Monday, November 13th, 2017

Well, tonight I took Nolan with me to Hilton Coliseum to watch the ISU men's basketball season home-opening game.  It wasn't one that I would exactly like to remember, as the Cyclones lost to Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 56-74.  It was just an all-around bad game for Iowa State, and it makes me think that this may be a very long season for ISU.  The Cyclones committed 18 turnovers and only dished out 5 assists all game long.  Jeff Beverly and Nick Weiler-Babb were the only two Cyclones to score in double-fugures.  They both had 11 points.  Of all the basketball games that I have watched at Iowa State, this has to be about the most demoralizing loss as it seems to indicate that the rest of the season will not be much fun :(

So this was Nolan's 11th basketball game that he has been to.  I'll list them out here, but I'm not going to do that for each post in the future... just refer back to this list. 

• 2013-14 ISU 110, UMKC 51.
• 2013-14 ISU 84, TCU 69.
• 2014-15 ISU 73, UMKC 56.  
• 2015-16 ISU 106, Grand Valley State, 60 (exhibition).
• 2015-16 ISU 106, Chicago State 64.
• 2015-16 ISU 80, Kansas State 61.  
• 2016-17 ISU 130, The Citadel 63. 
• 2016-17 ISU 91, Nebraska-Omaha 47.  
• 2016-17 ISU 88, Mississippi Valley State 60.
• 2016-17 ISU 63, Texas Tech 56.
• 2017-18 ISU 56, Wisconin-Milwaukee 74.

We did meet up with Mike O'Donnell and Maddie at the game, which was fun for Nolan that he could sit with a friend at the game.

Nolan and myself before tip-off.

Nolan & Maddie!

Tip-off between Iowa State and UW-Milwaukee.

Sunday, November 5th, 2017

Today marks the start of another Iowa State Cyclone basketball season!  I was able to take Maxwell along with me to watch Iowa State's exhibition victory vs. the Emporia State Hornets, 77-68. 

The game today was much closer than I would have liked, considering Emporia State is a division 2 school.  It was understandable though that Iowa State would have some growing pains considering all of the talent that graduated from the team last year (Morris, Thomas, Burton, Long).  Iowa State was also without two players today due to a disciplinary reason of some sorts... Lard and Lewis both sat out today's game. 

Donovan Jackson was the player of the game for Iowa State, as he led the team with 20 points and connected on 4-of-7 from three point range.  Lindell Wigginton also had a nice game for the Cyclones in his first action at Hilton Coliseum as he added 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 steals.  Although he is a freshman, I am hoping for big things from him this year if the Cyclones are going to be successful.  Jackson and Wigginton were joined in double-figures scoring for Iowa State by Nick Weiler-Babb (12) and Jakolby Long (11). 

This is the fourth time that I have taken Maxwell to an ISU basketball game.  The others were last season vs. The Citadel, vs. TCU, and vs. Baylor. 

The last exhibition game that I attended was against Grand Valley State back in 2015.  I have also seen exhibitions vs. Viterbo in 2014 and vs. Minnesota State in 2012. 

Maxwell was all smiles for the game :)

A view of the game action from our seats in section 216.

This past weekend I also drove Nolan up to grandpa Eben's place with the idea that we would help him combine some corn.  Saturday ended up being a fairly wet and foggy day, so we did not get much combining done at all.  We did try a little in the afternoon, but after a couple of passes through the field we had to stop because the corn was still too wet.  At least Nolan was able to ride in the combine for a bit.  We also helped Eben feed some hay to cattle in the pasture and around the farm, which Nolan thought was pretty neat. 

Nolan posing on the combine.