Hoiberg to Transfer to Iowa State???

[t-noah]

Yep. Seems a year everybody (save those holding a grudge against Prohm for him porking their dogs and running over their wives) wants to completely forget ever actually even happened.

I think you have this locution wrong. It's bass ackwards!

 

[t-noah]

I'll never stop laughing at Terrence Lewis scoring the "game-winning" bucket, flexing for the camera, not getting back on defense, Oklahoma State winning it at the buzzer as a result, and then all the games being cancelled the next day because of COVID. What a futile, fruitless effort all of that was.

Oh boy! I forgot that one. Must have stopped paying attention by then. But that's bad.

 

[AlCyJim]

That Baylor game at home had the worst final minute I have ever seen from a coach. We were down a bucket with about a minute to go and ran clock for the whole possession for absolutely no reason and then *of course* took the worst and most awful shot possible. We had timeouts. The possession was so bad I rewound it, recorded it on my phone, and sent it to my sister, who at that point had quit watching for the year. Probably genuinely the worst single player I have seen at ISU given the context. I, like you, was unable to miss a moment of it because of how historically awful it was and how consistently we found new ways to lose. That entire roster was like the island of misfit toys--every player had a unique and terrible flaw.

watched the games in case they won. didn't want to miss it... if the games had been 35 minutes long that team would have won probably 6 or 8 more games. then Prohm would have stayed as coach.

 

[CloneIce]

He also won a tournament in KC.

Prohm had some highs but some low lows. McDemott was just all lows the whole time.

I’d rather the Prohm rollercoaster with some greatness and badness that veered into unintentional comedy (lost to FAMU? LOL! what a dork) over McDermott’s slow and boring that never did anything.

McDermott was the worst. Prohm was bad, but McDermott did a freaking terrible job. And half the ISU fans defended him almost to the end despite all the clear signs that we needed a change (just like Prohm). It was ridiculous.

 

[bizzle]

Watching that final Prohm team was like cheering for the Washington Generals. I'm surprised no opponents ever tried to yoink our shorts down or dribble it off our heads.

 

[bizzle]

To me, more than anything else the McDermott era was so boring. There was a hard floor and a hard ceiling and it was just pure mediocrity every single year. There were inarguably higher highs under Prohm but man, stop and think about where the program would have gone had he not been fired and you get the willies. It was somehow going to get worse!

 

[Drew0311]

Speaking of legacy recruits . Redek Born to UNI.

 

[CyNews]

To me, more than anything else the McDermott era was so boring. There was a hard floor and a hard ceiling and it was just pure mediocrity every single year. There were inarguably higher highs under Prohm but man, stop and think about where the program would have gone had he not been fired and you get the willies. It was somehow going to get worse!

He did not help some very good players,in my opinion.

 

[Pat]

You think so? I am not so certain Prohm gets fired after 2019-20. Hadn't he just been given an extension after '18-'19? '19-'20 was bad, with some all-time embarrassing losses, but he did have a built in excuse of not having Haliburton down the stretch, which included the Big 12 Tournament game that they almost won v.s. Oklahoma State.

That tournament game was a microcosm for the Prohm era: a more-talented (IMO) ISU team finding a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I don’t have sources, but had heard rumblings that the shine had worn off for both parties, and Prohm was ready to pull a McDermott. Who knows. The 20-21 season deserves an asterisk, regardless, and I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen.

 

[cyclonemagic]

It seems strange that Greg McDermott had no success at ISU. He was considered a rising coaching star at UNI when ISU hired him. Creighton wanted to hire McDermott despite his record at ISU and he went on to be very successful there. Why couldn't he enjoy success at ISU? Was Big 12 basketball too tough for McDermott?

 

[CyNews]

It seems strange that Greg McDermott had no success at ISU. He was considered a rising coaching star at UNI when ISU hired him. Creighton wanted to hire McDermott despite his record at ISU and he went on to be very successful there. Why couldn't he enjoy success at ISU? Was Big 12 basketball too tough for McDermott?

Yes. His enthusiasm also waned.

 

[madguy30]

This is what I mean by inventing reasons to work backwards to 20-21 being the "worst."

It wasn't the worst team in school history. We don't have quite the level of analytical sophistication that KenPom and Torvik given you for the past ~25 years for the whole of program history, but the tools we do have indicate there were worse *teams* relative to their Division I peers based on their score differential adjusted for their strength of schedule (which is essentially how KenPom and Torvik do their rankings).

Worst *season* is subjective because it introduces nonobjective criteria such as, "It should count for worse because it is in an era when we expect better. We have expectations now. Iowa State basketball was a joke before Johnny, so awful seasons back then just wouldn't have had the same impact." Maybe? Neither of us were there. The McDermott era still burns me because it "ruined" basketball during my time in Ames, and I had to watch a boring and losing brand of basketball courtside with the pep band as each season was worse.

