Iowa State reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in two of the past three seasons, and the Cyclones eye the Big 12 tournament as the time to create some momentum.
The No. 12 Cyclones, who are seeded fifth in the conference tournament after struggling late in the regular season, begin their pursuit of a strong March run when they face 13th-seeded Cincinnati in the second round at Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday.
Iowa State (23-8) dropped three of four games before closing the regular season with a 73-57 road victory over Kansas State on Saturday.
The Cyclones know that the path to the Big 12 title game isn’t easy, as top-seeded Houston is on the same side of the draw.
First, Iowa State wants to get past the Bearcats (18-14) and then see how the bracket plays out.
“Obviously, don’t want to look too far in the future, just want to focus on one game at a time, especially when it’s win or go home,” Iowa State guard Tamin Lipsey said. “But, obviously, it’s set up for us to have some games where we can go and show that we can win those, and we’ll focus on (Wednesday’s) first.”
Cyclones coach T.J. Otzelberger believes his team is ready for the day-after-day crush of tournament week.
He points back to late November when the Cyclones played three games in three days at the Maui Invitational.
“When you play at a tournament like Maui early in the year and you go game to game to game and you play really good competition, that’s the reason why you play in something like that — to help prepare you for this,” Otzelberger said.
The Cyclones feature five double-digit scorers with Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year Curtis Jones leading the way by averaging 17 points and sinking a team-best 74 3-pointers.
“It’s the best time of the year if you’re a basketball fan, so I’m enjoying it and looking forward to playing,” Jones said.
Cincinnati could use an upset of the Cyclones after losing five of its last seven regular-season games to fall off the NCAA Tournament bubble.
The Bearcats notched an important 87-68 first-round win over 12th-seeded Oklahoma State on Tuesday, but there is no chance of getting back on the bubble if they don’t knock off Iowa State.
However, Cincinnati coach Wes Miller insisted there was no peeking ahead at the Cyclones.
“I haven’t had a chance to dive into that one yet because, gosh, we were so concerned about (Oklahoma State),” Miller said. “I’m not just giving coach talk, but I mean it. This is a one-game tournament.”
The Bearcats had multiple standouts against the Cowboys. Josh Reed scored a career-best 19 points, Dillon Mitchell grabbed a career-high 15 rebounds while scoring 18 points and Day Day Thomas tallied a season-high 21 points and a career-best six steals.
Cincinnati compiled 18 steals with a pesky defensive effort.
“We got our hands on a lot of balls and I think that’s why you see the high steal numbers,” Miller said. “I thought we had good pop.”
It was a collective effort as leading scorer Jizzle James (12.9 ppg) managed just seven points on 2-of-10 shooting.
“We were just sharing the ball well, having fun, playing as a team,” Reed said. “You know, taking advantage of every matchup we had and just playing … confident.”
Iowa State recorded an 81-70 home win over Cincinnati on Feb. 15 to even the all-time series at four wins apiece. Otzelberger is 2-0 against the Bearcats during his four seasons as the Cyclones’ coach.
–Field Level Media
