The most recent Big 12 men’s basketball tournament champion is out after one game this season. That’s not unusual. It’s difficult to maintain a championship pace.
But the Iowa State drop off from the 2019 title to Wednesday’s 79-73 loss to Oklahoma in the first round is stunning. The Cyclones’ season ends with an overall record of 2-22 and a 19-game losing streak. The record and skids are the worst in school history. So was the conference mark of 0-18.
Counting Big 12 Tournament games, Iowa State has lost 23 straight to Big 12 opponents.
The seventh-seeded Sooners are on their way to a quarterfinal matchup against No. 2 seed Kansas at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
Iowa State, which battled to reduce a 19-point second-half deficit to four with 14 seconds remaining but couldn’t complete the comeback, returns to Ames with questions about the future of coach Steve Prohm.
It’s remarkable how quickly things have turned for the Cyclones. Two years ago, Iowa State was standing on the stage at T-Mobile Center with confetti falling on Big 12 championship caps.
Iowa State had won its second tournament under Prohm and was headed to its third straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
But this season marked the third in four years with a losing record. Iowa State had its share of injury issues. Seven-foot freshman Xavier Foster played in only seven games before a season-ending foot injury. Blake Hinson, who averaged 10.1 points at Ole Miss last season, sat out this season because of a medical condition.
Leading scorer Rasir Bolton, who missed the previous 3 1/2 games because of an ankle injury, played Wednesday but wasn’t much of a factor until late and finished with 16 points.
A pandemic-shortened nonconference schedule didn’t help a team that needed to ease into the season, and the Big 12 was a grinder with seven teams headed to the NCAA Tournament.
Also, there is this consideration: Iowa State would have to fork over about $5 million to buy out the remainder of Prohm’s contract a time the athletic department is tightening its belt.
But a disaster of a season in a sixth year makes it difficult to grant a seventh. Three other Big 12 teams have gone winless in conference play in the league’s quarter century. Two changed their coaches immediately.
Prohm is a victim of the success he’s had a hand in building. Since 1985, when Johnny Orr got the program up and running, Iowa State had had more NCAA years than not. Six of the seven Cyclones coaches starting with Orr have taken the program to the NCAA Tournament. Only Kansas has won more Big 12 Tournaments.
Prohm seemed to pick up where the uber-popular Fred Hoiberg left off, reaching the Sweet 16 in his first year and winning an NCAA game in his second.
Over the last few years, such standouts as Georges Niang, Monte Morris and Tyrese Haliburton, the 12th overall pick in last year’s NBA Draft, have come through the program.
But the talent level has dropped off and the victories have dried up. The future of the program rests with athletic director Jamie Pollard.
