SB Nation - Cyrus Tate

"Time for Tate to step-up and earn his scholarship or he needs to re-imburse the school for his senior year especially if he is just worried about his 'pro career.'"

Oops Pow Surprise — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:40:27 -0000

The above quote is from a Pat Harty article about the injury situation plaguing the Hawkeyes this season. No, Harty's not dumb enough to write that himself; it comes from a commenter who totally knows how scholarships work.

We understand the frustration from seeing a star player go through a slow healing process, though the avenue through which that frustration was expressed was a peculiarly stupid choice. The notion that a player like Cyrus Tate, a team captain and his coach's favorite (by far) post player, would intentionally go into Operation Shutdown while his team crumbled around him is ludicrous. Players simply don't get to that level of competition--All-Big Ten, basically--without an intense competitive spirit that's foreign to even Internet Tough Guys! like the aforementioned commenter. If Tate wanted to quit on the team, he would have done it while he was sitting on the bench at the beginning of last season. Instead, he turned into Iowa's most consistent scorer as soon as he got an opportunity.

And look. We're not going to pretend that we've never been 7 beers deep on a Saturday and grumbled "play through it, you pussy" at a TV before (though in retrospect, that was not an appropriate reaction to the Ray Chapman incident). But when you read something like this:

"I plan on to hopefully continue playing basketball after (college)," Tate said. "This is a bad situation to be in because I want to be able to contribute to our team and help out and be a presence for our team. But right now, it's just something that I can't rush."

Tate said his ankle still hurts when he does certain things.

"The only way I can be effective for our team is being healthy and knowing that I can do something for our team," Tate said. "Right now, I can't change directions or really guard anybody. The pain is horrible.

"Hopefully, things can turn around in the next couple of weeks."

...why is it that only the first sentence of all of Tate's quotes matters? Regardless of what he wants to do with his life after school, if he can't play well, he can't play. You saw what he looked like against jNW. It was agonizing. He couldn't jump, had no post moves other than "stationary ball fake," and was about as useless as Jarryd Cole when Cole first came back from the ACL tear.

In fact, I'll go so far as to promise you this: nobody wants Tate back on that court and running more than himself. He knows he's not contributing when his team needs him the most, and if you've ever been in that situation or something like it, you know what a sick, horrible feeling it causes. Nobody wants to be a letdown.

Today is the 6-week anniversary of Tate's injury; high ankle sprains usually heal in a minimum of six weeks. That Tate tried to come back in four against jNW was some mix of admirable and stupid. If that aggravated the injury to the point that he's got another week on the shelf, well, we could see that. The doctors just granted him medical clearance, and we'll bet Tate tries to get some court work in today, evaluate his ankle tonight and tomorrow, and go from there. If it hurts too much today to be effective, back to the bench. If the pain doesn't comes back until the next day, fine: keep him resting on Saturday and evaluate on Sunday.

Look: Everyone wants Tate back out there. But high ankle sprains are bad, bad news, and it could be March before he's back to playing a full game. That's the reality of it. Going Internet Tough Guy! on the players, however, is barely better than booing, and I'd like to think that most Hawkeye fans are a little better than that.

Nitt Picks Throws a Lot At You

BSD — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:20:54 -0000

After a dominating win over a Michigan team that is struggling of late despite wins over Duke and UCLA earlier in the season, many people are starting to talk about Penn State's chances of making the NCAA tournament. Some guy from the Bleacher Report likes our chances.

While there is certainly a long way to go, I have to say I like their chances. At the beginning of the season, I think everyone involved with the PSU program would take their results up to this point in a heartbeat.

While yes, I'm pleased with the 15-5 record at this point, I'm not convinced our chances are yet "good." The much more knowledgeable Penn State basketball blog, Crispin and Cream, isn't shopping for dresses yet either.

Frankly, I don’t know too much about this PSU team yet. I know we have 2 first team all-conference candidates, but as far as team success? I know we can’t shoot foul shots. I know PSU barely beat a 9-9 Georgia Tech team on the road by 2 (they’re now 0-5 in the ACC). I know PSU beat a UM team that has looked a lot more like the team that barely beat Savannah State than the team that beat UCLA and Duke. I know PSU barely beat a Purdue squad who not only was struggling at the time, but was also without their two best players. Like David Jones says, sometimes the game outcomes result from when you played and not who you played.

