Iowa State BLASTS Kentucky Without Its Best Player; UK Can't Handle the Big 12

Iowa State crushes Kentucky in the second half without Josh Jefferson. 

Transcript

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All right. Well, the Big 12 is uh 2 1 in the round of 32 now, after Iowa State just smoked Kentucky. What a freaking second half from the Cyclones. They outscored Kentucky 51-33 in the second half to win 82 to 63 going away. And oh, by the way, did I mention that Iowa State was playing without its best player? Yes, without its best player, the Cyclones just clobbered the SEC Blue Blood, the Kentucky Wildcats. So congratulations to Iowa State. Hell of a performance there. And we've got, you know, like 20 minutes or so in between games here before Kansas starts. So figure why not bridge the gap with a little bit of instant reaction here. And I'm going to try and do this throughout the day today as we get Big 12 basketball basically the entire rest of the day and evening, which is amazing. Two teams already headed to the Sweet 16. You've got Kansas and St. John's coming up here in about 15 minutes. Then after that, it'll be about time for Utah State and Arizona. Later tonight, Texas Tech and Alabama. Tech is a one and a half point favorite, Arizona an 11.5 point favorite, and uh Kansas a three and a half point underdog. So right now, if you believe the Vegas spread, the projections, so to speak, you would have four Big 12 teams projected to make the Sweet 16. But the impressive thing about what Iowa State and Houston have done to me is it was not just winning and being here in the Sweet 16. It's the matter in which they have done it. I mean, Houston absolutely clobbered Texas AM yesterday. Similar kind of feel where in the first half, I think I told you in the video that I posted earlier today about Houston. I was feeling a bit like, man, I don't know how it just felt like Houston was sluggish. It felt like they didn't have their jump shot. The rims seemed like everything was just clanging, and I was like, yeah, they just seem a little stuck in the mud. Texas AM's got a bunch of effort, and then snap your fingers, 18-0 run. It's done. Iowa State had what was that run? Like 20, 28 to 10, I believe it was at one point, stretching from the last minute and a half of the first half to a couple media timeouts into the second half, and the game was just completely, completely over. I mean, they put they put Kentucky in a chokehold with the defense. And uh so again, they just abuse a really athletic, talented team, and they do it without their best player. On a night, by the way, when the three-pointer was not really falling. That's the other thing for Iowa State. Now, I guess you look at it, they ended the game nine of 28 from three, which is 32%. That's not like abysmal. That's certainly below average, and certainly below average for Iowa State based on the way that they typically shoot it. But man, in the first half, I got to jot it down here. They finished three of 16 in the first half. One of those was at the very, very end of the half to put them in front, right? So they were up until the last shot of the first half. They were two of 15 from three-point range. They missed their first 11 from three, uh, and still just totally calm, cool, and collected. That I think is the real similarity between Iowa State and Houston. It's just no panic, man. I mean, this is uh this is a program that's now been here a lot. Three Sweet 16s in the TJ Otzelberger era. So they have been here. Obviously, Houston now with seven straight Sweet 16s has been there a bunch as well. But these these programs don't really flinch in the face of adversity even in the NCAA tournament, even when things don't look like they're going great early. Like I shot into a group text earlier when Kentucky knocked down its first couple threes. I was like, all right, with the athleticism and length that Kentucky has, if they're gonna shoot it like this, Iowa State's gonna be in a lot of trouble. But TJ Otzelberger just really like embodied everything about that program and everything about having the right type of attitude in that situation when he was then asked at one of the uh media timeout uh interviews, he was asked about the three-point shooting. Like, what do you guys have to do to get your three-point shooting defense going? I think is what John Rosteen asked him. And his response was like, look, we play really good defense typically over the course of a game. That's going to win out, and that's absolutely what happened. There was no reason to worry. Kentucky hit some shots early. Okay. We're Iowa State. We're going to be in your shorts the entire game. We're going to defend the absolute hell out of you, and it's not going to matter. And it really didn't. I