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MONDAY MUSINGS: Momcilovic against Houston, hockey & Georges Niang

ConnorFerg, Feb 24 • 0 Comments

Feb 22, 2025; Houston, Texas, USA; Iowa State Cyclones forward Milan Momcilovic (22) shoots against Houston Cougars guard Terrance Arceneaux (23) in the second half at Fertitta Center. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Shea-Imagn Images

Man, that was a ride of a weekend.

Iowa State went into Houston with its top two scorers on the bench, played tough but lost the game, and moved up in most metrics due to others losing around them. Let’s get into it.

That may have been the most important game for Milan Momcilovic

The Iowa State sophomore had family in town to see him play during Saturday’s game and put down a goose egg in the first 20 minutes.

From the field, 0-7. From the 3-point line, 0-5. One rebound, and zero points.

I called for him to continue to shoot, because they’d fall eventually – Momcilovic is too good of a player to be shut out for a half while putting up seven shots.

And once they did start falling, he helped ignite the run that put Iowa State back into the game.

Momcilovic hit his first three of the game to get the deficit back down to 11 points, and like it does well, that Houston team punched right back in response.

The Cyclones found themselves down 45-29, and got two three’s from Tamin Lipsey in three possessions to tighten things up again.

Nate Heise hit the lay-in off of that beauty of a no-look pass from Joshua Jefferson and the momentum started to flow.

That’s when Momcilovic got the ball on back-to-back fastbreaks following turnovers forced, and it felt like a vintage T.J. Otzelberger team was flexing its defensive strength.

Momcilovic had six straight points during the stretch. He would later score seven more consecutively for the Cyclones as they tried to claw back but ultimately couldn’t finish it.

He’ll remember that going forward, and Iowa State fans should, too. Especially if a couple of baskets help inspire something similar in the postseason.

That goes along with the eight-point game from Brandt Chatfield and the big shots Heise made that sandwiched that horrendous cylinder foul call. I don’t want to spend much time on it as I think y’all have seen the call by now, but that was Heise’s best game of the year, too.

All in all, it was an inspiring performance despite the 68-59 loss to the No. 5 Cougars. 

Otzelberger had another gem of a quote that reflected that postgame.

I do wonder how precautionary Keshon Gilbert sitting out was

The Cyclones star officially sat out with a muscle strain that has been hindering him in recent weeks.

In the team’s last six games, Gilbert has only eclipsed double figures twice, scoring 11 against Kansas and 15 against UCF.

In the prior 20 games, he was in double figures in 17 of them.

It makes sense the Cyclones want to get him healthy and make sure he’s good to go for March.

Iowa State faces an Oklahoma State team on Tuesday that just lost to Kansas by 30 and shouldn’t be a problem no matter if Gilbert or Jones are on the court.

So where does that leave Iowa State?

I sure hope the AP Poll voters that look like they don’t watch all of the games prove me wrong Monday.

The streak Iowa State holds of staying in the top 10 of the poll hinges on voters knowing the team was without its top two scorers, and although it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, it’s certainly something for the program to hang its hat on.

Nonetheless, Iowa State moved from No. 8 overall on Joe Lunardi’s seed list to No. 7 after losses from Texas A&M and Wisconsin.

The Cyclones have still got to finish the season strong, but the path to a No. 2 seed still looks alive and well.

Women up against it after loss to No. 19 Baylor

Iowa State fell to 19-10 on the season after being downed 62-57 by a Baylor team that had won seven games in a row coming in.

The Cyclones now sit at No. 39 in the NCAA Net Rankings, but are 0-9 in Quad 1 games so far this year.

Every women’s bracketology I’ve looked at has the Cyclones hovering around the ‘last four in’ category – and that could mean having to go to a play-in game should they make the big dance.

Two games remain: A potential must-win on the road against UCF and then a home matchup with No. 12 Kansas State on Emily Ryan’s Senior Day.

Buckle up.

The quick hits

A lot of y’all seemed to like these a week ago, so I’m thinking they’ll be a normal feature in this column. Here’s what we saw this week.

Iowa Men’s Basketball had its greatest promotional idea to get butts into Carver Hawkeye Arena seats in maybe a decade (I could be forgetting some), but ultimately fell flat on the execution of it. Iowa gave out $2 beers (and pretzels) to its fans before its home game against Oregon, but it hardly looked different from a normal night, because they stopped offering the deal once the game tipped off! So close, but so far.

Drake and UNI played the game of the weekend, but it got overshadowed by a ref show in the final 15 minutes of the game between overtime and regulation.

UNI coach Ben Jacobson summed it up great here, saying there were seven or eight calls that went against both teams in that time span, but the foul that took UNI leading scorer Tytan Anderson out of the game was an egregious one. His quote and the replay below:

Nonetheless, the game provided some great theater, and Drake escaped with an overtime victory. At 25-3, Drake should be a tournament lock so long as it wins its next two games to close out Missouri Valley regular season play.

Iowa and Oklahoma State wrestled Sunday night, and my Twitter feed was filled with wrestling fans for a couple of hours.

I came across this tweet from former Illinois wrestler Adam Tirapelle. Apparently Purdue’s Matt Ramos sat out of his senior night to protect his No. 1 seed as the postseason approaches. Iowa and OSU saw a number of lineup surprises, too, with the most notable coming in Angelo Ferrari going at 184 instead of Gabe Arnold.

Adam’s exactly right – and the casual fan isn’t going to know the impacts of what they’re watching when they turn it on. Wrestling has seen tremendous growth over the years, but if those in the sport are serious about it, you need best-on-best wrestling every night. Don’t get me started with Iowa not wrestling UNI.

Speaking of best-on-best, 9.3 million people watched USA-Canada in the 4 Nations championship Thursday. Fittingly a puck sliding by a Maple Leaf captain Auston Matthews that gave Canada the win – the real puckheads know about their lack of success in the postseason.

Since that game, we’ve had two days of the NHL being back in action and guys are throwing more hits after the break. Alex Ovechkin found his way to a hat trick Sunday as well, and now sits at 882 in his career, 12 away from tying Gretzky. I don’t know if I’ve seen a week as impactful as this last one for hockey and the signs are saying it could continue to the playoffs in six weeks.

And lastly, but loudly, Georges Niang was a star this week, going for 27 points and seven 3-pointers in the Atlanta Hawks’ game against Detroit Sunday.

The video below is from Thursday’s game where the Hawks faced the Magic and Niang got into it against Paolo Banchero.

Tyrese Haliburton had a 29-point, 12-assist game against the Clippers Sunday, too. It’s fun times for the Cyclones in the NBA right now.

I’ll leave y’all with the best camera work from the weekend.

Connor Ferguson

editor

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