THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS

**GoSTATE71** · 02-26-2013, 04:04 PM

So the 4 close games that Iowa State, we've lost late (as we all know)

With 2:00 on the clock in the 2nd half --

at KU ... Iowa State had 4 pt lead
at Osu ... Iowa State had 4 pt lead
at Tex... Iowa State had 5 pt lead
KU .... Iowa State had 4 pt lead

at KU .... KU had 10 pts in 5 poss last 2:00
at Osu .... Osu had 6 pts in 5 poss last2:00
at Tex ... UT had 9 pts in 5 poss last 2:00
KU .... KU had 10 pts in 4 poss last 2:00

My god, we will not win games and get to that next level with such poor execution down the stretch. Where is our defense? We know that were brilliant offensively, but this is getting old. We have how many fifth year seniors? I have nightmares of EJ pulling up for 3 or driving the lane and getting whatever he wants. If our offense wasn't this good, we might have only won 15 games this year.

Hoiberg needs to figure defense out real fast if we want to make any noise in the Big 12 tourney or NCAA tournament. I have faith Hoiberg! you've brought us this far.

GO STATE

**RustShack** · 02-26-2013, 04:12 PM

Fred said something about bouncing back, our luck changing, and having a long season. He's calling our tournament run! Maybe the committee told him something?

**Cyclonepride** · 02-26-2013, 04:18 PM

But our offense is that good. You can't take that away. Our lack of inside size translates to open shots because we have to help. I suppose we could choose not to help in and take our chances that way.

**Wesley** · 02-26-2013, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by GoSTATE71

So the 4 close games that Iowa State, we've lost late (as we all know)

With 2:00 on the clock in the 2nd half --

at KU ... Iowa State had 4 pt lead
at Osu ... Iowa State had 4 pt lead
at Tex... Iowa State had 5 pt lead
KU .... Iowa State had 4 pt lead

at KU .... KU had 10 pts in 5 poss last 2:00
at Osu .... Osu had 6 pts in 5 poss last2:00
at Tex ... UT had 9 pts in 5 poss last 2:00
KU .... KU had 10 pts in 4 poss last 2:00

My god, we will not win games and get to that next level with such poor execution down the stretch. Where is our defense? We know that were brilliant offensively, but this is getting old. We have how many fifth year seniors? I have nightmares of EJ pulling up for 3 or driving the lane and getting whatever he wants. If our offense wasn't this good, we might have only won 15 games this year.

Hoiberg needs to figure defense out real fast if we want to make any noise in the Big 12 tourney or NCAA tournament. I have faith Hoiberg! you've brought us this far.

GO STATE

The TT game was also winnable.

**IAStubborn** · 02-26-2013, 04:31 PM

I think the thing i noticed is how quickly and easily we get fouled and then cant slow the game down when we need too. Fouling up 3to makes little sense for us since you only need 4 sec to score on us.... we should just employ a foul and trade free throw strategy in final minute. Give them 2to we take 2the when up 3to or more. We have best free throw shooting team may as well just keep fouling. If we had fouled up 4 we win that game.

**GoSTATE71** · 02-26-2013, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley

The TT game was also winnable.

Good call, forgot about that one!

**cycfan** · 02-26-2013, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by GoSTATE71

So the 4 close games that Iowa State, we've lost late (as we all know)

With 2:00 on the clock in the 2nd half --

at KU ... Iowa State had 4 pt lead
at Osu ... Iowa State had 4 pt lead
at Tex... Iowa State had 5 pt lead
KU .... Iowa State had 4 pt lead

at KU .... KU had 10 pts in 5 poss last 2:00
at Osu .... Osu had 6 pts in 5 poss last2:00
at Tex ... UT had 9 pts in 5 poss last 2:00
KU .... KU had 10 pts in 4 poss last 2:00

My god, we will not win games and get to that next level with such poor execution down the stretch. Where is our defense? We know that were brilliant offensively, but this is getting old. We have how many fifth year seniors? I have nightmares of EJ pulling up for 3 or driving the lane and getting whatever he wants. If our offense wasn't this good, we might have only won 15 games this year.

Hoiberg needs to figure defense out real fast if we want to make any noise in the Big 12 tourney or NCAA tournament. I have faith Hoiberg! you've brought us this far.

