Monday, February 21, 2005
Some love for the Cyclones
A network TV win on the road against the number 2 team in the country will generally garner some attention. Add the fact that the win is the 7th in a row and the 4th against a ranked team and you're going to get a lot of attention.
Let's see, here's a partial list:
Curtis Stinson Big 12 Player of the Week, Andy Katz's national player of the week
ISU on the front pages of ESPN.com and SI.com and front sports page stories in the NY Times, Boston Globe, USA Today and just about everywhere else that matters
A spot in everybody's bracket projections and #26 in the AP poll
It's pretty strange that last week the Cyclones were barely making it onto a few of the bubble lists and one win lets them essentially skip all the way over the bubble and into the tournament. I've seen seeding projections everywhere from 8-12 seeds. An 8 seed puts them against a #1 seed if they win in the first round which is tough but there are some beatable top seeds this year. Boston College, UNC, UK and KU are all potential #1's that I could see being upset. A 12 seed sets up a decent run against a 5 and 4. Pretty much any seed sounds good at this point and there's a lot of basketball to play.
I'm a little worried about the upcoming game for the Cyclones. A&M isn't a bad team and the potential for a slipup is looming while everyone is busy patting them on the back. The team needs to stay focused and lock up a win in College Station to really make some ground in the NCAA and Big 12 seeding. A KU win over OU tonight would allow ISU to move into the 4th seed in the Big 12 tournament which would really help them out. It wouldn't surprise to see them make a run into Sunday in the tournament. It's going to help that the tournament in in Kansas City.
Back to the Aggie game there's a nice writeup on ISU's defense from A&M Coach Gillespie's perspective.
Let's see, here's a partial list:
Curtis Stinson Big 12 Player of the Week, Andy Katz's national player of the week
ISU on the front pages of ESPN.com and SI.com and front sports page stories in the NY Times, Boston Globe, USA Today and just about everywhere else that matters
A spot in everybody's bracket projections and #26 in the AP poll
It's pretty strange that last week the Cyclones were barely making it onto a few of the bubble lists and one win lets them essentially skip all the way over the bubble and into the tournament. I've seen seeding projections everywhere from 8-12 seeds. An 8 seed puts them against a #1 seed if they win in the first round which is tough but there are some beatable top seeds this year. Boston College, UNC, UK and KU are all potential #1's that I could see being upset. A 12 seed sets up a decent run against a 5 and 4. Pretty much any seed sounds good at this point and there's a lot of basketball to play.
I'm a little worried about the upcoming game for the Cyclones. A&M isn't a bad team and the potential for a slipup is looming while everyone is busy patting them on the back. The team needs to stay focused and lock up a win in College Station to really make some ground in the NCAA and Big 12 seeding. A KU win over OU tonight would allow ISU to move into the 4th seed in the Big 12 tournament which would really help them out. It wouldn't surprise to see them make a run into Sunday in the tournament. It's going to help that the tournament in in Kansas City.
Back to the Aggie game there's a nice writeup on ISU's defense from A&M Coach Gillespie's perspective.
# posted by Ben @ 3:22 PM 
