The Bearcats huge December 22 basketball game against the Iowa State Cyclones has lost a little bit of luster as it has been reported that Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg is leaving to coach the Chicago Bulls. Just perusing a list of some of the coaching candidates, while Iowa State should still land a nice coach, it can’t be expected that they will have the same kind of frantic play and cohesion they had under Hoiberg.
This was a team that had a very specific style of play, namely a fast paced offense based on good shot selection and 3 point shooting. The defense left a lot to be desired, which is something that the next coach will probably try to fix. Iowa State’s defense cost them pretty huge when they couldn’t get an offensive rebound in their first round NCAA tournament loss to UAB. Still, there were few teams as fun to watch on a nightly basis as the Iowa State Cyclones under Fred Hoiberg. With him out the picture, the whole story changes for them.
This isn’t to say that Iowa State won’t be a top 10 team or be very good next season. They shouldn’t be bad when December 22 rolls around. What is going to happen is that the Iowa State team we were expecting when the series was announced is (probably) not going to be the same version we saw the last three seasons specifically.
This could be a great thing for UC, it could be a bad thing for UC. We won’t know until November. What we know today is that Iowa State is going to be dropped a few pegs in the minds of many and the lists of many. Some had them as a top 3 team going into next season. ISU is sure to be a success but maybe not to that extreme hype.
Since the Bearcats will probably only play Iowa State in December, it’s easy to not give a shit how Iowa State ends up being in 2016 because it doesn’t matter that much. That game won’t be the difference between UC making the NCAA tournament or the NIT. It could possibly be a seeding game, but it’s next to impossible to say for sure when we don’t even know the schedule.
We are looking at a one game sample of Cincinnati vs Iowa State. That sample would have been a lot bigger if Fred Hoiberg stayed. Instead, a BIG GAME becomes simply a BIG game. The title says ‘loses some luster’ not loses all the luster.
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