Why the road to a Big 12 men's basketball title goes through Hilton Coliseum
AMES – There's no denying what happened to the Iowa State men’s basketball team Monday was a debacle. Blowing a 23-point lead with 12 minutes to play can’t really be described as anything else.
Certainly, it did damage to Iowa State’s bid to claim a regular-season Big 12 title for the first time in more than two decades. Pair it with a blown lead the week before and a blowout loss at Missouri two days earlier, it may seem like the Cyclones’ championship hopes lost their credibility, never mind a win over top-five Kansas State in between the two setbacks.
A deep breath and a step back, though, reveals a very viable path ahead for the Cyclones.
In a rough-and-tumble Big 12, where predator and prey are largely indistinguishable, it may not be the usual record required to claim a crown.
Which means, if the 13th-ranked Cyclones can continue to defend homecourt, they’ll be in the mix right until the very end.
“We feel good about where we’re at,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “We have to not be overreactive, as disappointing as the game was (Monday), and as frustrating as it was, it’s still one game. It counts as one loss.
“We’ve got to do a great job focusing on what’s in front of us and this opportunity on Saturday couldn’t be bigger.”
More:Big 12 men’s basketball contenders and pretenders at the midway point
The opportunity is to knock of No. 8 Kansas and keep the perfect record the Cyclones have at Hilton Coliseum this year (11 a.m.; ESPN).
“We see it as an opportunity to get back on the right track,” Iowa State senior Osun Osunniyi said. “We take a lot of pride (in our home record).
“We have the great fans at Hilton that come out every single game and support us and give us that energy. We owe it to them to perform at our highest.”
The Cyclones (15-6, 6-3 Big 12) are 11-0 at home this season, including a 4-0 mark against Big 12 opponents. Three of those four games have been decided by double-digits with the average margin of victory of 16.
All of that suggests an undefeated home record this season, while certainly difficult, is feasible. A 9-0 Big 12 mark at home, along with the two road wins Iowa State has already claimed, would put an 11-win floor on the Cyclones’ league record.
Historically, it has required at least 13 wins to sit atop the Big 12 standings since the league realigned to 10 teams, but in a year with parity at the top and strength at the bottom of the standings, 12 wins is currently the projected top mark, according to KenPom.com, with Texas as the predicted winner.
That means Iowa State can, at minimum and without consideration of another possible road victory, remain in the hunt for the Big 12 if Hilton Coliseum remains the fortress it has so often been in its history and has returned to this season.
More:Iowa State's surprising offense gets toughest test at Oklahoma State
“We feel good about the position we’re in,” Otzelberger said. “If you would have said with the slate of games we had the first half of the league, would you be good with 6-3? At the start of it we all probably would have said that would be a great spot to be in.”
The go-perfect-at-home strategy, though, will be put to perhaps its toughest test with the Jayhawks (18-4, 6-3) visiting this weekend.
“Our guys are really excited to be back in front of our fans,” Otzelberger said. “Certainly, we’ve performed well at Hilton. We’ve been the aggressor in this building, and we need to. It’s going to be so important on Saturday.”
“We expect our guys feed off that (home) energy and continue to have it be a really challenging place for anybody to come because our guys take a great sense of pride playing here.”
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: If Iowa State defends homecourt, Cyclones will be in the Big 12 hunt
