How Iowa State Ascended on to Faculty 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 authentic powerhouse, their sights set firmly on faculty basketball’s highest honor, a nationwide championship. Whereas each staff 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 applications with the means to really do it. Orchestrated by head coach TJ Otzelberger, this 12 months’s squad embodies a tradition of resilience, camaraderie, toughness, self-discipline, authenticity and above all else, confidence. However to know how this 12 months’s Cyclones have gotten to inside an arm’s attain of the top, it’s essential to first perceive the place they’ve been.

Final 12 months’s Cyclones received the staff’s most convention video games since 2001, completed second within the Huge 12 standings and capped all of it off with a blowout win over the then-No.1 ranked Houston Cougars within the Huge 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 may very well be the harbinger of decline, however not for Iowa State. Below 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 along 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 along with his feathery contact and performs with a contagious pleasure and spirit that permeates the entire squad. He didn’t have a single supply popping out of highschool and would find yourself beginning his faculty profession at Indian Hills Neighborhood Faculty in Ottumwa, IA. After one standout season, he’d take his abilities 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 12 months.

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 grow to be a Cyclone. The 6 -4 lead guard made his affect felt instantly in his first season in Ames, main the staff in scoring on his method to incomes a handful of honors: All-Huge 12 Second Staff, Huge 12 Championship All-Event Staff and Huge 12 Championship MVP. Merely put, he’s the engine that makes this staff go.

Together with Jones and Gilbert, this 12 months’s staff had a few key items come again from final 12 months’s Candy Sixteen staff—their All-Huge 12 junior guard Tamin Lipsey, and their sophomore ahead Milan Momcilovic, who earned a spot on the Huge 12 Championship All-Event Staff. This 12 months’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 by this season with convention play effectively underway, and Iowa State has been flat out glorious. And should you don’t consider me, simply ask Baylor’s Corridor of Fame coach Scott Drew, who not too long ago 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 Prime 25 polls have Iowa State ranked third. But, someway, the Cyclones nonetheless appear to be flying underneath the radar.

“That’s been a chip on our shoulder since earlier than we received right here. I don’t really feel like me or [Jones] ever received 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 once you win,” says Jones. “No matter comes with profitable, we’ll take it. We’re not likely in it for the popularity, however that’s what comes with it.”

If anybody’s stunned by how dominant they’ve been, you’ll be able to guess it’s not anybody of their locker room. They anticipated this. 

“Coming into this season, we knew how good we may very well be. Me and Keshon had been all the time speaking about what we had been going to do and what we felt like we may do,” says Jones. “The outcomes are coming now, however it began due to how final 12 months ended. We received to it instantly this 12 months; we already knew what it was.”

And should you allow them to inform it, they’re solely simply starting to scratch the floor of their potential. Nevermind them convincingly profitable the vast majority of their video games so far by double digits. 

“We ain’t even actually taking part in our greatest. I’d say we’re taking part in good, we’re taking part in stable, however we nonetheless have enhancements to make. And that’s thrilling, as a result of we’ve nonetheless been profitable handily. However we have now 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 profitable 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 number of 30-point victories earlier than the season’s out. Effectively, a number of extra 30-point victories I ought to say. That they had a handful of wins by no less than that a lot from their early non-conference slate, which fits to indicate that these Cyclones aren’t taking part in with their meals. They know what’s at stake, and so they’ve embraced every thing it takes to succeed in their final purpose of a natty. Not a single second could be taken with no consideration after they’re making an attempt to do one thing that’s by no means been accomplished 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 Huge 12 Championship, not to mention the nationwide championship; he makes it some extent to take it recreation by recreation, brick by brick. 

The star backcourt makes clear that they’re holding “the primary factor the primary factor.” They embrace the notion that their private objectives will likely be far more simply attainable in the event that they deal with profitable first. 

Each staff who’s ever climbed that ladder because the final staff standing has no 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 value having comes straightforward.

“I ain’t gonna lie, Iowa State isn’t for everyone—should you 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 laborious as hell, so we all know every thing’s gonna fall into place.”

Portraits by Matthew Coughlin.