Here is a “best practices” guide for preparing for a casual interview with a coach about an upcoming basketball season.
- OMG I can’t watch: “Coach, tell me about this year’s team.”
- Shooting for .500: “Coach, what are you looking forward to this year?”
- Bye in the Big 12 tournament/maybe NCAAs: “I think this could be a decent team.”
- NCAAs for sure: “I think we have an NCAA Tournament level team.”
- Big 12 semis/Sweet 16 is a floor: “I think this can be a really good team.”
- Big 12 champ game/Sky’s the limit: “I think this could be a really special team.”
What you do not under any circumstance let escape your lips, especially in October, and especially especially because Iowa State fandom is about meditation on the existence of suffering: “This is a Final Four, national championship caliber basketball team.”
When I heard Chris Williams say that about the 2022-23 Cyclone women’s basketball team I screamed JINX JINX JINX into the crisp fall air on the trail and probably scared a squirrel.
The Iowa State women missed out on a regular-season Big 12 championship, but defeated Baylor, Oklahoma, and Texas to win the last Big 12 women’s tournament at Municipal Auditorium. Postgame video here. (The Kansas City Star says the tournament will move a week earlier to the other arena in KC, and will also be on nonconsecutive days due to BYU entering the Big 12.)
The Cyclones missed out on hosting NCAA tournament games and instead will be playing Dayton in Knoxville, Tennessee. A potential second-round matchup exists against a team Iowa State has never played: the Lady Volunteers. A potential second-round matchup in 2009 was thwarted when the defending national champion Lady Vols were upset in the first round for the first time.
To the Orange Palace of Doom it is. Go Cyclones. (And go Cyclone men, who play on a completely different day this time.)
PS: Everyone involved in scheduling the Oscars on Selection Sunday should be fired.
PPS: They should go back to giving the women’s tournament its own selection night on Monday.