Iowa State announces that transfer guard Mason Williams underwent successful hip surgery earlier this week and will most likely miss the 2025-26 season.

Jake Brend reacts to Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers forcing a Game 7 in the NBA Finals with a dominant win over Oklahoma City. Hear from Brend and Haliburton as we look forward to the biggest game of the former Cyclone's life.

Been helping my parents move out of their house that they have been in for 30+ years. This has resulted in some interesting finds. Here are a couple of them.

Been helping my parents move out of their house that they have been in for 30+ years. This has resulted in some interesting finds. Here are a couple of them.

Thanks so much to @Cyclones_R_GR8 for this thread topic:

“ How are your dreams, Scary, pleasant or just plain weird?
Do you have recurring themes to your dreams?”

I am going to let him share his, but it is really good.

I just have had recurring dreams over the years that I accidentally never quit the job I had in high school at a small supermarket in our tiny town, I suddenly needed to show up and work a shift after working my grown-up job. The dream just goes through that day.

How about you?

What are the differences between the 2? Other than the obvious. STL is slightly older and has a metro of 2.8mil vs 2.3. My gf is from STL and I've been trying to tell her that STL may be in the Midwest but it has more of a East/slightly smaller version of Chicago vibe. Not that that's a bad thing(I've always enjoyed my times there). KC is more like a smaller version of Dallas. I feel like KC is on more of an upswing while St. Louis City gets stuck in limbo in terms of city projects due to most of the money being in St. Charles County. While the snobs in KC suburbs in KS and MO may still be stingy in terms of projects in KCMO they still realize it's the flagship city of the metro. Same state and only 3 hours of highway between them but 2 totally different places imo.

Wrote today that former Cyclones Naz Mitrou-Long, Jiří Hubálek, Sherron Dorsey-Walker, Dustin Hogue, Tyrus McGee, Zoran Talley and Tre Jackson have won titles around the globe this season (2024-25).

Haliburton and Rasir Bolton are both in the finals of their respective leagues.

Cam Lard one win away from the finals in El Salvador’s Liga Mayor de Baloncesto.

Jake Brend gives you the Iowa State Athletics news of the day with Audi Crooks earning a spot on Team USA for the 2025 AmeriCup Games, new football helmets and an update on Tyrese Haliburton‘s injury status for Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

Audi Crooks selected as one of 12 players to represent Team USA at the 2025 FIBA AmeriCup Games starting on June 28 in Chile.

I think an improved pass rush is possible in 2025 and could be a key to defensive improvement next year.

Since Iowa State sends fewer pass rushers than the rest of the league and every team faces a different number of passing plays, it can be hard to compare raw stats across teams without context. I tried to add some context to ISU's 2024 Pass Rush performance, compares to 2023, and some opportunities & challenges we may have in 2025.

The table below breaks down the pass rush stats and ISU's B12 Rank and ISU vs. Avg B12 Team:

1) Number of pass rushers per pass play (ISU send 0.6 fewer pass rushers than the B12 average and ranks 15th in pass rushers sent per pass play; they also faced 60 fewer, or 13% fewer, pass plays than the average B12 team in 2024; both of these impact raw stats like sacks and pressures)
2) Total Sacks
3) Total Pressures (Sacks+QB Hits+QB Hurries)
4) Pressure% (Total Pressures / Total Pass Rush Snaps, ISU was 4th)
5) Sack% (Total Sacks / Total Pass Rush Snaps, ISU was 13th)
6) %Pass Plays w/Pressure (Total Pressures / Total Pass Plays)
7) %Pass Plays w/Sack (Total Sacks / Total Pass Plays)



A couple things I would note:

First, ISU sends fewer pass rushers and this scheme accounts for much of the gap between ISU and the rest of the B12 in terms of pressure and % of plays with pressure. You can see, even in what I would consider a down year for ISU we were 4th in Pressure% which normalizes for both number of pass rushers sent each play and number of pass plays faced by a defense.

Second, ISU converted fewer pressures into sacks. Sacks can be volatile year to year. ISU only converted about 10% of it's pressures into sacks in 2024 (very low). B12 Average was 14%, top teams were close to 20%. Last year ISU was at about 13%. So, a bad sack year for sure, they ranked 13th in sack% (sacks/pass rush snaps).


Looking at 2024 vs. 2023, we can see our pressure% improved, but our sack rate declined. Looking more closely, you can see this was driven by the LB position, where Caleb Bacon and Will McLaughlin were missed. In 2023, they combined for 4 sacks and 24 pressures on 101 pass rush snaps. The two combined for a Pressure% of 24%, and a Sack% of 4% (much higher than the 2024 ISU averages of 10.4% and 1.1%).



Change in LB Production Year to Year:




2025 Opportunities & Challenges:

LB
Iowa State's LBs are an important part of ISU's pass rush. They accounted for about 1/3 of the team's pressures and sacks in 2023. But in 2024, this dropped to about 1/4 of the teams production. Getting Bacon and McLaughlin back in 2025 should boost the production from the LB's in 2025.

