The Painful Cyclone Realization

It was almost unbelievable... Almost.

I should have seen this coming. How could a team lose Melvin Ejim and DeAndre Kane and replace them with guys that are better? Because BDJ and Jameel McKay really haven’t been.

Jameel deserves some credit though, as he has played well throughout his 10 or so games this year.

It’s BDJ and Abdel Nader showing up late to shoot around, it’s the fact that Matt Thomas needs to pull the trigger with confidence.

I should have seen this coming after the Cyclones gave up that first upset to Maryland and then another to South Carolina, both in a non-conference schedule during which they should have gone undefeated.

And what about that Texas Tech loss, what in the world was that about?

I should have seen this coming that Iowa State would not be able to stop Kansas’ streak of 10 Big 12 regular season championships. I mean, even after the College GameDay win, were we supposed to go to Phog Allen Fieldhouse and win?

I didn’t expect Iowa State to go undefeated but I didn’t expect this.

I didn’t expect us to be “that team” that can’t get woken up for a less than average game, like the upsets we already mentioned, but also only beating Southern by ten, and playing UMKC as sloppily as we played Texas Tech.

I didn’t expect the road woes we’ve seen, even in Big 12 play. We started out with a very, very impressive road win at West Virginia. The next four games did not go near as well. Now all of the sudden, we can only play great basketball at home.

I didn’t expect us to say, “It’s not that we lost the game, it’s the way we played to lose that game.”

It’s all a kick in the nuts that we are used to seeing on the football field.

Don’t bring up the West Virginia game that Iowa State played horribly in last season which was almost exactly a year ago. Don’t bring up the success that came from those.

These games have happened far too often this season. Far too often for a program coached by Fred Hoiberg.

So what’s next? What will these seven Big 12 games show us before postseason play? What will we think then?