Since the Cyclone Wrestling, and Men's and Women's bball teams are off for finals week it is kind of a slow week for blogging. Hopefully we'll have some good news on Wesley Johnson's ankle with the week off at least!
Juice blogs » The Cyclones Slow Week of ISU Sports by Jerry Hales :: December 11th, 2007
:: 10:31 am
With the ISU students taking finals this week, both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams are off for several days. The Twister Sisters will resume play against Creighton on Sunday, while the men are in the midst of a 9 day layoff and will square off against Bethune-Cookman on Monday. Both teams head into the break coming off of nice wins against in-state teams, but they most likely will be approaching the week off from completely different angles.
The men played well defensively and defeated Iowa 56-47 on Saturday, but they really needed this break badly. That win evened their record at 4-4 and helped ease the pain of a horrible showing against Drake last week, but was not necessarily a statement victory. Even more difficult than the results of the games has been the lack of players that were expected to make big contributions. Injuries have hit hard as seniors Jiri Hubalek and Rahshon Clark have been banged up all season long. Leading scorer Wesley Johnson has been hobbled at best in the 4 games he has been able to play in. His shot still looks good, but lateral movement has been difficult, especially defensively. Finally, freshman guard Lucca Staiger is still unable to play with the team as the NCAA denied his first appeal to become eligible. Word on the street is that he has a teleconference coming up on Dec. 18th which will be his final appeal. The appeal committee is made up of representatives from actual NCAA schools rather than NCAA officials. The hope is that these representatives can look at the NCAA ruling objectively rather than just being a bunch of trained monkeys in suits with Myles Brand as the Head Monkey Trainer. Getting Staiger back would be a huge lift for the team, but with the NCAA you should never expect the rational decisions to be made.
While the men were almost desperate for the break, the women head into the layoff with a 6-1 record. Their only loss was at top 25 ranked Vanderbilt by single digits, so things have definitely been looking good for the ladies. In the Cyclone women’s case, they will likely want to use the break to get in some extra individual work and polish a few things before a busy week when they come back. When you’re playing well going into a break you really just want to keep playing, so the challenge for Coach Fennelly will be keeping everybody up at a high level in practice until they can get back to business against Creighton, UNI, and Minnesota going into Christmas.
Well the best news is that we’re only 5 days away from more Cyclone basketball now, so hang in there this week and it will be here before you know it. If you find yourself starting to shake with withdrawal, head over to
www.cyclonefanatic.com and read the latest message board talk or go to
www.cyclones.com and subscribe to the Clone Zone to watch insider interviews game replays.
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