mean, the three-point shooting was basically a wash. Uh, Kentucky was nine of 25. Iowa State was nine of 28, but you got to circle on the stat sheet, 20 turnovers, man. Iowa State forced 20 turnovers. And I love the comment there during the broadcast: like, hey, how many teams in the SEC are actually defending you like this? You don't see a whole lot of that, whereas you're getting it in the Big 12 with teams like Houston, with teams like Iowa State, and they just bothered the absolute hell out of Kentucky the entire game. And when the jump shot isn't falling, the best thing that you can do is play defense and get to the rim. And that's that's exactly what Iowa State did. Tamin Lipsy, head of the snake as always. Look at his final line here. 26 points. Okay, yeah. I was gonna say, I don't know if it'll look as impressive as it was on the stat sheet. No, it looks exactly as impressive as it was. Tayman Lipsey had 26 points, 10 assists, and five steals. He's eight of 15 from the floor, three of six from three, seven of eight from the free throw line. Look, the only thing keeping them in the game in the first half, keeping that from getting out of hand, was the fact that Tamin Lipsy started getting to the free throw line. You know what I mean? I've never seen Iowa State this entire season look as out of sorts offensively as they did for a good portion of that first half. And he finally was able to get to the rim. He's so good and deft at drawing contact near the rim, got a couple fouls, got to the line, started shooting free throws, and that kept Iowa State in it until everything else came along. And then who was the guy who knocks down the step back three to start the second half, hits another open three toward the beginning of the second half? Like the guy that actually lifted the lid off the basket was then lipsy too. And it started to become a little bit more contagious throughout the roster and everybody who was in there, and shots began to fall for Iowa State. So very, very Iowa State game. I mean, this is a really, really Iowa Statey kind of game and what they're gonna do under TJ Otzelberger. Um, you know, Milan Momhilovich uh eventually got going with 20 points. He knocked down four of nine from three, even though he had a bit of a sluggish start. I really hated one of the threes that he took in the first half in in transition to stop and pop when it felt like Iowa State was just trying to get over the hump. But none of it mattered. Like we we can hyper analyze the first half all you want. None of that mattered because of just the blitzkrieg that Iowa State laid on them in the in the second half. And it's been a great showing. It's been a great showing for uh for the Big 12 so far. I like this, Darius Conference Pride Greater Than Rivalries. Look, I mean, I I certainly have it these days. I'm gonna get to your other comment in a second, Darius, and thank you for the super chat. By the way, please do like the video, subscribe to the channel. It is the Open for Business Big 12 podcast. I'm your host, John Kurtz. Um, but in this day and age, I feel like it has created an environment where everybody wants to be much more conference pride than you used to be. Uh, I know some people will criticize that, some people don't like that. I see the comments on Twitter sometimes. Oh, it's loser behavior to do that. Look, it's it's the world that we're in, and a lot of that is the tenor of conference realignment and just the ramifications of conference realignment and how much of an existential threat it is at all times now in college athletics. Like it does mean more to band together these days than it did as a conference in the past. And so, yes, I feel more of that as as Darius here does as well. And I think a lot of people really, really do. And for the Big 12 so far, I mean, honestly, the final score of the TCU Duke game will not make it look like TCU acquitted themselves well. I thought TCU really did acquit themselves pretty well, competing in that game with Duke for about 75% of it before things totally went off the rails. After a really BS technical on Jamie Dixon that followed a BS missed goaltending call that I did a video about on the channel earlier this morning that you can check out as well if you want more in-depth thoughts on that. So, you know, outside of that, it's been Houston waxing Texas AM, Iowa State waxing Kentucky without its best player. Big 12's looking really, really strong, I think, throughout this NCAA tournament. Yes, a bit disappointing that that BYU lost the way that they did. Maybe now some of the sting and some of the edges off that that Texas went on to beat Gonzaga and march on to the Sweet 16, right? Um that's not BYU fans, I'm sure, won't take much solace in that, but I would say that that