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Audi Crooks is a stud…,,

cmhawks99

cmhawks99

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Jul 23, 2002
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I honestly wish she played on our team although from what I understand there was a question on the staff if she would fit with our style of play. I do believe Lisa could’ve fit her in but she’s an exact poster child of the crap that some of us fight on this board all the time….

If she was currently on this year’s team she would not make us better. A little more versatile, sure, a little more consistent down low, sure….

But she would not have made us better the way we currently are playing basketball and neither would’ve Monica…

We are a position less, perpetual motion offense, that exploits poor rotation and spacing….

A 6-3 plus center that cannot get up and down the floor at least as well as Hannah, or at least AO, doesn’t help us much…🤷‍♂️
 
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Crooks is averaging 18.4 points and 7.6 rebs as a freshman in the B12 conference. She just posted 25 points and 9 rebs in 27 minutes against No. 17 Oklahoma.

Your contention is wrong. She would make Iowa instantly better by providing quality depth over what we have now. Bluder and Jensen pulled all the stops recruiting her to Iowa.
 
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StormHawk42 said:
I have no idea how she would’ve fit in but I will say I was totally wrong on her D1 abilities. She’s a beast and will get a lot better as she develops.
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Agreed. I thought given her conditioning and weight that she could give spot minutes and that’s about it. Bill has talked about using her in spurts earlier this year and extending her PT as her conditioning improved. She has great hands/feet and seems to be a very cerebral player. Good on her. She is a heckuva player.
 
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cmhawks99 said:
I honestly wish she played on our team although from what I understand there was a question on the staff if she would fit with our style of play. I do believe Lisa could’ve fit her in but she’s an exact poster child of the crap that some of us fight on this board all the time….

If she was currently on this year’s team she would not make us better. A little more versatile, sure, a little more consistent down low, sure….

But she would not have made us better the way we currently are playing basketball and neither would’ve Monica…

We are a position less, perpetual motion offense, that exploits poor rotation and spacing….

A 6-3 plus center that cannot get up and down the floor at least as well as Hannah, or at least AO, doesn’t help us much…🤷‍♂️
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I have not really seen her play much except for sport show highlights. From what everyone says she is a very good player. If someone like her or a guy, a taller, bulkier player, is one of the main players for a team then you can best defend them by denying them the ball?

When she is on the low block front her and play her to the side making a pass to her difficult.

Does she shoot the ball well from 18 to 21 feet?
 
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nu2u said:
Crooks is averaging 18.4 points and 7.6 rebs as a freshman in the B12 conference. She just posted 25 points and 9 rebs in 27 minutes against No. 17 Oklahoma.

Your contention is wrong. She would make Iowa instantly better by providing quality depth over what we have now. Bluder and Jensen pulled all the stops recruiting her to Iowa.
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I so hoped you’d latch onto this… Some of you guys can see the writing on the wall and skip posts that **** up your proposals…

She would average that on most teams, and yet you guarantee that would make any team better, right?

In fact, I’d wager adding a high-end player or two from another conference, would automatically improve any team, correct?

Be careful where you are heading here friend, but please answer the question.
 
uihawk82 said:
I have not really seen her play much except for sport show highlights. From what everyone says she is a very good player. If someone like her or a guy, a taller, bulkier player, is one of the main players for a team then you can best defend them by denying them the ball?

When she is on the low block front her and play her to the side making a pass to her difficult.

Does she shoot the ball well from 18 to 21 feet?
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Not yet, but the truth is, we would’ve had to adjusted our style of play… I think Lisa Bluder was convinced she could play at this level. I don’t believe she was convinced she fit what we wanted to do. So despite some of the naivety, and let’s be honest just flat short sighted stupidity much of our board aspires too…

A stationary player averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds a game doesn’t automatically fit on and make just “any team“.


It’s really pretty simple conceptionally and I would assume most coaches wouldn’t struggle with this premise… Some coaches just flat wouldn’t recruit that player because they know no matter how good they are, doesn’t necessarily improve their team…

I also knew we had a lot of posters that wouldn’t be able to figure this out…

I believe if we could’ve got a player the caliber of Anessa Morrow, it would’ve been a big boon for us, but I don’t atvall agree with the proletariat just adding another big would’ve helped….

