Iowa State men's basketball to play First Four winner in first round of NCAA Tournament
AMES – The Iowa State men’s basketball team knows when and where it’s playing, but not who.
The Cyclones are seeded sixth in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament and will play either No. 11 Mississippi State or No. 11 Pittsburgh, who will play in the First Four on Tuesday.
The First Four game will be played in Dayton, Ohio, with the winner moving on to play the Cyclones in Greensboro, N.C. on Friday (2:10 p.m. on truTV).
"For us, it’s still far more about what we do and who we need to be," Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. "It’s a unique dynamic when you don’t know. We’re one of the teams that doesn’t know who that will be.
"We’ll prepare doing what we need to do, and we’ll get to that soon enough."
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The Cyclones are 19-13 overall and went 9-9 in the Big 12 before reaching the conference tournament semifinals over the weekend. They are ranked 20th in the NET and 23rd by KenPom.com.
Mississippi State is 21-12 and went 8-10 in the SEC. The Bulldogs won one game in the SEC Tournament before losing to No. 1 overall seed Alabama. They are 48th in the NET and 49th in KenPom.
Pittsburgh is 22-11 overall and went 14-6 in the ACC Tournament before losing to Duke in its second game in the league tournament. The Panthers are 67th in the NET and 77th in KenPom.
"We’ll be ready for whoever wins that game," Iowa State senior Gabe Kalscheur said.
If Iowa State advances beyond the first round, it would face either No. 3 Xavier or No. 14 Kennesaw State. Should the Cyclones make it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, they would return to Kansas City and T-Mobile Arena, home of the Big 12 Tournament, for potential Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games. Houston is the host for the Final Four.
Iowa State enters the tournament on surer footing than just over a week ago when they were losers of four-straight, eight of 10 and had just dismissed starting guard Caleb Grill from the team for failing to live up to program expectations.
Since, the Cyclones have twice beaten No. 10 Baylor, both in Waco and in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament.
Iowa State is making its second-straight NCAA Tournament appearance after the worst season in modern program history in 2020-21 when the Cyclones went 2-22 overall and winless against the Big 12.
Otzelberger led the Cyclones to the Sweet 16 in his first season last year, and now becomes the third Iowa State coach to take teams to consecutive NCAA Tournaments in his first two seasons, joining Tim Floyd and Steve Prohm.
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"We’ve had a lot of great moments throughout the course of the year," Otzelberger said. "We have nine top-25 wins, six top-10 wins, beat a No. 1 overall team. Had a lot of quality wins. Taking steps forward is important.
"Success isn’t always linear. You want to keep taking steps forward. It doesn’t always mean you win this many games and you add two the next year. But I feel really good about our regular season and that we moved the needle again and took that step. Our guys did lot of hard work each day to make sure we did it."
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Iowa State is in an interesting position with its opponent unknown until Tuesday evening. Teams emerging from the First Four have proven tricky for the higher-rated seed in recent years.
No. 11 seeds to win in Dayton have won a first round game in all but one of the last five tournaments. No. 11 UCLA went on to the Final Four during the Indianapolis-bubble NCAA Tournament of 2021 while Syracuse advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2018.
Last year No. 11 Notre Dame, after beating Rutgers in the First Four, toppled No. 6 Alabama in the first round.
"It’s different," Kalscheur, who will be playing in his third career NCAA Tournament. "I haven't had that before, that unknown of who you’re going to play, but it definitely gives us a feel. We get to watch both teams.
"It’ll be interesting to see how they play, what their tendencies are."
While the Cyclones may have been expecting a couple of extra days to prep for their opponent, the First Four won't really upset their typical rhythm when preparing for a game.
"Our normal routine has been having two practices leading into the game," Otzelberger said. "We’ll stay in that same routine and do what we need to do in the next two days before that to make sure we’re getting our guys’ bodies healed back up and fresh and feeling good before we embark on practice."
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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 men to face NCAA Tournament First Four winner in Greensboro
