Pause

I thought now would be a decent time to put this season into perspective prior to tournament play...time to soak everything in and realize how enjoyable this ride should be. Take a look:

enCYCLONEpedia: Pause | Cyclone Fanatic

Incredibly well written Kirk! I agree, this team has been fun to watch. Here's to it just being the beginning of the Mayor's term

A lot of those regular season statistics compared to the past are even more impressive when you consider originally Iowa State wasn't scheduled to play at OSU or Texas this year. They also didn't have 4 games against Nebraska and Colorado and had 2 less non-conference games. Overall, it has been a very special regular season.

Very, very well said.

This has been a wonderful season and that last home game brought back memories from my days as a student during the Fizer and & Tinsley seasons which are still the benchmark for greatness at ISU. I hope this team carries a chip on their shoulder into the Big 12 and NCAA tourney and brings this program back to the level we all want it to be at.

Great job again

The surface has just begun to be scratched!

The bit about ames being a proud basketball community gave me chills - thats the truth.

this is a great piece and summarizes how I feel. Performance in the NCAA tournament will likely all that is remembered good or bad but this is my first year away from Iowa living in another state. Thankfully Little Rock carried many of the Big 12 network games, Cyclones were on the ESPN networks quite a bit and if neither of those were options ESPN3 and once justin.tv (dumb LH Network). Its great to be a Cyclone and being out of state its a lot easier to follow a good team than bad teams that get little exposure. Great year thus far!

Very good piece. I often regret that I never really allowed myself to "pause" during the 99-00 season. I was a student at the time and I had a blast at the games. I enjoyed the ride while it lasted, but I never really stopped to appreciate how truly special the season was.

Having grown up a huge ISU bball fan, I knew that it was special, but I didn't take that pause. The seasons that followed over the next decade made me regret that even more. A historic season that should be remembered for so many great moments is often encapsulated in the frustrating loss to MSU, which is kind of a shame.

Nice article. We get so wrapped up, especially in making the NCAA tournament, that we do forget to just stop and take a look at how fun it really all is. The biggest problem with being able to do that this season, was how bad things have been. I had never felt about the BBall program the way I did about football. That eternal broken heart feeling until the last few years. And this year especially, I kept waiting for the whole thing to fall off the rails and go south, right up until we beat Kansas. Once that happened, I knew everything was going good and I actually have been enjoying the season a lot since that game. Combined with the football season, this has really been a great 6 months of Cyclone sports.

Thanks for the great read.

With each game, this team is getting stronger. Players are making max effort. Fred is making great moves. He is utilizing his players better than ever like pulling Royce out at the end of the Baylor game, like using Bubu to wear Baylor out, like waiting to switch Babb onto Pierre at a critical juncture.

What cannot be emphasized enough is that outside the Baylor game in Waco, we were in ALL the games near the end. That is unusual. Even other good teams using trip up more than that.

Nice piece. You're right, we need to enjoy it. All the stats you used point out what is happening this year is a rare thing for ISU basketball. I hope it's not so rare in the future!

This season is probably my second most memorable next to the Fizer/Tinsley era. The legend(depending on how we do in the next few weeks) will probably grow. To come so far so quickly is a testament to the team/coach, and fans.

Lot of great memories this year. What Scotty did after the gams on Saturday ranks up there as one of the greatest things I've seen at ISU.

Did you happen to read my mind? Literally yesterday I sat back and realized I wasn't smelling the roses as much as I needed to be this season. Yes IVe been excited but still way too caught up in all of the "details". Here's to a great March!

Great article Kirk!!

Thank you everybody for the comments it is very much appreciated.