It’s simply bad basketball.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not a talented basketball team, but some teams overachieve with a weaker roster by playing sound, fundamental basketball. Smith’s teams do just the opposite. They play at their level or below.
Why? Because they don’t do basketball well. The stats show it. Over the last 3 games they have put up some very telling numbers:
Scoring defense – 85.3 ppg
Scoring offense – 60 ppg
Turnovers – 14.6 per game
Free throws – 58%
FG% – 36.7% (vs 47.8% for opponents)
It’s really hard to watch. Especially knowing as an old timer what good basketball looks like.
PS I think we’ll see Iowa State fall out of the top ten as the season progresses. They appear to be a bit of a paper tiger.