PRIMER: No. 16 Iowa State vs. No. 14 St. John’s

Who: Iowa State (4-0, 0-0 Big 12) vs. St. John's (3-1, 0-0 BIG EAST)

Where: Michelob Ultra Arena (12,000) – Las Vegas, Nev.

When: Monday, Nov. 24, 2025 – 3:30 p.m. CT

Watch: truTV // Brian Anderson (PxP), Grant Hill (Analyst) & Lauren Jbara (Sideline)

Listen: Cyclone Radio Network // John Walters (PxP) & Eric Heft (Analyst)

Tipping Off: Following a 4-0 start that's featured the Cyclones scoring 85-plus and shooting 50 percent from the floor in each game, ISU will head to Vegas for the Players Era Championship. The Feast Week tournament will feature ISU's first contests in Vegas since 2012. Iowa State is just 2-7 all-time in games played in Las Vegas.

Iowa State has appeared in 12 events since 2011-12 on Feast Week, advancing to the championship game in seven of those and winning the title in four. Overall, ISU has a 20-11 record on Feast Week. Under T.J. Otzelberger, ISU won the 2021 NIT Season Tip-Off and advanced to the 2022 PKI Championship game before falling to eventual National Champion UConn.

Saddled with the team's highest AP preseason ranking (5) in school history, St. John's has lost just one contest in the early portion of the 2025-26 season. The Red Storm fell to a top-15 Alabama team at MSG in the opening week by a score of 103-96. SJU's three wins have had an average margin of victory of 38.3 points.

Storylines:

At No. 16 in the AP Top 25 Poll, Iowa State has been ranked in the AP Top 25 for 35-straight weeks, the seventh-longest streak in the nation. It is the second-longest streak in the Big 12 behind Houston's 109, which is the longest streak in the country.
- The Cyclones and Cougars are the only two Big 12 schools to have streaks of at least 15 weeks.
The Cyclones had three players named to the Naismith Starting Five Preseason Watch lists. Iowa State was one of nine schools in the country to have at least three players named. Along with three selections on the women's side, ISU was one of just five schools in the country to have at least six combined selections.
- Tamin Lipsey was named to the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Watch List.
  - Lipsey is also on both the Wooden Award and Oscar Robertson Trophy Watch Lists.
- Milan Momcilovic was named to the Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Watch List.
- Joshua Jefferson was named to the Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Watch List. Former Cyclone Georges Niang won the award in 2016.
  - Jefferson, like Lipsey, is also on the Oscar Robertson Trophy Watch List.
Lipsey (76 points, 57.7% FG%) and Jefferson (75, 67.5%) each have scored 75 points on 55.0% shooting or higher so far in 2025-26. The last time a Big 12 team had multiple players with those marks through four games in a season was in 2000-01 (Kansas & Oklahoma) and the last power conference team was St. John's in 2018-19

From the Notes:

As a head coach, Otz is 198-108 overall and has guided the Cyclones to a 99-45 record over the last four years.
- His 95 wins in his first four years at Iowa State were the most by any coach in program history in their first four years as head coach.
Under Otz, ISU is 52-10 against non-conference opponents. His 52 wins are tied for the 11th in the nation, and the .839 winning percentage is the fourth-best.
Otz has led Iowa State to three 20-plus win seasons, joining Orr (5), Hoiberg (4), Floyd (3) and Prohm (3) as only ISU coaches to do so multiple times.
Tamin Lipsey is the first Big 12 player to have at least 75 points, 20 assists and 15 steals through four games of a season. The only other major conference players to do that this century are Providence's Kris Dunn (2015-16) and South Carolina's Devan Downey (2007-08).
Coach Otzelberger is the only Iowa State men's basketball coach to take multiple teams to the Sweet 16.
- He was the 51st coach in NCAA Division I history to take a team to the Sweet 16 twice in his first three years on the job.
- In four postseason appearances, Otzelberger has five NCAA Tournament wins – the most by any coach in program history.
Otz currently holds the school's highest winning percentage by a head coach.
As of Friday, Iowa State slots in at No. 8 in the KenPom rankings and No. 6 in the ESPN Basketball Power Index.

Switching Sides:

St. John's and Iowa State will meet for just the third time Monday afternoon.
- Both teams have one win in the series with SJU taking the first meeting, 71-47, back in 1948. Most recently, ISU downed the Red Storm in Hilton as part of the Big 12/BIG EAST Challenge in 2022, 71-60.
- This is just the second time ever that ISU will face a Pitino-coached team, last squaring off with the legend in the NCAA Tournament in 1992 while he was at Kentucky.
The Red Storm matched a school record with 31 wins and claimed the BIG EAST Regular Season and Tournament titles. The tournament crown was the first for St. John's since 2000, while the regular season championship was the program's first overall since 1992 and its first outright since 1985.
St. John's lost four of its five starters from last season but then replaced them with the nation's top-ranked transfer class (according to both 247Sports and ESPN).
For the first time in more than three decades, the Red Storm were picked to win the BIG EAST in the preseason poll voted on by league coaches.
Five Johnnies received preseason All-BIG EAST honors, with Zuby Ejiofor leading the way as preseason PotY. Bryce Hopkins earned First Team honors, while Ian Jackson landed on the second team and both Joson Sanon and Dillon Mitchell landed on the third team.
- Ejiofor (KU), Mitchell (UC) and Sanon (ASU) have all previously faced ISU while in the Big 12.
St. John's is coached by the legendary Rick Pitino, who is in his 38th season of coaching college basketball and his third at the helm of the Red Storm basketball program. He is 765-309 all-time and is 54-19 in Queens, N.Y.
- A 2013 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Coach Pitino has two national championships to his name.
  - He has more than five decades of coaching experience, coaching both in the college ranks and in the NBA (Celtics and Knicks).
- Pitino became the first coach to take three different schools to the Final Four and is the only coach to win an NCAA Championship at two different schools (1996 Kentucky and 2013 Louisville).
As of Friday, St. John's is No. 16 in the KenPom rankings and No. 12 in the ESPN Basketball Power Index – the second-highest ranked BIG EAST school.

PRIMER: No. 16 Iowa State vs. No. 14 St. John’s

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Joshua Jefferson

Tamin Lipsey

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PRIMER: No. 16 Iowa State vs. No. 14 St. John’s

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