Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger hoists the trophy after winning the Big 12 championship game against Houston on Saturday in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

T.J. Otzelberger’s Iowa State roots run deep, first established in 2006 when then-Cyclone men’s basketball coach Greg McDermott hired him as a 29-year-old assistant.

Otzelberger’s philosophies, meanwhile, have even more of a throwback ISU feel. He cut his teeth with McDermott and Fred Hoiberg — who ultimately made him the program’s lead recruiter and associate head coach — but Otzelberger’s style is actually more reminiscent of the Tim Floyd and Larry Eustachy Cyclones from the late-1990s and early-2000s. Those teams would grind opponents down defensively, ultimately breaking their will.

The 2024 Big 12 champions wearing Cardinal and Gold, as mighty Houston can now attest, play that role to perfection.

The Hoiberg era at Iowa State, in particular, was known for pushing the tempo and succeeding through offensive efficiency. Otzelberger was the Cyclones’ catalyst on the recruiting trail during that period of time, and he was largely responsible for bringing a number of star offensive players to campus, from the likes of Craig Brackins and Will Clyburn through Melvin Ejim and Georges Niang.

After head coaching stops at South Dakota State and UNLV, Otzelberger returned to Ames and inherited a program mired in a fog after a 2020-21 low point: a 2-22 overall record, and winless in the Big 12.

The quick fix for Otzelberger, on paper, was to find recruits that could sprint Iowa State out of its misery. He could have easily gone the conventional Hoiberg route and promised players a more aesthetically pleasing up-tempo style to draw immediate interest back to Hilton Coliseum three seasons ago.

Instead, Otzelberger rebuilt the Cyclones the hard way. Almost miraculously, Iowa State won 22 games and reached the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 in 2021-22, his first season at the helm.

It didn’t happen because of the offense, which still hovered near the bottom half of the NCAA’s 358 programs that year. Iowa State instead became a Top-10 defense and it hasn’t wavered since; in Otzelberger’s three seasons, the Cyclones have consecutively been 5th, 8th and 1st in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency rankings.

Think about that in today’s game: with almost everything geared toward offense, individualism and the next NIL deal, Otzelberger constructed a program from virtual scratch the old-fashioned way. His pitch to prospects? The Cyclones were going to be relentless on defense. Tenacious. Tough. Physical. Points would come, but allowing less was the main objective.

The contrarian idea not only worked, but became the very identity of a program that had lost one.

Otzelberger isn’t necessarily in the running for national coach of the year. After all, he didn’t even garner the award in his own conference; Kelvin Sampson of Houston received the nod, a week before his top-ranked squad was mercilessly demoralized by Iowa State in the Big 12 championship contest, 69-41.

Sampson wound up being almost clairvoyant in sheepishly accepting the honor, saying at the time, “If I’m being really honest, I think (Otzelberger) should have won it. He deserved it.”

Yes, he did.

The NCAA Tournament, which tips off this week, will once again produce its fair share of chaos and unpredictability. It’s what we love about the Big Dance, unless our team is on the receiving end of the madness.

There are no guarantees for the second-seeded Cyclones, who will be close to home for the Midwest Region in Omaha. An intriguing Round of 32 matchup with pesky in-state rival Drake may be waiting in the wings, as well as potential showdowns with — if chalk prevails, which it almost never does — Illinois in the Sweet 16 and Connecticut in the Elite Eight. The bracket is stacked.

As the old saying goes, though, defense travels. And doesn’t slump. Otzelberger’s attention to detail — making sure his squad controls the controllables to minimize the randomness of postseason play — is impeccable. Iowa State may not ultimately reach its first Final Four since 1944, but did you watch the Cyclones consecutively dismantle Kansas State, Baylor and Houston in Kansas City?

If you want to bet against that, and Otzelberger, given what we’ve seen from his team so far in 2024, well…good luck.

Eric Pratt is Sports Editor at The Messenger. Contact him via email at sports@messengernews.net, or on Twitter @ByEricPratt