Tuesday, December 07, 2004
ISU 81 Virginia 79
"I love the people of Ames, but I don’t know if I’d want to come back here every other year. This is one of the toughest places to play. It’s comparable to a Maryland or Duke in the ACC." - Virginia Coach Pete Gillen.
Somebody should let Dukie V know since he refuses to come to Hilton.
Anyway, a few other thoughts from last night. Faulkner looks like he could become a version of Vroman soon. Right now he looks a lot like Vroman and Tyray Pearson in their first year out of JC when he puts up some really great numbers but his minutes will be limited unless he gets his fouls under control. He has a motor that just won't stop and his tenacity down low kept ISU in the game for a little while. He was all over the floor tipping balls and grabbing buckets when we needed them. I'd say he's probably our only post player that can consistantly create his own shot. I trust Homan shooting the 15 footers and banging down low and Davis has shown some flashes from time to time but they haven't shown that creativity that Pearson or Vroman had. A disappointment has been Damion Staple. He looked completely lost whenever he was in the game (whch wasn't much) and brought nothing to the court. That was sort of his M.O. for a lot of last year but I was hoping that he had found his comfort level after he played a few solid games toward the end of the year. Reggie George played hard and made a few decent plays but I'm not sure he will play more than 20 minutes a game unless Faulkner has more fould problems.
I liked the new starting lineup even though Carr didn't play much and didn't make much of an impact. Faulkner should start the rest of the year, IMO, as long as he continues to bust his ass like he does. I feel bad for John Neal because of his shooting woes but his defense won the game for us yesterday. Once we went to the box-and-one Devin Smith could barely get a shot off. It's nice to have somewhat of a defensive stopper to bring in when we need him and I think his shot will come back. He's not nearly the shooter that Sullivan was but we need someone to sit up top and knock down the kick outs from Stinson and Blalock.
Of course many Hawkeye fans have been ripping into ISU. Specifically the "thugs", both the streeball and farmboy types. If you're going to play in the Big 12 you need to have a little bit of an attitude. Homan knocked the shit out of that guy but that's what's going to happen to you if you want to dunk on somebody in this league. It probably was a flagrant foul but Homan isn't a thug in the Jacob Jaacks mold where he just wants to hurt somebody for the hell of it. Then the thinly veiled racism leveled at guys like Stinson and Blalock gets really old. And some of the comments from ISU fans and TV announcers are the same. The TV guys are always looking for a story and love to refer to Stinson's game using words like "playground" and "straight from the streets". The guy's a basketball player and just because he comes from NYC and doesn't have the background of a Duke player doesn't mean he's a thug or has no discipline. Yes, he does talk some trash but that goes both ways and I've seen white guys from Iowa talk just as much shit but are never referred to in those terms. At least he's never plead guilty to a sex crime like those on some other teams in the state, right?
It's the same crap when the media hassles Morgan for the confrontation during the UNI game while giving their coach a free pass. Whether intentional or not I think there is a little bit of a double standard with race in college basketball.
Somebody should let Dukie V know since he refuses to come to Hilton.
Anyway, a few other thoughts from last night. Faulkner looks like he could become a version of Vroman soon. Right now he looks a lot like Vroman and Tyray Pearson in their first year out of JC when he puts up some really great numbers but his minutes will be limited unless he gets his fouls under control. He has a motor that just won't stop and his tenacity down low kept ISU in the game for a little while. He was all over the floor tipping balls and grabbing buckets when we needed them. I'd say he's probably our only post player that can consistantly create his own shot. I trust Homan shooting the 15 footers and banging down low and Davis has shown some flashes from time to time but they haven't shown that creativity that Pearson or Vroman had. A disappointment has been Damion Staple. He looked completely lost whenever he was in the game (whch wasn't much) and brought nothing to the court. That was sort of his M.O. for a lot of last year but I was hoping that he had found his comfort level after he played a few solid games toward the end of the year. Reggie George played hard and made a few decent plays but I'm not sure he will play more than 20 minutes a game unless Faulkner has more fould problems.
I liked the new starting lineup even though Carr didn't play much and didn't make much of an impact. Faulkner should start the rest of the year, IMO, as long as he continues to bust his ass like he does. I feel bad for John Neal because of his shooting woes but his defense won the game for us yesterday. Once we went to the box-and-one Devin Smith could barely get a shot off. It's nice to have somewhat of a defensive stopper to bring in when we need him and I think his shot will come back. He's not nearly the shooter that Sullivan was but we need someone to sit up top and knock down the kick outs from Stinson and Blalock.
Of course many Hawkeye fans have been ripping into ISU. Specifically the "thugs", both the streeball and farmboy types. If you're going to play in the Big 12 you need to have a little bit of an attitude. Homan knocked the shit out of that guy but that's what's going to happen to you if you want to dunk on somebody in this league. It probably was a flagrant foul but Homan isn't a thug in the Jacob Jaacks mold where he just wants to hurt somebody for the hell of it. Then the thinly veiled racism leveled at guys like Stinson and Blalock gets really old. And some of the comments from ISU fans and TV announcers are the same. The TV guys are always looking for a story and love to refer to Stinson's game using words like "playground" and "straight from the streets". The guy's a basketball player and just because he comes from NYC and doesn't have the background of a Duke player doesn't mean he's a thug or has no discipline. Yes, he does talk some trash but that goes both ways and I've seen white guys from Iowa talk just as much shit but are never referred to in those terms. At least he's never plead guilty to a sex crime like those on some other teams in the state, right?
It's the same crap when the media hassles Morgan for the confrontation during the UNI game while giving their coach a free pass. Whether intentional or not I think there is a little bit of a double standard with race in college basketball.
# posted by Ben @ 2:44 PM 
