Iowa State's ‘storybook with a hard hat’ run continues with Friday's Sweet 16 game against Miami

AMES — Few expected Iowa State to trounce Xavier on Thanksgiving Day in Brooklyn.

Fewer still pegged the Cyclones as runaway winners two days later over a talented Memphis team.

But what ESPN college basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla saw from ISU nearly four months ago — and he was on the mic for those games — provided an early glimpse of how the biggest turnaround in program history could improbably unfold.

“It’s storybook with a hard hat,” Fraschilla said of the Cyclones’ rousing run, which lands them in Friday’s 8:59 p.m. NCAA tournament Sweet 16 matchup with Miami (Fla.) at the United Center in Chicago. “There’s nobody I’ve seen all season that practiced or played any harder. And I think this team has absolutely gotten every bit out of its talent it possibly could.”

The No. 11-seed Cyclones (22-12) face a 10th-seeded Hurricanes team (25-10) that’s also toppled higher seeds to advance to the Sweet 16.

But Miami head coach Jim Larrañaga has led his team to three of its four all-time appearances in the second weekend of the tournament.

ISU head coach T.J. Otzelberger is the third coach in tournament history to lead a team to the Sweet 16 in his first year after assuming the reigns of a program that posted a losing record — in this case a dismal 2-22 mark — the previous season.

So despite the stormy similarities in team nicknames, the storybook plot twists firmly favor the Cyclones, who were picked unanimously by Big 12 coaches to finish last in the league.

“Our guys have been the chip on your shoulder, the underdog, the group that’s been doubted,” said Otzelberger, who has been an ISU assistant or head coach for three of the program’s six Sweet 16 trips. “It’s hard to be unanimously picked last in your league. I don’t know how often that happens — and we were definitely unanimous, so I don’t think there can be anybody that’s more of an underdog, more of a chip on your shoulder, more to prove, more of an us against the world mentality.”

Just ask the Cyclones. They’ve turned scoffs and slights into this season’s lifeblood. Now they’re one win from reaching the Elite Eight for just the second time in the modern era.

“Everyone doubted us,” said senior big man George Conditt IV, the only Cyclone in the rotation who’s spent four years in the program. “Let’s be serious, media doubted us. All right? So we’ve just got to go out there each time and prove the next doubter wrong.”

There are far fewer of those to defy. ISU is unbeaten (15-0) outside of Big 12 play and leads all Sweet 16 teams in scoring defense, turnovers forced and field goal percentage defense.

Therein sits the hard hat, which the Cyclones wear proudly — and by necessity.

“If we can go out there (with) no numbers by the names, I feel like there wouldn’t be (any) upsets considered,” said point guard Tyrese Hunter, who has set ISU freshman benchmarks for assists (165) and steals (68). “Now it’s about matchups and going out there and playing hard.”

Fraschilla always saw that mentality in the new-look and remarkably recharged Cyclones. But the Sweet 16?

“The probability of this happening is mind-boggling,” Fraschilla said. “Until you watch the team every day in practice and in games.”

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