that at least means a bit of something. It's not like BYU lost to nobody, though the end of their season was certainly undoubtedly, undoubtedly, undoubtedly disappointing. Uh so Darius with the super chat. I appreciate it, Darius. If you want to drop in a super chat, you can do so. Click the dollar sign below the chat box in order to do so. Uh, Darius said, just imagine if tech was still full strength. Well, and that's that's a part of it too. But this, Darius, this should be this should be very inspiring for you, okay. Joshua Jefferson didn't play for Iowa State. That's a first team All Big 12 player. JT Toppen, first team All Big 12 player, arguably the best player in the conference, out for Texas Tech. Iowa State still went out there and beat a team from the SEC by 20 plus. Okay. I'm sorry, by 19. Kentucky fans, my apologies. Please come running to the comments and defend yourselves. Uh they won by basically 20. So now Texas Tech playing without JT Toppin, go beat an SEC team. I I'm not even saying that you have to do it by 20. That'd be nice, but you've got your opportunity to go do the same thing. And Texas Tech, we know, has plenty of talent. Those guards are great. That backcourt is great, led by Christian Anderson. But there are there are a lot of weapons out there for Texas Tech to be deploying. And by the way, Alabama is not at full strength either, missing one of its uh two best players, probably. Now, I know that that is that's not an injury issue. That is very much a self-imposed issue that Alabama has going on, but they're not going to be at full strength either. So, Texas Tech, go get it done. Go get it done tonight, man. That is my that is my message there. Uh Kansas St. John's will be very, very interesting as well. Obviously, storylines there are rich. Zubi Egifor, former Kansas Jayhawk, now the big East player of the year, who's playing for St. John's. Uh, you know, I thought Kansas looked pretty good uh the other night against Cal Baptist, you know, let their foot off the gas a bit at the end. I don't know what to expect here, guys, to be honest. St. John's has been red hot. They look very good. Kansas has been so hot and cold, but if if Darren Peterson is rolling, uh the Jayhawks could certainly show out for the Big 12 as well. I feel pretty confident in Arizona later on, and Tech Alabama feels like uh like a coin flip sort of game to me. A coin flip sort of game. Oh, I see Darius. Darius threw in the thank you, threw in the super chat there for me. I appreciate you, Darius. Uh so yeah, KU St. John's about to get started here. See if I have any other notes on Iowa State. Well, look, when Torrey got hurt, Torrey goes down at 742, really hard fall there. I think everybody was kind of looking around, like, really? I mean, not just Iowa State fans for themselves, but we're talking about injuries there. It continues to come up for the Big 12. You've had the Richie Saunders injury, which I mean, I have to think. BYU, I think, is probably up a seed line or two and is winning at least one game in the NCAA tournament if Richie Saunders doesn't get hurt. JT Toppin makes Texas Tech a Final Four contender, full stop. And then now you got Josh Jefferson sidelined, and now you're like, all right, Torrey's been giving Iowa State some nice minutes. Now he's gonna be out, but it it looks like everything's okay there. He uh he scored uh 10 points, grabbed four boards in 31 minutes. Uh pretty good, pretty good minutes out of him. Nate Heisey is a guy who deserves a shout out today as well for Iowa State. I know it was great they they flashed like his mom and family there wearing the glue shirts. It's definitely the kind of guy he is, and he doesn't look like he should be able to get to the rim sometimes, particularly against like Kentucky defenders, but he was able to. And he scored 12 points, five of eight from the floor, uh dished out three assists as well. That that guy is a glue guy of sorts, and I thought had a pretty pretty impressive game here. But um, yeah, Iowa State proving that they're every bit a Final Four contender. Houston proved that it is every bit a Final Four contender. We'll see who else is going to join them for the Big 12 uh throughout the day. So I'll get you out just in time here to go watch uh Kansas and St. John's. I'm looking, I peek over at the TV. I'm seeing uh I'm seeing a Rick Bettino interview there. I guess we still got like 10 minutes left. I thought it was supposed to tip at uh at 15. All right, I'll get you out in plenty of time here. Okay, so everybody go enjoy the rest of the day. Big 12 basketball. I will try to pop in when I can andor get you some uh some recorded content depending on how the schedule is going tonight. I will be here, my friends. Take care, and I will talk to you soon.