Iowa State’s March Madness game in Milwaukee to be homecoming for some Cyclones

MILWAUKEE — The Cyclones’ bus ride back from their closed-door practice practically doubled as a guided tour of Milwaukee.

As they drove from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Klotsche Center to their downtown hotel, head coach T.J. Otzelberger and assistant coach J.R. Blount’s Milwaukee roots started to show.

“We kind of gave everyone a little rundown on our way,” Blount said. “The locations of where we’ve been at, and some specific restaurants. Things you can do in certain areas, and things you can’t do in certain areas.”

While playing in the relatively new Fiserv Forum will technically be a new experience for Iowa State, the Cyclones have plenty of familiarity with the stage of Friday’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament first-round battle against No. 6-seed LSU at 6:20 p.m. Friday (TBS).

“I'm probably about as Milwaukee as they come,” Otzelberger said earlier in the week. “Milwaukee’s a special place for me.”

The first-year Iowa State head coach went to high school fewer than 15 minutes away from Fiserv Forum — a short drive across the Hoan Bridge and down Kinnickinnic Avenue — and “grew up playing on the playgrounds” on Milwaukee’s south side.

His parents met about 35 minutes away at Brat Stop in Kenosha, Wis., and clapped along as the Iowa State band played the “Beer Barrel Polka” — hitting a couple Wisconsin stereotypes.

Otzelberger still has enough friends and family there that he said earlier in the week he was going to turn off his phone to avoid ticket requests.

“I'm not going to deal with ticket requests,” Otzelberger said. “I want to get ready to play the game.”

Guard Tyrese Hunter will be playing Friday 352 miles away from Hilton Coliseum, but he might be more of a celebrity in southeastern Wisconsin than central Iowa.

Hunter grew up about a 30-mile drive away in Racine, Wis. As he shot a free throw in Thursday’s open practice, someone wearing a sweatshirt from his high school was in the front row.

“He’s goin’ to the crib,” said teammate George Conditt IV, who grew up not far away in Chicago, about Hunter. “He was happy, man. He gets the opportunity to play in his city. That’s a big experience for him.”

His high school coach Nick Bennett, whose uncle and first cousin both took NCAA teams to the Final Four, described Hunter as a “pseudo-celebrity” in Racine.

“Tyrese did get quite a bit of notoriety the last couple of years,” Bennett said. “He had a job at Walmart, and he had people that would come there and take pictures of him and stuff like that.”

Hunter is expected to have no shortage of fans making the short drive north on Interstate 94 for Friday’s game — an overdue opportunity after he didn’t have any home games in his senior year at Racine St. Catherine’s High School.

“This will be the first time his grandmother sees him play in two years,” Bennett said. “For a lot of people, they just didn't get a chance to see him play.”

That meant a lot of ticket requests. “Thousands,” Hunter said, so he put his phone in do-not-disturb mode.

The Fiserv Forum reunion required some faith from the Racine native.

Hunter committed to the Cyclones while former coach Steve Prohm was still in Ames. After a 2-22 season in 2020-21 and a coaching change after that, it might’ve been tempting to reopen his recruitment.

He stuck with the Cyclones, though.

“Tyrese believed in the vision,” Bennett said. “He believed in what they set out for him, and obviously it’s been a really neat first season.”

Now Bennett likes to think Iowa State is becoming the area’s third college basketball team to cheer for — along with in-state powers Marquette and Wisconsin.

“You will see some Cyclone gear around Racine,” said Bennett, who was wearing his Iowa State shirt Thursday.

Iowa State’s staff surely won’t mind that sight as it tries to tap into the region on the recruiting trail.

“Obviously we have a special tie to this place,” Blount said. “And there’s been a lot of great players that have come from here, so if there's great players here, we definitely want to try to get them.”

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