Norfolk St- Horton Game

[redbirds2000]

IMO, Foster and Kinziger have shown themselves to be consistent, competitive D1 caliber players. The rest of the roster is an assemblage of individuals who occasionally might have a good game, but never on a consistent basis. It many ways the roster construction reminds me of Wardle’s early Bradley years. It will take a while to field the team we want, if it can be done at all. Players who saw little action at their prior D1 schools will not have an immediate impact on our success. Witness Davis, Kasubke, Lieb, etc. Therefore perhaps we should look at proven D2 transfer portal players.

100%! The portal strategy has to change. Chatted with a HS coach who said kids that would have been Valley type players are going unnoticed because rosters are packed with transfers. Ours is one of them.

 

[GOP_Redbird]

I think everyone remembers this.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/14/1122977386/byu-apologizes-to-a-banned-fan-saying-it-found-no-proof-they-yelled-racial-slurs

 

[ChiRedbirdfan]

100%! The portal strategy has to change. Chatted with a HS coach who said kids that would have been Valley type players are going unnoticed because rosters are packed with transfers. Ours is one of them.

???? what players? are they mvc capable players now or need to develop and will be mvc players in 2-3 years?

 

[Buffett1]

SI

Norfolk State is an HBCU, while Illinois State is a predominantly white institution. Neither university has commented on Saturday's events.

“I was upset he was on the floor and I was raising hell with the referees. It was never personal towards him. I’ll just leave it at that. I’ll take the high road on that,” Pedon said postgame of the altercation—seemingly declining to apologize for his actions.

 

[Phantom]

IF he/they made a truly racist statement, then yes he and the others should be tossed immediately and banned. Are we sure that's what happened?? Was anyone sitting close enough to hear the actual banter??

Lots of back & forth on Twitter on this. I surely hope nothing was said. But if it was, then yes we can't have that.

 

[ChiRedbirdfan]

You have preached about our need to shoot 2 pointers, our 2pt percentage and efficiency as a result. I'm right there with you. I'm a BIG believer in just being a bucket getter. Matter of fact, and I know this sounds stupid simple, but the more buckets you make as a team the more effective you'll be long term and more importantly...even more confident when you're in a spot in the game where you NEED a bucket.

I want bucket getters. I don't care how many 3 pt shits, I mean, shots...we shoot! I want someone who can score when we need it!!!!!! I have lost count the number of games I've seen in the pros, college, and high school where all you need is a bucket...a bucket...just a bucket...and someone dribbles for 20 seconds and throws up a 30 footer while 3 of his 4 teammates stand around the perimeter. When all you need is a frecking 5 footer. It really is stupid basketball. Just stupid. And frankly, I put it directly on coaching.

It drives me insane and makes me dislike this current game of ours. Dammit, now I just killed my buzz.

PS. If a kid can shoot the 3 with decent percentage, then let it fly. I'm not anti-3. But I am TOTALLY pro-bucketgetter.

agree but this team is dominated by players who struggle individually to manufacture a bucket such as #6 on NFS last night who was so quick

btw humdinger your reference of"need a bucket" made me laugh as it reminds me of tai streets when he is coaching his meanstreets teams. tai will call a t.o. when his team is in a scoring drought and then he screams at his best players that "he needs a bucket". he will then talk some strategy and then scream loudly again at the end of a t.o. that he "needs a bucket". funny to witness

 

[Phantom]

Also sucks that we have to wait a full week to stew on this mess. Will be interesting to see how next Sunday's game plays out coming off this intense rollercoaster and after final exams. Need to bounce back strong.

 

[Dmills]

Except go check out the jackasses Twitter. He’s retweeting everything under the sun attacking ISU, Pedon, and the community. **** that race baiting piece of shit.

True. He could put a relative end to the madness by simply saying "There was a racial slur directed at one of my players. The fan(s) involved were removed from the game thanks to the officials and ISU admin. After this was addressed, there were no further issues. There was a misunderstanding between me and Coach Pedon in the intensity of the moment. I have great respect for Coach Pedon and his program and wish them the best the rest of the season."

 

[BirdGrad2011]

True. He could put a relative end to the madness by simply saying "There was a racial slur directed at one of my players. The fan(s) involved were removed from the game thanks to the officials and ISU admin. After this was addressed, there were no further issues. There was a misunderstanding between me and Coach Pedon in the intensity of the moment. I have great respect for Coach Pedon and his program and wish them the best the rest of the season."

