Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Ok this is YET ANOTHER post about an Iowa State Cyclone men's basketball win.  This time the victim was Texas Tech, 72-54. 

Before the game today I met up with Jeremy Seago, and we went out for some delicious chinese at "New China" located next to the west Hy-Vee in Ames. 

My orange chicken was delicious!

Now I had just bought a new camera which can take "panorama" pictures... so I was having fun with that feture.  Kind of cool, no? But enough of our pre-game meal... onto the basketball pictures!

The view from our seats in section 213.

Another panoramic picture... this one inside Hilton. 

The student section had a lot of funny giant heads that they were waving around when Texas Tech was shooting free throws.  I have no idea who this is.

Here Scott Christopherson is about to launch a 3 from the wing... which he made BTW.

My customary picture with the final score.  Cyclones WIN!!!  If you can't read it, my shirt says "Ames, don't knock it till you RIOT".

Jeremy with the final score... but the cool part is that we also see Coach Hoiberg in the bottom right as he is leaving the court!!

Even though this was an expected win for the Cyclones, it was very important as it gave them 20 wins for the season and 10 conference wins.  Iowa State has not achieved the 20-win mark for 8 years and has not won 10 conference games since 2001.  This was Jeremy's first time watching an Iowa State game, so I was glad that he could see a good win.  The last thing that I will remember from this game was all of the great dunks.  The best I think was when Royce White dribbled between a defender's legs and dunked!  Royce came close to a triple-double by notching 13 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists.

Check out some great dunks from the game here.

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

Today Matthew Kovarna and I went to Hilton Coliseum where we watched Iowa State dominate the Texas A&M Aggies, 69-46. 

This game was not nearly as stressful as the last one that Elizabeth and I went to.  In fact the entire second half was kind of boring... in a good way.  I won't be the one to complain about a blow out conference win for the Cyclones!  This game marks the final regular season Big 12 conference game between Iowa State and Texas A&M, and it will likely be the last time they play for a very long time.  That is unless they meet up in the Big 12 conference tournament later this season. 

The crowd today was a good one.  This was the 3rd sell-out crowd of the season at Hilton (Kansas and Iowa were the others).  A few times it got pretty loud, but for the most part there wasn't much to go crazy about.  Royce White and Anthony Booker had a few big dunks that were fun, and Chris Allen led all scorers with 25 points.  Iowa State's largest lead was 33 points, but after we put our subs in the final score ended up being a little closer. 

Just before tip-off.

There was a very good crowd at the game; almost no empty seats!

ISU had a great game defensively as they held the Aggies to under 20 points in the first half.

Kovarna with the final score: Cyclones 69, Aggies 46.

There were "Go Cyclones" cards placed on all of the seats before the game.

Another fun note about today's game was the chants that the crowd was making at the end of the game.  Everyone was chanting "S-E-C" and then "Na na na na, hey, hey, hey, Goodbye".

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Elizabeth and I finally got back from Hilton Coliseum where we just watched Iowa State come from behind to defeat the Kansas State Wildcats 72-70!  This one was a little too stressfull for me to handle, but at least I can be proud to have been there by the end of the day.  Kansas State has been a top-25 ranked team for most of the season so far, but they just dropped out of the polls after a loss to Oklahoma last week.  Also, I was afraid coming into today's game that Iowa State would be flat since they were fresh off of their upset of then #5 Kansas on Saturday.  The Cyclones showed a lot of resolve finding a way to come back from a 14-point second half deficit to win. 

Royce White was the hero for the Cyclones.  He hit the go-ahead basket along the right baseline with 1.8 seconds left which proved to be the game winner.  That wasn't his only basket which got the crowd energized though.  He had 3 other HUGE dunks which each sent Hilton into a frenzy. 

I will also remember this annoying little kid (he must have been like 9 or 10), and his dad who were sitting in our same section.  They were all decked out in Kansas State gear and were yelling and whistling loudly any time ISU was shooting free throws.  I'm glad that they had to go home disappointed today :)

The view from our seats before the game.  Section 233, Row 12, Seats 9 &10.

Final score ISU 72, KSU 70!

Cyclones win!

There's a good chance this year will be the first time that Iowa State will qualify for the NCAA tournament since 2005.  It's been a long time! 

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

This weekend has been an especially lazy one, and a nice change of pace from recent weekends.  No big plans before hand or places to drive.  Just watching WAY TO MUCH "Big Bang Theory".  

I also made an amazing pot of chili yesterday.  Here is how it's done:

• 1 pound of ground beef
• 1 pound hot italian sausage
• 1 jar of Mad Butcher's Salsa (Medium)
• 1 29 oz can of tomato sauce
• 1 15 oz can Great Northern Beans
• 1 15 oz can Black Beans
• 2 15 oz cans of Mrs. Grimes Chili Beans
• 1 cup of Strawberry Jelly

That's right.  I added a "secret ingredient" of Strawberry jelly.  OMG it made it deliciously sweet. 

Other news to report is that Elizabeth & I have planned a trip to Seattle from March 29th to April 2nd to visit Christian.  It's going to be fun!!

