Next Up: In Iowa St., UK faces team with Final 4 hopes — and one fatal weakness?
A look ahead to the Kentucky men’s basketball team’s next game in the NCAA Tournament Midwest Region round of 32:
The opponent
No. 7 seed Kentucky (22-13) will face No. 2 seed Iowa State (28-7) on Sunday around 2:45 p.m. EDT at Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
Coach TJ Otzelberger’s Cyclones obliterated No. 15 seed Tennessee State 108-74 on Friday to advance to the round of 32.
Killyan Toure had 25 points and Nate Heise 22 to lead Iowa State.
Cyclones All-America forward Joshua Jefferson scored only two points and played only two minutes before leaving the game due to an apparent left ankle injury.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series with Iowa State 3-0, with two of the wins in NCAA Tournament contests.
Previous NCAA tourney meetings
• On March 22, 1992, Kentucky defeated Iowa State 106-98 in the NCAA Tournament East Region round of 32.
Jamal Mashburn led the Cats with 27 points, and all four of the Unforgettables supported him with double-digit scoring — 20 points from John Pelphrey, 18 from Sean Woods, 14 from Richie Farmer and 11 by Deron Feldhaus.
Kentucky would follow its victory over Iowa State with a round of 16 win over John Calipari and Massachusetts before a fateful meeting with Christian Laettner and Duke in the East Region finals.
• On March 17, 2012, Kentucky freshman point guard Marquis Teague scored 24 points and senior wing Darius Miller added 19 as the Cats spanked Iowa State 87-71 in the NCAA tourney South Region round of 32 at the KFC Yum Center.
UK also got a double-double, 15 points and 12 rebounds, from freshman center Anthony Davis.
John Calipari’s Cats would follow their win over Iowa State by defeating Indiana, Baylor, Louisville and Kansas en route to the 2012 NCAA title.
Power rankings
In the Pomeroy Ratings, Iowa State is No. 6 and Kentucky is No. 27.
At the end of the regular season, the NCAA NET Rankings had Iowa State No. 6 and UK No. 28.
Know your foe
• Iowa State senior forward Joshua Jefferson is one of the most well-rounded players in men’s college basketball. Prior to his abbreviated appearance vs. Tennessee State, the 6-foot-9, 240-pound senior brought averages of 16.9 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists into the NCAA Tournament.
A product of Las Vegas who began his college career playing for St. Mary’s, Jefferson was voted an AP Second Team All-American for his play in 2025-26.
After Friday’s win over Tennessee State, Iowa State head man T.J. Otzelberger said X-rays of Jefferson’s injured left ankle had come back negative. The Iowa State coach described Jefferson’s injury as a sprained ankle.
“We’ll continue to reevaluate over the next day or two and just see where things are on Sunday,” Otzelberger said.
It goes without saying that Jefferson’s status for Sunday’s game will be a major storyline.
• Other than in one potentially vital area (see below), Iowa State has the statistical profile of a strong Final Four contender.
However, the Cyclones will also have to overcome any lingering impact from their own star-crossed NCAA Tournament history.
In the current century alone, Iowa State has lost as a No. 2 seed to a No. 15 (58-57 to Hampton in 2001); as a No. 3 seed to a No. 14 seed (60-59 to UAB in 2015); and as a No. 6 seed to a No. 11 (59-41 to Pittsburgh in 2023).
The sole Final Four trip in Iowa State men’s hoops history came in 1944.
• For the 2025-26 Cyclones, a potentially fatal flaw could be foul shooting. Iowa State entered the NCAA Tournament No. 338 out of 361 NCAA Division I men’s basketball programs in free-throw accuracy.
Iowa State began March Madness making a pedestrian 67.24% of its free-throw attempts.
As Kentucky fans who lived through the John Calipari coaching era at UK learned all too painfully, errant foul shooting can derail many a promising tournament run.
This story was originally published March 20, 2026 at 6:08 PM.
