TCondon's Thoughts on NCAAs, the recent struggles, etc.

[Sex Panther...]

The white flag has been raised. I give up. No more efforts to defend Brooks. In the past week I have heard that he is not a Division 1 athlete and now today we have a local sports radio personality trying to sell me on the fact that he has no business being a starting point guard in the MVC...a position he has held for the better part of two years on a team that has achieved the success UNI has. It is a sad state of affairs that Coach McDermott hasn't been able to find an alternative to this obvious liability in a three year span of time. While I'd still like to hear some valid points as to why tcondon thinks Brooks has no business playing big minutes in the MVC, I realize I am beating my head against the wall. Bash away while I continue to root for ALL players on the floor in silence.

[Sex Panther...]

For the love of this thread, why do all the Brooks lovers feel like they have to defend him? I could go off on "Executed the offense, played solid defense, provided leadership." That is FALSE. Currently Brooks skills are regressing, ... it was about time he sat his butt on the pine. I agree the team played poorly and they lost. No doubt that every loss is a team loss and every win is a team win. Out of respect for the tread let's get back on track...

The first post in this thread made the statement that Brooks wasn't a MVC caliber starter. I inquired as to why. You stuck your nose into the conversation.

[tcondon]

What about Arkansas and Alabama? Virginia? And where does the cut-off line in the Big East begin?

Watching the Arkansas/Alabama game the other night, I believe that they are NCAA Tournament teams. Here's my take on the major conference teams...

Big East: 6 Locks- 'Nova, UConn, Pitt, WV, Marq, Georgetown

Bubble resumes

Syracuse 19-8 (7-6) RPI 30, SOS 13, 2-7 vs. top 50. Best road win at Cincinatti (RPI 22). Best home win against WV (RPI 33).

Cincinatti 18-9 (7-6) RPI 22, SOS 6, 3-6 vs. top 50. Best road Wins? Marquette (RPI 20) & Syracuse (RPI 30). Neutral floor win vs. LSU in Vegas.

Seton Hall 16-9 (7-6) RPI 52, SOS 35, 3-5 vs. top 50. Best road win? NC State (RPI 26) & Syracuse (RPI 30). Has lost 3 of 4.

Prediction: I feel two of these teams will get in, probably the Cuse and Cincy as I can see Seton Hall falling twice more. SOS will get both the Orange and the Bearcats in, even if they falter down the stretch.

ACC: 4 Locks-Duke, UNC, NC State, Boston College

Bubble resumes:

Florida State 17-7 (7-6) RPI 58, SOS 98, 1-5 vs. top 50. Best road win? Wake Forest (RPI 104). Quality win over Maryland (RPI 48), that's it.

Virginia 14-10 (7-6) RPI 59, SOS 39, 2-6 vs. top 50. Best road win? Virginia Tech (RPI 121). Best win over North Carolina (RPI 15).

Maryland 15-10 (6-7): RPI 48, SOS 14, 1-6 vs. the top 50. Best road win? Georgia Tech (RPI 142). Two quality neutral floor wins over Arkansas (RPI 55) and GW (RPI 31)

Prediction: Florida State picks up a road victory over either VT or Miami and wins one in the ACC tourney to get in, 5 teams from the ACC.


Big Ten: 6 Locks-Iowa, Ohio State, Illinois, Wisconsin, Mich. St., Michigan

Bubble resumes:

Indiana 14-10 (6-7): RPI 44, SOS 20, 4-7 vs. top 50. Best road win? Charlotte (RPI 97), neutral floor wins over Kentucky (RPI 36) and Butler (RPI 82). 2-7 last 9 games.

Minnesota 14-10 (5-8): RPI 65, SOS 22, 3-7 vs. top 50. Best road win? Penn State (RPI 116). Home wins vs. Iowa (RPI 10) MSU (RPI 13), UAB (RPI 53), Indiana (RPI 44).

Prediction: 6 is the number from the Big Ten. Indiana puts together a decent run in the tourney, winning the 7/10 game and pulls an upset in the quarters, but it isn't enough.

Big XII: 3 Locks-Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma

Bubble resumes:

Colorado 17-7 (7-6): RPI 50, SOS 104, 2-2 vs. the top 50. Best road win? Oklahoma State (RPI 90). Two top 50 wins over Oklahoma and UNC-Wilmington.

