More and more, these look like the good old days for Iowa State men’s basketball

AMES — Nostalgia blended beautifully with the present for Iowa State men’s basketball Saturday.

The Cyclones’ 1999-2000 and 2000-01 Big 12 title teams were feted in a halftime ceremony and warmly welcomed back. Even by those in the Hilton Coliseum crowd of 14,267 too young to remember the hard times those teams gave their opponents.

For those not in the know, ISU went 57-11 over those two seasons, and was a win from the Final Four in 2000. It had just five league losses in that time. All were on the road, and four went to overtime.

Larry Eustachy coached those teams to play ferocious defense, but they also had the skills offensively. Which brings us to 2025, where T.J. Otzelberger’s No. 3-ranked Cyclones are similar. They attack at both ends of the floor. Saturday, they drilled No. 25 Baylor, 74-55.

The Bears came in averaging 86.4 points with a rebounding edge of over seven per game. They made 29.7 percent of their shots and got outrebounded by seven. It was their lowest point total in almost two years.

“It was really important for us to honor that group appropriately,” Otzelberger said, “to come out and be at our best, especially defensively.”

Otzelberger had his team watch film of those old Cyclones Friday. Saturday, they did what Otz wanted and performed like those older guys did.

“They play as hard as anybody in the country, if not harder,” Eustachy said about this season’s 12-1 Cyclones, “and they don’t do things that make them lose.

“Iowa State, on every inch of the court, plays hard. … It’s refreshing to watch. You don’t see that these days.”

In 2000, Eustachy had a guard triad of Jamaal Tinsley, Kantrail Horton and Michael Nurse to go with All-America forward Marcus Fizer. You couldn’t double-team anyone without getting torched.

In 2025, Otzelberger rotates his excellent veteran backcourt threesome of Keshon Gilbert, Curtis Jones and Tamin Lipsey, stretches the floor with forward/3-point shooter Milan Momcilovic, and gets a lot out of first-year Cyclone bigs Joshua Jefferson, Dishon Jackson and Brandton Chatfield.

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“We have scorers at every position,” Momcilovic said.

“We can win so many different ways,” said Gilbert. “Even if we don’t turn people over, our defense comes first, and that’s what happened tonight.”

The first three ISU teams of Otzelberger — all of which reached the NCAA tourney with two getting to the Sweet 16 — didn’t have the offensive weaponry of this season’s team. His first two teams were grinders, a 54-49 winner over Wisconsin in the NCAA’s second round.

The current Clones are eye-pleasing to hoops fans, and full of versatility. Gilbert, a 6-foot-4 guard, had 10 rebounds to go with his 16 points. Jefferson, a 6-foot-9, 240-pounder, had eight assists Saturday and eight steals in a Big 12 win at Colorado four days earlier.

Iowa State won 39 straight home games from February 1999 to November 2001. Today’s Cyclones upped their streak to 26 Saturday.

Baylor, 65-23 in the Big 12 since the 2019-20 season, fell behind 6-0 here and never caught up. It was a game reminiscent of many that were played here 25 years ago.

“We’re fortunate to play in the best home court in the country with the greatest fans,” Otzelberger said, “and those guys (of 1999-2001) had a lot to do with that because a lot of our fans have tremendous memories from those seasons.”

There’s a lot of ball left this season, a lot of hard games home and away. However, you hear more basketball people saying something like this all the time: These Cyclones can be more than just very good.

Baylor Coach Scott Drew knows what an elite team looks like, having led the Bears to the 2021 national-championship.

“T.J.’s got not only a really good team, but an experienced team that has done a great job growing together.” Drew said.

“I’ve said it all year. I think Auburn and them are the two best teams in the country.”

Utah plays here Tuesday night. Lotsa luck, Utes.

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