Yesterday I had the rare Cyclone experience of experiencing the triple header offered between the football game, basketball game, and volleyball match.
If you checked the scores, we lost in football and volleyball, hence the title of the story. If you still don't get it, just google "Meatloaf 2 out of 3 ain't bad".
Here are my thoughts about each of these unique experiences:
Football: There's not really a whole lot to say about this game. I missed some key plays in the 4th quarter because I was running back and worth between watching basketball and the football game out in the concession area. I did see the entire final drive of the game. All I can really say is wow. I'm completly lost for words. Many can talk about how the defense let us down, how the refs screwed us in the final drive, and how the play call on the last play was bad. I think all of these topics have been discussed in depth on cyclonefanatic.com.
I was a bit down, but not too far. I HAVE been watching Cyclone football for 6 years. In some ways we're conditioned for dissapointment in some ways. It's too bad what happened; I was happy with how our offense battled at the end of the game, and the defense as a whole will need to be addressed.
I had to regroup from the dissapointment because I was genuinely excited about watching the basketball game.
Basketball: I had a good time watching the team. What I love about watching these exhibition games is seeing everyone play. I enjoy looking at the combinations of players and seeing what we've got. I have a blog, section202.blogspot.com, where I just did a write up about everyone that played if you want to read more about my thoughts on specific players.
In short, I will say that I think our team will have some rebounding issues. I wasn't impressed with our reserve forwards, so I think we'll see a lot of small ball from our team when Brackins and/or Thompson need a breather. I just hope that when we play with a smaller lineup, that we can put the ball in the hoop. As a team if you're smaller, you'll have rebounding issues, so I hope we can put up enough offense to make up for lack of rebounding. Brackins and Garrett were the best players on the court and I thought they looked good.
As far as the potential redshirts, I don't think it really matters who we redshirt. I wouldn't expect too much from either Hamilton, Pomlee, or Mann this year, although I think Hamilton has the most upside as of right now.
The positive is that we won, but the negative is that it didn't count and there is A LOT of room for improvement for our team.
Break: After the basketball game, my wife and I rolled over the Applebees for some dinner. I thought it was the "Cyclone" thing to do. That, and it was close to Hilton. I was relaxing, checking out the Alabama-LSU game, reading my ESPN magazine at the bar, when it hit me.
Iowa beat Penn State.
This was actually harder to see than our football team losing. The way I've been coping with us losing football games is by seeing the Hawks lose.
I would advise all Cyclone fans to NOT watch Soundoff, and to NOT listen to local sports radio. I fully endorse listening to ESPN radio or something until football season is over. I will NOT be listening to any of that, because I value my heart.
Volleyball: After dinner and after getting over all of the football dissapointment, my wife and I headed back to Hilton for the volleyball match against #4 Texas.
Now, I don't know much about Volleyball other than the basic rules. I don't know strategy or what a good play is, although my wife does as she played in high school. It was fun to watch a sport in which she was more of an expert than I was. It was kind of fun to be a casual fan; not too emotionally tied to the game; and not frustrated about every little thing that was done incorrectly.
I had a lot of fun at the match. I enjoyed watching us play close to a highly ranked team in a sport. I haven't done this since Wrestling last year. The match was over in 3 sets, but we lost two of them by 2 points each.
It was cool to see a decent crowd at the match as well. The last time I went was 6 years ago as a freshmen in college, and the crowd was scarce. I'm glad many of the basketball fans came back.
The fans at these Volleyball matches are generally much nicer than basketball and football fans, however. The Texas coach was a punk! He kept arguing about calls that were obvious, but I didn't see him complain when they missed calls that were in his favor!
The first time he got up to argue the call I let it slide. I think he got up and argued 2 or 3 more times if not more. The next time he got up, I booed, then yelled "sit down coach!" . EVERYONE turned around, looked at me, and just gave me the evil eye.
I still yelled at him a couple more times the next couple of times he got up. I think he needed to hear it. I didn't say or do anything that would get me kicked out of the game, plus I had to vent all the frustration that pilled up from ISU and Iowa football.
Overall, I had a blast yesterday. You gotta take the good and the bad, and it was very cool to experience the Cyclone Triple-Header. I love ISU atheltics and want all of our sports to do well. Even though I'm not a huge Volleyball fan or anything, I still wanted them to win and was still a little dissapointed when they lost.
For Meatloaf: Two Out of 3 ain't bad.
For Cyclone fans this weekend: Two out of 3 IS Bad!
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