On Saturday afternoon in Ames, Iowa, two Big 12 teams clashed in a game that no one saw coming.
T.J. Otzelberger and the Iowa State Cyclones welcomed Jerome Tang and the Kansas State Wildcats to Hilton Coliseum for the tenth game of the Big 12 regular season. The two traded blows in the first half before a surge from Kansas State sparked and took the lid off the basket. Iowa State rallied back with a 10-0 run of their own, but in the end, the Wildcats took care of business and pulled off the upset.
With that, here are the top three takeaways from Kansas State’s 80-61 win over the Cyclones.
What Happened to K-State?
Short answer: they flipped the switch.
The long answer is a bit more of an interesting breakdown, but can essentially boil down to some incredible coaching and patience from Jerome Tang. Many hit the panic button on K-State this season and some fans even called for Tang’s job. The patience and effort shown by Tang and his staff, even when starting off 1-6 in league play was remarkable.
Kansas State hit the transfer portal hard this offseason, with just three returners heading back to Manhattan. While it took the group coinsiderably longer to mesh than intially expected, Kansas State appears to have figured it out.
The Wildcats finally got the correct recipe with a cast of impressive transfers and senior forward David N’Guessan. The Cats had five scorers reach double-digits against Iowa State, including Dug McDaniel, Coleman Hawkins, Max Jones, Brendan Hausen, and David N’Guessan, who totaled 74 of the group’s 80 total points.
K-State is an entirely different team since late January and has the possibility to make one of the most improbable runs to the NCAA Tournament in recent history.
Hilton Magic
Kansas State’s win did not come without its natural dose of Hilton Magic from Iowa State as the Cyclones turned the corner from their sleepy first half to remind the nation that they are not to be messed with.
The spark changed around the 12-minute mark when Iowa State was whistled for a foul on a K-State rebound, which prompted T.J. Otzelberger to go nuclear and receive a technical foul. From that moment on, Iowa State looked like a drastically different team than in the first half, sparking a 10-0 run to cut into the Wildcats’ 17-point lead. They held Kansas State scoreless for a stretch of four minutes, which helped the team claw back into the contest.
When things began to look like Iowa State was about to pull off the momentum swing, Kansas State received back-to-back threes from Brendan Hausen and Dug McDaniel.
K-State tried their hardest to let Iowa State back into the game with a total of 22 team fouls and some awful turnovers, but in the end, the Wildcats weathered the storm with some big shots and token defense.
The Road Ahead
While the loss doesn’t change much about the path forward for Iowa State as they remain an NCAA Tournament lock, the team has now lost three of their last five games after starting 15-1.
They dropped games against West Virginia, Arizona, and now Kansas State, three teams currently unranked in the AP Top 25. In the matchup, the Cyclones shot 36.5% from the field, 44.4% from three, and 78.9% from the free throw line. They take on No. 11 Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse next on Monday, February 3rd.
For Kansas State, the win is the biggest of the season, by far. The Wildcats started off league play as the laughing stock of the Big 12, dropping six of their first seven league games. Since then, Jerome Tang and company are 3-0 in their last three outings against No. 23 West Virginia, Oklahoma State, and No. 3 Iowa State.
Will it be enough to spark a late push for the NCAA Tournament? Only time will tell for this confusing group. They remain on the road with a game against Arizona State on Tuesday, February 4th.
