Saturday, February 27th, 2016

Today was a great day.  For starters, it was an unseasonably warm 60 degrees here in Ames!  That is a heck of a lot better than the usual winter weather we get this time of year.  We were able to actually hang out in our yard as I started the grill for the first time this year and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch.  Then, later on this afternoon, I took Nolan with me to watch the Iowa State men's basketball team defeat the Kansas State Wildcats, 80-61.  Nolan actually behaved really well throughout the whole game (which was nice for a change).  He even clapped along with the crowd many times.  I believe that this was Nolan's sixth time in attendance at an ISU men's basketball game.  The last game I took him to was this year's regular season opening game against Chicago State.
Today was also the second time Nolan has been to a Big 12 conference basketball game (his first was the epic Melvin Ejim - 48 point game vs TCU).

Tip off between Iowa State and Kansas State.

Cyclones win, 80-61.

A number of Cyclones played well today, so it is hard to pick just one player of the game.  I suppose that I would go with Jameel McKay as he scored 14 points and pulled down 17 rebounds.  Kansas State is typically a physical team that focuses on rebounding, so having that many boards for McKay is impressive.  Matt Thomas also had a big game for Iowa State.  He scored 20 points for the Cyclones, and impressively had a four-point play in the first half.  They were joined in double figures scoring for the Cyclones by Georges Niang (17), Monte Morris (11), and Hallice Cooke (10).  Sadly, this will be the last time that I get to watch Georges Niang play basketball in person at Hilton Coliseum.  I will not be able to make it to Senior Night to watch his last game this coming Monday.  His Cyclone career has been a lot of fun to watch over these last four years :)

This marks the fourth time that I have seen Iowa State defeat Kansas State in basketball.  The previous times were in 2013, 2012... the Royce White game winner, and way back in 2003 when I was a student at ISU.