GO STATE

Some people keep ragging on Fred and our defense. You can't count last night as poor defense down the stretch. Georges defensive play should have won us that game. Also on a couple of those 3s they made in the last minute, we played great defense and made them shoot a guarded 25 ft. shot that they happened to make. The only other thing we could have done was foul. So last night does not go down as a choke ----- not on us anyway.

You also have to remember that a big part of our game is up tempo and scoring quickly. When you do that, you are going to give up a lot of points defensively, if for no other reason than there are a lot more possessions.

Every game, the announcers give the stats about where we rank offensively and how low we rank defensively. Well, duh! We could play like TT and reduce our defensive points allowed stats if we wanted to also reduce our win total.

GO CYCLONES!!!

**F5cy** · 02-26-2013, 04:40 PM

Who was fouled out in the last 2 minutes of those games? Our leading rebounder? Our main big man?

Lots of things impact those final two minutes of play

**heitclone** · 02-26-2013, 04:40 PM

Don't get wrong, the officials jobbed us and we still should have won the game but we caved the final minutes of both halves yesterday. We were up 7 in the first half only to head into the break down and the 2nd half...we all know what happened.

**Wesley** · 02-26-2013, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by cycfan

Some people keep ragging on Fred and our defense. You can't count last night as poor defense down the stretch. Georges defensive play should have won us that game. Also on a couple of those 3s they made in the last minute, we played great defense and made them shoot a guarded 25 ft. shot that they happened to make. The only other thing we could have done was foul. So last night does not go down as a choke ----- not on us anyway.

You also have to remember that a big part of our game is up tempo and scoring quickly. When you do that, you are going to give up a lot of points defensively, if for no other reason than there are a lot more possessions.

Every game, the announcers give the stats about where we rank offensively and how low we rank defensively. Well, duh! We could play like TT and reduce our defensive points allowed stats if we wanted to also reduce our win total.

GO CYCLONES!!!

Bubu might be our best clock killer and he usually is on the bench at the end.

**cycfan** · 02-26-2013, 04:47 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley

Bubu might be our best clock killer and he usually is on the bench at the end.

But when we try to "kill the clock" in the last couple of minutes, the complaint on this board is that we get out of our offense and it is bad coaching. CFH can't win no matter what he does. If it doesn't work, he should have done the other.

GO CYCLONES!!!

**Luth4Cy** · 02-26-2013, 04:56 PM

Our defense isn't good, but it's not awful either. I think some of the late game stuff can be contributed to Hoiberg being a young coach. Frankly, Kansas appears to be the only team we've played so far where our offensive production isn't enough to win a game no matter how bad our defense. With most teams, our offense can win us the game by itself. To make a tournament run, we won't need to worry too much about our defense. To win the whole NCAA tournament (no, I do not think this will happen) we will need to play better defense. Basically defense is the difference between us simply making the tournament, or going deep in the tournament.

**Final42b** · 02-26-2013, 05:18 PM

Wow, maybe we should try a different approach.

**3rdGenStater** · 02-26-2013, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by GoSTATE71

Hoiberg needs to figure defense out real fast if we want to make any noise in the Big 12 tourney or NCAA tournament. I have faith Hoiberg! you've brought us this far.

GO STATE

This. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that Fred is our coach; however, if he's going to take Iowa State to the next level (ie: competing consistently for a conference title) he's going to have to figure out how to employ a better defensive strategy than let's-put-Babb-(or whoever the next defensive stopper is)-on-the-opposition's-high-scorer. We're never going to win consistently with an Orr-esque, out score 'em mentality. Perhaps Fred should pick the brain of another of his mentors, Tim Floyd: a coach who knew how to develop a defensive game plan.

**boone7247** · 02-26-2013, 05:49 PM

Our offense is awesome, but to win conference titles and games in the tournaments you have to play some defense. We don't have to be the best defensive team ever, but we can't continue to give up free lanes to the bucket like we did last night.

Now saying this, I am quite sure CFH is a smarter basketball person than anyone on this website, and probably any ISU related website, and I will trust him to do what is necessary to get ISU to a level it has never been.

Last night we were on the wrong side of two awful calls, first the no call on the charge, and the subsequent call on Niang when Johnson was laying on him. If the first is called all of our comments, except for a few individuals, would not mention defense at all.