In Knoxville

Fennelly still coach at Iowa St?

Amazing. Bill Fennelly coming full circle.

(03-12-2023 07:27 PM)Rocket_Fanatic Wrote:  Fennelly still coach at Iowa St?

Yes

When?

Saturday.

Love Bill. They don't match up great with us... they shoot a lot of threes. Sadly we'd have to beat Tenn at their place in front of 14k fans if we win. So many closer regions...

I noticed that Bill’s team looks very much like his Toledo teams almost always looked. And I’ll bet they play zone and can all shoot the J.

If anyone seriously still thought UT could get an at-large bid, all you have to do is look at Columbia:

NET 47
Record 23-5
Top 50 wins: 2
Top 100 wins: 7
OOC SOS: 89

And still no bid. Instead they took 4 teams with lower NET's including West Virginia (B12) at NET 60, and St John's (Big East) at NET 55 who had one of the weakest OOC schedules in the country. The only mid-major conference with 2 bids was the WCC, where Gonzaga lost in their title game to Portland - and that is only because, well it's Gonzaga and they are have special P6-adjacent anointed status. No other mid-major will ever get 2 bids in this system.

Heck Middle Tennessee has a NET 28 (should be a 7ish seed) and they got an 11 seed, while Oklahoma had a NET of 38 (should be a 10ish seed) and got a 5 seed. The committee doesn't care.

BG, Ball State and Kent get WNIT bids. Bracket not out til tomorrow.

This will be the 1st time ever Toledo will play Iowa State.

For all his proclaimed affection for Toledo, the fact that Fennelly has never scheduled UT even once in 22 years says a lot. They've played a lot of mid-majors over those years, but no Toledo, In fact, you are hard-pressed to find a MAC opponent. Checking schedules for the last 10 years, the only MAC teams they played were CMU once (but that was in a MTE, so not specifically scheduled by ISU) and EMU once in a strange game they scheduled to play up in Canada in the home town of one of the ISU players. That was played in a tiny gym, and I don't know why EMU was picked to play that, but maybe they were the only team willing to.

Iowa St and Toledo are very similar statistically, but of course ISU had a much tougher schedule. The only comparative games one might use is that ISU split 2 close games with Oklahoma State - a team that lost to Kent State in Stillwater, and of course, UT beat Kent 3 times. They also beat Cleveland State handily 87-54. CSU beat badly four of UT's weaker opponents - CMU, Akron, Oakland (2x) and Wright State (2x).

(03-12-2023 09:04 PM)northcoastRocket Wrote:  If anyone seriously still thought UT could get an at-large bid, all you have to do is look at Columbia:

NET 47
Record 23-5
Top 50 wins: 2
Top 100 wins: 7
OOC SOS: 89

And still no bid. Instead they took 4 teams with lower NET's including West Virginia (B12) at NET 60, and St John's (Big East) at NET 55 who had one of the weakest OOC schedules in the country. The only mid-major conference with 2 bids was the WCC, where Gonzaga lost in their title game to Portland - and that is only because, well it's Gonzaga and they are have special P6-adjacent anointed status. No other mid-major will ever get 2 bids in this system.

Heck Middle Tennessee has a NET 28 (should be a 7ish seed) and they got an 11 seed, while Oklahoma had a NET of 38 (should be a 10ish seed) and got a 5 seed. The committee doesn't care.

And we beat Louisville by 20, or so, at home -- they received a 5-seed

3:30 start time on Saturday, after the Tennessee game. So, maybe all the Vols fans will have left and the Rockets fans who make the trip can make it a home game.

(03-13-2023 07:00 AM)northcoastRocket Wrote:  This will be the 1st time ever Toledo will play Iowa State.

For all his proclaimed affection for Toledo, the fact that Fennelly has never scheduled UT even once in 22 years says a lot. They've played a lot of mid-majors over those years, but no Toledo, In fact, you are hard-pressed to find a MAC opponent. Checking schedules for the last 10 years, the only MAC teams they played were CMU once (but that was in a MTE, so not specifically scheduled by ISU) and EMU once in a strange game they scheduled to play up in Canada in the home town of one of the ISU players. That was played in a tiny gym, and I don't know why EMU was picked to play that, but maybe they were the only team willing to.

Iowa St and Toledo are very similar statistically, but of course ISU had a much tougher schedule. The only comparative games one might use is that ISU split 2 close games with Oklahoma State - a team that lost to Kent State in Stillwater, and of course, UT beat Kent 3 times. They also beat Cleveland State handily 87-54. CSU beat badly four of UT's weaker opponents - CMU, Akron, Oakland (2x) and Wright State (2x).

The teams won't look similar when they get on the floor. I looked at their roster and all of their starters are 5-11 or taller. And their post player is 6-6 and averages 14 points a game although I am not sure that this player is still on the active roster. And the first two players off the bench are 6-3 and 6-2. So they may actually be bigger than Tennessee.

(03-13-2023 02:18 PM)kazoorocket43 Wrote:  

(03-13-2023 07:00 AM)northcoastRocket Wrote:  This will be the 1st time ever Toledo will play Iowa State.

For all his proclaimed affection for Toledo, the fact that Fennelly has never scheduled UT even once in 22 years says a lot. They've played a lot of mid-majors over those years, but no Toledo, In fact, you are hard-pressed to find a MAC opponent. Checking schedules for the last 10 years, the only MAC teams they played were CMU once (but that was in a MTE, so not specifically scheduled by ISU) and EMU once in a strange game they scheduled to play up in Canada in the home town of one of the ISU players. That was played in a tiny gym, and I don't know why EMU was picked to play that, but maybe they were the only team willing to.

Iowa St and Toledo are very similar statistically, but of course ISU had a much tougher schedule. The only comparative games one might use is that ISU split 2 close games with Oklahoma State - a team that lost to Kent State in Stillwater, and of course, UT beat Kent 3 times. They also beat Cleveland State handily 87-54. CSU beat badly four of UT's weaker opponents - CMU, Akron, Oakland (2x) and Wright State (2x).

The teams won't look similar when they get on the floor. I looked at their roster and all of their starters are 5-11 or taller. And their post player is 6-6 and averages 14 points a game although I am not sure that this player is still on the active roster. And the first two players off the bench are 6-3 and 6-2. So they may actually be bigger than Tennessee.

Their starting post player was injured several weeks ago and I believe is out for the season. Her back up is 6’4 ish .