Key ISU Basketball Moments

[bos]

we have a winner!!
I also think the peak in quality of basketball was the 2000 UCLA game. They were everyone's darling and we absoluetely destroyed them!

Yes, that was a beat down like no other. I absolutely loved that tourney. I guess it was one of the highest rated tourneys ever for viewers.

[Todd]

I would concur with that, with the sub-peak being the game before the Texas game in 2001. You could tell during the Texas game the gas tank had gone to E, the team never recovered, and the team was never the same after that.

Agree completely. After the Big XII Tourney game vs. Baylor, the "H-word Game" was not that big of a surprise..those guys were tapped!

[jdoggivjc]

Agree completely. After the Big XII Tourney game vs. Baylor, the "H-word Game" was not that big of a surprise..those guys were tapped!

I mean obviously there are goals to win a regular season title, conference title, #1 seeds, all that stuff. In retrospect, however, the entire second half of the season we were in the conversation for a #1 seed. I think Eustachy probably put too much of an emphasis on earning that #1 seed and drove the team way too hard instead of allowing the chips to fall where they may. You hate to say this, but perhaps if they had taken their foot off the gas pedal a little bit earlier the team would have been fresher at the end of the season and we could have made another lengthy run in the NCAA tournament. Sure, that may have killed any chance at a #1 seed, and we would have had to settle for something between #2 - #4, but looking back, the way we performed at the end of the season after the team ran out of gas, well, did we end up with the #1 seed anyway? I would have sacrificed the #1 or even the #2 seed for a team that was fresher at the end of the year, a team capable of making a run in the tourney, and a team that wasn't going to lose to the "H-word."

Then again, this post is all in hindsight, and as we all know, it's a 20/20 thing. We can do all the coulda/woulda/shouldas all we want and it's not going to change what happened then or where we are now.

[cyclonenum1]

The key moment: The day ISU's AD called Johnny Orr at Michigan to see if he could recommend any good candidates for the position of ISU Head Basketball Coach.

Ditto that! Most of the people on this board that are younger just do not realize how big of a deal Orr coming to us was. He was the HC at Michigan (a dominant Big 10 team) and just 4 or 5 years earlier had taken Michigan to the National Championship game (losing to the undefeated Indiana team of 76). And he came to a lowly Iowa State program that was totally inept at the time. LSU (which just fired its coach) would have to hire someone like Thad Matta from Ohio State or Ben Howland from UCLA to make a similar type of hire in today's world.

[Steve]

Orr would never have come to ISU if James Hilton hadn't had the vision of the Iowa State Center. Can you imagine Johnny coming to coach in the Armory? The program improvement would have started sooner if M John had stayed healthy. I'll admit that it was huge to get someone of Orr's stature after 2 terrible hires. I just believe that a healthy Maurry John would have taken us to heights that have yet to be achieved. The construction of Hilton laid the groundwork for all that has followed.

[CycloneWarrior]

The reason eustachy was so good cause he live off of what tim floyd built. Floyd got fizer to come and that started it all. I hope mcdermott can someday be as good as floyd

[EggMcClone]

I think there are a lot of complex issues at play. Eustachy had some really highly rated recruiting classes but some bad luck completely demolished them. I'll agree that he took some big risks with some of them that may or may not have been necessary but Harper, Alexander, Chiriav were all highly rated.

I think he learned from those mistakes and brought in some help in recruiting (WM) and started going for more high school/prep school guys. With the two of them I think we could have started having success again but a lot of that would have depended on if he cleaned up his personal life. Would that have happened without the pictures, etc? Who knows? But, I would have liked to see what he could have done with the players we had during WM's tenure.

Eustachy certainly benefited from Fizer and some of the other leftover players from Floyd's years but he also brought in most of the guys that won the Big 12 the second year which was, IMO, due almost exclusively to Tinsley and Eustachy's coaching getting the most out of the rest of the players. LE benefited from Floyd and Floyd benefited from Orr and Orr benefited from an administration that made a commitment to winning.