Iowa State men's basketball looks to answer road test at Oklahoma
AMES – Iowa State has spent most of the men’s basketball season’s first two months meeting challenges.
The Cyclones have taken a new roster, endured significant injuries and navigated a strong schedule to emerge with a 10-2 record and an impressive victory over then-No. 13 Baylor to open Big 12 play on Saturday.
The one challenge Iowa State did not rise to, though, is once again being presented to them this week.
The 25th-ranked Cyclones will take to the road for a pair of games looking to claim their first victory in a hostile environment this season after falling to rival Iowa last month by 19 points in its lone true away game of the season.
“We’ve got to have a tremendous sense of urgency,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “We’ve got to have a chip on our shoulder. Any time you go on the road, you have to understand you can’t be impacted by the environment.
“You can’t be impacted by any variables, and you really have to be together, and there were times in that game a month ago that those things affected us.”
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Iowa State’s first road trip in the Big 12 comes Wednesday in Norman against Oklahoma (6 p.m.; ESPN2). The Sooners are 9-4 overall and dropped their Big 12 opener to No. 6 Texas by a single point on Saturday. Coach Porter Moser’s team is among the country’s best shooters, converting 39.4 percent of their 3-point attempts and 56.3 percent from inside the arc.
“For our defensive system, we believe in it,” Otzelberger said of his top-15 defense. "We trust our process. We don’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about our opponent. We do what we do, and we adjust things here and there that we need to be better at or need to be intentional with going against our opponent.
“We’ve come out, try to pressure the ball, take charges, block out and finish plays.”
Iowa State failed to execute in those areas – perhaps as much as in any game in the Otzelberger era – against its rival at Carver-Hawkeye Arena amidst a rowdy crowd and tough environment.
“That was a tough game for all of us and all of our fans,” said Iowa State freshman point guard Tamin Lipsey. “That’s not how we wanted it to go so we're going to move past that. We also learned a lot from that, that being our first true road game. Now we have experience. We know what to expect.
“That’s probably going to be one of the best road games we play as far as environment with it being a rivalry, in-state game. We just talked about how we’re going on the road. We need to prepare.”
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Iowa State wing Tre King had to serve as a spectator against the Hawkeyes since he didn't become eligible to play until Dec. 18 following a transfer from Georgetown.
“Being able to see it from a different perspective, you see everything,” King said. “The thing I got from it is how you have to be able to bring it every night, no matter if you’re at home or on the road.
“When you’re on the road, it’s even more difficult to have that mentality, but you have to have that focus from Day 1.”
It will be especially paramount this week, with a trip to TCU on Saturday following Wednesday’s game at the Lloyd Noble Center. With its win over Baylor, Iowa State has already positioned itself well, both in the Big 12 race and for solidifying its resume in the two months ahead of Selection Sunday.
A road win in the first week of Big 12 play would push them even further out in front of what they need to ultimately accomplish to build upon last year’s shocking Sweet 16 run.
“It’s more about our guys coming and stacking up habits and the days and knowing if we continue doing that, things, for the most part, go our way,” Otzelberger said of the 18-game Big 12 grind. “There’s going to be nights where you’ve got to be really good at playing well and coming away with a loss and then bouncing back and getting right back to work and not having it affect you.
“We believe in the way we build our guys mentally and the work they do every single day and how connected they are and how unified they are, so we build our process in such a way to be able to bounce back when you have adversity and challenges, to get right back to work.
“Every team in this league is going to have adversity, and probably in multiple cases, throughout league play. Handling it well and moving on is important.”
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: Cyclones trying for their first road win of the season this week