He’s trying to play the victim making it seem like Pedon is something he’s not and so are our fans. If the fans in question didn’t say anything racial as has been alluded to by those close by…I wonder if they consider legal action based on the smear campaign.

 

[Seven]

Sitting in the lower section cost a good amount of money, so anyone sitting down there is likely a staunch ISU supporter. Surely people would know who the person was.

Was there talk of a racial slur at the game? We were sitting on that side, but didn’t hear anyone mention it. Didn’t find out until getting home and reading online.

 

[DWRedbird]

I'll throw out my thoughts on the game and extras as well:

• Wasn't at the game, but the crowd was electric on ESPN+. Really fun to hear everyone getting into it, and I wish we would have won so we could have kept that crowd coming back.
  • Losing this type of game though is exactly why we have a hard time bringing fans back. This should have been a game we won, and we just did not do it.
• If a fan said something racial and the ref heard it, ban him from ISU events. We don't need that kind of bullshit at our games.
• I don't have a problem with the Norfolk State coach defending his guys. I do think he should have been T'd up for being half way on the floor, but that's just me.
• I don't think Pedon knew what was at the root of scuffle and likely thought that the Norfolk Coach was coming after him or his guys, and I have no problem with Pedon defending either. I did think it was funny that Pedon kept trying to stand on his tippy toes to be face to face with the Norfolk coach.
• Our offense is bad. Its not the players fault, its the scheme. The guys are playing within the scheme and the scheme is bad. 90% of the game is spent either outside of the 3pt line or turning our back to the basket to find a guy to shoot a 3. It makes us incredibly easy to guard and Norfolk was al over that to their credit. We don't look comfortable when we are going towards the basket at any time, and it leads to turnovers and bad shots, if we want to win more games, we have to change the offensive scheme.
  • As a add on, we run 0 cuts or screens and with the athleticism of Foster/Lewis/Pennce we could live on it.
• It kills me that Lieb is easily the tallest guy on the floor 90% of the time, and he never posts up. I understand he wants to drift out, but IMO he doesn't have the skills for it. Someone please make him watch film of Tim Duncan, and tell him to emulate that. He does that he will be unstoppable in the MVC.
• Something I noticed with Mal today that I think I've noticed a little more this year and might explain why he is having a hard time with the 3 ball, he is rushing his shot. Twice I watched him catch a ball halfway into his shooting motion so that he was more pushing or throwing the ball at the basket rather than shoot it. I think he has a quick trigger but he has to catch, set, shoot rather than try to combine any of it.
• KLew's Tech was bad, but I'm not mad at it. In the moment pump your guys up kind of thing despite the fact that it was a rally killer.
• Kinziger is the player we thought Pence was going to be this year. Honestly, right now I'd like him start at the point over Dalton and see how JK does running the offense.
• Foster is a double double machine. Its nice having a big man who is locked in on both ends.
  • As an aside if you'd have told me we beat Norfolk by 9 on the boards before I looked at the box score I'd have called you crazy.

 

[GOP_Redbird]

True. He could put a relative end to the madness by simply saying "There was a racial slur directed at one of my players. The fan(s) involved were removed from the game thanks to the officials and ISU admin. After this was addressed, there were no further issues. There was a misunderstanding between me and Coach Pedon in the intensity of the moment. I have great respect for Coach Pedon and his program and wish them the best the rest of the season."

This coach is going to use all the 15 minutes of twitter fame he can…

 

[redbirds2000]

???? what players? are they mvc capable players now or need to develop and will be mvc players in 2-3 years?

They would obviously need to develop if they are incoming Fresh. The P5 transfers are taking the same amount of time to develop and that shouldn't be the case. I would say most of them have peaked or are regressing.

???? what players? are they mvc capable players now or need to develop and will be mvc players in 2-3 years?