I’m gonna say this one more time just for the peons in the gallery… Adding Monica to this year’s team would decrease our defensive improvement and our rebounding…
 
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It's impossible to know if she would of helped this team be better or not. We could say she brings depth, rebounding and a different look etc.
Everything would depend on how LB decided to use her. Obviously they are not running and gunning like they do currently with her in the floor but LB possibly could have implemented a slower pace different sets/looks at times that would utilize her skill set better.
Now while she's not AC size, running the current offense Sahara Williams would actually be a better fit then her.
 
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cmhawks99 said:
Not yet, but the truth is, we would’ve had to adjusted our style of play… I think Lisa Bluder was convinced she could play at this level. I don’t believe she was convinced she fit what we wanted to do. So despite some of the naivety, and let’s be honest just flat short sighted stupidity much of our board aspires too…

A stationary player averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds a game doesn’t automatically fit on and make just “any team“.


It’s really pretty simple conceptionally and I would assume most coaches wouldn’t struggle with this premise… Some coaches just flat wouldn’t recruit that player because they know no matter how good they are, doesn’t necessarily improve their team…

I also knew we had a lot of posters that wouldn’t be able to figure this out…

I believe if we could’ve got a player the caliber of Anessa Morrow, it would’ve been a big boon for us, but I don’t atvall agree with the proletariat just adding another big would’ve helped….

I’m gonna say this one more time just for the peons in the gallery… Adding Monica to this year’s team would decrease our defensive improvement and our rebounding…
Click to expand...
Who is Monica?
 
cmhawks99 said:
Not yet, but the truth is, we would’ve had to adjusted our style of play… I think Lisa Bluder was convinced she could play at this level. I don’t believe she was convinced she fit what we wanted to do. So despite some of the naivety, and let’s be honest just flat short sighted stupidity much of our board aspires too…

A stationary player averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds a game doesn’t automatically fit on and make just “any team“.


It’s really pretty simple conceptionally and I would assume most coaches wouldn’t struggle with this premise… Some coaches just flat wouldn’t recruit that player because they know no matter how good they are, doesn’t necessarily improve their team…

I also knew we had a lot of posters that wouldn’t be able to figure this out…

I believe if we could’ve got a player the caliber of Anessa Morrow, it would’ve been a big boon for us, but I don’t atvall agree with the proletariat just adding another big would’ve helped….

I’m gonna say this one more time just for the peons in the gallery… Adding Monica to this year’s team would decrease our defensive improvement and our rebounding…
Click to expand...
Going to guess she probably realized she was a better fit at Iowa St style wise. Now I think you’re wrong about her being able to help our team immediately. She’s clearly not a rim runner like Hannah but 15-18 minutes a game I think she easily could have fit in and we wouldn’t have to change a thing. You can’t tell me she wouldn’t have been a huge improvement over any backup we have. Also would have given us the ability to go big at times with her and Stuelke together. And I’m not blaming Bluder one bit. I believe we wanted her but she chose Iowa St. Can’t win them all.
 
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littlez said:
Going to guess she probably realized she was a better fit at Iowa St style wise. Now I think you’re wrong about her being able to help our team immediately. She’s clearly not a rim runner like Hannah but 15-18 minutes a game I think she easily could have fit in and we wouldn’t have to change a thing. You can’t tell me she wouldn’t have been a huge improvement over any backup we have. Also would have given us the ability to go big at times with her and Stuelke together. And I’m not blaming Bluder one bit. I believe we wanted her but she chose Iowa St. Can’t win them all.
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I would have liked to find out, but that’s no small commitment. It would change this teams dynamic. At this point in time we played enough of this season and last season to understand this team per the numbers is clearly better and yet we lost a 63 player and a 61 player who were good…

That’s pretty hard to gloss over
 
littlez said:
Going to guess she probably realized she was a better fit at Iowa St style wise. Now I think you’re wrong about her being able to help our team immediately. She’s clearly not a rim runner like Hannah but 15-18 minutes a game I think she easily could have fit in and we wouldn’t have to change a thing. You can’t tell me she wouldn’t have been a huge improvement over any backup we have. Also would have given us the ability to go big at times with her and Stuelke together. And I’m not blaming Bluder one bit. I believe we wanted her but she chose Iowa St. Can’t win them all.
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Quick question, without Creaning one of our bigs, would we have had room for her? We had 4 coming back with HS, SG, AOG, and AJ, only one of which gives us any versatility. I’m not sure a roster with that many bigs would be a good thing unless someone was asked to leave.
 
herk u2 said:
It's impossible to know if she would of helped this team be better or not. We could say she brings depth, rebounding and a different look etc.
Everything would depend on how LB decided to use her. Obviously they are not running and gunning like they do currently with her in the floor but LB possibly could have implemented a slower pace different sets/looks at times that would utilize her skill set better.
Now while she's not AC size, running the current offense Sahara Williams would actually be a better fit then her.
Click to expand...

