Please disregard the events that will likely take place tonight, and focus instead on the joy you still feel about Iowa State playing for the Big 12 Championship in football.
The Game
Iowa State @ West Virginia
The Time
8:00 PM Central
The Television
ESPNU
The Opponent
Some have West Virginia as the second-best team in the Big 12. Back are most of the minutes from last year’s team, which, though remembered for a late-season swoon, finished the year a few days away from being everyone’s tournament sleeper after they handled Baylor at home. The Mountaineers’ one loss, to date, came against Gonzaga, and it was by five points. Bob Huggins’s team is good.
The Numbers
Vegas has West Virginia a 15-point favorite, down from 18 where it opened. 145 is the over/under. KenPom has Iowa State a 13-point underdog, with a 12% chance to win and a projected final score of 79-66.
What Iowa State Needs to Do
It’s too early to be “on to next year,” but that’s the direction we’re headed, and in a game that looks like it could be a massacre, we’re just looking for progress—signs that next year’s team might be closer to the good ones of the Steve Prohm era than whatever this is.
We’ve talked a lot in these previews and recaps about how many threes Iowa State is taking, but it’s worth acknowledging how unusual this is for a Prohm-coached team. Right now, 45% of ISU’s field goal attempts are from deep. The median number for that metric, over Prohm’s career at ISU and Murray State, has been 36.7%, with the highest previous ratio at Iowa State a 39.6% mark from 2019’s team. And the problem isn’t just that they’re missing shots. They’re sacrificing opportunities, too. On all three teams Prohm’s taken to the tournament from Ames, Iowa State’s been among the ten best squads in Division I at getting to the line. This year’s ranks 226th, on the bad side of the middle of the 347 teams in action.
A lot of this is roster construction (though that too is on Prohm). The team lacks guys like Georges Niang, Deonte Burton, and Marial Shayok who can create for themselves offensively, and it lacks guys like Monte Morris and Tyrese Haliburton who can create for a whole offense (though Rasir Bolton’s done a notably good job of this so far, with a great assist rate). But at the same time, strategic adjustments can be made. Solomon Young’s only being used on 17% of possessions. In 2019, Michael Jacobson was used on 21%. Even Jameel McKay, sharing a court with Morris and Niang in 2016, was used more than Young’s being used right now. Let the big man eat. Bolton’s shooting should improve, but it’s never been spectacularly efficient. He’s been ruthless nearer the hoop, though. More of that. Javan Johnson shot the lights out in the Sun Belt in 2018, but that was three years ago, and while ball movement’s never been the biggest thing under Prohm in Ames, and it hasn’t had to be, this is a year in which it would help. Opposing defenses are already spread—Iowa State’s making 59% of its two-point attempts. Better ball movement can offset fewer three-point attempts in the battle to keep those defenses from packing it in.
In other words, there are things Iowa State can do, and they aren’t all about developing Xavier Foster, who’s promising but not program-saving promising. Some encouraging results can be found right now. So while a win against West Virginia would be exhilarating, the more reasonable hope for tonight is to see some moments where the ball’s not standing still, where Young’s getting looks in the paint, and where an effort’s being taken to get to the hoop, and thereby get to the line.
We’re just looking for progress.
