{"id":676581,"date":"2026-03-24T15:56:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/676581\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T15:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:56:35","slug":"tennessee-basketball-ncaa-tournament-preview-a-quick-look-at-the-iowa-state-cyclones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/676581\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Basketball NCAA Tournament Preview: A Quick Look At The Iowa State Cyclones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>Photo via Iowa State MBB on X (Twitter)\/ @CycloneMBB<\/p>\n

Tennessee basketball is back in the Sweet 16 for a fourth straight season as they prepare to face two-seed Iowa State in the Midwest Region Semifinals on Friday night in Chicago. With a win, the Vols advance to the Elite Eight for a third straight season and become 40 minutes from the first Final Four in program history.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a quick look at the Cyclones ahead of the NCAA Tournament matchup.<\/p>\n

More From RTI:\u00a0Tennessee Basketball Joins Elite Company With Recent NCAA Tournament Success<\/a>
\nHow The Cyclones Got Here<\/p>\n

Iowa State climbed into the top five in the AP Poll after starting the season 16-0. The Cyclones looked like a legit national title contender in non conference play, earning wins over St. John\u2019s, at Purdue and Iowa.<\/p>\n

Big 12 play was a bit rockier for the Cyclones. They finished the regular season 4-4 in their last eight games with losses against TCU, BYU, Texas Tech and Arizona. But Iowa State has got things back on track since postseason play has begun.<\/p>\n

The Cyclones earned wins over Arizona State and Texas Tech before losing a nail biter against Arizona in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals. Last week, the Cyclones annihilated 15-seed Tennessee State in the first round of the tournament before coasting past seven-seed Kentucky in the Round of 32.<\/p>\n

Iowa State\u2019s Strengths<\/p>\n

Just about everything, but let\u2019s start on the defensive end of the court where Iowa State ranks fifth nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency<\/a>. Its biggest strength is its ability to force turnovers, ranking fourth nationally by forcing turnovers on 22.5% of its opponents possessions this season.<\/p>\n

Opponents shoot under 50% from the field against Iowa State and they do a good job cleaning up the defensive glass, ranking 65th nationally in defensive rebounding rate. They also do a good job of defending without fouling.<\/p>\n

Offensively, Iowa State wins the shot quantity battle most games because they turn the ball over on less than 15% of its possessions and rank in the top 35 nationally in offensive rebound rate.<\/p>\n

Led by wing Milan Momcilovic, Iowa State is one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country. The Cyclones rank 11th nationally with a 38.7 three-point shooting percentage. While they shoot extremely well from three-point range, they do not shoot an abundance of them like Virginia or Miami (Ohio).<\/p>\n

Iowa State\u2019s Weaknesses<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not a ton of them but there are a few areas where Iowa State is not great. Let\u2019s start with their rim defense. The Cyclones do not block shots and rank just 126th in two-point defense. As good as Iowa State is defensively, Tennessee should be able to score inside in this game.<\/p>\n

Offensively, Iowa State does not get to the free throw line often. And when they do, they actually shoot the ball worse than Tennessee. The Cyclones shoot 66.7% from the line\u2014 the lowest mark of teams remaining in the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

Standout Cyclones<\/p>\n

Iowa State has one of the best three-player trios in the entire country. Perhaps the most important note previewing this game is the status of star forward Joshua Jefferson. The Second Team All-American injured his ankle against Tennessee State and missed the Kentucky game.<\/p>\n

Jefferson is a do-it-all star, averaging 16.4 points, 7.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.6 steals per game. He shoots 34.5% from three-point range and has made 38 triples so far this season.<\/p>\n

Tamin Lipsey is a traditional point guard. He\u2019s averaging 13.3 points, 5.1 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game. The 6-foot-1 senior ranks 129th nationally in assist rate and 20th nationally in steal rate.<\/p>\n

Milan Momcilovich is Iowa State\u2019s leading scorer and the best shooter in the entire country. He\u2019s averaging 17.2 points per game while making a remarkable 134 triples at a 49.3% clip. It\u2019s an insane efficiency at an insane rate.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the top trio for Iowa State but Jamarion Batemon is a good three-point shooter that starts at shooting guard. Blake Buchanan starts at center and averages 8.5 points and 5.8 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo via Iowa State MBB on X (Twitter)\/ @CycloneMBB Tennessee basketball is back in the Sweet 16 for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,8578,231,772,1544,7926,45059,1919],"class_list":["post-676581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-iowa-state-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-rick-barnes","tag-t-j-otzelberger","tag-tennessee-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116284973629876358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}