Saturday we play Iowa which is a huge game for us. So you can imagine I was happy to see an article headline that read Iowa's Tate Likely Out Against Penn State. It's always nice to know your opponent is short handed when you play them. But then I read the article and saw this part.

David Palmer has stepped up in Tate's absence. The reserve forward is averaging 20 points and 7.5 since being inserted into starting lineup two games ago.

Ugh. That's better than the 7.3 points and 6.4 rebounds Cyrus Tate was doing. So maybe we're not so much catching a break here.

But one thing I've noticed as the season has progressed is the Andrews, Jones and Ott, have been getting steadily better in each game. Maybe assistant coach Lewis Preston is starting to have an impact.

Preston, who played at Virginia Military Institute in the early 1990s and still holds the Keydets’ career blocked shots record (202), has brought a physical and hands-on approach to his sessions with Penn State’s big men.

“It’s been fun,” said Jones, a 6-foot-9, 245-pound redshirt sophomore from Philadelphia. “He’s been working with me on a multitude of things — rebounding position, posting up, post moves, always trying to have my hands ready for passes or rebounds.”

Catching Battle’s no-look passes and staying out of foul trouble remain adventures for Jones, but his high-energy presence at both ends of the floor is beginning to yield results.

Through 20 games, he needs just seven rebounds to reach his 31-game total of last season (116). He leads the team and is third in the Big Ten with 44 offensive rebounds (eighth in offensive boards per game) and is 13th in the Big Ten in overall rebounding.

The play of Jones and Ott to counter the guard attack of Battle and Pringle are going to be huge down the stretch of this season.

Are You Kidding Me?

I saw this quote in an article about Purdue and it made me chuckle.

"We know we have to go inside early," Jackson said. "If we let the crowd get into it, it would be a battle just like it was at Northwestern and Penn State."

If you recall, classes were out of session and there was a terrible ice storm the night Purdue visited the Jordan Center. I guess those 500 senior citizens in attendance were pretty rowdy.

Let's Talk Some Football

It was really odd how silent Maurice Evans was all through the process of making the decision to enter the NFL draft. The supposed deadline passed last week and there was still confusion about his decision. This week the Sentinel caught up with him and helped shed some light on his thought process. In it he specifically discusses the marijuana incident.

Evans said that if he receives an invite to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis this spring he will attend and knows he must be honest with those who will interview him at the combine about his off-field situation.

“If I’m not invited it’s not a big deal. We still have pro day at Penn State (March 18). It gives me more time to improve, get bigger and faster. It would be a plus to get accepted to the combine,” Evans said.

“There was no sour relationship between me and coach Paterno. I was never mad at him for the decision he made. The decision for me leaving early was just something I was comfortable with. Like I said before I think I’m ready to compete.”

Derrick Williams seems to be putting things together after a shaky start to practice at the Senior Bowl. I love this quote.

"I'm driven by greatness."

That pretty much sums up his career at Penn State. I don't think I ever witnessed a player give more effort and devote every minute of every day to being great as much as Derrick Williams did. I hope he does well in the NFL.

In Scores of Other Games

Tomahawk Nation shares some interesting rumors about Bobby Bowden's tenuous situation at Florida State...Dr. Saturday plots a google map of the Rivals Top 100 for this year which kind of ties into our discussion on star rankings...Several Penn State football players are training for the NFL draft locally...Members of the football team will be at the basketball game Saturday to sign autographs...The Lady Lions came back from 17 points down to beat Wisconsin in overtime...And Penn State won the Lambert Meadowlands Trophy which used to be a big deal. It's the 27th time Penn State has been crowned Beast of the East. If we were Pitt this would be worthy of hanging a banner in the stadium.

Cyrus Tate "Doubtful" For Wisconsin Game; You Know What That Means

Oops Pow Surprise — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:00:12 -0000

Time for a heapin' helpin' of EL PRESIDENTE!

What? No. The other one.

Good jesus, what the hell is that? No. The OTHER other one. Not Upsidey-downhead Obama. Though with a giant beard, he does seem wise.

I'd David Palm her! [dude, what?--ed]

Yes, according to Hawkcentral, Tate is doubtful for tonight's game. So even if Tate does find his way onto the court (unlikely), he's going to be of limited-at-best utility to the Hawkeyes, both in quantity and quality of minutes. So we get David Palmer, who managed to rack up 19 points (and 4 turnovers) in just 22 minutes of work this past Sunday. The 19 points accounted for A) nearly 40% of Iowa's scoring production in the loss; and B) a new high scoring mark for Palmer, barely beating out his previous Iowa best of 7.