Yet, outside of me, you don't hear much griping about McDermott's tenure in Ames on here. I have worse personal memories of four bad McDermott years than one truncated bad Prohm year.

That emotional reasoning is fine. If you want to call it the worst *season* for whatever reason, then feel free. I just don't think the evidence says 20-21 was the worst *team,* which was the original question.

We all have our personal biases about the emotional reasoning there, though. So, hence why I try to find a bit more objective criteria (as much as that data exists for basketball games from the 1920s).



Yep. Seems a year everybody (save those holding a grudge against Prohm for him porking their dogs and running over their wives) wants to completely forget ever actually even happened.

It's not like it did any long-term damage. Prohm is gone. TJ put together a squad that made the NCAA tournament in one offseason. He's 2/2 on that objective. And he's got his most talented roster yet coming in for next season, maybe the most talented roster since Fred left or at least since the Shayok year.

That one bad short season followed a 20 loss season.

I was a fairly staunch Prohm backer but the weirdness of the 18-19 team followed by two 20 loss seasons was it. It's not a grudge or hatred...that was some serious flatlining of a pretty good basketball program.

 

[madguy30]

It seems strange that Greg McDermott had no success at ISU. He was considered a rising coaching star at UNI when ISU hired him. Creighton wanted to hire McDermott despite his record at ISU and he went on to be very successful there. Why couldn't he enjoy success at ISU? Was Big 12 basketball too tough for McDermott?

I really didn't watch much of the McD era but iirc he tried to do too much and never really figured out what he wanted to do with the players available.

 

[brett108]

CW has been on the record several times Fred flirting with the Gophers job sundered that relationship on professional terms. They're still friends, but they don't want to work together again.

That Minnesota job looks great on paper. In practice it never seems to be anything but a disaster.

 

[brett108]

To me, more than anything else the McDermott era was so boring. There was a hard floor and a hard ceiling and it was just pure mediocrity every single year. There were inarguably higher highs under Prohm but man, stop and think about where the program would have gone had he not been fired and you get the willies. It was somehow going to get worse!

I mean his last season was as bad as you can get. No conference wins? And people on here trying to gaslight us into thinking that wasn’t worse than McD? It was just give it up.

 

[Tojo1311]

It seems strange that Greg McDermott had no success at ISU. He was considered a rising coaching star at UNI when ISU hired him. Creighton wanted to hire McDermott despite his record at ISU and he went on to be very successful there. Why couldn't he enjoy success at ISU? Was Big 12 basketball too tough for McDermott?

I think he used his experience here to take a look in the mirror and made changes to his coaching and philosophy. Which I give him credit for doing.

I thought he was a great hire at the time but obviously didn’t work. Both parties came out positively from the split which usually can’t be said.

 

[SolarGarlic]

To me, more than anything else the McDermott era was so boring. There was a hard floor and a hard ceiling and it was just pure mediocrity every single year. There were inarguably higher highs under Prohm but man, stop and think about where the program would have gone had he not been fired and you get the willies. It was somehow going to get worse!

He had to find himself as a coach at the P5 level. Unfortunately for ISU, we were his on the job training. He tried to bring MVC basketball to the Big 12 and got exposed. He eventually got some talent on the team, but he didn't know how to use it.

 

[ClonerJams]

In regards to Mac vs Prohm, the circumstances were quite different. Mac had to basically start from scratch. The highs were much higher for Prohm obviously, but it was a historic crash. He was handed the keys to a Cadillac and crashed it into a tree.

 

[t-noah]

Watching that final Prohm team was like cheering for the Washington Generals. I'm surprised no opponents ever tried to yoink our shorts down or dribble it off our heads.

Texas Tech played a Trainer (or was it a grad assistant?) against us. Does that count?

 

[cayin]

Prohm inherited a very talented roster. I think 6 guys made the NBA. Thomas, Long, Niang, Morris, Burton, Abdel Nader. Think about that guys, 6 NBA players!!!!! They finished 5th in the Big 12. I like watching them and was happy with the team, but when I went to Chicago and watch them in the sweet 16 (there was an upset in the first round so we caught a break in the second round)I couldn't believe how unprepared they were. Complete lack of a game plan, came out with dear in the headlights and got behind big. Prohm didn't not have them ready to play. That is when I first started to question if he was a good coach or not. Not being prepared to play and game plan in the NCAAs happened again Purdue the next year and Ohio State in 2019. We had no business losing to Ohio State, we should have ran them off the floor.