Welcome From Ames!

Joined
Mar 21, 2022
Messages
2
First, let me say how excited we are to be back in the Sweet 16. I'm going to assume that neither fanbase had expectations their team would still be here so both teams will be playing with house money. Hoping for a good game! If you make the trip to Chicago expect to see a TON of ISU alumni. Chicago is about a 5 hour drive from Ames and there is a lot of graduates living in the area. We are a very fun crew and love Busch light so expect to party.

I figured I would give you the lowdown on what to expect from our team. You can completely ignore the 2 win season last year as the entire roster was turned over with transfers and a new coaching staff. Our new headcoach TJ Otz was a long time assistant and married a former star player on the women's team. This is his dream job and it has showed. We are hopeful he can be our version of Coach K or Tom Izzo.

The Good: We play hard. Really hard. Our goal is to make you uncomfortable all game long and force turnovers. We have a fantastic defense and have frustrated a lot of teams. We are also very battle tested. Our 7-11 conference record might look bad, but 7 of 10 Big 12 teams were tourney caliber and we didn't lose a single non-conference game. We were also a rimmed out 3-pointer away from beating Kansas on the road and also led late at Baylor.

The Bad: We can be an absolutely atrocious offensive team. Isaiah Brockington is a stud and will get his, but outside of him we don't really have anyone who can create their own shot. Hunter and Kalscheur will have a nice game every now and then, but it can get ugly quickly. If you all get up by 10 we will have a hard time coming back. Our bigs also tend to get into foul trouble early and we don't have a ton of depth.

Key Players:
Brockington - By far our best player. First Team All-Big 12 player who is the heart and soul of the team. He takes a ton of long 2's, but makes them at a high clip. He's also a lefty and the main way other team's have stopped him is forcing him to go right. If he struggles we likely will lose.

Hunter - Very athletic freshman guard. Has the skills to be a future NBA player, but makes a ton of freshman mistakes. He totally dominated against LSU and then stunk it up against Wisconsin. His high's are super high, but low's can be very low. Hoping we see the good Hunter.

Kalscheur - Great defensive guard that is maybe the most frustrating shooter I've ever watched. He has hit the wrong side of the backboard multiple times this year, but has also gone off for 30. The games we have pulled away he has played well. Will likely guard your best player.

Grill/Kunc - Good solid role players who like to shoot 3's. Again, in games we played well one of the two has made shots. Kunc is a stretch 4 and teams sometimes lose him to wide open shots.

Conditt/Jones - Both big guys who rebound well, but struggle to score. They are in the game to set screens and get boards.

Again, hoping for a fun game. Every single Cyclone fan is overjoyed with how the season has gone and were on cloud 9 last night. Go Clones!

***Side note - the first football video game I ever owned was NCAA 2003. Miami was like A+ grades across the board. I have fond memories of playing with them and crushing everyone.
 
Advertisement
OP, thanks for your write-up. Appreciated. When I was young, I was a recruiter for a USG Agency in the DC area. Got me to 44 of the 50 states, including Iowa and Ames, many times. Have nothing but fond memories of ISU and the hospitable people.

I know ISU is Brockington's third school. Started at St. Bonaventure, then Penn State, now ISU. Sounds a bit like Charlie Moore, our well-traveled PG who has made all the difference for us this season.
 
Advertisement
First, let me say how excited we are to be back in the Sweet 16. I'm going to assume that neither fanbase had expectations their team would still be here so both teams will be playing with house money. Hoping for a good game! If you make the trip to Chicago expect to see a TON of ISU alumni. Chicago is about a 5 hour drive from Ames and there is a lot of graduates living in the area. We are a very fun crew and love Busch light so expect to party.

I figured I would give you the lowdown on what to expect from our team. You can completely ignore the 2 win season last year as the entire roster was turned over with transfers and a new coaching staff. Our new headcoach TJ Otz was a long time assistant and married a former star player on the women's team. This is his dream job and it has showed. We are hopeful he can be our version of Coach K or Tom Izzo.

The Good: We play hard. Really hard. Our goal is to make you uncomfortable all game long and force turnovers. We have a fantastic defense and have frustrated a lot of teams. We are also very battle tested. Our 7-11 conference record might look bad, but 7 of 10 Big 12 teams were tourney caliber and we didn't lose a single non-conference game. We were also a rimmed out 3-pointer away from beating Kansas on the road and also led late at Baylor.

