Iowa State basketball's offense is woeful, but the defense needs to tighten as well

It’s no secret that the Iowa State men’s basketball team is suffering in no small part because of its offense. The Cyclones slogged to just 41 points Saturday in a loss at Texas, and that came just two weeks after scoring a Hilton Coliseum-low 44 against TCU.

The offense is the single biggest culprit in the Cyclones’ 3-7 Big 12 record, no doubt.

What may be interesting to consider, however, is that the defense – which powered the Cyclones to a 12-0 start and is this program’s identity – may not be contributing to winning at the level one might expect.

Iowa State’s defense is a powerhouse, generating turnovers and limiting opponents at the 3-point line. For the season, the Cyclones rank sixth nationally in adjusted efficiency, per KenPom.com.

Which is why it is so notable that during Big 12 play the Cyclones rank just seventh in the league in defensive efficiency rating.

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The sixth-best defense in the country isn’t even the sixth-best defense in its own conference.

“We need to dictate defensively,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. "We need to dictate by flying around, giving extra effort and getting deflections and all that stuff.”

Big 12 offenses haven’t so much solved the Cyclones’ defense as much as they’ve been able to mitigate the damage done by it.

Iowa State is still generating a prodigious number of turnovers as Big 12 opponents are giving it back to the Cyclones on 23.7 percent of their possessions, tops in the league. The Cyclones, though, rank last in the conference in effective field-goal percentage (which weights the value of 3-point shots) with opponents shooting 33 percent from distance and a blistering 56 percent inside the arc.

“Because we turn people over at such a high rate, they try to space us out more to put us in positions where it’s harder to do that,” Otzelberger said of Big 12 teams’ strategies against the Cyclones. “What we’re seeing more and more is people popping their five men to the middle of the court.

“We’ve generated a lot of turnovers (in those situations) because you’re taking the ball out of somebody’s primary playmakers’ hands and forcing a big or a center to make those decisions, but at times it’s played to our advantage and at times it has created challenges.

“That’s what we’re seeing more and more of, people trying to spread us out and space us on the perimeter.”

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By spreading the floor and pulling the center away from the basket, teams make defensive help rotations more difficult for the Cyclones – there's more distance to cover if a teammate gets beat off the dribble or on a backcut. It also avoids crowding the paint, which likely explains teams’ 2-point shooting percentage against Iowa State. Once a team gets into the lane, help is a long way away to contest shots near the rim.

“Do we occasionally give up a backcut because of it? Probably,” Otzelberger said of Iowa State’s high-pressure system. “But at the same time we probably turn somebody over once or twice trying to make the same play they converted once.

“Overall we have to do things one way for us to be successful and if we don’t do them that way, there’s not a good alternative.”

Certainly, the schedule is a major part of Iowa State’s defense being stretched to its limits. The Cyclones have played the most difficult slate in the Big 12 to this point. Things begin to ease up Tuesday at West Virginia (6 p.m.; ESPN+) and become very manageable until the regular-season finale at reigning national champion Baylor.

Even if Iowa State’s defense hasn’t been elite during Big 12 play, it’s certainly been good enough to win games. The 41 points (0.65 per possession) produced by the offense against the Longhorns simply isn’t enough to win Big 12 games.

The defense, though, is what has put the Cyclones in the remarkable position of being just a handful of wins away from an NCAA Tournament berth following last year’s 2-22 debacle and coaching change. Given what we’ve seen through 23 games, getting the Iowa State offense from miserable to average seems less likely than elevating the defense from very good to excellent once again.

“We can’t let our bad offense affect our defense,” senior George Conditt IV said. “We’ve got to go out there, regardless what’s going on, and we’ve got to go out there and be physical. That’s all it is.”

Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him at @TravisHines21.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: ISU basketball's offense is woeful, but its defense also must stiffen