The posts about basketball are getting a bit tiring as we rehash the same rumors over and over, with no real information behind much of it. So let's say Fred leaves and Iowa State basketball goes in the crapper. How much football success would it take to make us not care so much about basketball?
I got to thinking about the answer to this, and unfortunately I think we would need to be in contention for a conference championship to forget about basketball. In the Big 12 if you are contending for the championship, you are also in the playoff discussion. Part of the problem with relying on football to keep our spirits up is there just isn't that many games. We could conceivably start off 5-0. That would make us happy, but because our schedule is backloaded, not many would project that as a breakthrough season yet. Most Cyclone fans would be expecting the other shoe to drop when the strength of the schedule hits. We wouldn't hit the euphoria stage until we pulled some upsets in the latter part of the season. So even in our wildest dreams, the high would be deferred till 2/3's of the way through the season, then dreamers would begin to dream. The bottom line is that it would take a miracle season to get us through a year where basketball is a cellar-dweller.
I got to thinking about the answer to this, and unfortunately I think we would need to be in contention for a conference championship to forget about basketball. In the Big 12 if you are contending for the championship, you are also in the playoff discussion. Part of the problem with relying on football to keep our spirits up is there just isn't that many games. We could conceivably start off 5-0. That would make us happy, but because our schedule is backloaded, not many would project that as a breakthrough season yet. Most Cyclone fans would be expecting the other shoe to drop when the strength of the schedule hits. We wouldn't hit the euphoria stage until we pulled some upsets in the latter part of the season. So even in our wildest dreams, the high would be deferred till 2/3's of the way through the season, then dreamers would begin to dream. The bottom line is that it would take a miracle season to get us through a year where basketball is a cellar-dweller.
