he’s kind of perplexed by Chad L. During the football season when the normal homers were talking about how no changes needed to be made on offense, he was like changes need to be made on offense. And today he at least asked some legit questions.
He'll get the message soon
 
Has any other team blamed but "not blamed" the balls? 16 teams lost yesterday, you think it would be a bigger deal if it were real.
A hard slick ball on super soft hands does not mix well. And Hawk's are the softest.
 
This stood out to me as well. Not saying they need to mention ISU by name, but they went out of their way to say it was their worst game by far.

Perhaps they feel ISU did more to disrupt and Richmond was more beating themselves? Who knows
Fans outside of Iowa City know.
Saying it was the 'worst game by far' is better than admitting you just aren't as good as a lot people thought.
 
Randy absolutely sucks.
Oh he's awful. But he's bad in a check-out-this-old-guy-out-of-his-prime-writing-nonsense way. Chad is less critical than the recruiting sites and fan forums. It used to be that the columnist at the local paper was a troll that liked to get people talking about his column. Now they publish propoganda to soothe the manchildren who tie their entire self worth to the HOKS!
 
  • Like
Reactions: keepngoal

Help Support Us

Become a patron