Ok. Let’s do it.
The Game
Iowa State vs. Baylor, in Ames
The Time
12:00 PM Central
The Television
ESPN+. Same as it ever was.
The Opponent
Baylor. The second-best team in college basketball. Quite a bit better than the third-best.
The Numbers
Vegas has the Cyclones a 15.5-point underdog, with the over/under at 148.5. KenPom gives ISU an 11% chance of winning, projecting an 81-67 final score.
What Iowa State Needs to Do
It’s about progress, and about being competitive.
If Iowa State’s going to win, they’re going to have to shoot their heads off from three. 60% levels of shooting, potentially. It’s not impossible. Teams shoot 60% now and then over the course of a game, and for all Baylor’s strengths, they don’t defend perimeter shooting all that well (though to their credit, they often force a turnover before it gets to that point). Making that happen’s going to require a lot of luck, and it’s going to require finding a way to feed the hot hand, which doubles the importance of ball movement. Iowa State’s also going to need to protect the ball, something the Cyclones do poorly which Baylor exploits to a tremendous level.
Getting back on defense is a key. Baylor’s among the quickest offensive teams in the country, suggesting a tendency to run the break, and is the best three-point shooting team, to date, in the country, suggesting a tendency to find open shots (though to be fair, beyond Illinois, we’ve yet to see Baylor play a team with even an NIT at-large chance—though to be fair again, Iowa State doesn’t fit into that category either). The Bears’ offensive rebounding numbers are similarly impressive, but that’s another thing getting back ahead of the break can help with.
It’s possible Iowa State will try to do what they did so often against West Virginia, giving Rasir Bolton the ball and getting out of the way. It’s the approach that’s given them the best results so far, but the WVU result—a narrow loss to a good team that’s not as good as Baylor—is its ceiling. It’d be more encouraging, and would pay better long-term dividends, to focus on ball movement, ball protection, and getting back ahead of Baylor’s fast break.
We’ll see.
