Mar 9, 2023; Kansas City, MO, USA; Iowa State Cyclones players huddle during a time out in the second half against the Baylor Bears at T-Mobile Center. Mandatory Credit: Amy Kontras-USA TODAY Sports
KANSAS CITY — Robert Jones slowly stood up and peaked around the camera with the widest smile imaginable. Gabe Kalscheur looked away and tried his best not to laugh.
Osun Osunniyi lamented his inability to get into his locker and shower with the assembled media huddled around Kalscheur’s adjacent locker.
“I can’t even get in my area with double deuce next to me,” Osun exclaimed with a smile. “How am I supposed to get in my area with double deuce right here?”
Can you tell the Cyclones are having fun? You only have to spend about five minutes in Iowa State’s locker room to see it firsthand.
This team is having a lot of fun, and it is easy to understand why after its 78-72 win over No. 10 Baylor in a Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal on Wednesday at the T-Mobile Center.
Kalscheur isn’t the guy this media member would pick as the likeliest Cyclone to crack jokes, but he could hardly contain his laughter as Jones and Osunniyi tried to distract him from his interviews.
It is awfully easy to laugh after you score 24 points and connect on six 3-pointers to lead your team into the Big 12 semifinals on Friday against the winner of Thursday afternoon’s game between Kansas and West Virginia.
After all, it is that time of year again. “Neutral Site Gabe” is back.
“We’re having a lot of fun right now,” Kalscheur said. “These guys are trying to make me laugh by doing dumb stuff. We’re just having a great time, even in the locker room and even at the hotel. We play spades. We try to just have fun, kind of give each other crap. These guys are having a great time. This is a great senior season for me. We’re not done yet, but I’m going to always remember these guys.”
You can see that fun come out in the way these guys play. You can see it come out in how they defend and how they share the basketball offensively.
This team is as connected as it has been all season, which is impressive when you consider how well Iowa State has played at different times throughout the year.
“I feel like you can see it come out,” Kalscheur said. “We’re all kind of there for each other. Someone’s down, we pick them up. Even in our layup lines, we kind of give each other crap. It’s all love. We’re a brotherhood and we do this stuff together.”
Jaren Holmes always seems to be having fun. It doesn’t matter if he’s playing basketball or not. That’s a guy who just has fun living life.
He’s having fun playing basketball right now, though, too. He added 17 points, five rebounds and five assists against the Bears, and was the most animated of the bunch after knocking down big shots and making big plays.
Do you think Tre King is having a good time playing the game right now? It sure looked like it as he stacked another high-level performance against the Bears, tallying 10 points and six rebounds to lead the Cyclones’ frontcourt.
That entire frontcourt is having fun right now. All you have to do is look at the rebounding numbers from this game to know that group is having fun.
They’re having fun kicking asses and taking names. It is easy to have fun when you can snag more offensive rebounds (21) than Baylor had total rebounds (17).
Iowa State out-rebounded Baylor 44-17 in this game. That’s the Bears’ lowest single-game rebounding total since grabbing only 25 in a loss to Iowa State back in 2005.
The Cyclones kicked Baylor’s butts so badly on the boards that the Bears grabbed the program’s fewest rebounds in 18 years — and shattered that mark by eight.
Yeah, the Cyclones are having fun.
“I’ll give credit to the coaches,” Jones said. “It’s just something that we emphasize all the time every day. We come out and try to get as many boards as we can. We have more offensive boards than they had total boards, and that’s one of our biggest key emphasis for our team.”
Tamin Lipsey hasn’t lost a March tournament game since he was a junior in high school. A year ago, he was posting a triple-double while leading Ames High to a Class 4A state championship.
On Thursday, he was in Kansas City posting 13 points, a career-high 11 rebounds, five assists and five steals in 30 minutes of play. He joins Kemba Walker (UConn) and Paolo Banchero (Duke) as the only players to compile that stat line in a conference tournament game.
Those guys are pretty good. One of them won a national championship and went down as one of the greatest to ever play the college game. The other was only the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.
Lipsey went through that mid-season swoon and hit the freshman wall, but he’s rebounded better than you ever could have expected. His first experience in Kansas City will go down as one of his best performances of the season.
It helps a lot when you’re having fun.
“I’ve been on some teams, obviously, not college, but different AAU teams where guys aren’t really connected, and that’s when you start to lose games and you lose those close games,” Lipsey said. “Just being on a team where everyone is connected and just always having fun, always cracking jokes, that just makes it fun.”
Nobody was having fun on Thursday as Jalen Bridges got red-hot for the Bears, connecting on his first nine shots from the field and first six 3-point attempts while helping Baylor build an eight-point lead early in the second half.
Iowa State responded by unleashing a 9-0 run of its own that was capped by back-to-back 3-pointers from Kalscheur and Holmes. It was the type of moment that felt like, well, a moment.
Every one of Iowa State’s runs through this tournament has been unique in its own way, but they all that moment. Monte Morris’ shot at the buzzer against Texas in 2015. Marial Shayok’s shot to beat Kansas State in 2019, the day after Tyrese Haliburton put Baylor on a poster in the quarterfinal.
There is a moment when Iowa State teams seem to indicate they will be here for more than one night, and folks should start making their plans to head south for their spring home.
That run to erase Baylor’s lead and retake control of the game felt like a moment. It felt like the kind of moment that indicates this team has the juice to win three games this weekend.
It is the kind of moment that indicates this team is having so much fun, they’re not about to let it end without a significant fight.
We will soon find out the outcome, but there is no doubt about how folks should feel after this game. They should be glad to know the Cyclones are back to being themselves.
Iowa State is back to having fun, and now they’re ready for a long stay at Hilton South.