Texas A&M 17-7 (7-6): RPI 71, SOS 113, 1-4 vs. top 50. Best road win? Iowa State (RPI 74). Top 50 win over Colorado (RPI 50). 263 nonconference SOS.

Nebraska 17-9 (7-6): RPI 98, SOS 93, 3-5 vs. top 50. Best road win? Iowa State (RPI 74). Top 50 wins over Oklahoma (RPI 17), Marquette (RPI 20) & Colorado (RPI 50).

Prediction: I like Nebraska's resume for some reason. Their RPI is awful because they played 6 games against teams ranked 264 or worse in the RPI. Nebraska wins two of their last 3, wins a game in the tourney and gets in as the 4th team from the Big XII.

SEC: 5 Locks-Florida, LSU, Tennessee, Kentucky & Alabama is a lock with a SOS of 5. Take a look at bubble teams in the past with a high SOS.

Bubble Resumes:

Arkansas 18-8 (7-6) RPI 55, SOS 73, 4-6 vs. top 50. Best road win? Auburn (RPI 108). Neutral floor wins over Kansas (RPI 42) and Texas Tech (RPI 114). Home wins vs. Missouri State (RPI 24) and Florida (RPI 25).

South Carolina 13-11 (5-7) RPI 60, SOS 19, 3-6 vs. top 50. Best road win? Florida (RPI 25). Home wins over Florida and Alabama.

Prediction: Arkansas gets in as well, winning two more games to get to the 20 win plateau. South Carolina will actually be one of the last teams left out.

Pac Ten: 3 Locks-UCLA, Washington, Cal

Bubble resumes:

Stanford 13-10 (9-5) RPI 87 SOS 74, 1-4 vs. top 50. Best road win? Arizona State (RPI 164). This team is out.

Arizona 16-10 (9-6) RPI 18 SOS 3, 5-3 vs. RPI top 50. Best road win? Washington (RPI 35) Neutral floor win over Kansas (RPI 42). Home win over Western Kentucky (RPI 38).

Prediction: SOS again comes into play, as Arizona gets in at the end. The streak continues for Lute's kids.

[#1pantherfan]

UNI is struggling, no doubt. First, to the people that think this is indicitive of McDermott's coaching down the stretch, UNI has gone 7-3 and 9-1 in his final 10 games of the season the last two years.

UNI did a great job of adjusting when Crawford went out. 7-1 without him. Now that he is back, the team is struggling finding their roles again. To put it bluntly, Brooks McKowen isn't good enough to be playing at the Missouri Valley conference level as a starting point guard. After stealing one against Bucknell, I thought the team might start to turn the corner. Instead, they are facing a tough game @ Southern Illinois against another struggling team, the Salukis.

UNI is not on the bubble at this point. Take every team that is considered on the bubble. UNI still has an RPI of 28 today. They are 22-7 on the season. They have a great win down in Baton Rouge over LSU (#14 RPI). Two other quality road wins over Missouri State (RPI 24) and Wichita State (RPI 21). They beat Iowa (RPI 10), Wichita (RPI 21) and Bucknell (RPI 34) at home.

7-5 vs. the top 50. No bad losses in the 200s, one loss in the 100s @ Indiana State who had David Moss back. 48 in Strength of Schedule. And even if UNI losses to SIU on Saturday and in the first round of the Valley Tournament, they would only be 4-6 in their last 10.

Lets take a look at some other bubble teams like Maryland, Colorado and UAB.

Maryland 15-10 (6-7): RPI 48, SOS 14, 1-6 vs. the top 50. Best road win? Georgia Tech (RPI 142). Two quality neutral floor wins over Arkansas (RPI 55) and GW (RPI 31)

Colorado 17-7 (7-6): RPI 50, SOS 104, 2-2 vs. the top 50. Best road win? Oklahoma State (RPI 90). Two top 50 wins over Oklahoma and UNC-Wilmington.

UAB 18-5 (9-2): RPI 53, SOS 162, 0-2 vs. the top 50. Best road win? Nebraska (RPI 98). No quality wins to speak of.

UTEP 15-7 (9-2): RPI 78, SOS 133, 0-3 vs. the top 50.

After the automatic bids have been given, try to find me 34 teams that are better than UNI, even with this recent slide. You can't do it.

is this the same tcondon that went to Minneapolis last weekend to watch Iowa Vs Minnesota when UNI was playing in the dome against Bucknell.
That stuff just makes me sick. jump off the UNI bandwagon right now.

