Posted:
#26
Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and kind words.
Texas Tech @ Iowa St
First off, let me say it has been a long time since I played against the Cyclones in The Hilton. It's just one of those rules I follow and rarely break. I just want to be clear that I certainly respect the home court advantage in Ames as well as the rabid ISU fans that provide that atmosphere.
But things aren't going well for this ISU team as they stumble to the finish line. I really thought they would be the team to beat in the Big 12 this year and the ones to finally end the Jayhawks long run of Titles. The Cyclones were playing at a high level until about 3 weeks ago.
I was talking with some of my buddies this week about their recent decline. I told them that I thought it was subtraction by addition. Cam Lard and Zoran Talley were suspended to start the season for failures to uphold the standards of the program. I will note that Lard was also suspended to start the season last year and attended a "wellness program" during the off season.
Solomon Young was injured and Lindell Wigginton got hurt in the first game thus making the Cyclones a thin team as far as depth goes.
Due to this roles were clearly defined and the remaining players came together and became a very cohesive bunch on both ends of the floor.
Offensively they moved the ball around in their motion offense like the Warriors. Set plays mainly went thru Jacobsen who became the starter down in the low post and with Shayok on the perimeter for dribble drives and 3 ball threats to set up open players for good shots which they were knocking down at a high percentage. If it got late in the shot clock they got the ball to Shayok and got out of his way and got set for a catch and shoot if an opponent helped out on Marial.
Defensively they communicated well and played great "team" defense and everybody hit the glass for rebounding purposes.
For whatever reasons once everyone was healthy and back playing this team began to Regress from a previous high level of team play. I told my buddies I thought there were chemistry issues with the addition of the 4 previously out players as the season wore on. They said what do you mean? I said there's not enough basketballs on the floor to go around for this team now since NCAA rules state the game must be played with only one ball on the court at any one time during play.
Wigginton likes to have the ball a lot and he has had some big scoring games, but in other other games he takes to many deep 25 footers and likes to straight line drive to the hoop and try to finish even though he is a bit small, seldom passing in penetration. Lately Horton-Tucker has been playing a lot of 1 on 1 as well. Shayok seems to be out of sorts, caught in between in their offense and he is clearly their best offensive threat and the only real NBA prospect at this point in time. He appears to be frustrated.
I have no contacts close to the team nor was I privy to any inside information to confirm this but you could tell something was wrong with this team by just watching their games. During their recent skid they just seemed disinterested and lackadaisical with a noticeable decline in effort, particuarly on the defensive end of the floor.
Yesterday evening I was surfing around reading different articles concerning the Cyclones and their is indeed some internal issues affecting team chemistry which in turn is affecting their overall play. Turns out it boiled over this week in practice and carried over into the locker room.
Evidently it came to a head during a hard foul on a layup in practice. HC Steve Prohm said they hadn't been doing that in games but thought it was an application of the "no easy layups" rule. Then some hard screens followed that in practice and things got heated up. It turns out Shayok was injured in the locker room by a door. Depending on what article you believe some say his foot was injured by the door being opened and his foot was in the way. Prohm calls it a freak accident. Some say there was a scuffle resulting from player disputes. Other reports say Shayok injured his foot by kicking the door. I understand the whole "what happens in the locker room stays in the locker room" and all that. Bottom line is their has been some problems among team members. HC Prohm says he has spoken with every player individually concerning the matter and believes the problems are now resolved. One thing that can't be disputed is the teams decline in performance during their worst stretch of play this season.
At one point this team was ranked in the top 10 both offensively and defensively by KP and others. I understand some of that was the pre-Conference schedule but they played some good teams early as well. They still rank high offensively but defensively they began to drop in the rankings little by little until they are now #63 KP. Giving up 92 points to TCU on Feb 3, and 86 to Texas and 90 to WV in their last 2 games is alarming to say the least.
Cont'd
If you can't close you can't cover.
0
Hot Forum Topics
