KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Tamin Lipsey can’t quite put his finger on what makes him such a red-hot 3-point shooter at the T-Mobile Center.
But finding a cause for his electric long-distance effect in Hilton South isn’t required.
No. 7 Iowa State’s star senior point guard simply needs to keep it up — and he enters Friday’s 6 p.m. Big 12 Tournament semifinal (ESPN) against No. 2 Arizona having made 14 of his career 26 long-range attempts in this arena.
“I honestly have no clue what it is,” said Lipsey, who had never made as many as four 3-pointers in a single game against a conference foe until he did so in Wednesday’s 75-53 rout of No. 16 Texas Tech in the quarterfinals. “Like you said, I shoot the ball well down here. Just keep it going. It’s just about confidence out there.”
The Cyclones (27-6) should have plenty of that as more of their fans pour into the Power and Light district to cheer them on. So will the Big 12 regular-season champion Wildcats (30-2), who beat ISU, 73-57, 11 days ago in Tucson.
“We know (it’s) going to be a tough battle with an Iowa State team playing in their backyard, but we look forward to it,” Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd said after his team’s 81-59 quarterfinal win over UCF.
KenPom projects a 75-71 Wildcats win based on its advanced analytics and Las Vegas oddsmakers agree, pegging Arizona as a 3.5-point favorite.
But experts can’t consider X-factors such as Lipsey’s enhanced shooting acumen, or burgeoning contributions from ISU freshmen Jamarion Batemon and Dominykas Pleta off the bench.
Batemon drilled a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give the Cyclones a 36-33 halftime lead over the Red Raiders in the quarters. Pleta scored 11 points in just 14 minutes and has scored in double figures in two of the past three games.
Factor in All-American forward Joshua Jefferson’s all-around prowess — he had 18 points, 13 rebounds and six assists against Tech — and ISU is clearly peaking at the right time as the Big 12 Tournament winds down and the NCAA Tournament beckons.
It also helps that each step this tournament has been about proving something and that trend continues against the Wildcats.
“It kind of reminds me of my freshman year,” said junior forward Milan Momcilovic, who leads the country in 3-point accuracy at 49.2 percent. “We played K-State at K-State the last game of the year and we lost. We played them (our) first game of the tournament, the quarterfinals, and beat them. Then we played Baylor, who we lost to on that shot I made (just after the buzzer), but (beat) them, and then we played (No. 1) Houston, who we lost to (once in the regular season). So it kind of reminds me of that a little bit. We got to get revenge on all of them, and now this year we play Texas Tech and get a shot at Arizona. So it reminds me of that, which is good, because we won that tournament.”
Is that correlation a harbinger of things to come? Stay tuned. Either way, the Cyclones are convinced they’re not only playing their best ball of the season when it matters the most. They’re still climbing.
“Just (gotta) keep it rolling,” Lipsey said. “Staying healthy is obviously the most important thing.”
That and winning, which ISU’s done by an average of 35.5 points in their first two games of the Big 12 Tournament.
“You want to be able to win this tournament,” Jefferson said. “Seeing the team from two years ago win this, I saw how much enjoyment and pride that team had. So I’m just trying to (show) this for this team, as well.”