January 4th, 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

We had a fun weekend with Eben & Lynn coming down to spend new year's eve with us... we stayed up, drank champagne, and went to watch an ISU men's basketball victory over Mississippi Valley State.  However, that's not the game which currently has me fired up...

IOWA STATE CYCLONES 77, TEXAS LONGHORNS 71.

That's the game!!  I can say that hands down that's my favorite ISU basketball game that I've ever been too.  I did see Iowa State beat Texas way back in 2004 (78-77), but that one just wasn't as decisive as this.  Sure, it was only a 6-point win, but the Cyclones really lead for double-digits for a majority of the game.  Iowa State shot a crazy 9-12 from 3-point range in the first half... they cooled off in the second half, but hit 10 total for the game.  Chris Babb was the man, hitting 5 three-pointers. 

Another thing that I'll take away from this game was the crappy refs.  Normally I wouldn't blame them much, but all the fouls they were calling was keeping Texas in the game.  You had to be there, but there were quite a few ridiculous fouls called on ISU throughout.  I'm glad that didn't end up costing ISU because it would have at away at me. 

I'm not sure what the stats were, but ISU was pretty bad from the foul line as well.  That was definately keeping the little-horns in the game.  Ok, I looked it up, and ISU shot 21-37 from the stripe (56.8%).

Nevermind the bad spots... ISU just rocked Texas!!  Sooo sweet, especially since I can't stand Texas.

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Well I am a little disheartened tonight because my Iowa State Cyclones wound up on the wrong end of a 27-13 score in the Pinstripe Bowl tonight against Rutgers.  However, I'm not going to pout and talk about how they're a bunch of nappy-headed hoes... any chance that someone reading this understood that reference?  Anyways, I feel a little better now that I'm watching the Hawkeyes lose at halftime to the Oklahoma Sooners.  Also, I can remember all of the good things that my Cyclones were able to accomplish as underdogs this year.  In their 12-game regular season, they were underdogs 10 times but still managed to go to a bowl game.  Not too shabby.  The upsets they completed came against Iowa, UConn, Texas Tech, and the biggest football upset in the country this year... against Oklahoma State.  I'm happy for the solid season that the Cyclones put together dispite some rough spots and the loss to Rutgers.  Hopefully they can continue to build on their success under the direction of Paul Rhoades.  So I will just sit here, sip on my Hamms (from the land of sky blue waters), and root on the Sooners :) 

Tomorrow I am looking forward to having my parents come down to Ames for a visit.  We'll make it over to watch the ISU men's basketball team take on Mississippi Valley State, and celebrate the coming new year.  Here's to a happy and exciting 2012!

Monday, December 26th, 2011

Today is a recovery day from the fun, long Christmas weekend.  It's very nice to have a 3-day weekend!  We hosted the GLEKS (Gleason, Lacina, Easley, Khyl, Salton) family Christmas at our apartment in Ames.  Everyone was here except for Christian byu the time I got home from work on Friday.  We opened the family secret santa gifts that night (I gave Sarah the Hunger Games book set, and Becky gave me a pair of ISU flanel pants that I asked for).  It took a while to convince everyone that Christian would not in fact be sneaking in to spend Christmas with us, but at least we were able to talk with him a few times using face-time on Elizabeth's phone.  That Friday for supper we made a spiral cut honey ham, green bean casserole, scalopped corn, corn-bread stuffing, and queso dip with bacon & spinach.  Just foreshadowing for all of the food that we would have this weekend!

The Lacinas stayed through lunch on Saturday before they had to take off.  Later that afternoon the rest of us drove over to Ledges park near Boone.  Sullivan, Seth, Brian, Elizabeth, and I walked all the way down a very steep hill which was slippery and muddy (just ask Elizabeth's pants after she slipped)... the boys got very wet and messy after playing in the half-frozen stream, and we explored a nice stone bridge.  After driving home and getting cleaned up, we went out for pizza and chicken wings as Pizza Pit.  Of course we had to order two double XL pizzas (one taco, one sausage & onion).  After our meal (we ate maybe half of it), we drove around Ames to check out the Christmas lights.  The best was a large decorated tree on central campus near Beardshear Hall.  That night we stayed up late, watched Miracle on 34th Street, and went to a midnight church service at the local Catholic church.  Also happy birthday to Brian Gleason.

Sunday involved the boys opening all of their presents, we went to a local park to go geocaching and play frisbee, we came back for a big lunch (BBQ ribs and leftovers), hung out to play games at the apartment, they later that night we went out to Perfect Games to play lazer tag, order more pizza (we had a coupon for 4 free games of lazer tag with the purchase of a specialty pizza), and to play arcade games.  I enjoyed the skee ball quite a bit. 

This morning we bid farewell to the Gleasons and to Becky after breakfast, and we've been trying to recuperate since.  There is still lots of cleaning to do, but it's nice to be off work this Monday and only have a short week to prepare for.  We also have our refrigerator FULL of leftovers.  Next weekend we'll be hosting my parents along with Elizabeth's mom Becky again for New Years and to go to an ISU men's basketball game.  Lot's of family fun!