Bingo…. Here is someone who gets it.
 
cmhawks99 said:
I would have liked to find out, but that’s no small commitment. It would change this teams dynamic. At this point in time we played enough of this season and last season to understand this team per the numbers is clearly better and yet we lost a 63 player and a 61 player who were good…

That’s pretty hard to gloss over
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Well recruited her so obviously Bluder wasnt worried about how she’d fit in. Don’t really understand where you’re trying to go here. Bluder isn’t changing her system really for anyone, except of course Clark. She’s always like to play fast. But again, Crooks seems like a good teammate and even better player. Could she play 30 minutes at the pace we play now? Clearly not. But again, easing her in behind Hannah and using her when she’s in foul trouble or mixing the lineup certainly couldn’t have hurt our team if that’s what youre trying to say.
 
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jellyfish10 said:
Quick question, without Creaning one of our bigs, would we have had room for her? We had 4 coming back with HS, SG, AOG, and AJ, only one of which gives us any versatility. I’m not sure a roster with that many bigs would be a good thing unless someone was asked to leave.
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No. not and take back Kate, Gabby, and leaving Ava on a scholarship....
 
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littlez said:
Well recruited her so obviously Bluder wasnt worried about how she’d fit in. Don’t really understand where you’re trying to go here. Bluder isn’t changing her system really for anyone, except of course Clark. She’s always like to play fast. But again, Crooks seems like a good teammate and even better player. Could she play 30 minutes at the pace we play now? Clearly not. But again, easing her in behind Hannah and using her when she’s in foul trouble or mixing the lineup certainly couldn’t have hurt our team if that’s what youre trying to say.
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No issue, not being cute… the over arching premise if there is one to this particular scenario, is…just putting a player or in this particular instance let’s say some numbers on a team does not automatically make it better…

Chemistry, rotation, minutes, etc, and ultimately, “how do we want to play?”
 
Chemistry, style, blah blah blah... Crooks wouldv'e made Iowa better without doubt. She's a freshman & probably will make the NCAA's all freshman team if there is such a thing. She's talented and any team would love to have her. Coaches make adjustments for great players. Although she probably wouldv'e come off the bench this year at Iowa.
 
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In my opinion it will benefit her basketball career and overall health in the long run for her to lose about 50 pounds or more. She’d still be a force. If she maintains her current weight, or gets bigger, she’ll likely deal with injuries over the next few years.
 
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Bluder definitely wanted her. But she was never on track for Iowa. Her dad died when she was in HS and she wanted to stay close to home. She also opted out of AIA in favor of the inferior Cy-Select. If she was serious about her development she would have joined AIA and then chose Iowa (the school known for post development). But that wasn’t her priority — she wanted to be close to home and she probably grew up a Cyclone fan to boot. Different kids have different priorities. A lot of people will never understand why Caitlin chose Iowa over ND, Stanford and SC.

Like someone said above, you can’t win ‘em all. It happens. She is at Iowa State tho and she’ll learn sooner or later that their coach likely can’t take her to where she could be. There are already rumblings about another of their star freshmen transfering out, which would be in keeping with the fact that they lost half their team to the portal last year and 75% of their prized 2020 class over the past few years as well (Feuerbach to Iowa, Joens to Oklahoma, Donarski to North Carolina — Ryan is the only one left). CBF is in over his head, a good chunk of their fans know it. He is hard to play for and despite being an offense-focused coach, isn’t very good at drawing up offense.
 
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nu2u said:
Crooks is averaging 18.4 points and 7.6 rebs as a freshman in the B12 conference. She just posted 25 points and 9 rebs in 27 minutes against No. 17 Oklahoma.

Your contention is wrong. She would make Iowa instantly better by providing quality depth over what we have now. Bluder and Jensen pulled all the stops recruiting her to Iowa.
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From what I understand…Crooks picked ISU mainly due to Ames proximity to her home town of Algona, so her other college options were secondary.
 
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I haven’t watched her since we played ISU but I was very impressed with her in that game. I’ll add it was nice to see her playing with a smile on her face. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her always being a bigger girl growing up and probably still isn’t. I hope for her own health she can drop some weight though.
 
