Gabe to Iowa State

I like how RJ says with confidence that Gabe made his mind up before Pitino was even fired. Why did he wait until after Ben was hired to enter the portal if that was the case? Why did he wait until after Thorson was hired to commit to a new team? I'm sure it was just a coincidence on the timing, go cyclones!
 

I think we underestimate the psychological fatigue of this past Covid season where kids lived in a bubble. The incapacity to breathe and get out had to take a toll. Plus, Gabe strikes me as the kid who wanted perfection and ultimately over analyzed his shot to the point he needed a new setting and a place to let go of his frustration with his shot. Get away. It may be really a healthy choice on his part.
The bubble part of this doesn’t get brought up enough. Great point and post
 


I like how RJ says with confidence that Gabe made his mind up before Pitino was even fired. Why did he wait until after Ben was hired to enter the portal if that was the case? Why did he wait until after Thorson was hired to commit to a new team? I'm sure it was just a coincidence on the timing, go cyclones!
It is in the media guys best interests to spin things positive for a new staff. If they don't they can get iced out of information. It's not great journalism, and they may do their best at being more than PR people, but I would not expect a negative word out of them for at least year regarding the staff.
 

Doogie is a spinner no doubt, but he’s not the only one saying the negative stuff wore him down. It’s fair to say it had some influence in this case.

Ben and Thor can save face by killing the 2022 class. This will hurt for a week. Then it may hurt some more if he kills it in Ames
We did get the coach that taught him defense, Perhaps that’s enough to take the sting away.
 


Gabe should’ve transferred to Purdue because the students in the first row behind the baskets will need to wear helmets as protective gear.
 

We did get the coach that taught him defense, Perhaps that’s enough to take the sting away.
100 percent. I feel this staff will make defense a priority and that will lead to more B1G wins
 





Look, fans keeping a positive attitude sounds great in theory, but it is like leaving a kindergarten class alone for an hour with candy and breakable objects, and then being surprised when the candy is gone, the kids are fighting, and some things are broken. And it’s going to be true whether those kids are in Minnesota, Iowa, Florida, or Alaska.

A D1 basketball player who is not playing well on a losing team is going to be talked about in a negative way by fans on social media/message boards/etc. That’s going to be true everywhere. You get the free education, stipend, free gear, and notoriety, but along with that is going to come some other stuff that you’d probably rather not deal with. Now, there is a big difference between someone ranting about a poor shooting performance on Twitter without tagging anyone vs. someone sending a player DMs telling them they are worthless. I don’t know what exactly was happening here, but I hope we all know that the latter of those crosses a line to being extremely inappropriate and borderline illegal.

I’d be surprised if we are a drastically more hardcore than other Power 6 program fan bases when it comes to going off on social media. I’m willing to bet negative recruiting could be done against every other Power 6 program by printing out a few comments from message boards and a few social media responses and showing them to recruits. (Look at Ohio State. And that was an All B1G First Team player who lead his team to a 2 seed in the NCAAs!)

So, yes, people need to calm down on social media in general, but I’m really not sure that it makes a huge difference to most players unless it crosses a line. Maybe Gabe is just a little more sensitive to it, and that’s okay. He was by all accounts a stand up guy here who did things the right way and gave his best. He clearly wasn’t happy here and next year is more than likely a rebuilding year for the program so a fresh start was probably best for all parties. I hold no ill will toward him, and wish him the best at Iowa State.
I was actually surprised how optimistic and hopeful fans here were that he'd snap out of it and regain his form. Most everyone here loves the guy.

I've been boostering him here since his sophomore year of high school, and I've never wavered on his value and worthiness to stay in the rotation. But it's not a sin or betrayal to cite the facts of his statistics and note his performance problems. Is any fan base going to censor that kind of conversation?
 

It is in the media guys best interests to spin things positive for a new staff. If they don't they can get iced out of information. It's not great journalism, and they may do their best at being more than PR people, but I would not expect a negative word out of them for at least year regarding the staff.
This was known by other people as well. Not trying to spin it but you can see it when he played this year. His body language was the worst it has been since he has been here
 




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