[chester]

Tcondon, just a correction to Maryland, they actually lost to George Washington. Which is good for the Panthers.

[wloopanther]

I am really getting sick of this board. Not for people discussing our team, coaches, and administration, but the fans and people on this board. The previous post was ridiculous.

Jump off the bandwagon?

There was a thread about people leaving the game early last night...who cares they were there and we were getting destroyed...let them leave but dont tell them not to come back

TC is a big supporter of UNI basketball. You can tell from his posts and his show if you ever listen to it. Maybe he had this trip planned for months before the UNI time for the Bucknell game was even announced. It did come out like a week before the game as i remember.....

I have an idea, everyone who talks bad about the team or coaches should jump off the bandwagon.... #1 Pantherfan your post makes me sick.

Great idea....get rid of all of the fans of the team!

[Middy33]

As for Brookes's shooting being different there are probly a few different things.

1) lack of confidence

2) some players are rhythm shooters. meaning they need more than 1 shot every 5 min. to get their shot to be more consistent. Its hard to get in a groove when u only get a couple opportunities a game. Its hard to find players that can just come in and hit a shot consistently without getting in a rhythm.

Just my 2 cents.

[BCPanther]

Sex Panther,
You and I are in the same boat. I am so sick of the Brooks bashing. TC is an Iowa fan and has to masquerade that he pays attention to UNI because his show is in CF. The comment that Brooks was a great shooter in high school is also incorrect. He is a streak shooter not a great shooter. In high school he was options 1-5 on the floor, he could go out miss his first 3 or 4 or 6 shots and still find his stroke and end up with 40 points.

McKowen also had offers from Creighton and SMS coming out of high school. If he was at Creighton, playing a bunch and putting up the same numbers while they continued to win, people would be blasting McDermott about not recruiting him. Look at the end of last season, It was when Mac decided that Chris Foster had to start and play all the time that the team lost to SIU, Brooks started and they beat Bradley, Foster went back into the lineup and they escaped at Wichita thanks to Benny. Then with Foster playing over 25 minutes they lost to both SMS and Wisconsin in games that should have been wins.

We don't want to criticize the fan favorites for not bringing emotion to the middle parts of games, so we can just blame Brooks for the losses. These same people were singing a different tune when Brooks was the leading scorer for a few games when Crawford was out and when he buried two big threes against Iowa.

[panther2317]

Well, I have my Field of 65 ready to go. In 1-bid leagues, I just picked the current leader. The Patriot and the WAC, as well as Conference USA are leagues that UNI will want the current leaders (Bucknell, Nevada and Memphis) to win their league tournaments.

So, here goes:

Albany (American East Auto)
George Washington (Atlantic 10 Auto)
Charlotte (Atlantic 10 At-large)
Duke (ACC Auto)
NC State (ACC At-large)
North Carolina (ACC At-large)
Boston College (ACC At-large)
Lipscomb (Atlantic Sun Auto)
Texas (Big 12 Auto)
Kansas (Big 12 At-large)
Oklahoma (Big 12 At-large)
Colorado (Big 12 At-large)
Villanova (Big East Auto)
Connecticut (Big East At-large)
Pittsburgh (Big East At-large)
West Virginia (Big East At-large)
Georgetown (Big East At-large)
Marquette (Big East At-large)
Syracuse (Big East At-large)
Cincinnati (Big East At-large)
Northern Arizona (Big Sky Auto)
Birmingham Southern (Big South Auto)
Ohio State (Big 10 Auto)
Iowa (Big 10 At-large)
Wisconsin (Big 10 At-large)
Illinois (Big 10 At-large)
Michigan (Big 10 At-large)
Michigan State (Big 10 At-large)
Pacific (Big West Auto)
George Mason (Colonial Auto)
UNC-Wilmington (Colonial At-large)
Memphis (C-USA Auto)
UAB (C-USA At-large)
UW-Milwaukee (Horizon Auto)
Penn (Ivy Auto)
Iona (Metro Atlantic Auto)
IUPUI (MId-Con Auto)
Kent State (MAC Auto)
Delaware State (MEAC Auto)
Wichita State (Valley Auto)
Creighton (Valley At-large)
UNI (Valley At-large)
Missouri State (Valley At-large)
San Diego State (Mountain West Auto)
Air Force (Mountain West At-large)
Fairleigh Dickinson (Northeast Auto)
Murray State (Ohio Valley Auto)
UCLA (Pac-10 Auto)
California (Pac-10 At-large)
Washington (Pac-10 At-large)
Arizona (Pac-10 At-large)
Bucknell (Patriot Auto)
LSU (SEC Auto)
Tennessee (SEC At-large)
Florida (SEC At-large)
Kentucky (SEC At-large)
Alabama (SEC At-large)
Arkansas (SEC At-large)
Georgia Southern (Southern Auto)
NW State (Southland Auto)
Southern (SWAC Auto)
Western Kentucky (Sun Belt Auto)
Gonzaga (WCC Auto)
Nevada (WAC Auto)