The Bad: We can be an absolutely atrocious offensive team. Isaiah Brockington is a stud and will get his, but outside of him we don't really have anyone who can create their own shot. Hunter and Kalscheur will have a nice game every now and then, but it can get ugly quickly. If you all get up by 10 we will have a hard time coming back. Our bigs also tend to get into foul trouble early and we don't have a ton of depth.

Key Players:
Brockington - By far our best player. First Team All-Big 12 player who is the heart and soul of the team. He takes a ton of long 2's, but makes them at a high clip. He's also a lefty and the main way other team's have stopped him is forcing him to go right. If he struggles we likely will lose.

Hunter - Very athletic freshman guard. Has the skills to be a future NBA player, but makes a ton of freshman mistakes. He totally dominated against LSU and then stunk it up against Wisconsin. His high's are super high, but low's can be very low. Hoping we see the good Hunter.

Kalscheur - Great defensive guard that is maybe the most frustrating shooter I've ever watched. He has hit the wrong side of the backboard multiple times this year, but has also gone off for 30. The games we have pulled away he has played well. Will likely guard your best player.

Grill/Kunc - Good solid role players who like to shoot 3's. Again, in games we played well one of the two has made shots. Kunc is a stretch 4 and teams sometimes lose him to wide open shots.

Conditt/Jones - Both big guys who rebound well, but struggle to score. They are in the game to set screens and get boards.

Again, hoping for a fun game. Every single Cyclone fan is overjoyed with how the season has gone and were on cloud 9 last night. Go Clones!

***Side note - the first football video game I ever owned was NCAA 2003. Miami was like A+ grades across the board. I have fond memories of playing with them and crushing everyone.


Welcome, and thanks for the scouting report. I actually picked both Iowa State and Miami to make this round (though I obviously picked Miami to win).

I may not have expected "Sweet 16", but I have been very convinced of this team's potential from early in the season. We knew what we had in Isaiah Wong and Kameron McGusty when healthy, but we have had two obvious surprises.

The "loud" surprise has been Jordan Miller, the transfer from George Mason. In some early games, this guy made some stunning offensive moves, he is very thin with long arms and he will amaze people with the different angles and reverses he takes around the basket. I'm just being honest with you, Iowa State may have the greatest defense around, but you will be hard-pressed to guard Jordan Miller, simply because his moves are so unexpected. I've watched him go to "bottled up by the defense" to scoring an easy layup so many times this season. I wish we could have him back for one more year.

The more "quiet" surprise has been Charlie Moore, not because of his resume or 3-point shot, which are pretty well-known, but because he looks so unassuming and doesn't seem to do anything in a physically spectacular way. Over the past few years, we had a shorter guard who, when he was playing at his peak, could do some things that looked amazing on the court (he was also very short). He chose to transfer to Arkansas, and we got Charlie Moore to replace him. Charlie just makes good decisions. He is not the fastest, tallest, most athletic, or most...anything...he just gets the job done. At the end of the game, the stats look ordinary, but then you realize he was doing so much to make the team flow.

Finally, I have to mention our one big guy, Sam Waardenburg. Although I wish he would take a couple more threes, he is also an invaluable quieter member of the team who does the unsung stuff, particularly on defense and rebounds. It's one thing for a team to play defense well, in a one-on-one sense, but Miami swarms to the ball with double-teams, Miami is good about switching, Iowa State might be facing a tough go of things because of the fact that you won't get many easy baskets. And if you only have one reliable primary scorer, it might be tough to find an alternative when he gets double-teamed.

Obviously, we need to see how things play out. As well as we have scored in successful games, we have also hit some patches where we go cold for an entire half (almost never for a whole game, fortunately). And Miami needs to make sure that we approach our defensive approach (and target certain players) as we did against Auburn. We have beaten two consecutive "taller, more talented" teams, so I'm not worried that our defense will be broken. I just want to see us score very naturally and in an up-tempo transitional way. Wong/McGusty creating shots. Miller doing spectacular things around the basket. Moore and Waardenburg opening things up with a combo of outside shooting and inside driving.

