Kansas-Iowa State: Preview

As I write this article, the Kansas Men's Basketball team is currently ranked 31st and received 23 votes in the most recent Associated Press poll. After losing badly to Michigan State in East Lansing to finish off their non-conference schedule, the Jayhawks have reeled off three straight conference victories.

While those conference victories have come over three mediocre teams, the emergence of Mario Little and development of Tyshawn Taylor have brought promise to what seemed to be a "ho, hum" season.

Bill Self and his Jayhawks will travel to Ames, Iowa to face the Iowa State Cyclones on Saturday. Self is 4-1 all time at Hilton Coliseum, including a close overtime victory which the Jayhawks deserved to lose. The Cyclones have been doing their best Jekyll and Hyde routines for most of the season.

Unfortunately, the Cyclones' conference schedule started with a trip to Austin, but they were able to stay in the game until the final minute or two. They followed that up with a solid performance and a victory over the now pesky Nebraska team, but then only managed to muster 46 points in a lopsided defeat in Columbia to hated rivals Missouri.

Despite it being a "rebuilding year" for the Jayhawks, the Cyclones won't be taking Kansas any more lightly than they would if they were a Final Four threat. Historically, Hilton Coliseum is a tough place to play.

While Kansas is my alma mater, most of my childhood was spent rooting on Tim Floyd and his solid Cyclone teams (remember Marcus Fizer?). I've experienced "Hilton Magic" first hand and I can tell you that it rivals the noise produced in most conference games in Allen Fieldhouse.

The Hilton is one of college basketball's greatest arenas and due to the underachievement of the Cyclones basketball team, never really gets mentioned.

You can be sure that Bill Self will have told his players all about Hilton and all about how Iowa State historically loves to play spoiler in Kansas' quest for Big 12 titles. If KU plays like they have in the first three conference games, they should win the game easily.

If they stumble out of the gate and Iowa State is on its game, then we could be in for a great basketball game.

I would be shocked if Kansas were to lose this game. The emergence of Mario Little since conference play began has been a breathe of fresh air for Kansas Fans. His size, speed and all around athleticism has definitely been an asset the Jayhawks were missing in the games they lost.

He has been able to take some of the pressure off Sherron Collins, and that has led to more fluidity on the offensive end. Before Little had established himself, KU would have to run the shot clock down to under 10 before they had something that remotely looked like an open shot.

Now, with Little on the floor, Kansas can get a good look before the shot clock gets to 20, and it's allowed their scoring average to rise.

So long as the Morris twins can go for more than segments of five minutes at a time without amassing a combined total of five fouls, the Jayhawks will control the paint. If not, it makes Cole Aldrich have to really concentrate on not fouling, which can make him less effective on the defensive end.

When Cole isn't in foul trouble the Jayhawks are almost guaranteed the victory, when he is, teams can creep back into games (as we saw in the conference opener against Kansas State).

The biggest keys for Iowa State will be to slow the game down, move the ball around and just try to get good looks. While they don't shoot the lights out of the ball (44 percent for the season) they can still put up points as they did in Austin, (they average over 66 points a game).

If they can bump their three-point percentage to up around the 40 percent mark against the Jayhawks, they should be in the game for the duration. I just don't know if they have the talent to compete with this Jayhawk team.

The biggest keys for the Jayhawks aside from those already mentioned will be to keep the crowd out of it as much as possible. They are averaging nearly 14 more points per game than the Cyclones, so that would lead to predictions of a landslide victory.

Both teams average nearly the same amount of rebounds, so watch out for those numbers, if Kansas can control the glass, I don't see how Iowa State can keep up with the Jayhawks in the scoring department, especially with the Jayhawks improving on the defensive end with every game.

Prediction: I think Kansas will be looking to turn this game into a talent contest, which is what Texas ended up having to do to pull away. While this is in Ames, I have a hard time believing Kansas will be suffering through that four hour bus ride back to Lawrence in defeat.

Kansas 74, Iowa State 63