Why Iowa State is tweaking its identity this summer with more offensive options

AMES, Iowa — Signs of renovation abound on a summertime Thursday. Acres of repaved parking surface and concrete stanchions await new light towers to the south of Hilton Coliseum. A forklift sits at the bottom of the arena tunnel. Next to it, a flatbed truck stacked with construction material backs out of the building. The obnoxious reverse beeps intrude on the start of Iowa State’s workday, but a pre-practice film review proceeds apace.

All over the place, they’re trying to make the same thing better.

The Cyclones men’s basketball operation looks not terribly different. Literally so — as usual, everyone from coaches to players to managers wears the same T-shirt and shorts combo — and also from a more conceptual perspective. Stretching in a straight line, no one moving ahead of anyone else. Beginning the workout with a defensive close-out drill. The smiling head coach high-fives everyone down the stretch line in one moment and then shrieks, “Set the tone! Set the tone!” not long after.

Identical urgency from the past two Junes, with a different audience and a different purpose. Iowa State, which made consecutive NCAA Tournaments on a diet of gravel and tree bark, might be able to make some shots. Iowa State might not have to survive the way it has had to survive. It’s a good thing, but also a challenge: changing who you are without changing who you are.

Being the same, and more, all at once.

“The defense is going to be fine,” sophomore guard Tamin Lipsey says. “We’re going to be good on defense. Now we’re building on offense, too.”

A soft reboot, maybe? Nobody should scoff at two NCAA Tournament bids earned mostly by way of top-10 defenses, not when they followed a two-win season in 2020-21 and near-total roster overhaul executed by head coach T.J. Otzelberger and company. But it has been … difficult. Somehow a team ranked 171st in adjusted offensive efficiency reached the Sweet 16 in 2022. Last March, the Cyclones had the second-worst offensive efficiency of any power conference team in the field. It fits Otzelberger’s pugnacious ethos, but it’s also no real way to live. Not forever.

Iowa State had to know this, and a 2023 recruiting haul ranked 11th nationally per 247Sports suggests this is the case. Instant impact candidates include two top 50 freshmen — five-star forward Omaha Biliew and four-star wing Milan Momcilovic — and three transfers — Keshon Gilbert, Jackson Paveletzke and Curtis Jones — who all have demonstrated an ability to put the ball into the basket in various ways.

There’s an intentionality to it. None of them sneer at dirty work, it seems. (Otzelberger says he at first didn’t plan to recruit Biliew simply because he didn’t think that level of prospect would take on this level of both-ends responsibility. That tune obviously changed.) Taking three up-transfers with multiple years of eligibility in particular is a longer-term bet on gratitude and chip-on-shoulder…