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Monday, February 10, 2025

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How Iowa State Ascended on to School Basketball’s Radar


SHOP THE IOWA STATE COLLECTION

Within the heartland of Ames, IA, a basketball symphony is reaching its crescendo. The Iowa State Cyclones, lengthy overshadowed within the nationwide highlight, have emerged as a reliable powerhouse, their sights set firmly on faculty basketball’s highest honor, a nationwide championship. Whereas each group within the nation started the season with the dream of strolling up the ladder and reducing down the nets in entrance of a bought out crowd in San Antonio on April 7, Iowa State is on a brief checklist of packages with the means to truly do it. Orchestrated by head coach TJ Otzelberger, this yr’s squad embodies a tradition of resilience, camaraderie, toughness, self-discipline, authenticity and above all else, confidence. However to know how this yr’s Cyclones have gotten to inside an arm’s attain of the head, you have to first perceive the place they’ve been.

Final yr’s Cyclones received the group’s most convention video games since 2001, completed second within the Massive 12 standings and capped all of it off with a blowout win over the then-No.1 ranked Houston Cougars within the Massive 12 Event Championship. Then got here the NCAA Event. They’d make straightforward work of their first two opponents, earlier than shedding a nail-biter to Illinois within the Candy Sixteen. Alas, it was again to the drafting board.

The scars of final season’s abrupt exit from the Event nonetheless linger. For a lot of, such a setback might be the harbinger of decline, however not for Iowa State. Underneath Coach Otzelberger’s vigilant eye, the Cyclones turned disappointment right into a silver lining. Each summer season exercise, each movie session, was imbued with a singular function: the get again. And anyone who is aware of something about faculty basketball is aware of this one factor: If you wish to make a deep run with an opportunity to win all of it, it begins together with your guards. Fortunately for Iowa State, they’re led by a pair of killers in Curtis Jones and Keshon Gilbert, who’re proving to be top-of-the-line backcourts within the nation.

Jones, a Minnesota native, is the epitome of what this Iowa State program represents. The 6-4 do-it-all swingman has a knack for placing the ball within the rim together with his feathery contact and performs with a contagious pleasure and spirit that permeates the entire squad. He didn’t have a single provide popping out of highschool and would find yourself beginning his faculty profession at Indian Hills Group School in Ottumwa, IA. After one standout season, he’d take his skills to Buffalo College, the place he’d play for 2 years, en path to changing into an All-MAC participant, earlier than in the end transferring to Iowa State final yr.

Jones’s backcourt companion, Gilbert, was equally underrated popping out of highschool, ranked as a 3-star recruit. He loved modest success in two years at UNLV and would additionally enter the switch portal after the ’23 season and change into a Cyclone. The 6 -4 lead guard made his influence felt straight away in his first season in Ames, main the group in scoring on his technique to incomes a handful of honors: All-Massive 12 Second Workforce, Massive 12 Championship All-Event Workforce and Massive 12 Championship MVP. Merely put, he’s the engine that makes this group go.

Together with Jones and Gilbert, this yr’s group had a few key items come again from final yr’s Candy Sixteen group—their All-Massive 12 junior guard Tamin Lipsey, and their sophomore ahead Milan Momcilovic, who earned a spot on the Massive 12 Championship All-Event Workforce. This yr’s roster additionally noticed one other gifted switch class into the fold: former All-Missouri Valley guard Nate Heise (Northern Iowa), Joshua Jefferson (St. Mary’s), Brandton Chatfield (Seattle) and Dishon Jackson (Charlotte).

We’re midway via this season with convention play effectively underway, and Iowa State has been flat out wonderful. And if you happen to don’t imagine me, simply ask Baylor’s Corridor of Fame coach Scott Drew, who just lately referred to as them “top-of-the-line two groups within the nation” after struggling a blowout loss by the hands of the Cyclones. 

The AP polls are barely much less beneficiant; as we go to press right this moment, the AP High 25 polls have Iowa State ranked third. But, someway, the Cyclones nonetheless appear to be flying below the radar.

“That’s been a chip on our shoulder since earlier than we acquired right here. I don’t really feel like me or [Jones] ever acquired the popularity we deserve,” says Gilbert. “However that’s simply extra motivation. That simply places extra gasoline within the tank, and provides extra gasoline to the hearth. So, it’s what it’s.”

“You get the popularity while you win,” says Jones. “No matter comes with successful, we’ll take it. We’re not likely in it for the popularity, however that’s what comes with it.”

If anybody’s shocked by how dominant they’ve been, you may wager it’s not anybody of their locker room. They anticipated this. 

“Coming into this season, we knew how good we might be. Me and Keshon have been at all times speaking about what we have been going to do and what we felt like we might do,” says Jones. “The outcomes are coming now, however it began due to how final yr ended. We acquired to it straight away this yr; we already knew what it was.”

And if you happen to allow them to inform it, they’re solely simply starting to scratch the floor of their potential. Nevermind them convincingly successful nearly all of their video games up to now by double digits. 

“We ain’t even actually enjoying our greatest. I’d say we’re enjoying good, we’re enjoying strong, however we nonetheless have enhancements to make. And that’s thrilling, as a result of we’ve nonetheless been successful handily. However now we have room for enchancment, even in that. And that’s what nice groups do. They discover the place they will enhance and never simply be content material with successful video games. We received the final two by like 20, however we wanna make that 30,” says Jones.

It’s not farfetched to examine Iowa State pulling off a couple of 30-point victories earlier than the season’s out. Nicely, a couple of extra 30-point victories I ought to say. They’d a handful of wins by not less than that a lot from their early non-conference slate, which matches to point out that these Cyclones aren’t enjoying with their meals. They know what’s at stake, they usually’ve embraced every little thing it takes to achieve their final purpose of a natty. Not a single second might be taken without any consideration once they’re making an attempt to do one thing that’s by no means been executed in program historical past. To wit: Gilbert and Jones say they will’t even consider a time that Coach Otzelberger has even talked about a Massive 12 Championship, not to mention the nationwide championship; he makes it a degree to take it sport by sport, brick by brick. 

The star backcourt makes clear that they’re maintaining “the principle factor the principle factor.” They embrace the notion that their private objectives shall be rather more simply attainable in the event that they deal with successful first. 

Each group who’s ever climbed that ladder because the final group standing has not less than one factor in widespread: they ran towards the work, not away from it. In that regard, the Iowa State program, helmed by Coach Otzelberger, is effectively on their method. And we all know the outdated saying: Nothing price having comes straightforward.

“I ain’t gonna lie, Iowa State isn’t for everyone—if you happen to don’t actually love basketball, you ain’t gonna prefer it. You ain’t gonna match right here, as a result of basketball is all it’s,” says Gilbert. “We work exhausting as hell, so we all know every little thing’s gonna fall into place.”


Portraits by Matthew Coughlin.



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