MILWAUKEE – There have been some incredible moments this season for Iowa State basketball.
I’ll never forget Tyrese Haliburton and Georges Niang sitting courtside, celebrating a gold medal and the bond of Cyclone basketball.
Seeing Larry Eustachy and members of the 2000 and 2001 Big 12 championship teams at center court of Hilton Coliseum was the type of full-circle images that will last for generations in Iowa State history.
Watching Curtis Jones put 22 points on the board in just 5 minutes was showstopping. Seeing Keshon Gilbert put it all together against Marquette was breathtaking. Tamin Lipsey gutting through a bum shoulder and a broken thumb will forever be part of a story that may end with his own banner at Hilton Coliseum.
There was the 15-1 start that featured the Maui Invitational, a comeback against Iowa and top-10 wins against Marquette and Kansas plus an overtime win at Texas Tech.
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Truly awesome stuff.
“I had a lot of fun,” Jones said of the season to this point. “Still having a lot of fun and embracing every moment that’s coming with it.”
This season has brought memories and moments, but, as the NCAA Tournament begins, it has failed to deliver any hardware.
For as good as this team has been, the adversity it has encountered along the way has kept it from tangibly leaving its mark among the great Iowa State teams.
It’s last chance to change that starts Friday against 14th-seeded Lipscomb (12:30 p.m.; TNT).
“It’s not pretty, I would say,” Tamin Lipsey said of the Cyclones’ season. “It’s one of those seasons that’s been a roller-coaster. A lot of ups and downs. A lot of injuries to deal with. That’s part of basketball, and it sucks that stuff happens.
“But I feel like we’re at a good point right now.”
That last part is debatable with Gilbert staying home with a groin strain, but what is undeniable is that this team will likely be largely defined in the memory of Cyclone fans and by the program’s record book by how its March Madness unfolds.
Without a conference regular season or tournament title, this is, in the black and white of history, a fifth-place Big 12 team that got bounced in the quarters of the league tourney.
That doesn’t tell the whole story of the season, of course, but history – and memory – can often be unkind to those who don’t finish as victors.
This isn’t a season in need of salvaging, but it is one in need of a crowning achievement.
What would suffice to give this team something to hang its hat on in the pantheon of Cyclone teams?
A Sweet 16 is likely the balm to soothe the ills of the past two months, when Milan Momcilovic’s broken hand and Gilbert’s bothersome muscle upended a season that looked on a collision course with greatness.
But can a Sweet 16 be a differentiator for a program that has reached that summit twice in the last three years and four times in the last 11?
I’d say no.
For this team to truly claim its place, the mark is an Elite Eight, in my opinion.
It’s a place this program has reached just once in the modern era. It helped those players get to midcourt to a standing ovation 25 years later, in fact.
If this Cyclone team can win three games, they’ll have a banner up in Hilton Coliseum that will stand out, not blend in with the other important but not breakthrough accomplishments that call those rafters home.
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That will be enough to look at the struggles and frustrations of the past couple months and not see disappointment, but the necessary obstacles in the Hero’s Arc.
Without that, what-ifs probably dominate the discourse about this team.
Is that fair? I don’t know, though I’d say in my experience “fair” isn’t worth spending a lot of time on in big-time sports. Fair usually gets overwhelmed by reality and results.
Whatever happens here in Milwaukee and potentially Atlanta next week, I’ll remember this team for those moments when it felt like they could do no wrong. When their biggest goals didn’t feel like dreams but possibilities. When the best of the past came back to join the success of the present.
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I’ll remember that broken hand, too, though. How the last month of the season felt more like a limp to the finish line than a sprint through the tape. How everything that felt so possible suddenly got put out of reach.
But now we get the Big Dance. Where the only thing that matters is the 40 minutes ahead of you. Where magic and miracles happen.
Where adversity, turmoil and frustration can be the things that make the success that much sweeter.
Where seasons get defined and legends are written. Where everything is possible.
The tournament is, at its core, an opportunity.
Iowa State columnist Travis Hines has covered the Cyclones for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune since 2012. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.
