How satisfied with Maui are you?

[clone4life82]

Auburn is easily a top 5 team in the country. IMO Dayton is legit too. Colorado blows and I’m guessing will be a bubble team at best. I gave it an 8. I feel like if we beat auburn game one, it’s a 10 but the guys showed me they can and should compete with everyone anywhere any night.

 

[ISUChippewa]

An 8 for me.

I can't really add much more than what's already been written. It would have been higher for not giving up the lead to an excellent Auburn team.

I am concerned with Tamin's sub-par play, whether that's due to a lingering or God forbid new injury. For as well as we played without him bringing his "A" game we need him at full strength for us to really reach our ceiling.

 

[isucy86]

I voted a 9 because was really impressed by our high level of play in games 4-6. I expected we would be strong early on because of returning Jones, Gilbert and Lipsey. The play of Jackson, Jefferson and Chatfield has been a nice surprise.

Would be nice if we see Heise and Indrusaitis continue to grow in the offense and can hit a high % of 3 pointers. The other thing I would like to see if work on ball movement within the offense vs. ball dominance. Not saying we should not lean-on what Lipsey and Gilbert do best, but add another dimension to our halfcourt offense.

 

[Cloned4Life]

Solid 7. Blowing an 18 point lead still sucks but they bounced back well

Yep, 7 for me too.

I think we beat Auburn the next time we face them

That stretch to start the 2nd half - like damn, what the heck WAS that? We let our guard down and intensity down just a smidge and Auburn ramped theirs up 200%. Getting punched THAT hard that quickly - in the moment - was tough to swallow, and was disappointing. But we kept counter punching, which is a great sign. Auburn didn’t even take their first lead until 4 minutes in the game. Having the call tied w/30 seconds left - felt good at that point.

That second half rebounding is the single biggest question mark for me. Against the elite teams, can we be better on the boards? Getting beat 2 to 1 will lead to losses. Can we even that up? Can we steal a few possessions with offensive rebounds, instead of Auburn doing that to us? We did against Dayton. Can we do it against Kansas? Houston? Auburn next time!?

Overall, a very good week and we will get some national pub from it.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

I know it's not the same, but I try to imagine if our runs and Auburn's run were flopped, how would I feel about the game. Like, if Auburn had an 18 point lead, we came back and still lost by a last minute tip-in, would I view the game differently?

There are going to be scoring droughts, lost leads, and come-backs from us this year. We may not have the consistency that I'd like, but no team does. The nice things is that we have the talent to be dominant on both sides of the ball, and can compensate if one is off. This may be one of the best balanced offensive/defensive teams I've watched in cardinal and gold in a long time.

Yeah, the end result of a last second tip-in to lose sucks, but that was still a ton of fun. I voted for 9 out of 10.
We can play with anyone this year. Buckle up!

 

[CloniesForLife]

I was between 7 and 8. Put 8 because we proved we're a top team and grew a lot. Couldn't go higher than that with a loss though

 

[jdoggivjc]

Have to wonder why 2 top 5 teams were matched up in the first round? Was seeding not part of the matchup schedule?

I know the field was announced at last year's tourney, and while I don't exactly remember when the bracket was revealed, I feel like we've known we were going to play Auburn for months. And the bottom line, with as stacked as this field was, there was going to be an insane matchup in the first round regardless - it just ended up being ISU vs Auburn.

FTR, I said 9 out of 10. The Auburn loss is the only thing keeping it from being a 10.

 

[PolCy83]

I give it a 9/10 because it proved that ISU belongs in the discussion about elite teams. If you factor in the experience of actually being here in Maui, I give it a 12/10.

 

[WISCY1895]

Watching how badly Auburn beat Memphis yesterday probably raised my satisfaction by 1. I’ll go 8

 

[madguy30]

9/10. 2-1 in that schedule is great.

If the 18 point lead was with like 5 minutes left it would be hard to stomach but otherwise a team with elite players with 20+ minutes left will likely be a tough out in the end especially if they've already played someone tough like Houston.

1st halves outside of maybe foul trouble don't define the game.

Late possessions in that one are more bothersome but it's November and they found out what needs work.

CU didn't look that good right now (I expect a tough game in Boulder) but ISU may have actually grown a lot too in a short time.

 

[Frak]

I’m concerned about our bigs defensively to be honest. Rotations looked slow all tourney and we gave up a lot of points at the rim. Does Bob Jones have another year of eligibility?

I’ve been saying that too. Jackson and Jefferson are definitely more skilled than Jones and Ward. But, they are not nearly as good at rotating or guarding off a switch. BRE was elite at that. Still, being able to feed a post up and convert should help limit dry spells.

 

[Cyforce]

I’ll just say I was glad to here the talking heads acknowledge how good we are.

 

[madguy30]

I know it's not the same, but I try to imagine if our runs and Auburn's run were flopped, how would I feel about the game. Like, if Auburn had an 18 point lead, we came back and still lost by a last minute tip-in, would I view the game differently?

