From: michaelv@iastate.edu (Michael L. VanLoon)
Subject: Iowa State (was: Kansas vs. Oklahoma -- Thoughts?)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:38:54 GMT

In <1993Jan12.073255.6374@Csli.Stanford.EDU> orourke@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Michael O'Rourke) writes:

>By the way, is it my imagination, or does the Big Eight suck this
>year?

Suck?  Hardly...  Playing up to expectations?  No.  I think some
people expect them to do again what they did last year when the Big 8
beat almost everyone from other conferences.  Unfortunately, the Big 8
doesn't look as strong this year, but I think "suck" is quite a bit
too strong...

>Missouri losing to USF, K-State losing to Wichita State,
>Nebraska barely defeating UMKC, O-State being humbled by Cal, etc. And
>the conference is 2-8 against ranked non-conference opponents. KU and
>OU seem competitive, but the rest are marginal, at best.  NU and ISU
>have the talent, but they have been inconsistent.  The conference
>may only get 4 teams into the tournament.  (What has happened to
>Mizzou?  I thought they would be a Top 20 team this season.)

Iowa State is currently 8-4, 0-1 in the Big 8.

ISU is much better than "marginal, at best".  They had trouble early
in the season getting everything together.  They only had two weeks to
practice before playing their first game in the preseason NIT, which I
think shook them up a bit.  (It seems the NCAA loves coming up with new
ways to screw with stuff that isn't broken.)

Also, they lost Skip McCoy in the off-season, unexpectedly (I haven't
heard an adequate explanation of what happened yet).  Although Skip
wasn't a star player, he was a very dependable, athletic bench player,
who was great at sparking a lethargic team.  However, that was the
beginning of the season.

The case for ISU:

* All of ISU's losses came against top-10 opponenets (even if Iowa was
  over-rated), including Michigan and Kansas.

* All losses were on the road.

* The loss to Kansas (at Kansas) was the closest a team has come to
  beating Kansas at home in some time.  It was also much closer than
  the score ISU beat Kansas by last year (30 something loss), when
  they beat Kansas (ranked #2) in Ames.

* ISU has been scorching the court up in the last five games.  Beating
  pushover opponents by huge (not just adequate) margins.

* ISU recently beat a very good Minnesota team (their only loss) by a
  very large margin, 99-65.

* Justis Thigpen, who was counted on to help carry ISU but played very
  sluggishly early, has had like four or five 20+ point games in a row.

* The recent starting of Loren Meyer has given ISU a post game they
  didn't have at the beginning of the season.  He's also playing
  extremely well with a lot of confidence since given the starting
  job.

ISU was predicted to do very well in the pre-season by a lot of
people.  They struggled quite a bit in the early season which had
given many people second thoughts.  But, they've been playing
extremely well in the last several games, consistently, and I think
they have arrived.  I rank them, according to their current
performance, third in the Big 8 (behind Kansas and Oklahoma) and #21
nationally (I put Iowa at #22).

I'm not trying to make any excuses for Iowa State's bad showings
earlier in the season, just trying to clear up the misconception that
they're still playing like they were then. :)

Comments freely accepted (like you'd care anyway ;-)

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Michael L. VanLoon                           Project Vincent Systems Staff
  michaelv@iastate.edu              Iowa State University Computation Center
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college