From Hilton to high school gym: Cyclones face different obstacle in season finale

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Kelby Wingert/Iowa State Daily

Senior forward Dustin Hogue jumps up for tip-off during the game against No. 15 Oklahoma at Hilton Coliseum on March 2. The No. 17 Cyclones defeated the Sooners 77-70 after a rocky 18-point first half. Hogue had 7 points for Iowa State.

Alex Gookin

Few college basketball arenas around the nation get as loud as Hilton Coliseum when it’s at a fever pitch, and you don’t have to think too far back to prove it.

Just ask the Sooners, who held a 21-point second half lead in the Cyclones’ home finale before Iowa State, with a raucous crowd in tow, stormed back to take a 77-70 victory. With a 62-5 record at Hilton the past four seasons, there are few better home-court advantages in the nation.

Texas Christian, however, is at the other end of the spectrum.

Iowa State (21-8, 11-6 Big 12) will travel to Fort Worth to take on TCU (17-13, 4-13 Big 12), but with renovations taking place at its basketball arena, the Horned Frogs have been playing at Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center — a high school gymnasium.

With a capacity of 4,759, the Cyclones will play in front of 10,000 less fans than they are used to, making the already daunting task of winning a road game a little more interesting.

“I’ve never played in a high school gym in college so far, so hopefully they don’t have enough people to fill in to get the momentum they need later on in the game,” said senior Dustin Hogue. “Hopefully the lack of a sixth man they have will be big for us.”

Unfortunately for the Cyclones, past games have shown the smaller the crowd, the more difficult it is to get going. Iowa State has played six games in front of crowds of less than 10,000 and lost four of them. One of those losses was against Big 12 cellar-dweller, Texas Tech, a team that was swept by the Horned Frogs this season.

So it is no surprise the Cyclones say they are not taking TCU lightly. After a 1-10 start to the Big 12 season, the Horned Frogs have gone 3-3 through the last six games and haven’t lost at home since Feb. 7.

“They’re a really good team, they’re just in a tough conference,” said junior Georges Niang. “They really try to get you to play out of your style and that’s something that they’re really good at.”

The Cyclones experienced it firsthand at Hilton, when the Horned Frogs disrupted the ISU offense enough to send the team to the locker room at halftime with just a 35-33 lead. While the Cyclones ended up pulling away for an 83-66 victory, they won’t have the comfort of 14,000-plus fans to keep the energy up in Fort Worth.

But with the leadership roles of Niang, Monté Morris and Jameel McKay emerging in a more focused effort against Oklahoma, the team is starting to form a more defined identity as the regular season draws to a close.

The game has some serious Big 12 tournament seeding implications for the Cyclones, too. Win, and the Cyclones lock up a No. 2 seed in almost any scenario. Lose, and the Cyclones could end up as far down as a No. 4 seed. While Niang and others say they haven’t looked at the seeding possibilities, there’s no doubt the result against TCU is important.

“We just need to take care of what we need to take care of,” Niang said. “The seedings will take care of themselves, so I really don’t think much into it.”

The Cyclones will take on the Horned Frogs in their regular season finale at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas.