Iowa State Cyclones forward Tre King (0) and Iowa State Cyclones guard Curtis Jones (5) knock the ball out from West Virginia Mountaineers guard Jesse Edwards (7) during the second half in the Big-12 conference showdown of an NCAA college basketball at Hilton Coliseum on Feb. 24, 2024, in Ames, Iowa. © Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Iowa State’s players gathered at the Sukup Basketball Complex last Saturday night after a loss at Kansas State. They weren’t necessarily there to put shots up. Or dissect game videos. The No. 7 Cyclones fittingly assembled to watch a UFC bout — and deepen an already tight team-wide bond heading into the Big 12 Tournament.
“Just things like that (are) what we’ve been doing to get closer, but we’re already a close group,” said ISU senior guard Curtis Jones, who hopes to help his second-seeded team beat the suddenly surging 10th-seeded Kansas State in Thursday’s 6 p.m. quarterfinal at the T-Mobile Center.
Wending through a grueling 18-game conference slate, or a potential three-game sprint to a Big 12 Tournament title isn’t exactly mixed martial arts, but it does come with plenty of bumps, bruises, and strains attached. That’s the price of admission for teams committed to being contenders — which the Cyclones (24-7) have proven to be throughout the season, despite a precipitous dip in offensive production in recent weeks.
“As the season wears on and it’s just game after game after game, you don’t get the same opportunity to practice,” said ISU head coach T.J. Otzelberger, whose team closed the regular season by winning 11 of its last 14 games. “So you’re always walking that line of trying to have healthy bodies and then also getting better in certain areas. (We’re) playing against some of the best defenses in the country, so there’s a mental effect that goes into it as well, and I think people experience the same thing against us.”
That’s why the Cyclones have won four of their past five games despite scoring 70 or more points just once in that span. Their defense, as usual, serves as the winning formula, but they’re convinced their offense will also revive after a reset of sorts.
“(It’s) a whole new season for us,” ISU senior forward Tre King said. “A whole new opportunity to prove people wrong and win and learn. I think we did a really good job — especially this week after the Kansas State loss — of learning what went well, what didn’t go well; what worked and what didn’t. So I think we did a really good job in our preparation these past few days of focusing on our strengths and weaknesses and what we need to get back to for us to be successful because, at the end of the day, it’s about what we do.”
That means pounding an opponent into submission via constant ball pressure that leads to live ball turnovers. It’s not always a visually pleasing gambit, but it’s proven to be highly effective.
“Once we get to Kansas City and the postseason, while you’re in it, it’s brutal for sure,” King said. “There’s no gimme game, no easy game. Every game’s a war, a battle. So having all these wars and fights you’ve got to go through night in and night out, it takes a toll on you physically and mentally.”
ISU enters the ring Thursday as rested and recuperated as possible in the thick of March. And once that bell rings for the first of potentially three straight games in as many days, the Cyclones will lean on what got them here: A grit-based, no-surrender approach that serves as their competitive foundation.
“You’ve just got to dig deep and find that extra gear,” Jones said. “I mean, this is the end of the season. There’s nothing left after this (except) the NCAA Tournament, but anything from now on, they’re all big games, so I think we just take it one game at a time and just try to survive to the next day and keep surviving.”
