Kansas Jayhawks forward KJ Adams Jr.(24) rebounds the ball around Iowa State Cyclones guard/forward Tristan Enaruna (23) during the first half at Hilton Coliseum Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, in Ames, Iowa.
1 – The aggressors won.
There’s no better way to say it than the sub-line already states.
Kansas was the more aggressive team for all 40 minutes. They did a better job of attacking downhill offensively in the halfcourt. They did a better job of getting out to create transition opportunities.
Outside of a stretch in the first half, the Jayhawks did a better job of using aggressive ball pressure to make Iowa State uncomfortable offensively.
This team got punched in the mouth from the jump, going down 13-6 before the under-16 timeout of the first half, and Kansas never looked back.
“It’s a good question,” said Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger when asked about his team’s aggressiveness. “I don’t know. I know what we practice. I also know that we’ve been a team at times where things haven’t gone our way offensively, and we’ve still stayed the course doing the physical things. Even though I know that there were stretches we didn’t score the ball as well as we’d have liked, we’ve had that happen to us and still been the more physically are imposing team.”
Iowa State simply isn’t good enough to be the less talented team AND the less aggressive team. They’ve got to do something that will close the gap against some of these Big 12 teams, especially when that team is Kansas.
I know the Jayhawks didn’t have the Big 12’s leading scorer Ochai Agbaji and starting point guard Remy Martin, but anybody saying Iowa State was more talented than the roster Bill Self rolled out there on Tuesday is lying to themselves.
So, take being less talented than even Kansas Light, add being less aggressive and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Disaster is what we got.
“(Physicality is) something we pride ourselves on,” Otzelberger said. “Especially on our court, it’s unacceptable to not for us to not be the more physical team. We’re going to continue to demand that every single day in practice, and we’re going to demand it when we show up for the games and not put ourselves in this position again.”
2 – IZB looked human
I can’t fault Izaiah Brockington much for what happened in this game because Iowa State wouldn’t even be relevant right now if that guy wasn’t wearing Cardinal and Gold.
That being said, Brockington has to do a better job of attacking the paint. There’s no other way to say it. He simply has to.
The Penn State transfer has been electric from the mid-range this season. That mid-range shot bailed Iowa State out last Wednesday against Oklahoma State, but he can’t allow himself to start settling for jumpers every single time.
He did way too much of that settling against Kansas, shooting 11-of-28 from the field for 24 points in nearly 36 minutes on the night while adding a team-high eight rebounds.
I will have to chart his shots on a re-watch, but I don’t remember many more than a handful of Brockington’s 28 shots coming from the paint.
That can’t be the case if he’s going to shoot that many times, which isn’t really ideal, to begin with, but it is what it is on nights when you have to do everything offensively for your team as Brockington did in this game.
There have only been eight games this season in which a single player has attempted 28 or more field goals.
The combined record of those players’ teams in those games? 2-6.
3 – Hunter’s worst performance
As I stated before, I have a hard time faulting Brockington much for what happened in this game, because his teammates didn’t have much going for themselves either, most notably Tyrese Hunter.
This was probably Hunter’s worst collegiate performance with eight points on 3-of-8 from the field, 0-of-3 from deep, two rebounds, two assists, two steals, two fouls and three turnovers in 32 minutes.
If Brockington’s shots aren’t falling, someone has to step up, and, in a perfect world, that someone would be Hunter. He just didn’t have it on this night, which happens when you’re a freshman.
It is unfortunate that Brockington and Hunter struggled the way they did on the same night. Iowa State will not win many games (if any) when those guys combine to shoot 14-of-36 from the field.
Hunter has to continue to stay in attack mode offensively. I know he’s wired like a true point guard and looks to set his teammates up, but the only two guys on this team capable of consistently creating for themselves (or anybody else) are Brockington and Hunter.
If one of those guys stops playing aggressively, it is on the other to step up in a big way. If both of them aren’t in attack mode, everyone will struggle because of it.
4 – Cap tip to Tre Jackson
Tre Jackson has given this team great minutes all season long and did again on Tuesday, scoring 12 points on 4-of-6 from 3-point range.
He gets lost on defense at times, which can lead to easy buckets for the opposing team, but he plays hard enough to make some plays that counteract those mishaps.
It would probably be worth it to proactively try and create some more easy looks for Jackson from deep as Iowa State moves forward. He and Caleb Grill can give Iowa State a really solid shooting duo in the backcourt off the bench, especially when the Cyclones’ starting guards don’t exactly tear the cover off the ball from deep.
