Rotational Chaos is Iowa State’s path forward

It’s no secret this Iowa State basketball team lacks high-end offensive talent. It lacks a guy who can take over each game and find you a path to victory each night. What they do have is a bunch of guys that are bought into the system and when that system is clicking, the Cyclones may be one of the toughest teams in America.

The talent took a hit on Wednesday afternoon when T.J. Otzelberger dismissed Senior Caleb Grill for conduct detrimental to the team. The Cyclones were basically down to three guards who had played significant minutes this season. That was until “rotational chaos” took place on Saturday morning in Waco.

Otzelberger threw the kitchen sink out on the floor along with his nuts and ran with it.

At one point in the first half, every single player on the Iowa State bench logged a minute. That included Conrad Hawley, the Chief Energy Officer of the program and walk-on. Eli King, who basically hadn’t seen the floor since mop-up minutes or late game minutes in the conference schedule, was suddenly on the floor making plays in his 6 minutes of logged game action. Hason Ward racked up more minutes than he had in quite some time.

Otzelberger was throwing lineups out there that none of us dreamed of ever seeing and it created so much chaos you couldn’t even keep up with who was out there. It was like a continuous hockey line change and it kept Baylor on its toes. It clearly wasn’t something they were expecting. This is why the rotational chaos may be the best path forward for Iowa State to make a run in March.

At this point what does Iowa State have to lose? You took your lumps last month. You lost one of your better players. All types of adversity have hit you like a ton of bricks. You tossed the kitchen sink out at a top-ten team on the road and kicked their ass and the chaos clearly worked. So why not keep it rolling?

Move over Otzelbasketbergerball. Rotational Chaos is taking over this March.