Don’t look now but here come the Iowa State Cyclones.

Admittedly, football season overshadows basketball season until about right now for me. But now that the Super Bowl is set, college basketball (and the NBA) gets more of my attention. And while the men’s team in Iowa City doesn’t move the needle for most basketball fans (I’ll blog about Caitlin Clark’s team later), that team in Ames is shooting up all of the national rankings.

As of right now (1/30), the cyclones have won 4 of their last 5 and 3 of those 4 wins have come against top 25 teams including a win over #2 Houston (during a snowstorm) and #7 Kansas last Saturday. TJ Otzelberger’s team is now 16-4 (5-2 in the Big 12) with 3 “quad one” wins and 3 “quad two” wins. They’re building a great resume for March.

Iowa State’s Big 12 schedule is still daunting: #18 Baylor, #15 Texas Tech, #4 Houston, #23 Oklahoma, #22 BYU (with plenty of other landmines along the way) but right now, the Clones are peaking as we charge towards March Madness!