Iowa State basketball coach TJ Otzelberger on Cy-Hawk win over Iowa
Iowa State basketball coach TJ Otzelberger shares his thoughts on the Cy-Hawk win over Iowa.
The biggest non-conference hurdles are behind No. 4 Iowa State basketball, which has to gear up for finals week and the remainder of the non-league slate.
Iowa State (10-0) will play its first of three remaining non-conference games on Sunday, Dec. 14, when it hosts Eastern Illinois. Tip-off is scheduled for 12 p.m. CT from Hilton Coliseum and will be available on ESPN+.
The Cyclones are coming off a 66-62 win over rival Iowa to capture their third-straight victory in the rivalry series for the first time since 2013-15.
As for Eastern Illinois (2-7), the Panthers have lost four straight, with the latest being a 68-59 loss to Eastern Kentucky on Dec. 10. During this losing streak, Eastern Illinois suffered a 109-62 loss to Purdue on Nov. 28, the only common opponent between the Cyclones and Panthers.
Here are three things to watch for in Sunday’s game:
Panthers are led by trio of returners
There’s no doubt that the transfer portal and NIL have changed college basketball. At the lower levels, it can completely ravage rosters from year to year, as standout players leave for greener pastures and others look for better fits.
Eastern Illinois has its highest retention rate of the portal era heading into this season, with 38.1% minutes staying from the 2024-25 campaign. That’s good for 81st in the country and well above the average Division I rate of 25.2%.
Senior guard Zion Fruster had been in and out of the lineup, but he’s a consistent scorer when he’s healthy. Fruster logged double-digit points in every game he’s played and is averaging a team-high 16.5 points per game across six contests.
Forward Kooper Jacobi is a three-year starter with the Panthers. He is averaging 10.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. The 6-foot-7 forward’s scoring output has been inconsistent, but he’s shown flashes with season-high 20-point outings against Notre Dame and Lindenwood. Against the Fighting Irish on Nov. 11, he shot 8-of-16, including a 4-for-8 clip from long range. In the Dec. 6 conference-opener with Lindenwood, he had a 20-point, 10-rebound double-double.
Sophomore forward Terry McMorris has embraced a much bigger role in his second year with the program. As the Panthers’ sixth man, he is averaging 9.7 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. His best showing came on Nov. 14, when he had a season-high 18 points, with four rebounds, two assists, two steals and three blocks.
Iowa State basketball coach TJ Otzelberger on Blake Buchanan’s impact
Iowa State basketball coach TJ Otzelberger on Blake Buchanan’s impact
Iowa State aims to overwhelm its foe
Eastern Illinois only has one win over a Division I opponent, a 65-57 victory over Nicholls on Nov. 7.
The Panthers are ranked 346th in the country for offensive efficiency, according to KenPom. They have a 20.0% turnover rate, which is good for 298th.
Defensively, they allow the sixth-highest shooting percentage in the nation from inside the arc, as opponents convert at 62.5%.
They also rank in the bottom 30 nationwide for offensive and defensive rebounding rates, and the Panthers don’t have any players taller than 6-foot-7 that play meaningful minutes. Nazareth Fisher, a 6-foot-10 senior forward, has recently gotten more playing time, but is averaging just 10.4 minutes per game.
These metrics don’t bode well for Eastern Illinois, which will face an unrelenting Iowa State team that will aim to crank up the pressure defensively, score in an aggressive, balanced manner, and have the frontcourt size advantage to set the tone on the glass and finish at the basket.
The road to finishing non-conference play undefeated
Iowa State throttled Mississippi State. It emerged out of Las Vegas unscathed at the Players Era Festival. It dismantled former No. 1 Purdue and fended off fierce in-state rival Iowa.
According to KenPom, the Cyclones have a 99.8% or better chance of winning their next three non-conference games. Eastern Illinois is projected to be the least eventful game of the bunch, with the Cyclones listed with a 99.97% chance to win on Sunday.
The last time Iowa State went unblemished in non-conference play was T.J. Otzelberger’s first year as head coach in the 2021-22 season.
We will need to see how this year’s Cyclones’ non-conference wins age, but they feel more impressive at this point of the season.
Looking back at that 2021-22 season, Iowa and Creighton were unranked when Iowa State played them. The Hawkeyes went on to win the Big Ten Tournament that year and Creighton finished as Big East Tournament runner-up to Final Four-bound Villanova. Xavier was ranked No. 25 and went on to win the NIT that year, while Memphis, who was the ninth-ranked team when it faced the Cyclones, was the AAC Tournament runner-up to Elite Eight-bound Houston.
While it may appear like the next three games are stocking stuffers for the Cyclones, Otzelberger will be hammering consistency with his team regardless of opponent after the way they played against the Hawkeyes, particularly in the first half.
“Obviously, this is a rivalry game, we have a lot of respect for our opponent and we knew they were going to come in here and give us a great shot, and we have to expect that from teams now,” Otzelberger said after the Dec. 11 win over Iowa. “When you’ve done the things we’ve done to this point, everybody circles the game on the schedule, so we’ve always got to respond coming out of those timeouts. Even better, we’ve got to stay consistent so we don’t put ourselves in position where the other team is playing a more physical style than we are for a part of the game.”
Iowa State basketball vs. Eastern Illinois prediction
Eastern Illinois only has wins over Nicholls (65-57) and Division II Tiffin (62-50), and it has lost every game to a power-conference opponent by 20 points or more. The Cyclones should be able to march forward to 11-0 overall.
Prediction: Iowa State 85, Eastern Illinois 55
Eugene Rapay covers Iowa State athletics for the Des Moines Register. Contact Eugene at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @erapay5.
