Iowa State Basketball Being Overlooked in Way-Too-Early Top 25

The Iowa State Cyclones men’s basketball team is going to look a lot different during the 2026-27 campaign than it did at the end of the 2025-26 season.

Head coach T.J. Otzelberger remains as the leader of the program, but he had to replace two assistant coaches: JR Blount and Kyle Green. Both hired to become head coaches themselves, with the San Diego Toreros and Northern Iowa Panthers, respectively. Taking their places are Tim Buckley and Allan Hanson.

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Four players from the rotation, Tamin Lipsey, Nate Heise, Milan Momcilovic and Joshua Jefferson, won’t be back. Otzelberger restocked the roster with five players in the transfer portal, Jaquan Johnson, Ryan Prather Jr., Leon Bond III, Tre Singleton and Taj Manning. Christian Wiggins is a four-star player in the Class of 2026, while Yusef Gray Jr. and Dorian Rinaldo-Komlan are both three-star players.

With so many new faces, it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that Iowa State is lower in some way-too-early Top 25 rankings. Over at On3, James Fletcher has placed them at No. 19 in his most recent edition.

Iowa State ranked No. 19 in early top 25

Mar 20, 2026; St. Louis, MO, USA; Iowa State Cyclones head coach T.J. Otzelberger looks on against the Tennessee State Tigers during the first half of a first round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Enterprise Center. | Jeff Le-Imagn Images

It certainly feels like the Cyclones are being overlooked and underestimated once again in these early rankings. They don’t have the star power and name recognition on the roster compared to last year’s squad, but this roster certainly isn’t lacking for talent.

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It can be argued that this team is actually deeper and more diverse, skill wise, than the historic 2025-26 team. Otzelberger is going to have the luxury of playing two-deep across the board if he chooses.

The skill sets of the players brought in via the transfer portal help address weaknesses as well. They have some more size at the forward spots and Singleton…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/iowa-state-basketball-being-overlooked-160006931.html

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Publish date : 2026-06-16 16:00:00

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