5 – Paint problems
Iowa State got its butt kicked in the paint. David McCormack was dominant in the middle, scoring 14 points on 7-of-7 shooting, grabbing 14 rebounds and blocking two shots.
“Our rim protection wasn’t very good. Whether it was the guards, the frontline guys, we got spread out, we didn’t rotate quick enough, and we weren’t physical enough,” Otzelberger said. “So regardless of who that is, we’ve got to have intentionality and just rotate early and be willing to hit people with our lower body and be physical in there. We didn’t do that.”
There is no more glaring personnel weakness on this roster than the center spot, which pains me to say because of how much you all know I like George Conditt and Robert Jones. They’re great guys, and I’m not putting this loss on them because there are a lot of things besides the paint that went poorly, but that duo isn’t good enough to get the job done every night in this league.
“I’m not here to cast blame on whose fault that was,” Otzelberger said. “I’m here to look at what we need to do to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Whoever is in that position needs to have the physicality to make that play.”
Too many missed shots around the rim. Too many uncontested shots around the rim for the other team. Too many turnovers and silly mistakes like illegal screens, which it seems like Iowa State gets called for at least once a game at this point.
It has become clear during the first nine Big 12 games that Iowa State has to get better at that spot during the offseason. I don’t know where the staff will find one of those guys, and I’ve written about how really good big men don’t grow on trees, but whether they come from the portal or elsewhere, this team needs to find one if they’re going to keep taking steps forward next season.
6 – The early hole
It is hard for me to comprehend how Iowa State started the game so poorly defensively. The atmosphere was electric for a game everyone knew was a big one.
This is the kind of game when you put your defensive prowess on display on national television.
Instead, McCormack got an easy bucket in the paint on the first possession, he got another easy one after an offensive rebound on the second, Christian Braun, Kansas’ best shooter available in this game, made a wide-open look from deep soon after then former Cyclone Jalen Coleman-Lands got loose for two 3-pointers.
All of a sudden, you’re down seven points before most people have even finished their dinner. It goes back to the aggressor point we started with, but this team isn’t good enough to fall into holes like that.
“Early we weren’t as tough with the ball as we needed to be,” Otzelberger said. “There were some live-ball turnovers, some careless passes, some one-handed attempts to catch the ball. Those things put us at a deficit and once you’re at that deficit, you feel like you’re always climbing uphill, you’re always swimming upstream and that makes it tougher for our group.”
It isn’t good enough to spoil homecourt advantages like that by failing to be locked in from the opening tip. Those are the things that need to be unacceptable in all caps to everyone inside that locker room.
“We can’t put ourselves in that spot,” Otzelberger said. “It can’t be our defense that puts us in the spot where we’re trying to come from behind. Our defenses got to dictate then our offense will follow.”
7 – This remains an incomplete team.
It was blatantly clear on Tuesday that this entire rebuild of Iowa State basketball remains unfinished.
Kansas was without two of its best players and guys who have hardly played (hello, former Drake Bulldog Joe Yesufu) simply stepped up into bigger roles. That’s how it is supposed to work when you’ve got a great, fully functioning program and team.
Imagine if Iowa State was forced to play without Izaiah Brockington or Tyrese Hunter. Actually, on second thought, don’t do that, because I’m not sure there’s enough Cody Road on Earth to help anyone get through watching that.
Iowa State is lightyears ahead of where I ever expected them to be at this point in the Otzelberger era. Nearly every goal this team has out there is still on the table and can be achieved in the coming weeks.
Don’t let the 13-0 start and feel-good-story aspect of all this get you confused, though. Iowa State men’s basketball’s return to competing at the top of the Big 12 and winning big games is still a work in progress.
There is still a considerable amount of work for Otzelberger and his staff to complete before this team is back contending to win the league. At the same time, it wouldn’t shock me at all if this team came out with a fire in their belly on Saturday in Austin and beat Texas.
They’re good enough to compete with the league’s best teams, which is a significant step forward from where this program was at this time a year ago, but they’re not there yet to beat those teams.
They’re good enough to make the NCAA Tournament and build some momentum for the program’s future, but that’s just about where the line sits at this point, which, in my mind, is perfectly fine for a first-year coach who took over a program that went 0-18 in its league last season.
The day of competing at the top will come sooner rather than later, but, as of now, this team remains incomplete.
