PETE: Iowa State men’s basketball is back on a Final Four track that, for a moment, became a bit curvy

Now that Iowa State has its guys and its rotation back, there’s no reason this team can’t start stringing wins again. Two for sure. Then a third – and see what that means for a postseason full of more promise than any Cyclones’ men’s basketball team before it.

Play like they played during Saturday’s 84-67 victory against Arizona at Hilton Coliseum, and this team coached and managed so well by T.J. Otzelberger and his staff, certainly can find itself in the Final Four.

Beat BYU on Tuesday, which likely locks up a double-bye in the Big 12 tournament. Win Saturday at Kansas State for the first time since a one-pointer in 2022, and enter the March 13 quarterfinal round at the T-Mobile Center riding a three-game high.

Yeah, this team is back on track, after a few injury-related de-railings.

Three-point shooting?

Check?

Especially after Saturday’s 11-of-21 performance that included 4-of-7 for a now-healthy Milan Momcilovic. That brilliant shooting meant the most productive floor-spacing in a long time, which led to an eight-assist game from Tamin Lipsey.

What he did Saturday doesn’t mean Milan will continue on a hot streak. You just never know about deep-range shooters. That uncertain potential, though, is why opponents will be guarding the daylights out of him.

Defense?

Check.

Arizona’s top scorer, Caleb Love, was held to just 10 points on 2-of-15 shooting Saturday. He was 2-for-10 from three-point range.

Bench points?

Check.

The Jones,Chatfield and Heise law firm combined for 34 points, made half of their six three-point attempts and had 15 of the team’s 31 rebounds.

“This is how we expect to play every game,” Momcilovic told reporters after Saturday’s game.

It’s how everyone expected the Cyclones to play, after winning 15 of the season’s first 16 games – and especially since the lone loss during that eye-opening early season was on a walk-off tip-in against top-ranked Auburn.

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POLLARD’S NEW CONTRACT SENDS A STRONG STATEMENT

Extending athletic director Jamie Pollard’s close-to-expiring contract last Friday was both the least surprising and most common sense of everything that happened at Iowa State last week.

Who’d you rather have running Cyclones’ athletics, during this seismic change college athletics is going though? Let me help you.

No one.

He may be a smidge outspoken at times, but Pollard knows the Cyclones’ landscape better than anyone. He hired Matt Campbell. He hired Otzelberger, he hired Kevin Dresser – and the very good women’s basketball program continues to pack ‘em in at Hilton Coliseum.

Re-upping Pollard through June of 2030 – when his CyTown dream hopefully is completed – was a no-brainer. I remember asking him during the 2022 presser that announced initiative, if he’d be in office long enough to see the project’s completion?

I can’t recall his exact words, but they went something like “God-willing.”

There’s nothing Pollard hasn’t seen or experienced in 20 years as the Iowa State athletics CEO, and that’s significant. It’s important to have someone that has and will continue navigating and protecting Iowa State’s place in this world of obese conferences, NIL, revenue sharing and whatever else is out there.

Pollard’s contract extension sends a firm message to his major coaches – that their boss will be around a few more years (he’ll be 66 when it expires). Interestingly, Campbell’s new (and still unsigned) contract will be through 2032, Dresser is signed through 2029, and Fennelly is signed through 2027.

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OTZELBERGER’S NEW AGREEMENT

It calls for $4 million a year, when the media, including Iowa Everywhere, received the contract last week. That puts him around sixth among Big 12 coaches. Here’s the conference’s Top 10, according to both the USA Today coaches’ salary database and major newspaper reports:

Bill Self, Kansas, $8.6 million

Tommy Lloyd, Arizona, $5.3 million

Scott Drew, Baylor, $5.1 million

Kelvin Sampson, Houston, $5.0 million

Kevin Young, BYU, $4.3 million

T.J. Otzelberger, Iowa State, $4.0 million

Jamie Dixon, TCU, $3.8 million

Jerome Tang, Kansas State, $3.5 million

Grant McCausland, Texas Tech, $2.9 million

Bobby Hurley, Arizona State, $2.9 million

Iowa State is as close a destination job for Otz as they come. He’s from Wisconsin, so the Badgers someday cooaduld be in a conversation. However, T.J.’s wife, Alison, played high school ball at Ballard of Huxley, before becoming a Cyclones star.

Translated: They’re pretty darn ingrained in the Iowa State and central Iowa community.

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Caitlin, Sabrina . . .  and Emily

It was only fitting that Iowa State women beat 14th-ranked Kansas State Sunday, on Cyclones star Emily Ryan’s final game at Hilton Coliseum – and during a game the senior became one of just three players in women’s basketball history with at least 1,500 career points, 600 career rebounds and 900 career assists.

Who’d she join, you ask?

That’d be Caitlin Clark and Sabrina Ionescu.

There haven’t been many players as important to Fennelly’s program than Ryan, whose last home game included 17 points, 10 assists and 7 rebounds -- and a bloody finger and leg.

Her jersey deserves to be hanging in Hilton’s rafters. Hopefully that happens.

The victory should assure Fennelly’s team a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

(Award-winning columnist Randy Peterson can be, and has been, reached at randypete4846@gmail.com or at any Okoboji-area beverage/food establishment between the hours of open and close.)