No. 3 Kansas Jayhawks head to ‘phenomenal, electric’ Hilton Coliseum on Wednesday
Iowa State’s men’s basketball team has won seven of the past 13 games against Kansas in a six-season stretch. Eight of those evenly matched, ultra competitive contests have been decided by seven points or fewer.
Recent history does indeed suggest one can ignore the records of the teams Wednesday when unranked Iowa State (7-6, 0-1 Big 12), which is 3-2 against KU in the past five games in Hilton Coliseum, plays host to the No. 3-ranked Jayhawks (11-2, 1-0).
Tipoff is 7 p.m. in the 14,384-seat arena where KU is 4-4 the past eight seasons and 11-5 overall during the Bill Self era.
“I know Hilton will be phenomenal. There’s nothing like playing Kansas in there. It’ll be electric. It’ll be fun,” fifth-year Iowa State coach Steve Prohm said Monday.
His Cyclones teams are 2-2 versus KU at Hilton and 4-5 overall.
“This is Kansas and Iowa State, sellout crowd,” Prohm said. “I know it’s at home. There’s pressure to win and all that. We’ve got to enjoy it too, got to have fun, got to be in the moment.
“You’ve got to remember why you coach. You’ve got to remember why you play. You’ve got to enjoy this,” added Prohm, whose Cyclones are 6-2 in Hilton Coliseum this season.
The Cyclones are not invincible in Hilton. ISU in its last home game fell 70-68 to Florida A&M, a team that entered with a 1-9 record.
“We’ve actually had some success up there playing Iowa State going back to when we first got here and it is one of the hardest places in the league to play,” KU coach Self said. His first eight KU teams combined for a 7-1 record at Hilton.
“They are always at their best when we come to town. They’ll play well against us. We know we’ll get a great effort.”
Iowa State slugged KU, 77-60, last season in the Cyclones’ arena. Udoka Azubuike did not play because of injury.
“Last year, we dropped this game. There’s no one to blame,” said KU sophomore Ochai Agbaji, who was still redshirting at the time. “It’s my first time playing at Hilton. It should be fun. I know the older guys are excited about it.
“Guys who have played there on our squad know how it’s going to be, know how turned up it is, even when they (students) are on break. It should be a good game, good atmosphere.”
ISU opened the Big 12 season with an 81-79 loss to TCU on Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas. That’s the game in which ISU sophomore guard Tyrese Haliburton recorded the sixth triple double in school history (22 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists).
“They’ve got arguably as good a player as we have in the league in Haliburton,” Self said of the 6-5 native of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, who averages 17.7 points, 7.9 assists and 6.3 rebounds a game. “We have to eliminate Haliburton doing what he wants off the ball screen. We have to get to shooters.”
Self said Marcus Garrett and Devon Dotson both would likely be guarding Haliburton at various junctures on Wednesday.
Iowa State, which hit 13 of 25 threes (to KU’s 6 of 20) during that lopsided decision in Ames last season, has made 100 of 313 threes this season for 31.9%. KU has made 90 of 253 for 35.6%.
ISU, which leads the league in scoring at 80.2 points per game ahead of KU’s 79.5, was 6 of 26 from three in a 84-68 loss to Iowa on Dec. 12 at Hilton. Iowa hit 10 of 28 threes. In the last home game, ISU hit 8 of 20 threes to Florida A&M’s 4 of 7.
“Jacobson (Michael, 6-9 senior) to me is as good a post defender as we went against last year. He did an unbelievable job on Dedric (Lawson),” Self said.
Lawson, who is now in the NBA G-League, hit 5 of 11 shots and scored 13 points with 12 boards in KU’s 17-point loss to ISU on Jan. 5, 2019 at Hilton.
“They are playing a little bigger this year, trying to play Young (Solomon, 6-8 junior) and him both with Jacobson more on the perimeter. They are all capable of getting numbers. They don’t shoot it as consistently well as they have in years past but they’ve shown if they are right they can shoot it as well as they have in years past,” Self added.
KU opened league play Saturday with a 60-53 win over West Virginia in Allen Fieldhouse. After the ISU game, KU will return home to meet Baylor at noon Saturday in Allen.
Wilson not practicing yet
KU freshman Jalen Wilson, who had surgery on his left ankle on Nov. 11, has not yet started practicing, Self said Tuesday.
“We said all along the second full week in January. We are hopeful … the target date, maybe he’ll be practicing by the 13th,” Self said.
Game to be streamed
Wednesday’s game will be streamed as part of the Big 12 Now package on ESPN+. It’s KU’s eighth game of the season to be streamed.
“You can get it. I don’t know how, but you can get it,” Self said Tuesday. “Based on what I’ve been told you’ve got to go through a little bit of stuff but you can get it.”
Asked his opinion of the service, he said: “I know the wave of the future is streaming so maybe we’re ahead of the curve a little bit. You can’t look at it all as negative. But the one thing that is a little bit more difficult, you are not seen by recruits or recruits’ families as much nationwide because not too many people are going to pay to watch somebody play when they can just flip on a channel and watch whoever they want to play.
“To me that is one of the biggest negatives I see even though I know it affects fanbases everywhere. It has ours because some aren’t quite as equipped to handle some of modern technology as others are. Nobody likes that.
“It’s what the league has decided to do. The jury is still out if it’s going to be good or bad. You can’t say it’s bad now because we haven’t given it time to determine if it’s going to be good or bad. We’ll see how it plays out over time.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2020 at 4:17 PM.
