If you are short on time, just read the title. Says it all. We just aren't a good basketball team. We have a couple of good individual players, most of the guys try hard, and have a group of guys who seem to be pretty nice, but it isn't translating into wins.
I gotta give some props to the man pictured to the left, Mr. Gilstrap. Gilstrap has been bringing it every single game. He's had some issues with his handle at times, but he's the only guy who's attacking. He's been shooting at a higher percentage than most of the other starters, and he continues to get double-doubles, now averaging 9.2 rebounds/game.
Now back to our regularly scheduled rant below:
Good teams don't allow 50 points in the paint.....50! That is pathetic. I understand Lucca is gone, the injuries, and the officiating wasn't the greatest. But Lucca and Boozer being out there, along with better officiating would not have changed much in my opinion. Lucca was averaging 9 points/game, and Boozer less than that. Also, we already had a large edge on FT attempted (26 to 10). All of those things probably would've made a difference by only a handful of points... Certainly not 23 points though. You've got to be kidding me.
You can throw out every excuse you want, but it's all BS. I can promise you that the players and coaches don't buy into excuses, so why should the fans? The job is to try and win basketball games. That's #1. That's why head coaches are millionaires at this level: to win games, and to bring in money. That's it. If someone wants to be a good person, help people develop, and have wins come last in the list of priorities, that's what Middle School and High School coaching is for. I don't want to support a shady program, but I also want to have a program that is competitive against teams in their conference.
Things just aren't going well here. As an ISU fan, I pretty much expect us to lose against any team that's remotely good, and to lose tossup games on the road. It sucks, but we've been seeing it for at least 4 years now.
I gotta give some major props to the Women's Program. They are a team that gives it their all every single game. They make the postseason on a regular basis, can win the tough game at home, along with pulling off upsets on the road (like against Texas today). I really wish, I could be as into Women's Basketball as Men's, but I just can't be.
I LOVE College Basketball moreso than Football, and how things have gone really hurts. I usually hate the people who talk about football 24/7/365, but I'm honestly more excited for football season than the rest of this basketball season.
The start of the Big 12 season is rough scheduling-wise for the Cyclones, but they are going to have to go on an epic tear to make any kind of tournament. I went over to Blogging The Bracket, where Chris did some NIT and CBI projections. While Chris has us in the NIT, I honestly thing our quality of play has been more in line with the CBI teams. And honestly, typing that last sentence caused me to throw up a little in my mouth.
I'm still going to make the rest of the games, and will be cheering for this team to turn me around. Don't get me wrong. At the same time, the fans have done a lot. They've been showing up for 4 years now, buying near record-high season ticket amounts, and been given crap basketball. Eventually some of those people are going to figure out something else to do. I'll get to move up with my season tickets, but I really wonder when the next time I will be sitting in a near capacity Hilton Coliseum again. And the thoughts of having Hilton become Carver-Hawkeye West, makes me really sad.
At this point, there's not much we can do, but hope this team starts playing better and winning some ball games. It starts with Oklahoma on Wednesday.