Oh boy.
The Game
Iowa State at Baylor
The Time
7:00 PM Central
The Television
ESPN+, if you’re looking to stream it.
The Opponent
The Baylor Bears, the second-best men’s college basketball team in the country. Would potentially be historically good, but Gonzaga has taken that mantle and converted it into jet fuel.
The Numbers
Vegas has ISU a 23.5-point dog, with the over/under at 147. KenPom projects an 86-60 Baylor victory and gives the Cyclones a one percent chance to win.
What Iowa State Needs to Do
Sounds like we’ll see a little less Jaden Walker, which is probably good because Baylor forces a turnover at the third-highest rate in the country despite playing a mildly respectable schedule. Walker will get his minutes, but this isn’t the time to throw him further into the fire.
Baylor’s defensive aggression sometimes does yield easy buckets—if you get a shot off, there’s a decent chance it’ll be a good one, and second chances are available. But. They’re still one of the best ten defensive teams in the country, and ISU turns the ball over more than most (and doesn’t crash the offensive glass very well). I could list all the things Iowa State needs to do better than normal, but it would be every thing that happens in a basketball game. Just gotta do their best, hope for a bad night than Baylor, and hope for a shot at the one-in-100 scenario.
Hopefully Baylor is fully recovered from the Covid issues they dealt with these last three weeks.
