Boulder, Colorado. The place where Iowa State teams always play bad, regardless of the sport. The men's team has won there only twice in the last 10 years (2001 and 2005). Heck, not even the 2000 team won at Colorado. It just seems no matter what state our program is in, and what state their program is in, Boulder kicks our collective butts.
Fast-forwarding to 2011, is there any chance the Cyclones can buck the trend and pick up a much needed win in Boulder? The Cyclones have been free-falling in the standings, but so have the Buffs too. Both teams enter the game with a 4 game losing streak. Is there a chance? Colorado edges Iowa State in each of the four factors:
Conventional wisdom says Iowa State probably loses because CU has two future pro guards, and the it is a guard -oriented game. With the way Iowa State has been playing defense, if we can even call it playing defense, it would be hard to wrap our heads around the team shutting down both guys.
But guess what? We are Iowa State. True to form not only the past few games, but in other years as well, this looks like the perfect opportunity for a decent, but not great, player to step in and have the game of their life, a la Singletary from Texas Tech and Pledger for OU. Iowa State is going to get in there, shut down the two obvious guys, and somebody who we would not expect will come in and drop 20+ to get the W.
So who is my candidate to have the night of his life, tonight? I'm rolling with Austin Dufault. Calvin Godfrey is out, Vanderbeken has stopped playing D, and Ejim really needs to improve his D as well. We are a sieve in the paint. Dufualt comes in averaging 8 points/game, so it sounds about right for him to drop 20 points or so. He has an eFG% of 55.4%.
This is a game that on paper CU should win, and because this team has run out of gas, and because Boulder is never kind to the Cyclones, I do not expect anything different. I really hope the guys can have a good game, and put together a nice effort to try to carry into on Saturday when they play K-State, but I think expecting them to win this game is asking too much. I hope I am wrong.
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