Yes, it's worth noting that his points usually came while he was wide open, but they also came from everywhere on the floor, and if defenses start to collapse on Palmer when he gets the ball 15 feet from the bucket then so much the better; collapsing defenses = wide open perimeter shooters = Todd Lickliter dances like a leprechaun. No, Palmer didn't record an assist on Sunday, but that's because everyone ran away from him as soon as he got the ball like he was a fat kid on the 3 point line at the Y; a pass would have been idiotic and earned him a spot on the bench.

And further, though Palmer's defense was meh against Purdue, he wasn't the one blowing transition D responsibilities while the Boilers were raining 3s on Iowa in the second half and pulling away. That story might change a bit with bigs like Joe Krabbenhoft and Jon Leuer looming for the Badgers; neither are huge scorers, but who's going to stop them tonight? Palmer and whom? Jarryd Cole? We're a little worried.

Be sure to stop by the liveblog tonight; HS is going to be drinking himself blind and I, being the designated driver, will gorge myself on Triscuits and other hors d'oeuvres. Just kidding, HS doesn't drink.

The Problem(s) With Iowa Basketball

Oops Pow Surprise — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:40:51 -0000

Though we haven't spent much editorial space on the Hawkeyes' basketball team (largely because their games have been scheduled for Friday nights, Sunday mornings, and the curious "as soon as you fall asleep"), we're still watching, thinking, fact-gathering. And though the team is undoubtedly improved--even with a 1-3 conference mark, they're 11-6, and they didn't get their 11th win until February 2nd last season--that 1-3 record isn't quite where fans would like to see the Hawkeyes.

The animus has reached such a fever pitch, in fact, that the basketball forum on our favorite Hawkeye message board (no, not that one; not that one either) has become a functionally unreadable cacophony of "FUCK THE SYSTEM" and "LICKLITER WOULD RATHER PLAY HIS SYSTEM THAN WIN" and "SPEED IT UP YOU COCKMASTER." Setting aside the nonsense, like the notion that there's a coach anywhere that doesn't want to win, there are three glaring faults with the Iowa basketball team (the first feeding the last two), and while Lickliter isn't absolved of blame, they're all matters of personnel.

1) This team is still incredibly young. Here are the players who have been in the Iowa program for at least three years:

F Cyrus Tate (SR)
F J.R. Angle (SR)

Basically one legitimate, clear-cut starter, and then DanJRous. There's your long-standing, institutional knowledge.

And the list of players in their second year:

G Jeff Peterson (SO)
G Jake Kelly (SO)
F Jarryd Cole (SO)
F David Palmer (JR)

This list is even more depressing, because it goes (in order): a 2-star prospect who should have redshirted last season and who wouldn't start on most teams this year; another kid who maybe should have redshirted (but played well) and may have regressed from last year (though we can kinda understand why); an undersized forward whose PT has been cut in half in the aftermath of a major knee injury, and that guy from 24.

That's it. The rest are first-year players, and it's looking increasingly like the foundation of the program will be built on the first year guys instead of the sophomore class. It's one thing to have a young team; it's even worse when the weaknesses are largely contained to the more experienced players. Indictment of Lickliter? Maybe, but what is any coach going to do with, let's say, Cole or Peterson? They're not BXI-level players yet.

2) Cyrus Tate and Anthony Tucker are out. With Tate in the game, Iowa at least has a shot at establishing a semblance of an inside game, whether it be through scoring, rebounding, or defending the opponents' #1 big man. But when Tate went down yelping during the Minnesota game, all hell broke loose, and what was a suffocating dominance of the Gophers turned into, well, justifiable cause to suffocate yourself.

Obviously, It really didn't help when Jake Kelly, holding the ball with about 4 seconds to play and a chance to tie the game with a 3, instead hoisted a half-court shot that mysteriously failed. But Minnesota got back into the game by dominating the boards and jumping passing lanes while Iowa fruitlessly tossed the basketball back and forth around the perimeter, utterly devoid of an inside threat on offense.

Tate may or may not be back for the Hawks' next game against Purdue; God help us if he's not and his minutes go to Cole (who's basically Hot Rod Thompson with two more inches and one fewer knee) and Dr. Disaster, Andrew Brommer. Brommer may well one day be a serviceable big man in the league, maybe even by a year from now, but Good Jesus, the last Hawkeye I can remember getting major minutes while being so terrifyingly unsuited to be on the court was, like, Alex Thompson. So the question is, can Tate go from wearing a walking boot on Sunday to playing one week later? And speaking of questions, why in the hell is Iowa playing another Sunday morning game?! Is this enough to get Barta fired?