 

[redbirds2000]

I'll throw out my thoughts on the game and extras as well:

• Wasn't at the game, but the crowd was electric on ESPN+. Really fun to hear everyone getting into it, and I wish we would have won so we could have kept that crowd coming back.
  • Losing this type of game though is exactly why we have a hard time bringing fans back. This should have been a game we won, and we just did not do it.
• If a fan said something racial and the ref heard it, ban him from ISU events. We don't need that kind of bullshit at our games.
• I don't have a problem with the Norfolk State coach defending his guys. I do think he should have been T'd up for being half way on the floor, but that's just me.
• I don't think Pedon knew what was at the root of scuffle and likely thought that the Norfolk Coach was coming after him or his guys, and I have no problem with Pedon defending either. I did think it was funny that Pedon kept trying to stand on his tippy toes to be face to face with the Norfolk coach.
• Our offense is bad. Its not the players fault, its the scheme. The guys are playing within the scheme and the scheme is bad. 90% of the game is spent either outside of the 3pt line or turning our back to the basket to find a guy to shoot a 3. It makes us incredibly easy to guard and Norfolk was al over that to their credit. We don't look comfortable when we are going towards the basket at any time, and it leads to turnovers and bad shots, if we want to win more games, we have to change the offensive scheme.
  • As a add on, we run 0 cuts or screens and with the athleticism of Foster/Lewis/Pennce we could live on it.
• It kills me that Lieb is easily the tallest guy on the floor 90% of the time, and he never posts up. I understand he wants to drift out, but IMO he doesn't have the skills for it. Someone please make him watch film of Tim Duncan, and tell him to emulate that. He does that he will be unstoppable in the MVC.
• Something I noticed with Mal today that I think I've noticed a little more this year and might explain why he is having a hard time with the 3 ball, he is rushing his shot. Twice I watched him catch a ball halfway into his shooting motion so that he was more pushing or throwing the ball at the basket rather than shoot it. I think he has a quick trigger but he has to catch, set, shoot rather than try to combine any of it.
• KLew's Tech was bad, but I'm not mad at it. In the moment pump your guys up kind of thing despite the fact that it was a rally killer.
• Kinziger is the player we thought Pence was going to be this year. Honestly, right now I'd like him start at the point over Dalton and see how JK does running the offense.
• Foster is a double double machine. Its nice having a big man who is locked in on both ends.
  • As an aside if you'd have told me we beat Norfolk by 9 on the boards before I looked at the box score I'd have called you crazy.

Imagine the rebound difference if they don't give up 4 offensive boards in 1 possession!

 

[DougSutton]

Really unfortunate what happened. Based on what was reported, IF the refs heard a racial slur and shared this with their coach, I completely understand their coach coming to his own player's defense and yelling at our fan. There is no defense of this.

Some of you may remember the game at Redbird Arena sometime in the 1997-1998 season when one of our own fans sitting behind the ISU bench (in the 2nd or 3rd row) called our point guard Jamar Smiley a racial slur and our own assistant coach King Rice jumped over the ISU bench and into the rows and started throwing punches at our fan. That ISU fan was banned from all future ISU athletic events. Some said King was out of line for doing what he did and many of our fans said if they were sitting within range of that "fan" to hear what he said, King wouldn't have needed to take action because one of us would have taken care of that guy.

There is no excuse for this under any circumstance. Watching on ESPN+ and not being in the stands, of course I couldn't hear what was said and all I have to base this off of was what the refs told their coach. If I was their coach, I would have been furious too. I also understand coach Pedon being upset that their coach is out on the court and not getting called a technical because he didn't know what was said. That being said, in hindsight, I'm sure Pedon would not have gotten fired up at their coach if he knew what was said by our fan.

From my perspective, the blame for the escalation between their coach and Pedon is on the refs because once the refs huddled and shared with each other what happened, they should have called both coach Pedon and their coach together to tell them what happened at the same time. Instead, they told their coach who understandably would have been triggered by this without coach Pedon knowing what happened. That led to Pedon understandably being upset as to why their coach wasn't given a technical and the refs let him vent the way he did.

I'm not a minority and won't pretend to understand what it is like being on the receiving end of a racial slur or attempted to feel less than. I can only imagine how I'd feel and respond and don't blame their coach for being furious, in the same way I didn't blame King Rice for attempting to assault our own fan after calling Jamar a slur.

 

[gobirds85]

There are usually three sides to every story...his side, her side and then the truth. Here we have the players side, their coach's side, the fan's side, the ref's side and the truth, which we probably won't arrive at. I wasn't at the game, just watching it on the ocho. Simple observations...Thomas didn't seem all that upset originally during the fan confrontation. The refs didn't seem to all that upset as they began their discussion with Thomas right afterwards. Things escalated when their coach decided to step out onto the floor and make strides towards the fans in question. No judgment here on my part because I simply do not know the truth. The problem is that the truth doesn't really matter much anymore. Everyone passes judgment on social media and it's considered by many, too many, to be the truth.

