Iowa State plays Iowa tonight in men’s basketball, the final episode in this year’s Cy-Hawk Series, at least among sports that get heavy attention from both fanbases. That last part is important. At least by my perception, we don’t care about cross country or volleyball or soccer or swimming or tennis or gymnastics or softball to the degree we care about basketball, football, and wrestling. Maybe I’m out of touch there—please correct me if I am—but in terms of real bragging rights, I don’t think it matters much this year that Iowa State won in cross country, soccer, and volleyball.
So, it’s four sports. And Iowa State did win in football, but Iowa won in women’s basketball and wrestling.
Wrestling is the toughest one these days for Iowa State, because Iowa’s just so clearly the better program. The Cyclones were closer this year, but we weren’t there yet, and it’s not like the trajectory is necessarily closing just because this year’s match was close.
Women’s basketball goes back and forth historically, but losing last night’s game does sting a little worse because recent years have favored the Hawks. Iowa State should be the better team this year, but it doesn’t feel that way right now. I was surprised when I checked ESPN’s bracketology and saw the Cyclones projected for the better ultimate seed. It feels like Iowa State’s trailing there.
There’s something of the opposite phenomenon happening in football, where Iowa State went 4-8 and somehow Iowa feels like the laughingstock, not only losing head-to-head but spending the season getting made fun of relentlessly for its horrific offense, a problem that very clearly appears tied to Kirk Ferentz’s nepotism. Overall, neither program is really better than the other right now, but Iowa State has more hope attached to it for a variety of reasons, including that its coach appears to have higher upside, that its conference is more winnable, and that it’s won a New Year’s Six bowl in recent memory, while Iowa’s 2009 Orange Bowl win feels borderline ancient at this point.
With this…it’s important for the Cyclones to win the men’s basketball game, and important beyond just the basketball section of the rivalry. You aren’t going to get credit for being the top dog statewide overall, but if you win in the two nationally big-money sports, it’s a good look, and after making the Sweet Sixteen last year, I think the perception would be that Iowa State’s the better men’s hoops program without much questioning (even if Iowa is deservedly the favorite tonight).
What needs to happen for the Cyclones to win? It’s a pretty simple equation. When Iowa State’s on offense, they need to scrap. Iowa’s defense is bad and it’s soft, one of the worst rebounding units in the country and unwilling to foul. Iowa State’s offense is sloppy, but if the Cyclones can generate enough second chances, they can not only win via a numbers game but probably really rattle the famously rattle-able McCaffery family. On the other end, it’s the best team in the country at forcing turnovers opposing the best team in the country (so far) at protecting the ball. Iowa State needs to harass Tony Perkins and look for traps against Iowa’s wings and bigs. For how strong the Hawks are offensively, they’re a bad shooting team. You can afford to double team in the post.
That all said, yes, Iowa’s the favorite. They’re the better team right now. To our next point, they might not end up that way, but that’s where we’re currently at.
Yes, UConn Is Good
UConn pummeled Florida last night, and while Florida isn’t much, it was yet another pummeling by a talented team with proud tradition, so…yeah. They’re a national championship threat.
The question with good teams in December, and especially good teams we haven’t seen consistently play at the top of the sport in recent years, is how sustainable their performance is. 2020-21 Texas is the best example of this. College basketball is really a sport where teams get meaningfully better and worse throughout the year. This isn’t football, where Georgia’s been the best team all season bar maybe a week or two in the middle there. This is a fluid situation.
Where the Cubs Leave the Winter Meetings
When we left baseball yesterday, the Red Sox had just made a big acquisition in the form of Masataka Yoshida. When we rejoined it, the Padres had paid a boatload for Xander Bogaerts, sending Red Sox fans back into a rage.
I don’t think there’s that much hatred to be spewed towards the Red Sox, though the franchise has been a bit hard to read in terms of direction lately, which is understandably frustrating for fans. What really seems to have happened here is that the Padres wanted to make a splash, so the Padres made a splash. They weren’t going to lose on every big name. Now, they’ve got one.
The Cubs are in a similar spot. All summer, it sounded like they wanted to land a big name, and so far, they’ve neither done that or made it sound like they won’t land a big name. Which leaves a few possibilities:
One is that they do sign Carlos Correa. This would require a ton of money and possibly a long-term deal like those Bogaerts and Trea Turner received. My guess is that the Cubs don’t want to give that many years, but are willing to overpay on a per-year basis to save themselves the years. My impression is that Correa is confident enough to take risks with high-salary, short-term deals. He just did that last offseason, after all, and it worked.
Another is that they sign Dansby Swanson. This is the median result, in some interpretations, which may be leading to its probability being overstated. That said, Swanson’s expected to be a lot cheaper than all three of Correa, Turner, and Bogaerts, so if it’s a splash the Cubs want but they don’t want to pay the biggest price, they could conceivably commit to outbidding everyone else on this guy.
A third is that they trade for Sean Murphy. This would be a comparable splash, and instead of money (though it would likely also cost that) it would cost prospect capital, which the Cubs do have. I don’t think the Cubs want to part with much prospect capital just yet, but maybe they have enough that they take the risk, or maybe they’re desperate enough for a big catch in the position player market that they go for it.
There are others, including going heavy on pitching or making an unexpected trade or jumping in on Brandon Nimmo or being frustratingly passive. But if forced to guess today, I’d guess they ultimately do sign Swanson. I don’t think they want to make a long-term deal of the scope Correa could demand (speaking of which, Jason Heyward has signed a minor-league deal with the Dodgers).
One last thing on this: Expect free agent activity to really cool down immediately now that the winter meetings are over. Back to the November pace again.
How Bad Is Hockey’s Western Conference?
Note: There was an error with Gelo when we first published it, so some of the numbers and teams named here are not representative of where Gelo is actually at. The overall sentiment that the Western Conference is having a rough time remains, though.
We’ve re-launched Gelo, or at least the rating system part of it, and it does not think highly of the Western Conference. Within the top five, one team is in the West. Within the top ten, three teams are in the West. It evens out a little after that—the top fifteen has seven Western teams—but the best teams play in the East right now, which lines up with the standings, where the four teams with 38 or more points are the Bruins, Devils, Knights, and Leafs. Notably, Gelo thinks highly of the Hurricanes, placing them as the best team in the whole Eastern Conference even though they’re fourth in those standings right now, and it still thinks a lot of the Avalanche (fourth in the Central Division alone), though it doesn’t know anything about individual players, and therefore doesn’t know Nathan MacKinnon is out.
We’ll start including a best hockey game of every night down below in the viewing schedule, and our intent is to do that with the NBA as well beginning tomorrow. Once we have Gelo running simulations, we’ll launch our NHL futures effort for the year, and probably the NBA effort using FiveThirtyEight’s model as the basis. Other futures will return soon as well, and the World Cup ones will continue. We’re getting back into the swing of things, bit by bit.
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Viewing itinerary for the evening, second screen rotation in italics:
Good College Basketball
- 7:00 PM EST: Rutgers @ Ohio State (ESPN2)
- 8:00 PM EST: Iowa State @ Iowa (FS1)
NFL
- 8:15 PM EST: Las Vegas @ Los Angeles Rams (Prime Video)
Best NHL
- 7:00 PM EST: Los Angeles @ Toronto (ESPN+)
