Hoiberg to Transfer to Iowa State???

[Sigmapolis]

I find it much worse being that it's in the middle of the Golden age of ISU basketball. Not like before Johnny when we were nobody.

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).

Honestly it was the perfect year to have a terrible year. It didn’t matter because of covid. None of us had to go to the games.

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.

 

[LarryISU]

I just remember that 2-22 team was unwatchable. So many dumb mistakes. Careless turnovers. Could compete at times, but always found a way to lose. I just couldn't even watch after a certain point, didn't even care. And that's really sad if I don't even care to watch my team, or care what happens. Only time in 50 years that has happened for me.

 

[Sigmapolis]

I just remember that 2-22 team was unwatchable. So many dumb mistakes. Careless turnovers. Could compete at times, but always found a way to lose. I just couldn't even watch after a certain point, didn't even care. And that's really sad if I don't even care to watch my team, or care what happens. Only time in 50 years that has happened for me.

Imagine that but...

Add a bottomfeeder or two like Nebraska and Colorado to give you at least a few conference wins (something the Big 12 hasn't had in a long time save maybe Central Florida now)

Add in 8-10 games against cupcakes per season to at least put some Ws on the board (though not like you're proving anything defeating Mississippi Valley State in early November)

Losing to UNI and/or Drake

Having multiple NBA guys on teams (Mike Taylor, Wesley Johnson, Craig Brackins, Diante Garrett, Justin Hamilton) yet doing nothing with them (the 20-21 team didn't have any future NBA guys)

Times that all by six (roughly 2/3rds of a season in 20-21 into four complete seasons)

Add in one impressive win against Kansas State on the road at the very end to show you what it could have been if the situation wasn't just completely ****** from top to bottom

...and you have roughly the McDermott era.

 

[jsb]

This is what I mean by inventing reasons to work backwards to 20-11 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.

I sort of think that team wouldn't have gone for 2 wins had it not been for COVID. Things snowballed and it happened. Think of how awful it would have been to play all of those games in front of next to no fans and then to just keep losing. It had to have been just awful for the players and the coaches. CW often talks about how someone in the program was an ******* towards him at the time. And while that wasn't fair, it isn't hard to understand how someone could just break under those circumstances. We didn't have to keep watching the team and I'm guessing most of us didn't watch. But they had to keep playing. They had no choice. And, while the circumstances were WILDLY different, games with 1/3 of a full Jack Trice and games with 3000 fans in Hilton were MUCH different beasts. The Jack Trice games felt like a real event. I went to two games in Hilton that year and it was much worse than Jack Trice. Even before the games got started.

Sometimes things just need to happen. If that year wasn't such a god damned disaster, I'm guessing that Pollard would have kept Prohm just due to the financial uncertainty of the time. Sometimes things are just are and work out for the best. That team winning 2 games and Rhoads blowing the Kansas State game are two examples.

 

[NWICY]

I was born in 1987. There’s a dozen variables that go into how good a season was. I don’t know the history well enough to make a judgment there. All I’ve got are a few numbers in a table on wins, losses, SRS, and SOS.

Damn Sig you're even younger than I thought. Lucky dog.

 

[Sigmapolis]

Damn Sig you're even younger than I thought. Lucky dog.

Damn kids these day get off my ******* lawn.

 

[NWICY]

Neither is recency bias and the burning hatred of Prohm and that awful year (much was awful about it outside of Iowa State basketball, too) being in living memory and the 1970s being before many of us were born.

Meh I don't hate Prohm but I'm sure glad he's gone. 0-18 2-22 was the worst ISU BB I could remember glad I'm poor and didn' make the the cut for the limited tickets that were available.

 

[Sigmapolis]

Meh I don't hate Prohm but I'm sure glad he's gone. 0-18 2-22 was the worst ISU BB I could remember glad I'm poor and didn' make the the cut for the limited tickets that were available.

I didn't attend any games that season but didn't miss any on the telly.

Towards the end I was enjoying it -- my brother and I gave it the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.

Yeah, it's awful, but everything is awful right now, so how about we have fun with it?

Like when they had a 17-point lead on Baylor and I kept yelling at the TV they're still gonna lose.

Sure enough they did!

The last few possessions of that season were some of the ******* funniest I've ever seen --

https://cyclonefanatic.com/forum/th...ols-2022-23-season.275052/page-2#post-8570774

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.

 

[NWICY]

This is what I mean by inventing reasons to work backwards to 20-11 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.

The funny is for banging your dog and running over your wife. That's some Jannyesqe level of writing there. Sorry about the McD yrs.

 

[brycy]

I just remember that 2-22 team was unwatchable. So many dumb mistakes. Careless turnovers. Could compete at times, but always found a way to lose. I just couldn't even watch after a certain point, didn't even care. And that's really sad if I don't even care to watch my team, or care what happens. Only time in 50 years that has happened for me.

I watched them all, but the only time I remember falling asleep during a game. They were hard to watch for sure.

 

[carvers4math]

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.

I just can’t with the McDermott “good guy” defenders. His treatment of Wesley Johnson was horrific, and I will always gripe about it.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

For the record I'm not a Prohm hater.

 

[Sigmapolis]

For the record I'm not a Prohm hater.

That's good.

For the record, I am still a McDermott hater.

Jamie Vanderbeken and Caleb Grill punking Creighton the last two times we played them are two of my all-time favorite games as a Cyclone fan. Is that petty and vindicative of me?

Sure is. But McDermott tried to ruin my college experience. So take that, Chewie.

 

[erinmd32]

The 2-22 season was horrible. But my biggest issue with Prohm has always been with the 2017 and 2019 season.

 

[deadeyededric]

Fred has been back for basketball events since he’s been the coach at Nebraska. That doesn’t scream he hates Iowa State to me.

The only reason he took the Bulls job was to specifically piss off Iowa State fans. Pissing off our fanbase is why he get's up every morning.

 

[ISUCY23]

Imagine that but...

Add a bottomfeeder or two like Nebraska and Colorado to give you at least a few conference wins (something the Big 12 hasn't had in a long time save maybe Central Florida now)

Add in 8-10 games against cupcakes per season to at least put some Ws on the board (though not like you're proving anything defeating Mississippi Valley State in early November)

Losing to UNI and/or Drake

Having multiple NBA guys on teams (Mike Taylor, Wesley Johnson, Craig Brackins, Diante Garrett, Justin Hamilton) yet doing nothing with them (the 20-21 team didn't have any future NBA guys)

Times that all by six (roughly 2/3rds of a season in 20-21 into four complete seasons)

Add in one impressive win against Kansas State on the road at the very end to show you what it could have been if the situation wasn't just completely ****** from top to bottom

...and you have roughly the McDermott era.

We lost to Florida A&M, adding cupcakes wouldn’t have done **** for our record.

 

[ISUCY23]

The 2-22 season was horrible. But my biggest issue with Prohm has always been with the 2017 and 2019 season.

Yes. Just an awful coach.

Granted, I was a Prohm hater from the start. Hated the hire.

 

[Sigmapolis]

We lost to Florida A&M, adding cupcakes wouldn’t have done **** for our record.

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.

 

[awd4cy]

We lost to Florida A&M, adding cupcakes wouldn’t have done **** for our record.

And don’t forget Milwaukee at home by 18.

 

[Cyinthenorth]

Yes. Just an awful coach.

Granted, I was a Prohm hater from the start. Hated the hire.

I wanted to like it and tried for years, but as someone stated above, after the 18-19 season debacle halfway through and early tournament exit, followed by the abysmal 2019-20 season I was all but done. 2-22 was the nail in the coffin.