{"id":5920,"date":"2015-03-17T00:47:31","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T05:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=5920"},"modified":"2015-03-17T00:47:31","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T05:47:31","slug":"the-obvious-bracket-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2015\/03\/the-obvious-bracket-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"The obvious bracket statement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suggested Onion headline: Nation’s basketball fans scramble to remember where, what TruTV is<\/em><\/p>\n

Since early February, I have had two thoughts about this year’s ISU men’s basketball team: They can lose in the first round of the NCAA Tournament or win until they get steamrolled by Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Well, either option is still theoretically possible<\/a>, but if the latter happens, it will be at a level never reached by ISU basketball.<\/p>\n

To add on to my post from last year<\/a>: In the 2014 Sweet 16, ISU played the closest anyone did to eventual national champion UConn on a not-really-neutral court.\u00a0Iowa State has lost to the eventual national champion in four of its past six appearances. This year, it’s a true neutral site, ISU’s the high seed, and nothing can possibly go \u2014<\/p>\n

Hampton may not win a game in this year’s tournament, but news of their bid did aggravate every Iowa State fan’s long-dormant 2001 trauma, which is a victory unto itself.<\/em><\/p>\n

WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘DORMANT’?<\/a><\/p>\n

If the lost-in-Lubbock Cyclones show up, UAB has a happy pick-me-up from the cancellation of its football program<\/a>. If the second-half-of-Oklahoma-in-Ames<\/a> Cyclones show up, the sky’s the limit. (If ISU and Iowa meet in the Sweet 16, the whole state might burn down. Like, literally<\/em> literally. There won’t be a Veishea to riot at, remember.)<\/p>\n

Here’s to not giving Jamie Pollard and collective Cyclone Nation another heart attack. (Please.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suggested Onion headline: Nation’s basketball fans scramble to remember where, what TruTV is Since early February, I have had two thoughts about this year’s ISU men’s basketball team: They can lose in the first round of the NCAA Tournament or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5920"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5922,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5920\/revisions\/5922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}