Sunday, March 12th, 2017

Today is "Selection Sunday".  In my opinion, this is one of the greatest days of the year.  All the anticipation from the college basketball season leads up to this day when the NCAA tournament brackets are revealed.  For the sixth year in a row, my Iowa State Cyclones are part of that tournament field.  Specifically, the Cyclones earned the #5 seed in the Midwest region, and they will face the Nevada Wolf Pack on Thursday.  Nevada won the Mountain West Conference this year, and they are now "public enemy #1".

If Iowa State advances past Nevada, they would play the winner of the Purdue vs. Vermont game.

The release of the NCAA tournament brackets was not the only thing to get me excited this weekend.  Yesterday, Iowa State defeated the West Virginia Mountaineers in the Big 12 tournament title game to claim their 3rd tournament championship in four years!  Today Elizabeth and I took the kids out to Hickory Park to celebrate (I had a half chicken dinner, or as the phrase goes "winner-winner, chicken dinner").

To summarize my attendance of basketball games this season: I went to 14 home games, and Iowa State had 11 wins and 3 losses in that time.
 
Wins:

• Savannah State
• Mount St. Mary's
• The Citadel
• Omaha
• Mississippi Valley State
• Texas Tech
• Texas
• Kansas State
• TCU
• Baylor
• Oklahoma State

Losses:

• Cincinnati
• Kansas
• West Virginia

Of those teams, seven made the NCAA tournament: Mount St. Mary's (16-seed), Kansas State (11-seed), Baylor (3-seed), Oklahoma State (10-seed), Cincinnati (6-seed), West Virginia (4-seed), and Kansas (1-seed).

Sunday, March 5th, 2017

This weekend Elizabeth & I drove the kids out to Omaha so that they could meet their new cousin!  We drove out Saturday morning and came back after lunch today, so it was a pretty short trip.  Still it was fun to meet the newest member of our family :)

Elizabeth holding Logan for the first time.

Logan was so happy to meet me that he had to "dab".

All three cousins together (with Amy & Elizabeth too).

Tuesday, February 28th, 2017

Tonight I witnessed a very special Senior Night for the Iowa State Cyclones, as they defeated the Oklahoma State Cowboys by a score of 86-83.  The game itself was close the entire way, and all of the seniors for Iowa State were key to victory.  It's hard to pick, but I would say that Monte Morris was the player of the game for the Cyclones as he recorded 12 points, 11 assists, 9 rebounds, and 3 steals (he also became ISU's career leader in steals today).  With the Cyclones leading by three points with just a few seconds left, Morris disrupted an in-bounds pass by the Cowboys and caused a turnover (after the referees checked video replay).  That helped to ice the game.

Matt Thomas tied his career high with 25 points in the victory.  He shot 7-of-11 from three point range.  Deonte Burton had a nice game with 20 points, and Naz Long added 17.  It was nice to see all of the seniors have such good performances during their last game in Hilton.

After the game, there was a ceremony to honor the seniors, and all 7 of them were given a chance to speak to the crowd (Darrell Bowie, Merrill Holdon, and Stuart Nezlek were the other seniors).

Tonight was the fourth time that I have seen Iowa State play (and defeat) the Cowboys.  The previous times were in 2015, 2014, and in 2013.  

Iowa State wins!!

Saturday, February 25th, 2017

Iowa State just beat the #9 team in the country!!  That's right, the Cyclones just upset Baylor, 72-69.

Deonte Burton led the Cyclones with 22 points, including a banked-in three with just over a minute to play that gave Iowa State a 4-point lead.  It was about time that Iowa State was on the lucky end of a banked-in three!  Burton was joined in double-figures scoring for ISU by Monte Morris (17), Solomon Young (11), and Naz Long (10).  Johnathan Motley was a beast for Baylor as he had 27 points and 11 rebounds.  The game itself was a lot of fun as it was close the entire way, and there was a sell-out crowd at Hilton.

