Post Game Thoughts :: Iowa St. Cyclones 71, Texas Tech Red Raiders 78

SB Nation Box Score

The Result :: Satisfying. Again, I only saw the last 10 minutes, but it appeared that the Red Raiders were in control of the game, although it was a tad bit dicey towards the last few minutes. Perusing the boxscore, it seems as if Pat Knight is tightening up his rotation and last night he only gave SG David Tairu 3 minutes and pretty much stuck to a eight man rotation. But back to the win, it was a huge win for this team as a 0-4 start would have been absolutely awful and to lose yet another home game would have essentially sunk the season. Unforunately for the Red Raiders, they have to face Oklahoma on Saturday, but at the very least, the game is at home and that should be a game the Red Raiders win.

The Storylines ::

Stars Step Up: PG John Roberson and SF Mike Singletary both stepped up their play last night. To give credit to Roberson, he's been fairly consistent from game to game, but he's disappeared at times for entire halves for the past two games. But Singletary has been awful for the past two games and although it took him 17 shots to get 23 points, at least he was mixing it up and getting points on the board. Singletary finished with 23 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists and 0 turnovers. With Singletary not turning the ball over once makes me incredibly happy. Roberson had 20 points, 0 rebounds, 4 assists and 5 turnovers, the turnovers be uncharacteristic thus far this season.

Bit-Players Contribute: The players that are supposed to do the dirty work did the dirty work last night. Darko Cohadarevic had 8 points and 12 boards last night. As far as I'm concerned, that's a perfect night for me for Darko. Brad Reese had 8 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, 1 block and 1 turnover in 24 minutes, starting his second game in a row. Perfect. Off the bench, SG Nick Okorie finished with 15 points (he's still not shooting the ball very well, only 5 of 12 from the floor), 3 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 0 turnovers. Again, other than maybe taking too many shots, that's perfect. Now, if PK can get Tairu back to his preseason effort, then I think the rotation, along with PF Robert Lewandowski, will be just fine.

Four Factors, Player Impact and Game Flow: I love these graphs from StatSheet and I hope you do too:

Four Factors:

Player Impact:

Game Flow:

The MVP :: SF Mike Singletary: I do this somewhat begrudgingly. I do not completely trust what Singletary just yet. He's been too hot and cold for a good part of the year and he needs to be consistently good. Singletary still needs to improve his shooting percentage, but I still say that this is a situation where Singletary needs to figure out, along with the coaching staff, where he can operate well with the ball in the post and get a mis-match on his opponent. Good game last night, now just do it every night.