Oil meets water tonight in Ames as the Kansas Jayhawks travel to Iowa State for a huge Big 12 matchup between two Top Ten teams. Iowa State is currently ranked 2nd in both the AP and Coaches polls while Kansas is sitting at 9th in the AP and 10th in the Coaches poll. The Cyclones are currently 14-1 with their only loss coming to Auburn by 2 points towards the end of November, since then they’ve picked up solid wins over Iowa, Baylor, and most recently an overtime win at Texas Tech.
Iowa State’s a pretty strong contrast from what we’ve seen recently out of KU on the court. They’re averaging 86.2 points per game on the season although they play at a pretty normal pace. They don’t shoot a ton of 3s and don’t make a high percentage of the ones they do take. Where they’ve excelled is in turning their opponents over, being incredibly efficient inside the 3 point line, and getting to the free throw line. They also defend well with the 14th ranked defense according to Torvik’s adjusted defense. Those things they do well will provide a contrast with KU. Bill Self’s team isn’t turning the ball over, is holding opponents to a low eFG%, and doesn’t put teams on the line a lot.
- As mentioned above, Iowa State is 22nd in the country in defensive TO% while KU is 26th in offensive TO%. To be honest, I think that low TO% is helping the KU defense by limiting easy transition buckets but I haven’t looked at play by play data to confirm that. Whichever team holds closest to their average here is going to have an advantage. I’m leaning towards KU here as the only game where they’ve given the ball away a lot was against Missouri.
- KU’s identity is starting to look like a defensive menace with the 4th rated defense according to Torivk. They’re holding opponents to the third worst eFG% with both 2 pt and 3 pt defense being the top 15 nationally. The flip side of this matchup has Iowa State who the 13th ranked offense due to being good to great at the 4 factors. They’re 25th overall in eFG%, 12th in TO%, 58th in O-Reb%, and 35th in FT Rate. KU doesn’t turn their opponents a lot but they have improved since the West Virginia game.
- Finally, I have to wonder if KU can find a way to score with Iowa State tonight at their place. We’ve seen some pretty ugly offense since the start of conference play outside of demolishing UCF. Part of that is just shots not falling but I’m also not sure if we should expect the shots we’ve seen to start falling. They’re not 2-21 bad from the 3 pt line like they were at Cincinnati but I’d be shocked if they’re a top ½ of the country 3 pt shooting team by the end of the season.
Prediction: Torvik is predicting 74-69 Cyclones and I think I’d take that and be happy. I’m more pessimistic due to the offensive issues we’ve seen so I’m going 77-65.