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cmhawks99 said:
I would have liked to find out, but that’s no small commitment. It would change this teams dynamic. At this point in time we played enough of this season and last season to understand this team per the numbers is clearly better and yet we lost a 63 player and a 61 player who were good…

That’s pretty hard to gloss over
Click to expand...
The numbers show this team scores 5.5 more points per game and gives up 0.1 more points per game than last year. Offensive efficiency improved a decent amount, while defensive efficiency was nearly identical.

Of those additional 5.5 ppg, 4.1 can be attributed to increased production from CC. Kate Martin took a leap forward (+5.2 ppg), Affolter came in at 3.2 ppg less than Warnock, and Hannah 2.5 ppg less than Monika.

Defensively, 2023-24 Hannah and 2022-23 Monika had nearly identical stats. Subjectively, neither one is a defensive standout. Offensively, Hannah runs the floor better and Monica finished around the rim better. Overall, I think it's a wash. Where I will agree with you is that the supporting cast stepped up this year, while last year was mostly the CC/Monika show.

So circling back to what I guess is supposed to be the point of this thread, would Audi Crooks (or Monika in some hypothetical scenario) be an upgrade over O'Grady / Goodman / Ediger? Yes, absolutely. Would it have been worth the roster disruption required to make that happen? Hindsight says no.
 
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StallmanCurse said:
The numbers show this team scores 5.5 more points per game and gives up 0.1 more points per game than last year. Offensive efficiency improved a decent amount, while defensive efficiency was nearly identical.

Of those additional 5.5 ppg, 4.1 can be attributed to increased production from CC. Kate Martin took a leap forward (+5.2 ppg), Affolter came in at 3.2 ppg less than Warnock, and Hannah 2.5 ppg less than Monika.

Defensively, 2023-24 Hannah and 2022-23 Monika had nearly identical stats. Subjectively, neither one is a defensive standout. Offensively, Hannah runs the floor better and Monica finished around the rim better. Overall, I think it's a wash. Where I will agree with you is that the supporting cast stepped up this year, while last year was mostly the CC/Monika show.

So circling back to what I guess is supposed to be the point of this thread, would Audi Crooks (or Monika in some hypothetical scenario) be an upgrade over O'Grady / Goodman / Ediger? Yes, absolutely. Would it have been worth the roster disruption required to make that happen? Hindsight says no.
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Hmmm….well said. Better actually, thanks…we could ultimately be more talented and not better..🤷‍♂️
 
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Hawksbyamillion said:
I haven’t watched her since we played ISU but I was very impressed with her in that game. I’ll add it was nice to see her playing with a smile on her face. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her always being a bigger girl growing up and probably still isn’t. I hope for her own health she can drop some weight though.
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I reffed several of her games in JH. She has teammate is playing D-2 basketball. I never saw a player with better hands than Audi even in JH. Lots of 50-60 point games. I don't remember exact scores but not sure another team came within 50 points. Her uncle coaches football at D2 level and helped her with recruiting process. He is a huge Hawk fan. Named his son Hayden. Iowa was definitely in the hunt
 
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JupiterHawk said:
Nice thread and an example of how a forum should discuss a student athlete who plays for a rival school. Unfortunately, the aholes at CF do not follow this example, you should see the threads on Clark. They are brutal.
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Jealousy is an ugly trait. Chaps their Clown a$$es that CC is a nationwide sensation & no one outside of Story County gives a sh!t about their b-ball teams. 😂🤡
 
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JupiterHawk said:
Nice thread and an example of how a forum should discuss a student athlete who plays for a rival school. Unfortunately, the aholes at CF do not follow this example, you should see the threads on Clark. They are brutal.
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I noticed this too. The comments from some over there about CC are insane and strange. Some so badly want to pretend she’s not that big of a deal, or that she’s not that good. Meanwhile, all the biggest national sports talk shows, media outlets, non-sports shows, and even international media outlets are raving about her. Not to mention Nike and Gatorade putting her front and center. But yah, she sucks.
 
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HawkOptimist said:
I noticed this too. The comments from some over there about CC are insane and strange. Some so badly want to pretend she’s not that big of a deal, or that she’s not that good. Meanwhile, all the biggest national sports talk shows, media outlets, non-sports shows, and even international media outlets are raving about her. Not to mention Nike and Gatorade putting her front and center. But yah, she sucks.
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AKA...ENVY
 
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