Honestly, if this is about "who can score more", I cannot see Miami losing in that kind of a contest. If a low-scoring slog gets our offensive game off-balance, though, then we can possibly go ice-cold quickly.

See ya there!
 
First, let me say how excited we are to be back in the Sweet 16. I'm going to assume that neither fanbase had expectations their team would still be here so both teams will be playing with house money. Hoping for a good game! If you make the trip to Chicago expect to see a TON of ISU alumni. Chicago is about a 5 hour drive from Ames and there is a lot of graduates living in the area. We are a very fun crew and love Busch light so expect to party.

I figured I would give you the lowdown on what to expect from our team. You can completely ignore the 2 win season last year as the entire roster was turned over with transfers and a new coaching staff. Our new headcoach TJ Otz was a long time assistant and married a former star player on the women's team. This is his dream job and it has showed. We are hopeful he can be our version of Coach K or Tom Izzo.

The Good: We play hard. Really hard. Our goal is to make you uncomfortable all game long and force turnovers. We have a fantastic defense and have frustrated a lot of teams. We are also very battle tested. Our 7-11 conference record might look bad, but 7 of 10 Big 12 teams were tourney caliber and we didn't lose a single non-conference game. We were also a rimmed out 3-pointer away from beating Kansas on the road and also led late at Baylor.

The Bad: We can be an absolutely atrocious offensive team. Isaiah Brockington is a stud and will get his, but outside of him we don't really have anyone who can create their own shot. Hunter and Kalscheur will have a nice game every now and then, but it can get ugly quickly. If you all get up by 10 we will have a hard time coming back. Our bigs also tend to get into foul trouble early and we don't have a ton of depth.

Key Players:
Brockington - By far our best player. First Team All-Big 12 player who is the heart and soul of the team. He takes a ton of long 2's, but makes them at a high clip. He's also a lefty and the main way other team's have stopped him is forcing him to go right. If he struggles we likely will lose.

Hunter - Very athletic freshman guard. Has the skills to be a future NBA player, but makes a ton of freshman mistakes. He totally dominated against LSU and then stunk it up against Wisconsin. His high's are super high, but low's can be very low. Hoping we see the good Hunter.

Kalscheur - Great defensive guard that is maybe the most frustrating shooter I've ever watched. He has hit the wrong side of the backboard multiple times this year, but has also gone off for 30. The games we have pulled away he has played well. Will likely guard your best player.

Grill/Kunc - Good solid role players who like to shoot 3's. Again, in games we played well one of the two has made shots. Kunc is a stretch 4 and teams sometimes lose him to wide open shots.

Conditt/Jones - Both big guys who rebound well, but struggle to score. They are in the game to set screens and get boards.

Again, hoping for a fun game. Every single Cyclone fan is overjoyed with how the season has gone and were on cloud 9 last night. Go Clones!

***Side note - the first football video game I ever owned was NCAA 2003. Miami was like A+ grades across the board. I have fond memories of playing with them and crushing everyone.
Good post! I’ve visited Ames on a couple of occasions. The Iowa State campus is very beautiful, including Jack Trice Stadium. Lots of cool architecture around campus.

It should be a great game. Both teams are playing with a chip on their shoulder.
 
Welcome, and thanks for the scouting report. I actually picked both Iowa State and Miami to make this round (though I obviously picked Miami to win).

I may not have expected "Sweet 16", but I have been very convinced of this team's potential from early in the season. We knew what we had in Isaiah Wong and Kameron McGusty when healthy, but we have had two obvious surprises.

The "loud" surprise has been Jordan Miller, the transfer from George Mason. In some early games, this guy made some stunning offensive moves, he is very thin with long arms and he will amaze people with the different angles and reverses he takes around the basket. I'm just being honest with you, Iowa State may have the greatest defense around, but you will be hard-pressed to guard Jordan Miller, simply because his moves are so unexpected. I've watched him go to "bottled up by the defense" to scoring an easy layup so many times this season. I wish we could have him back for one more year.

The more "quiet" surprise has been Charlie Moore, not because of his resume or 3-point shot, which are pretty well-known, but because he looks so unassuming and doesn't seem to do anything in a physically spectacular way. Over the past few years, we had a shorter guard who, when he was playing at his peak, could do some things that looked amazing on the court (he was also very short). He chose to transfer to Arkansas, and we got Charlie Moore to replace him. Charlie just makes good decisions. He is not the fastest, tallest, most athletic, or most...anything...he just gets the job done. At the end of the game, the stats look ordinary, but then you realize he was doing so much to make the team flow.

