Another year, another early Big 12 Tournament exit. The guys played hard, but Texas is just a matchup nightmare for Iowa State.
After playing very close in the first half, Texas really stepped it up and attacked in the paint. Then Damion James happened, as he took over the game. In addition, Texas was able to get a bunch of rebounds and 2nd chance points. Looking at the final boxscore, you'll see Texas shot better than ISU, but when ISU was down by 8, the teams were shooting evenly. The difference in the game was the rebounding. Shooting was secondary, as ISU went from the 9:00 mark to the 2:00 mark without a field goal, but a lot of that was due to missing outside shots and not being able to get easy putbacks. A couple offensive rebounds, a few more made shots, and it's a different game.
I would have loved to see ISU go on a run, but that wasn't realistic thinking. If we were able to pull off the upset, I think Baylor would have finished us off. Bad matchups. They fought to the end, so I have to give the coach and players props for that.
The big talk now is whether this was Brackins' and Gilstraps' last game as a Cyclone. Chances are it is, but it will certainly dominate Iowa State Men's Basketball talk for the next couple of weeks. We should know Brackins' fate after Spring Break, and Gilstraps' by the end of the month. After seeing the body language from Brackins and Gilstrap exiting the game (hugging coach, and other players, crying a little bit), I'm guessing they are done as Cyclones.
There are so many emotions I have about this basketball season. I want to see what ends up happening, and get my thoughts together before I post. I've posted some brash things in the past, and I want to address how I feel about Men's Basketball, Jamie Pollard, Greg McDermottt, and the future.
But for now, it's about supporting the other sports still going on right now (Wrestling and Women's Basketball), and just taking a step back from everything that has happened. Of course we have the Football Spring Game in about a month, and we'll start picking up the Football talk in a couple of weeks as well.
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