On March 3, 2017, the Iowa State men’s basketball team lost a road game to West Virginia by a final score of 87-76. The loss put Iowa State at 20-10 overall. Iowa State entered the Big 12 Tournament as the 4 seed and metrics like KenPom had the Cyclones 23rd at the time.

This year, the Cyclones are going to enter next week’s Big 12 Tournament with at least 20 wins (currently 20-10). They just lost on the road at West Virginia by 15 points. KenPom has coach Steve Prohm’s squad sitting at 19th place as of Friday afternoon and the team is locked into the 5 seed at the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City.

Anyone who watched those two teams knows how vastly different they look.

One team finished the regular season hot. The 2017 team won six games in a row before that loss to West Virginia to cap off the regular season. They went down to Kansas City and returned three days later with a Big 12 Tournament trophy, eagerly awaiting Selection Sunday to find out where one of the hottest teams in the nation was headed.

The other team is currently in the midst of five losses in its last seven games. After starting 18-5 (7-3 Big 12) the team has lost two home games and looks like a team still trying to figure out its identity.

“Giving a crap about Iowa State and winning basketball games is the biggest thing right now,” said redshirt junior forward Michael Jacobson. “I think [that’s missing] a little bit … I think that’s definitely something that’s missing.”

The biggest problem for the Cyclones? They’re running out of time to fix this mess.

The resume still looks good. Iowa State isn’t in any real danger of missing the NCAA Tournament, no matter how poorly the nine remaining days until Selection Sunday go. Iowa State holds wins at Kansas State and at Texas Tech, the two teams in contention for the Big 12 regular season title. The Cyclones also knocked off Kansas at Hilton Coliseum.

Even with a loss to Texas Tech, Iowa State will have split the six games against the league’s top three teams this season. Iowa State can beat anyone, anywhere — if the Cyclones can stay out of their own way.

The sprained toe redshirt senior Marial Shayok suffered is indicative of the team’s problems. The team had an extra physical practice Monday as a result of the recent struggles.

Players and coaches won’t delve into details — other than Shayok and Prohm saying the Cyclones’ leading scorer caught his toe caught on a door — but the result was Shayok’s injury. While he’s a game-time decision for Saturday’s season finale and should be ready to go for the postseason, it never should have come to that.

“It’s not like it’s one person or one thing,” Shayok said. “It’s in the past now.”

Shayok said if he hadn’t gotten injured, the rough practice Monday probably wouldn’t have made news.

That’s entirely possible, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. It doesn’t change the fact that the Cyclones have lost five of their last seven, or that Jacobson and freshman guard Talen Horton-Tucker got into an apparent shouting match during the Iowa State – West Virginia game Wednesday. It doesn’t change the fact that Iowa State, at its best, can play with anyone, and that the best version of this team has been missing for nearly a month.

Prohm said he rewatched Iowa State’s 68-64 win over Texas Tech from January. Since then, the Red Raiders are 10-3. Iowa State is 7-6. The Cyclones are still the only team this season to win at Texas Tech, which finished the regular season 17-1 at home.

“We’ve gotta get back to that,” Prohm said.

With less than two weeks from the start of the NCAA Tournament, the Cyclones better hope they figure it out sooner rather than later.

The 2017 team figured out just in time. Players bought into their roles. The defense took a big leap. The team got better from the start of conference play to the end.

I don’t think the same is true of this season’s team. Other than sophomore guard Lindell Wigginton, who was returning from an injury when conference play began, I haven’t seen anyone make notable progress from January 1 to today. Of the top seven players on the roster (the five usual starters, plus Wigginton and redshirt sophomore forward Cameron Lard), none of them have set their season-high in scoring since the start of February.

As a team, it was worse. West Virginia’ highest regulation point-total of conference play was 90 against Iowa State. Texas Christian (TCU) hung 92 on the Cyclones, its second-best conference scoring total. Texas’ 86 points on the Cyclones’ defense also marked a Big 12 season-high for the Longhorns. 

That’s a whole month leading up to the postseason where the Cyclones weren’t playing their best.

March is an entirely new beast. The Cyclones have good guard play, elite talent, postseason experience, depth and veteran coaching. Those things matter — usually a lot — in the NCAA Tournament.

But if the last three weeks are any indication, Iowa State could be heading toward a short postseason.