Iowa State Coach Steve Prohm is in his first season with the program, having taken over for the Mayor Fred Hoiberg. Prohm’s predecessor took over for Tom Thibodeau as Chicago Bulls Head Coach, and it’s been a rough year in the house that Michael Jordan built.
Fred Hoiberg is having a rough debut year, and the Bulls have fallen all the way down to the point of being on the outside looking in regarding the NBA postseason.
(Related: Iowa State-Virginia Game Preview and Prediction)
As for the Sweet 16 bound Cyclones, they’ve had a successful postseason thus far, and they’ll continue it in the very same building where Hoiberg plays his game these days. Fred Hoiberg hosted his former team last night and they saw the Bulls fall to the New York Knicks.
Well, at least they saw Nikola Mirotic put on a clinic! He scored a career high 35 points on 9/13 three point field goal shooting. His nine treys ties a single game franchise record.
Hoiberg was never able to bring the Cyclones past the Sweet 16, so if Prohm can get it done he will have led the first Iowa St. team to that level since 2000.
Those ‘Clones played the de facto national championship game in the Elite 8 giving eventual champ Michigan State all they could handle. Marcus Fizer and Jamaal Tinsley had Tom Izzo on the ropes and that’s been the apex of modern Iowa State basketball history. The program did reach the Final Four in 1944.
The Mayor talks to @CyclonesTV about the Iowa State season and his time with the @chicagobulls #Cyclones pic.twitter.com/lhgLWxEI8p
— Iowa State Men’s Basketball (@CycloneMBB) March 23, 2016
“Fred Hoiberg not only was their coach, Fred is one of the best players to ever play at Iowa State University, so he is a die-hard fan, and I want a great relationship with all our former players,” said Prohm.
“Fred took a couple minutes to talk to these guys about just enjoying the process, enjoying the journey, enjoy this moment, soak it up, and then fight like heck to beat Virginia, and to give him an opportunity to watch us on Sunday play the winner of the other game.”
“Fred has been a great resource for me. Hopefully we made him proud this year. I think we have from what he told those guys yesterday, but I really thought it was cool that he could be part of this journey, that we could meet up in Chicago and hopefully we can see him on Sunday.”
One of Iowa State’s biggest and boldest leaders, Gorgeous Georges Niang discussed what he enjoyed the most about visiting Fred Hoiberg.
“I think the biggest thing was just how he carries himself, always has a smile on his face, is always cool, calm and collected, just like I feel like we’ve been trained since he coached us. That hasn’t left us.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
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