EDGE:
On the edge, ISU lost 4 of their top 5 pass rushers from a year ago. Three transfers will attempt to replace them along with other younger players on ISU's roster. Vontroy Malone (Tulsa), Cannon Butler (UNI), and Tamatoa McDonough (Yale) will all be competing for time. Their stats were similar to the players we are losing but they will need to do it at the B12 level (Pressure% 9.7% v. 9.5%, Sack% 1.2% vs. 1.1%). One note on Butler, although he only had 1 sack on 25 pressures in 2024, he has 8 sacks on 68 pressures over his 3 seasons at UNI. So, last year he had a low pressure to sack conversion rate (4%) vs. his career average (12%).

Will be in Des Moines today, looking for a nice lunch option, somethiing like the Cafe in Ames maybe, ideally with some gluten free options.

Fire away!

yo dudes,

With my job I am in many middle and small cities with colleges and universities..

I would like to start keeping a list and invite anyone else to add their experiences...


Tonight I will be staying in Bloomington, IN for the first time.





Cool towns:
NIU (Dekalb, IL) - Has a HyVee felt like central iowa
University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY) - awesome city (had shots with little horse riding guys)
University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE) - Runza
University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI) - THE OLD FASHIONED!!!

Meh towns:
Illinois State (Normal, IL)
Vincennes University (Vincennes, IN)
University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana, IL)
Notre Dame (South Bend, IN)


I'm sure i will remember more


please feel free to add any you've visited!!!!!!!!

Voting is open for the Cyclone Fanatic Movie Villain Tournament Round of 64.


How to vote:
To select the favorite (the show seeded highest), choose the Heart emoji.
To select the underdog, choose the Rainbow emoji.
No other emojis will be counted.

Deadline to vote: Now through Sunday at 10 PM

This week, we are looking for songs with the following in title or lyrics: pride and proud.


"On That Note” is presented weekly by @MeanDean, @cyclones500 and myself.

It’s the Weekend

Things are really starting to shape and I had to do this just to break it down for myself and see if ISU has a chance. I’m putting out both teams best lineup.


125 - Poulin Dec Peterson. Stevo won the h2h at NCAA. 3-0 ISU
133 - Ayala Dec Ortega 3-3
141 - Frost Dec Bailey. Repeat of NCAA. 6-3 ISU
149 - Ech Dec Estrada. 9-3
157 - Caliendo Dec Paniro. 9-6
165 - Kennedy Dec Euton. 9-9
174 - Arnold Dec MJ. 12-9 Iowa
184 - Ferrari maj Dean 16-9 Iowa
197 - Elam Dec Endene 16-12
285 - Bastida Dec Kueter. 16-15

Guys this is going be a tight one. Iowa has more sure things. Hard to see them losing at 57-84. Some of these matchups could get kind of wonky. Let’s hope we get both teams at full strength.

A couple of weeks ago a tree in our front yard was hit by lightning. It is a little leaf linden that is about 2 feet in diameter. The lightning created some random cracks in the bark in the bottome 20 feet of the tree but more devastatingly it blasted the bark pretty much clean off in an area about 5 feet high and 8-10" wide at the bottom of the tree. I found chunks of bark across and down the street over 100 feet from the tree. I trimmed off the shredded bark in that area but what should I do around it? Should I remove, leave or try to fasten tight the loose but intact bark on either side of this area? What should I be doing to help protect the tree? I know when I was a kid I saw people paint open areas like that but I haven't seen that for years so I'm guessing it really doesn't do any good. Should I proactively apply pesticides or fungicides?

Any help would be appreciated.

Iowa State lands 2026 Chris Sailer's No. 1 ranked Punter Lucas Tenbrock, their first specialist of the class.

Complete longshot here... but does anyone know of anyone in Iowa that does hydrostatic testing/certification of gas cylinders that have passed their date stamp?

With just three home and home games each year in Big 12 play moving forward, who should Iowa State fans want to play?

I've got my list of 1-15 here. Would love to know your thoughts!

Looks like the punter for the class. Same HS as the three Barrett brothers.

Login to view embedded media


Login to view embedded media

Iowa State lands Bryson Williams and now has commitments from 6 of the top 10 players in Nebraska for 2026.

Fast, long, rangy safety. Track sprinter, 10.88 100m.

Login to view embedded media



Login to view embedded media

Hy-Vee sent us an email informing us that we won two club passes for the 12th and 13th. We never signed up for anything, but we do shop at Hy-Vee occasionally and are perk members. My nephew races a IMCA Modified here in eastern Iowa, and I help with the car, so my wife and I are both race fans. I've watched Indy races on TV, but I've never attended one in person, so we decided to accept the passes and may go to the event.

Is it a good event?

Thanks!