Back to the game, maybe we need to assemble the court at Horton earlier in the week to give our guys a little more practice. Really hard to watch us play that bad. One more observation before I hang up...can we let the band play a bit more? I know we will never get the flaming tubas back, but let the band be the band.

 

[ChiRedbirdfan]

They would obviously need to develop if they are incoming Fresh. The P5 transfers are taking the same amount of time to develop and that shouldn't be the case. I would say most of them have peaked or are regressing.

I think P5s are too taking few developing frosh and hitting the portal for proven talent. If some high schoolers are future MVC players they may not start there, but if coaches and staff are doing their job, they will end up in the MVC.

ISU can't have a roster with lots of developing players esp in today's portal environment where the roster turn can be so dramatic meaning many will develop and move on. We have 3 frosh on scholarship this year...1 contributor and 2 non-contributors. Of these 3 how many are likely to be here in their senior season? 1 would be my bet.

ISU, as a mid-major residing in a conference that is now basically a 1 ncaa tourney conference, can't take more than 3 frosh each year and still try to compete. I am not certain if taking 3 is even wise? One of biggest desires for college hoopsters is to play in the ncaa tourney...if developing players have not played there in their first couple of seasons it is likely they are moving on if they believe there is no immediate chance to do so.

Pedon and staff, like all other coaching staffs, need to become good at portal evaluation and the ability to immediately develop a "team" each year. Biggest challenge for Pedon or any men's basketball coach at ISU is ISU's reputation of being a loser or non-winner (how ever you want to frame it). Pedon has to prove that ISU is otherwise and the clock starts to turn against him after 3 seasons, IMO.

 

[DougSutton]

One more observation before I hang up...can we let the band play a bit more? I know we will never get the flaming tubas back, but let the band be the band.

Completely agree about the band, especially at Horton. The acoustics at Horton magnify any sound and the band used to be incredible back in the 80s when we played there. I've been away from B/N for a long time now and didn't know we got rid of the flaming tubas. Why couldn't we bring them back?

As nice of a facility as it is, the thing that sucks about Redbird Arena is the acoustics suck. I don't know if they still have those sound deafening pads hanging from the roof like they did when they first opened the arena in the 90s but they literally hung pads to silence the echos of sound so Redbird Arena could host concerts. Great for concerts, terrible for creating a loud, hostile environment for a basketball game.

Even from watching on ESPN+, you could tell how loud it was at Horton with only a few thousand fans in attendance. I miss those days.

 

[Scipio]

Really unfortunate what happened. Based on what was reported, IF the refs heard a racial slur and shared this with their coach, I completely understand their coach coming to his own player's defense and yelling at our fan. There is no defense of this.

Some of you may remember the game at Redbird Arena sometime in the 1997-1998 season when one of our own fans sitting behind the ISU bench (in the 2nd or 3rd row) called our point guard Jamar Smiley a racial slur and our own assistant coach King Rice jumped over the ISU bench and into the rows and started throwing punches at our fan. That ISU fan was banned from all future ISU athletic events. Some said King was out of line for doing what he did and many of our fans said if they were sitting within range of that "fan" to hear what he said, King wouldn't have needed to take action because one of us would have taken care of that guy.

There is no excuse for this under any circumstance. Watching on ESPN+ and not being in the stands, of course I couldn't hear what was said and all I have to base this off of was what the refs told their coach. If I was their coach, I would have been furious too. I also understand coach Pedon being upset that their coach is out on the court and not getting called a technical because he didn't know what was said. That being said, in hindsight, I'm sure Pedon would not have gotten fired up at their coach if he knew what was said by our fan.

From my perspective, the blame for the escalation between their coach and Pedon is on the refs because once the refs huddled and shared with each other what happened, they should have called both coach Pedon and their coach together to tell them what happened at the same time. Instead, they told their coach who understandably would have been triggered by this without coach Pedon knowing what happened. That led to Pedon understandably being upset as to why their coach wasn't given a technical and the refs let him vent the way he did.

I'm not a minority and won't pretend to understand what it is like being on the receiving end of a racial slur or attempted to feel less than. I can only imagine how I'd feel and respond and don't blame their coach for being furious, in the same way I didn't blame King Rice for attempting to assault our own fan after calling Jamar a slur.

The key word here is IF.

 

[isuquinndog]

I hope someday they remove teams like Norfolk State and Chicago State from the schedule.

And what does that mean?