OK, I've got 64 teams in and I'm looking for one more at-large between:
Florida State (17-7)
Virginia (14-10)
Miami (15-12)
Texas A&M (17-7)
Nebraska (17-9)
Seton Hall (16-9)
Louisville (17-9)
Indiana (14-10)
Minnesota (14-10)
Hofstra (20-5)
Old Dominion (19-8)
UTEP (17-7)
Akron (19-7)
Southern Illinois (18-10)
Bradley (17-9)
Stanford (13-10)
USC (16-9)
Louisiana Tech (17-10)
Utah State (18-6)

Who would you guys keep in, leave out?

[MediaPanther]

Look at the end of last season, It was when Mac decided that Chris Foster had to start and play all the time that the team lost to SIU, Brooks started and they beat Bradley, Foster went back into the lineup and they escaped at Wichita thanks to Benny. Then with Foster playing over 25 minutes they lost to both SMS and Wisconsin in games that should have been wins.

But don't you see what you are doing? You are doing the same thing to Foster that people are doing to Brooks.....blaming someone for the losses. However, NO ONE is blaming Brooks for the loss, they are just recognizing that his play has been poor as of late and the offense is struggling. The pg has many of the same responsibilities as the quarterback does on a football team. When the offense is struggling, people look to those positions for answers as to why. Does that mean that the pg and qb are the reason teams lose....of course not.....it just means that with those positions comes extra responsibility when it comes to how the offense is operating.

OUR LOSSES HAVE NOT BEEN BROOKS' FAULT

everyone can agree with this statement because it's a team game, but it's also easy to agree that his play has been poor.

[BCPanther]

I am not blaming Chris Foster. I am just trying to say that all anyone sees with Brooks are the negative and no one has bothered to look at his career record as a starter, its something like 62-28 (approx)

[PantherAlum05]

Must be a ton of folks from Wapsie Valley on this site. Can anyone admit that Brooks McKown is not a D1 basketball player? I really wish Mike Williams would learn the offense or whatever it is that is keeping him from more PT, because Brooks is not getting it done.

[MediaPanther]

I am not blaming Chris Foster. I am just trying to say that all anyone sees with Brooks are the negative and no one has bothered to look at his career record as a starter, its something like 62-28 (approx)

I believe that's actually UNI's record, not Brooks'. Brooks has never actually won or lost any games, but his TEAM has.

[BCPanther]

You are correct Media, point well taken!!!

Alum, I am not from Fairbank (ps-Wapsie Valley is not a town, its a school and I did not go there)

[Born-a-Panther]

jump off the UNI bandwagon right now.

I have to say that coming to this board as of lately has not been quite the positive experience it used to be. This use to be a place where Panther fans banned together, got excited during good times, comforted each other during bad times, set up tailgates to make new friends, etc etc etc. Now it's our own fans bashing our own fans and telling them we don't want their support at all.

I believe if I remember correctly, during the national championship run in football this year, Mark Farley said on more than one occassion that we welcomed the new fans - that anyone and everyone was welcome to jump on the bandwagon. Now I also hate the fact that there are people who put Iowa first and that UNI might be #2 in their hearts... but I also don't want to become a fan base that turns people away due to the other teams they might cheer for on the side of the Panthers. (Ask Ames what it's like to be converted from one team to another due to a group of fans). We're better than that. Okay, I've said my piece. Sorry, it's been on my mind -- and most who know me know that I'm a hugger, not a hater. And if you really want to help our team right now, how 'bout we embrace them rather than criticize them. Believe me, no one feels worse than they do right now.