No. 3 Iowa State tries to snap two-game men’s basketball skid Monday at No. 11 Kansas

AMES — Out of sorts. Out of sync. Short on answers.

That’s where No. 3 Iowa State finds itself after back-to-back shocking losses that came in polar opposite ways.

Arizona needed a 55-foot buzzer-beating heave just to have a chance to beat the Cyclones in overtime last Monday — and it went in.

Kansas State (10-11, 4-6 Big 12) dictated the tone and tenor of Saturday’s Big 12 men’s basketball game against ISU (17-4, 7-3) almost for the duration, cruising to an 80-61 win.

It echoed an eerily similar strange lopsided loss in head coach T.J. Otzelberger’s first season, in which a middling Oklahoma State team trounced the Cyclones, 53-36, on March 2, 2022. ISU scored its fewest points ever in a game played at Hilton Coliseum that night — but that resurgent team got back on track in the NCAA tournament, reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2016.

So there’s no reason to panic, especially since sharpshooting forward Milan Momcilovic could be back in the rotation in a couple weeks after his injured hand fully heals. But just like that first Otzelberger team, this one will follow up a home dud with a daunting road test — on Big Monday (ESPN) at 8 p.m. against No. 11 Kansas, no less.

“It’s gonna be really important how we walk in the building (Sunday), how focused we are,” said Otzelberger, whose team has lost consecutive games for the first time in 14 months. “This is a mental thing. This is a mental toughness thing. This is a care factor thing. This is pride in putting on that jersey.

“That’s what it’s about — and we’re gonna be extremely demanding that that (meets) the standard (Sunday) and moving forward.”

The Cyclones entered Saturday with the nation’s second-longest home winning streak of 29 games, but ended the day with the shortest. The same fate befell Big 12-leading Houston, however, as it saw its nation-leading 33-game home win streak snapped by Texas Tech.

So it was a weird day in an already bizarre season, but par for the course in the topsy-turvy world of college basketball.

Kansas, meanwhile, is just 3-2 at home in Big 12 play, and coming off an 81-70 loss at Baylor. The Jayhawks (15-6, 6-4) led by as many as 21 points in the first half.

“I never felt like we had momentum in the second half,” Kansas head coach Bill Self told reporters after the loss.

The same could be said of ISU against the Wildcats. The Cyclones raced to a 13-4 lead, saw Kansas State quickly recover to seize control, and never found any sustained rhythm on either end of the floor to reset that power relationship.

“They had momentum,” said ISU standout guard Tamin Lipsey, who matched a season-high with 20 points in the loss. “They had the energy the whole game, and we just weren’t able to bounce back and find our own.”

Hence the importance of Sunday as Big Monday beckons. If the Cyclones reconfirmed their commitment to Otzelberger’s demanding daily habits, and recommitted to playing for and trusting in one another, a possible first regular season sweep of Kansas since the 2000-01 season becomes eminently doable. If not, ISU’s rare losing streak could mushroom into something bigger — with significant implications for March attached.

“I trust the guys, I trust the coaching staff, that we’re gonna get better and learn from (Saturday’s loss),” said leading scorer Curtis Jones, who’s mired in a two-game shooting slump. “And come out on Monday with a little more fire than we did (on Saturday).”

Comments: robgray18@icloud.com