And then there's Anthony Tucker.

The Frozen Caveman Shooter is still on the bench, now recovering from mononucleosis, a particularly insidious disease for a basketball player. High-level guard play is usually based on shooting ability, usually based on ball-handling, and usually based on knowledge of the offense. It is ALWAYS, however, based on conditioning, which suffers in a bad, bad way with a case of mono. At this point, it's probably gravy if Tucker sees more than 5 minutes a game before March rolls around.

That's a shame, because as anyone who watched him play before the retardations set in knows, he has a gorgeous release on his jumper (that sounded Kincheny) and it was no accident that he was leading the team in scoring. There's a lot to be said for confidence in a shooter, and there isn't an ounce of panic in Tucker's game. Sure, Bawinkel's fine in replacement, but he's clearly not as good, especially with the ball in his hands. Tucker is a much more natural player overall, and like Tate, Iowa needs him back.

3) The team is sorely lacking at the point. One of the hallmarks of a good perimeter-oriented team is the ability to effectively distribute the ball, usually via the point guard. While we don't doubt Matt Gatens' basketball acumen, he's definitely not the kind of ball-handler (lol) you want bringing the ball up against a press, or trying to shake a good defender 1-on-1. He's not that athletic.

So while Gatens is probably your highest basketball-IQ guy, the point responsibilities go to Jeff Peterson, who as we discussed before, is not very good yet. Jermain Davis has also seen some time bringing the ball up the court, but he's definitely not a natural 1-spot and is at his most effective on the wing.

Peterson, to be sure, has shown some improvement; his shooting totals are way, way up across the board, and his steals have vastly improved as well. Of course, that's with 15 fewer BXI games than last year, but hush, folks, details. The one area where Peterson hasn't improved is turnovers; those remain at 3.1 per game, same as last year, and likely to rise now that there's no more superdirectionals or "Bryant" on the schedule. And having a point guard who can't effectively and smartly distribute the ball or at least set it in motion to eventually hit the open man on the wing is basically a guarantee of not making the tournament.

The one seriously glaring problem with this point guard situation is, um, Lickliter gave away a returning senior starter at that very position. Yes, Tony Freeman drove Lick insane, but it's not like World B. Freeman was the only thing keeping that team from sustained success. They were just plain bad, and without depth at the point (seriously, you couldn't tell Palmer or Lieutenant Angle that they "didn't fit into your vision for the team" instead?), this team might be just as bad when the dust settles on the conference standings in March.

Look, we're not saying "Iowa + Freeman = 17-0 in 08-09!!!", but this is a team that could desperately use his athleticism (especially now that he's not coming off a squeaky wheel) and his ability to hit contested shots. We understand that the Iowa offense is predicated on ball movement and getting guys open shots, and really, to that specific end, it hasn't been ineffective (check out that PPS). The problem is what happens when there's 5 seconds left on the shot clock, the man with the ball is covered, and there's no readily apparent 3-pass progression to get the ball to a wide-open shooter (or even if the guys are in place, defenders are laying back and praying for a pass through their lane). Freeman had a rather uncanny ability to get a good shot off under pressure, moreso than what most of the guys on this current iteration of Iowa Basketball have.

At the very least, keeping Freeman would have given Lickliter an opportunity to show potential recruits that he allows point guards to excel and put up stats in his system. Considering Lickliter's alternative course of action and the landscape of incoming commits, we're a little less than optimistic that this offense is fewer than 2-3 years away from really clicking. Hope Lickliter's got a Plan B, and soon.

IOWA OBLITERATES UT-SA, 73-67

Oops Pow Surprise — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:35:04 -0000

A near-capacity crowd of several hundred wild Hawkeye fans witnessed one of the all-time great beatdowns in college basketball history as Iowa ran away and hid from the hapless University of Texas Longhorns -San Antonio Roadrunners, 73-67.

Cyrus Tate led all scorers with 18 points, which might be the most anyone's ever scored ever.

Iowa maintains their pace for a perfect season at 2-0 and they must be considered the overwhelming favorites for BXI Champions and a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. If I were everyone else I wouldn't even try beating Iowa.

Here's a picture of one of Cyrus Tate's monster jams.

BOOM-SHALAKA!