There are going to be scoring droughts, lost leads, and come-backs from us this year. We may not have the consistency that I'd like, but no team does. The nice things is that we have the talent to be dominant on both sides of the ball, and can compensate if one is off. This may be one of the best balanced offensive/defensive teams I've watched in cardinal and gold in a long time.

Yeah, the end result of a last second tip-in to lose sucks, but that was still a ton of fun. I voted for 9 out of 10.
We can play with anyone this year. Buckle up!

Some of ISU's 'best' moments are huge come backs and plenty of times ISU wasn't an elite team.

I've seen big leads evaporate quickly in just the last three days including Auburn vs. UNC in the first half.

Sports are wacky.

 

[kirk89gt]

Went with a 7, and a solid one at that. Definitely room for improvement. I think we saw a mixed bag of results……Auburn stings and they exposed/ showed us what can happen if we stop pushing the pace, passing / sharing the ball, and not getting after it on the boards - with our bigs there is no excuse for getting out rebounded.

There was a little bit of a hangover playing Dayton and we didn’t play our best game - they had something to do with that - Dayton is a tournament team. All three opponents exploited our slowness in rotating our defense when we doubled which resulted in uncontested open looks (many from 3). Definitely something to get shored up as others will do the same.

Colorado was a get right game for us and I think showed what he is possible if we play up to our potential.

The one thing that I have yet to see with this team is who is the “Scrapper”. The guy that will take the charge, dive for loose balls, out hustle someone for a rebound, etc. Tamin is probably the closest to this at the moment but needs to be careful with his history of injuries - still don’t know if he is 100%. TJ’s prior teams had several of these types of role players and I wonder if we have too many alphas that are looking to score first and not necessarily sacrifice for the overall team.

 

[Kettes]

I almost never believe in "moral victories" or "good loses." This is the rare exception. By coming home with a lose to Auburn that could have been a W had we not come our flat after the half, the coaches really have something to build upon. Had we won, I'm not sure the hunger (I'm assuming the team now has) would not be there.

Marquette will be a good test on what the team takes away from Maui.

Solid 9/10.

 

[ClonesTwenty1]

8/10. Defense looked really bad at times. Should have beat auburn. Still like that we went 2-1 after all of it.

 

[inCyteful]

I went with a 9. Except for a last second put back, I would have been ecstatic.

 

[twincyties]

I voted 8 (was blessed enough to watch in person). Some observations:

- Lipsey does not seem totally healthy. Seems like he’s favoring the left shoulder he hurt last year. But still plays his ass off and we’re better on both ends with him on the floor. Really needs that three point shot to start going down at a respectable clip again.

- Jones legitimately might be our best player and easily the most consistent. Shooting well as expected but getting into the lane with ease and finishing strong. He just doesn’t make many mistakes when he’s out there. He played 86 minutes without a turnover.

- Gilbert looks stronger than last year and he is an elite finisher. Despite some critical turnovers, he seems more under control and finished 19-26 from the field during the tournament. That is an insane percentage (73%) for a guard - especially given the degree of difficulty on many of those shots.

- like last year, our offense has another gear when Milan is shooting well. I still don’t understand why he was not on the floor during last possession Monday. Even if he just stands in the corner you’ve got to play us differently with him out there. He also played much better defense against Colorado. Either he got the message and locked in or Dayton and Auburns match ups at his position were just that much better than Colorado.

- Jefferson is an offensive upgrade for us. He’s not entirely in game shape yet which I can understand not having this off season with the team due to injury.

- I expect to see Chatfield get more minutes. He is better defensively than Jackson and hopefully can fill more of the role Bob Jones did switching screens on the perimeter. He does a lot of little stuff I’m sure TJ likes.

- Nojus does not lack confidence. Looking forward to his development.

- we have work to do defensively. As many here have pointed out our rotations were really really bad. Way too many wide open threes.

- Biggest concern is that we got back cut to death. That’s on film now so expect to see more of it from opposing coaches. There are a few repeat offenders so hopefully TJ can clean this up.

- good to see points in the paint advantage and scoring 90 a game while not exactly shooting the lights out. Will be helpful this year when we have off shooting nights from three.

We’re every bit a top 5 team.

 

[aeroclone]

You know, looking at the lineup of teams coming i to that tournament I would have taken 2-1 in a heartbeat. Having the big lead in that loss to Auburn puts a little extra sting it that loss. But I think we gave Auburn a much bigger test than what they got from their other games, which eases the pain.

All in all, left the tournament feeling validated that we are indeed a top 10 team and should have a chance to do great things this year.

Put me down for an 8.

 

[Gunnerclone]

9 just because we didn’t pull the title. But now that I think about it it’s probably a 10 because there are like 100 posters here that won’t be able to cry about non con sos at selection time.