Cyclones looking for some ‘magic’ Tuesday night

AMES — Aljaz Kunc did his research.

Of course it took him to the internet.

But the Iowa State graduate transfer’s fact-finding journey into cyberspace revealed something important about his new school — a fan-centered quality best experienced live, not online.

“If you just Google ‘Hilton Magic’ or put it in YouTube, you get a lot of clips,” Kunc said in June shortly after arriving on campus.

Now, Kunc is contributing countless click-worthy clips of his own.

The No. 20 Cyclones (16-5, 3-5 Big 12) face one of their most YouTube-searched opponents — 10th-ranked Kansas — at 6 p.m. Tuesday (ESPN) at Hilton Coliseum. And they’ll need that re-energized crowd that creates so-called “magic” to have a chance to send the league-leading Jayhawks (17-3, 6-1) away with a loss.

“They might come in hungry,” Kunc said. “But we’re going to come here starving.”

The Jayhawks are coming off their second-worse home loss in the Coach Bill Self era — a humbling, 80-62, setback Saturday to fifth-ranked Kentucky.

So they’ll not only be hungry. They’ll be ornery and refocused as well.

“They’re gonna come out really ready, really focused and really motivated, because I feel like they may feel like people doubt them now or whatever,” said ISU guard Izaiah Brockington, who Monday was named the conference’s player of the week. “So yeah, they’re definitely gonna come out, but we’ve got motivation, too.”

A Cyclones win would end Kansas’s two-year run of magic killing at Hilton — and help them inch closer to the top half of the Big 12 standings at the midway point of the conference season. ISU is tied for sixth with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

“We believe in our system, in how we do things and how we defend,” Cyclones head coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “(We) feel like no matter who we’ve played, when we’ve been the aggressor with that ball pressure and activity, things have gone our direction. We’ve got tremendous respect for their program, their players, their coaches, their guards, and the way they do things, but yet at the same time, we feel like we could have even been a little bit pressuring the ball down there (in a 62-61 loss). Had we done that, maybe the outcome would have been different. So we’re going to try to be more aggressive and more intentional with our ball pressure (this time).”

Ochai Agbaji led the Jayhawks in the first meeting and remains the team’s best scoring threat (20.9 points per game). Sprinkle in Kansas’s other top-performing guards, Christian Braun (15.2 points) and Remy Martin (8.2 points), and ISU’s trademark ball pressure becomes an even more crucial element.

“At Kansas, we kind of let them get loose early and we allowed a couple middle drives,” Kunc said. “Their best shooter (Agbaji) kind of got hot, so we’ve got to fix this (this time). Hopefully defense translates into offense, as well.”

That’s when the real magic happens and fresh clips begin percolating across multiple platforms.

“I’ve heard a lot of things about when Kansas comes to town,” said Kunc, who is shooting a sizzling 50 percent from beyond the arc off the bench. “I heard it sometimes gets crazier than the Iowa game, but hopefully they’re gonna come in tomorrow and hopefully we can put on a show for them.”

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