As the world settles into football season, Jon Rothstein remains committed to the cause. The Big 12 is set up to be the premier conference in college basketball with Iowa State being a main reason why.
The Cyclones retained Tamin Lipsey, Nate Heise, Milan Momcilovic and Joshua Jefferson which is a better returning core than 90% of the country.
Iowa State often gets the curse of hosting a big name while the students are gone, but it seems like the Big 12 is at least doing us a favor with game one. The first conference game of the year will be on Friday, January 2nd in Hitlon Coliseum when West Virginia comes to town.
Last year, Iowa State lost its only matchup with West Virginia in Morgantown in what was an ugly game saved by the heroics of Jevon Small. Small has since graduated and DeVries (Both Darian and Tucker) have left for Indiana.
West Virginia, like many other schools, will have an almost completely new roster. They’re big additions in the portal came from mid-majors. Treysen Eaglestaff, who you might remember from North Dakota in his 40-point outburst against Alabama in a 97-90 loss, will be the Mountaineer’s main man. Their other big name, someone who I desperately wanted the Cyclones to target in the portal, is Honor Huff from Chatanooga. He shot 41% from three-point land and was unstoppable in the NIT leading the Mocs to an NIT championship.
West Virginia also went out and got a defensive minded head coach, Ross Hodge out of North Texas. While coaching the Mean Green as both an assistant and head coach, they were known for an incredibly slow pace of play and a top 50 KenPom defense. Hodge’s Mena Green defense peaked in 2023 finishing with the 18th best defensive unit according to KenPom.
A fun Iowa State wrinkle, Daniyal Robinson took over for North Texas in Hodge’s absence. Robinson was an assistant coach under both Steve Prohm and TJ Otzelberger before leaving to be the head coach at Cleveland State.
Iowa State has one of the tougher non-conference schedules they’ve had during Otz’s tenure with the Player’s Era Tournament in Las Vegas, a road game at Mackey Arena v. Purdue, and a Cy-Hawk showdown against the team formerly known as the Drake Bulldogs. West Virginia will kick off what will be an incredibly challenging Big 12 schedule, which will be released within the coming days.