Finally, I have to mention our one big guy, Sam Waardenburg. Although I wish he would take a couple more threes, he is also an invaluable quieter member of the team who does the unsung stuff, particularly on defense and rebounds. It's one thing for a team to play defense well, in a one-on-one sense, but Miami swarms to the ball with double-teams, Miami is good about switching, Iowa State might be facing a tough go of things because of the fact that you won't get many easy baskets. And if you only have one reliable primary scorer, it might be tough to find an alternative when he gets double-teamed.

Obviously, we need to see how things play out. As well as we have scored in successful games, we have also hit some patches where we go cold for an entire half (almost never for a whole game, fortunately). And Miami needs to make sure that we approach our defensive approach (and target certain players) as we did against Auburn. We have beaten two consecutive "taller, more talented" teams, so I'm not worried that our defense will be broken. I just want to see us score very naturally and in an up-tempo transitional way. Wong/McGusty creating shots. Miller doing spectacular things around the basket. Moore and Waardenburg opening things up with a combo of outside shooting and inside driving.

Honestly, if this is about "who can score more", I cannot see Miami losing in that kind of a contest. If a low-scoring slog gets our offensive game off-balance, though, then we can possibly go ice-cold quickly.

See ya there!
I'm pretty sure Jordan Miller is eligible to come back next year. In fact, I am kind of counting on it. I agree with you on how he has been fun to watch and an underappreciated part of our success. In fact, you could chart our turnaround by getting him in the starting lineup. Based on everyone else who will be gone, he stands to be our top returning player.
 
Advertisement
Congratulations to the Cyclones for making the Sweet 16 also! I’d love to visit Ames, I have heard it is lovely country but haven’t made it as of yet. As to Friday night, both teams play fundamentally sound, pressing defense. It will be who can make the easier of buckets that will come out on top, obviously. I like our 3 starting guards rotation of McGusty, Moore, and Wong to potentially be the difference in this game. We have 3 legit ball handlers so pressing one of them will leave holes for the other two to exploit. I think the team that gets to the candy stripe the most will move on to the Elite 8.
 
Advertisement
Your write up on the Cyclones seems very similar to what I’d write on the Canes, two teams who turn the other over at a high clip. Should be a tight low scoring game

Correct, except Miami doesn't turn the ball over on the offensive end as much as ISU does.

Miami is 5th in the country in turnover margin.

Iowa State has a very good mark here too, 30th in the country. They've forced more turnovers than we have, but they have turned the ball over more than 120 times more than Miami has.

But this is definitely good on good. Both teams are very good at forcing them a lot more than they give them away. It'll definitely be one of the keys of the game for sure. If Miami has a similar number of turnovers as the first 2 games in this tournament, it's going to be VERY difficult for ISU to be efficient enough on offense to win.

Some context via numbers:

Miami is 352nd out of 358 schools in turnovers per game. We only turn it over 9.3 times a game. That's beyond incredible.
Iowa State commits the 78th most turnovers per game in the country. 13.7 per game.

Where Iowa State gets you is turnovers forced per game. They're 13th in the country at 16.7 per game forced. A fantastic number.
However, Miami is pretty **** good here too. 88th in the country at 13.9 forced per game.

Overall, Miami has a much better ratio. We're +4.6 in turnovers. Iowa State is +3.0. Keep you eye on turnovers on Friday, they're going to tell a very big story. Both teams success is predicated largely on this number.
 
Last edited:
Advertisement
I'm going to assume that neither fanbase had expectations their team would still be here so both teams will be playing with house money.

I had ISU in this spot in my bracket.
It took all of 3 minutes reviewing your schedule to figure out that the 'Clones were going to be a tough out.
 
I'm pretty sure Jordan Miller is eligible to come back next year. In fact, I am kind of counting on it. I agree with you on how he has been fun to watch and an underappreciated part of our success. In fact, you could chart our turnaround by getting him in the starting lineup. Based on everyone else who will be gone, he stands to be our top returning player.
Miller has 2 year’s eligibility left
 
Advertisement
Back
Top