As painful as it is, I guess we have to root for Kansas, right?

8 Teams in from the Big XII with 6 Top 4 seeds!

If that holds, the Big XII record in the dance will be .750.

That is one thing they never discuss when tracking how well each conference does in the dance. How high the conference seeding was for it's teams. Makes a huge difference in overall record in the dance.

Diz

Is it just me, or do the look like actors playing spacemen in a 1950's science fiction movie????

66-65 on a three-pointer at the buzzer.

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Linking a piece here from my Rivals Illinois high school football colleague...

LINK

Had a good week at the Senior Bowl.

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UCL tear. 6 month’s minimum rehab, perhaps longer if Tommy John required. Heard Dr. David Chao talking it about it on Sirius.

Will Cyclones wear gold on Saturday for KU? The white out looked cool but a significant number of Cyclones didn’t get the message.

Iowa State Media Relations

AMES, Iowa – Four Iowa State players received invitations to the 2023 NFL Combine, held February 28-March 6 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Players that will represent the Cyclones at the Combine will be MJ Anderson (DE), Xavier Hutchinson (WR), Anthony Johnson Jr. (DB) and Will McDonald IV (DE).

A total of 319 players received invites to this year’s NFL Combine, held annually by the National Football League for prospective draft picks to showcase their skills in front of NFL scouts.

Hutchinson was a record-setting receiver for the Cyclones, breaking the single-season (107) and career record (254) for receptions. He was a Biletnikoff Award finalist and an Associated Press First Team All-American in 2022.

McDonald IV broke the Cyclone record and tied the Big 12 career record with 34.0 sacks. He was a three-time First Team All-Big 12 selection by the league’s coaches and in 2021 earned First Team All-American honors from the Football Writers Association of America.

Johnson Jr. made the move from cornerback to safety for his senior season and earned Second Team All-Big 12 honors after finishing with 60 tackles and two interceptions. He broke the Iowa State and Big 12 record with 54 career starts.

In his only season playing at Iowa State, Anderson finished with 37 tackles and 3.5 sacks. He had nine tackles for a loss and recovered a fumble for the Cyclones in 2022. In the season finale, Anderson tallied a season-high eight tackles.

The NFL Network will broadcast each day of the Combine.

I booked a room at the Springhill Suites which is within walking distance to the stadium, for $150/night, which looks like their normal rate compared to surrounding nights. Once they realize ISU is coming to town, that might double or more. 11 minute walk.

Not sure if this has been discussed already and I missed it, but if you go to Big 12 sports website, there are several athletes getting recognition for Black History Month and ISU has a couple I've honestly never heard of. Holloway Smith (1926-1928), the 2nd Black football player at ISU after Jack Trice. John Crawford is the other one mentioned, who was the first Black MBB player at ISU in the mid 50's.

Jack Trice does get mention as well.

I am an extremely casual wrestling follower. Fan would be vastly overstating it. When I was in college, I enjoyed going to meets and the 1965 or 66 NCAA's, don't remember the year.

But it is a sport I don't really understand. Kind of like Hockey. Very exciting when my grandson is involved, but I don't understand it. Same with wrestling. Love it when ISU is involved but don't really get it.

So, a question for the many of you who do get it. Are we flattening like we did last year at NCAA time? Seems like we wrested better earlier than we have lately. But I don't know if that is true or, if it is, why it is true.

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I-State remains at the top for 2024 LB

I want to give Tre King some love, especially for his first half 10 points. A handful of nice midrange shots. Also five rebounds. Yesterday may have been his best game? He was definitely part of the difference in the first half.

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Cyclones in solid early position for 2024 RB

Sold

... that Hilton fans can have an impact on the success of the team. We are the only Big 12 team to have 0 losses at home in conference. I hope it stays that way, and we can win 1-2 on the road. Fun back half of the conference season.

Jelani Hamilton's Wheeler High School Team plays Newton HS on ESPNU tonight at 6:00 pm.
Hamilton's teammate, Isaiah Collier, is the top ranked recruit coming out of high school (to USC).
Arinten Page, a 6-9 forward teammate is a 4-star recruit and also headed to USC.

Pregame write up​

It appears that expansion news is coming very soon. That MHVer3 guy is back tweeting after nearly 4 months silent. He claims that the PAC is dead pretty much for sure. Four of the PAC schools and Kliakoff pushed hard to take the deal that was $250M, but 6 schools said there was no way they were taking that deal. The deal consisted of Amazon taking the 11 best football games and 18 BB games for $100M/yr for 4 years. ESPN would take the remaining games for $150M.

He claims the maximum value for B12 expansion is taking 6 specific schools from the PAC. A few of the schools could be interchangeable within the CA market. Media consultants are claiming that the six schools alone could be worth the $250M that the PAC is being offered for the 10 members because of matchups being created in the B12. This would move B12 schools in the neighborhood of $35M each for every member.

The six schools in order are OR/WA/Stanford/CO/AZ/ASU. He says Utah can be substituted for any of the last 3 and value remains. The problem is Stanford would rather “die on the vine” than join the B12, and Cal as a replacement indicates the same. So this means that SDSU could really be in play for the B12 because the CA market is so valuable.

He also claims that basketball only members are in play. Everyone knows about Gonzaga but talks are currently going on with Villanova as well, and UCONN & St Johns are in play. Any basketball moves will come after expansion out West which appears to be really happening soon.

Dodd has us on the #3 line in Albany. Seems to be a common thread there.


Although two Big XII #1 Seeds with KU and Tejax.

Diz

We're going to be running late, so the closer the better (but any will do).