Iowa State's basketball team is pretty interesting to me. They have a lot of talent and they are cocky as hell, but they have zero toughness. Last year, as Section110, I posted a thread on CyFan at the beginning of the basketball season discussing how I thought their team would struggle to replace Deandre Kane because of his toughness and ability to get to the rim. Most people called me crazy and said BDJ was the answer. Look what happened... got bounced in the 1st round by UAB because they were mentally fragile and thought they could win by simply showing up. They got BEAT in that game and several others. Physically beat. That should not be acceptable when you have a team with as much talent as they had last year, and it's the same way this year.
Hoiberg's mentality was laid back. He did a hell of a job of assembling talent in Ames, but he didn't provide any toughness. Basically they played street ball. You can see his approach is already struggling to take hold in Chicago. Pollard specifically went after a coach who would run the team in a similar way to Fred and it's looking like that's exactly what he got. It will be interesting to see if Prohm can instill some discipline and toughness in his guys. If not their results will be similar in my opinion. Pretty successful overall, but ultimately disappointed once they run into a team who is physically and mentally tough. Talent only gets you so far.
If I'm the coach of a team about to play ISU my message would be clear. Get physical. Own the paint. Don't back down. Push them around. They might look talented on paper but if you do those things they will fold. That's exactly what UNI did and they are far from being a great team this year. Hell Iowa almost beat them, and I would put Iowa in the mentally fragile category as well.
This is how I would summarize the three in-state teams:
Iowa - A team that is more talented than most people realize. Capable of hanging with anyone. They could use a closer. Someone who refuses to let the game slip away at the end. Someone who stays calm and makes the right decisions. There's a lot of time left in the season to learn and develop that, but honestly it's been something that has been needed for years and a lot of it comes down to Gesell figuring it out.
Iowa State - Incredibly talented team prone to complete mental lapses and overconfidence. They can play with anyone as long as their shots are falling. If their shots aren't falling and they start to get pushed around they'll fold. They could use some humility. A large dose of humility. The best thing for them might be to lose a handful of games and then peak at the right time come March.
UNI - Outside of Washpun they are not a very talented all-around team, but they have fundamentally sound basketball players who know how to play together. They don't make many mental mistakes and they hit open shots. They truly take the team approach to grinding out victories and they know how to win.