This was the third time that I have seen Iowa State play Baylor.  Iowa State won back in 2013, while the Bears prevailed in 2015.   As far as top-10 victories that I have seen, this is the fourth.  Last year I watched ISU defeat #1 Oklahoma, there was the victory over #7 Michigan in 2013, and in 2015 Iowa State took out #9 Kansas.

I did bring Maxwell to today's game, so this was the third game that he has attended (this season vs. The Citadel and vs. TCU were the others).  He was a very good boy for today's game.  He clapped quite a bit during the start of the game, and then he took about a half-hour nap on me during the end of the first half and at halftime.  It was funny how he could fall asleep in such a noisy environment.

Iowa State 72, Baylor 69.

Saturday, February 18th, 2017

It's been too long since my last blog post.  I should have made an entry for this sooner, but I'm happy to finally state that Amy & Brandon welcomed a healthy baby boy into the world on February 7th!  Introducing Logan Anthony Shostak:

I'm so excited to have a new baby in the family!  We still haven't made the trip over to Omaha to see him in person!  I know that they've had a lot of visitors recently, so we're trying to wait for a good time when it won't be so hectic.  Besides, Nolan was sick with the flu all of last week, so we had to stay home anyways.  I'm sure before long though we'll get the meet the little cutie!

What reminded me to blog today though was Iowa State's victory over the TCU Horned Frogs, 84-71.  Maxwell and Eben were both able to come with me to enjoy tonight's game.  This was Maxwell's second ever ISU basketball game (the first was this season vs The Citadel), and this was the first Big 12 conference game that he has attended. Interestingly, Nolan's first conference game was also against TCU (and it's 84-69 score was almost identical).  I must say that Maxwell was very well behaved for tonight's game.  He actually clapped along with the crowd basically non-stop for the first 10 minutes of the game.  I think that he was just like "Hey, I know how to do that", which really entertained him.

TCU won the opening tip-off.

Maxwell poses with me for his first scoreboard picture :)

Grandpa Eben with Maxwell.

As for the game, I would say that Naz Long was the player of the game.  He led the Cyclones with 25 points while connecting on 7 of 12 threes.  He also led the team with 7 rebounds.  Monte Morris also had a great game for Iowa State.  He scored 18 points, dished out 11 assists, and he recorded 2 steals (which places him in a tie for the Iowa State career record for steals with Jeff Hornacek at 211).  They were joined in double figures scoring by Deonte Burton (18) and Donovan Jackson (11).  Tonight was the fourth time that I have attended an ISU basketball game vs TCU (2015, 2014, and 2013 were the others).

Wednesday, February 1st, 2017

I just wanted to quickly say Happy Birthday to our little Maxwell who turned one year old today!! Today I had a late day at work, but Elizabeth took the day off to play with the kids, and grandma Becky came down to help celebrate.  They went out for lunch at Hickory Park so Maxwell could have  a birthday song and ice cream.  This past year seems to have gone by so quickly.  Maxwell has been such a happy baby who loves to smile all of the time.  We're lucky to have the two good boys that we do.  Love you!

Tuesday, January 24th, 2017

I just got back from watching the Cyclones hold off the Kansas State Wildcats, 70-65.  This game was way more stressful than it needed to be.  After getting off to a hot start in the first half, the Cyclones led by as many as 20 points in the second half.  However, before you knew it, they had blown the entire lead, and Kansas State came back to actually take a one point lead late in the second half.  Thankfully, the Cyclones managed to make some key plays down the stretch to seal the victory.
Matt Thomas was the player of the game for the Cyclones.  He scored a career-high 25 points, which included shooting 7 of 10 from three point land.  He had 20 points in the first half.  Thomas was joined in double-figures scoring for the Cyclones by Naz Long (13) and Monte Morris (12).  Coming into today's game, both teams were receiving votes in the AP top-25, but neither team was ranked.

This is the fifth time that I have seen Iowa State play (and defeat) Kansas State.  The previous times were back in 2016, 2013, 2012, and in 2003.

Iowa State 70, Kansas State 65.