Steve Prohm has done an excellent job rebounding from last year's bad season at Iowa State. The Cyclones had a big home win a week ago over Kansas, but lost at Baylor in their midweek game. In the OOC, their best win was over Missouri with losses to Arizona and Iowa.
The biggest change this year for Iowa State is on the defensive end, jumping over 100 spots from last year's team to currently a top 25 defense. They are solid on eFG% defense, but the notable improvement is in forcing TOs, something Prohm coached teams haven't done a lot in the past. The impressive part is that they've maintained the ability to not foul and send opponents to the FT line with their increased pressure. Having a balanced defense that is top 90 in all 4 factors will make for a tough challenge on the road.
The Cyclones continue to be a program that features great offense, especially shooting and taking care of the ball. The biggest key is an improvement of nearly 9% on 2s, from #253 last year to #20 this year at 56.6%. They also feature a TO% of only 15%, which has been a staple of Prohm's teams at ISU. Neither rebounding or getting to the FT line are major strengths and the Cyclones are solid on 3s.
Iowa State continues to play the transfer market well with 2 key additions this year from Virginia (Shayok) and Nebraska (Jacobson). Weiler-Babb has been there a while, but he was also a transfer from Arkansas. Mixed in is some solid recruiting, with top 100 players in Wigginton, Lewis, and Horton-Tucker. Its note worthy that every player on the roster has an offensive rating of over 1.04 (K-State has one, and that's injured Dean Wade), 4 guys scoring over 12 a game, and 3 guys at 30 points per 100 possessions. Plus this is a group of long guards and 1 big as starters, which will create some interesting match ups for the Cats.
The key to ISU's big win over KU was forcing turnovers on 1/3 of the Jayhawk's possessions and hitting over 50% from 3. Its safe to say that if they they repeat that against K-State it will be ugly in Ames. However, I do think our guards will do a much better job handling the ball, especially coming off of our best game taking care of the ball this year against a physical WVU defense. Then you look at shooting and currently K-State is allowing opponents to shoot 44% from behind the arc in 3 Big 12 games. At some point its likely that will come back toward the norm and K-State will win some 3 point lottery games. Plus, the Cats are coming off of a solid shooting game themselves. I see this becoming an offensive game, but without Wade the Cats probably don't have quite enough to get the road win.
Cats 72 - Cyclones 78
The biggest change this year for Iowa State is on the defensive end, jumping over 100 spots from last year's team to currently a top 25 defense. They are solid on eFG% defense, but the notable improvement is in forcing TOs, something Prohm coached teams haven't done a lot in the past. The impressive part is that they've maintained the ability to not foul and send opponents to the FT line with their increased pressure. Having a balanced defense that is top 90 in all 4 factors will make for a tough challenge on the road.
The Cyclones continue to be a program that features great offense, especially shooting and taking care of the ball. The biggest key is an improvement of nearly 9% on 2s, from #253 last year to #20 this year at 56.6%. They also feature a TO% of only 15%, which has been a staple of Prohm's teams at ISU. Neither rebounding or getting to the FT line are major strengths and the Cyclones are solid on 3s.
Iowa State continues to play the transfer market well with 2 key additions this year from Virginia (Shayok) and Nebraska (Jacobson). Weiler-Babb has been there a while, but he was also a transfer from Arkansas. Mixed in is some solid recruiting, with top 100 players in Wigginton, Lewis, and Horton-Tucker. Its note worthy that every player on the roster has an offensive rating of over 1.04 (K-State has one, and that's injured Dean Wade), 4 guys scoring over 12 a game, and 3 guys at 30 points per 100 possessions. Plus this is a group of long guards and 1 big as starters, which will create some interesting match ups for the Cats.
The key to ISU's big win over KU was forcing turnovers on 1/3 of the Jayhawk's possessions and hitting over 50% from 3. Its safe to say that if they they repeat that against K-State it will be ugly in Ames. However, I do think our guards will do a much better job handling the ball, especially coming off of our best game taking care of the ball this year against a physical WVU defense. Then you look at shooting and currently K-State is allowing opponents to shoot 44% from behind the arc in 3 Big 12 games. At some point its likely that will come back toward the norm and K-State will win some 3 point lottery games. Plus, the Cats are coming off of a solid shooting game themselves. I see this becoming an offensive game, but without Wade the Cats probably don't have quite enough to get the road win.
Cats 72 - Cyclones 78
