Hines: What Milan Momcilovic’s injury means for Iowa State basketball

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AMES − It happened so suddenly and the immediate consequences were so minimal that we haven’t really been able to dive in to what Milan Momcilovic’s injury means for the second-ranked Iowa State men’s basketball team.

When you piledrive No. 10 Kansas without him, there becomes a sense that maybe it won’t be such a big deal. Maybe the show just rolls on.

Potentially, I suppose, but here’s guessing as teams study Iowa State without its 6-foot-8 sharpshooter, the diagnosis of how to stop – or slow – the Cyclones becomes a little more accurate, a little more tailored and, maybe, a little more effective.

“The No. 1 thing being his ability to shoot the ball, score the ball, and how does that impact things and what we’re doing out there,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said Friday, “because he’s done a lot and teams focus on him or are very aware of him that way.”

Momcilovic, who is expected to miss 4-to-6 weeks with a hand injury, is averaging 10 points per game while shooting 44 percent from 3-point range. His ability to hit from distance is especially important for the Cyclones for a number of reasons.

First off, and I hope you’re sitting down for this, 3-point shots are worth 50 percent more than 2-point shots. So, you know, they’re pretty valuable.

Secondly, Momcilovic is one of just two Cyclones (Curtis Jones being the other) who shoots 3s with any sort of real volume.

So the impact of taking Momcilovic off the floor is twofold offensively: There will likely be fewer 3s taken, which takes the opportunity to score more points off the board (3 being greater than 2, as previously mentioned), and it will shrink the amount of area defenses have to guard, making things more difficult near the hoop, which is where Iowa State will now operate even more of its offense.

Those are not unsolvable problems, of course, but they are problems all the same for Iowa State, which plays at No. 25 West Virginia on Saturday (4 p.m.; ESPN+).

“How does that impact our…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/hines-milan-momcilovics-injury-means-193759862.html

Author : The Des Moines Register

Publish date : 2025-01-17 19:37:00

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