Today and tomorrow, the Big 12 features three matchups at the top of the conference, where each team in the top six of the conference will face down another foe from the top of the league. Tonight Arizona will play Baylor, and tomorrow Houston will play West Virginia, but all eyes are on the Big 12’s marquee matchup of this slate. It’s a top 10 matchup at Hilton Coliseum between the #2 ranked Cyclones and the visiting #9 ranked Jayhawks.
Iowa State enters the game with one of their most beloved and arguably the most talented squad that they’ve ever fielded. It fits that their current #2 ranking is the highest that the program has ever achieved as coach T.J. Otzelberger has the Cyclones on the rise yet again this season. Otzelberger took over a program that won only two games in his predecessor’s final year. He immediately turned the team around, scrapped together an 11 seed in the NCAA tournament, and fought to the sweet sixteen. The following year Otz returned his team to the dance as a 6 seed. Last year the team earned a Big 12 tournament championship and the number 2 seed. There’s only one more spot to climb from here.
Kansas, on the other hand, is a program much more accustomed to being near or at the very top of the rankings, and sitting all the way down at #9 is a bit more unusual for Bill Self’s program. Limiting the Jayhawks effectiveness this year is depth, an issue that also held them back last year. Eight players for the Jayhawks average over 15 minutes on the floor per game, but players like Hunter Dickinson, Dajuan Harris Jr, and Zeke Mayo are expected to carry the bulk of minutes played. The three aforementioned players, along with KJ Adams Jr, have astronomically higher amounts of minutes played than the rest of the team.
In contrast, Iowa State much more evenly distributes minutes among the eight players in their typical rotation. The Cyclones use their depth as a weapon, with talent like Curtis Jones or Brandton Chatfield coming off of the bench. Most other teams simply have not had answers to Iowa State’s depth, and in crunch time Iowa State has been able to capitalize off of having their best players not be as exhausted as their opponents.
Not every team gets to have the privilege of their leading scorer coming off of the bench either. Iowa State, meanwhile, sends Curtis Jones off of the bench. When he gets on the floor, he proceeds to not wait very long before making a three point shot or getting into the paint, where he has dramatically improved his skillset this season. It begs the question, is it possible for someone to be an All-American and be 6th man of the year? Jones may very well be in contention for both.
The Jayhawks have shown vulnerabilities in games so far this season that Iowa State just hasn’t. Iowa State’s lone loss is to the #1 team in the country (Auburn) by one point. The Jayhawks had three blunders against unranked opponents in December, losing to Creighton, Missouri, and West Virginia, the latter of the three took place at Allen Fieldhouse. Iowa State hasn’t lost at Hilton Coliseum since two seasons ago.
Iowa State has more ways to hurt you than Kansas does, and by seemingly every analytic, the Cyclones are undoubtedly the favorite against the Jayhawks. The NET, KenPom, SportsReference and BPI all favor Iowa State. It stands to reason that the betting market will favor Iowa State when odds for the game are released. In my own qualitative assessment, I agree with the metrics. These two teams feel like different calibers right now, and the pecking order of the old Big 12 has switched. Unless Kansas proves me wrong tomorrow, Iowa State is in the driver’s seat of the Big 12.
