NCAA Tournament March Madness
#5 Iowa St
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Projected seed: 2
This projection makes sense because Iowa State’s résumé features multiple signature victories away from home and at neutral sites — a dominant road performance at Purdue, a rewarding trip to Baylor and convincing neutral-site wins over Mississippi State, St John’s, Creighton and Syracuse — which demonstrate the program can win on hostile floors; its clearest blemishes are road defeats at Kansas and Cincinnati that expose vulnerability in tough environments. The Big Twelve slate has already supplied meaningful tests and the remainder of the schedule presents clear chances to lock the profile with high-visibility games at home against Baylor, Kansas and Houston while a true measuring stick awaits at Arizona on the road and trips to BYU and Utah offer additional ways to improve or erode standing. That combination of high-end wins, damaging road losses and straightforward opportunities to add marquee victories is exactly what keeps Iowa State positioned among the top seeds.
| Date | Opponent | Ranking | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11/3 | F Dickinson | 342 | W88-50 |
| 11/6 | Grambling | 279 | W102-62 |
| 11/10 | (N)Mississippi St | 83 | W96-80 |
| 11/17 | Stonehill | 341 | W96-57 |
| 11/24 | (N)St John's | 20 | W83-82 |
| 11/25 | (N)Creighton | 65 | W78-60 |
| 11/26 | (N)Syracuse | 77 | W95-64 |
| 12/3 | Alcorn St | 344 | W132-68 |
| 12/6 | @Purdue | 9 | W81-58 |
| 12/11 | Iowa | 23 | W66-62 |
| 12/14 | E Illinois | 309 | W78-53 |
| 12/21 | Long Beach St | 236 | W91-60 |
| 12/29 | Houston Chr | 306 | W89-61 |
| 1/2 | West Virginia | 58 | W80-59 |
| 1/7 | @Baylor | 52 | W70-60 |
| 1/10 | Oklahoma St | 72 | W83-71 |
| 1/13 | @Kansas | 14 | L84-63 |
| 1/17 | @Cincinnati | 56 | L79-70 |
| 1/20 | UCF | 45 | W87-57 |
| 1/24 | @Oklahoma St | 72 | W84-71 |
| 1/29 | Colorado | 80 | 94% |
| 2/1 | @Kansas St | 86 | 86% |
| 2/7 | Baylor | 52 | 91% |
| 2/10 | @TCU | 51 | 75% |
| 2/14 | Kansas | 14 | 71% |
| 2/16 | Houston | 6 | 61% |
| 2/21 | @BYU | 15 | 50% |
| 2/24 | @Utah | 114 | 91% |
| 2/28 | Texas Tech | 18 | 74% |
| 3/2 | @Arizona | 1 | 27% |
| 3/7 | Arizona St | 78 | 94% |