Iowa State basketball was involved with an unusual controversy earlier this week. The student section turned right around and mocked the entire situation during their upset win over Kansas on Saturday.
Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang and Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger shared a pair of testy late-game exchanges on Wednesday night. One of the incidents took place after a media timeout with just under eight minutes left. The other went down during the postgame handshake line.
It was super weird.
According to Kellis Robinett of The Wichita Eagle, Tang was concerned that the Cyclones were stealing his signs. He thought that the home team planted team representatives behind the Wildcats’ bench.
Those “spies” were supposedly translating the signals displayed during huddles and texting that information to Iowa State coaches. Tang could be seen saying, “they’ve got three guys in the stands videoing our huddle” on the ESPN+ broadcast. He appeared to make a similar gesture toward the crowd while chatting with Otzelberger after the clock hit zero.
As strange as it was, neither coach addressed the situation after the game. Nothing further has come from the allegations at this point.
Iowa State students issued a direct response to Tang’s accusations during the game on Saturday afternoon. They all held up their phones during the first timeout and turned on the flashlight as if they were recording Kansas’ huddle.
It was a brilliant play from the Cyclones. They came ready with a plan and executed to perfection.
To make the entire thing even funnier, Iowa State won the college basketball game and knocked off the No. 2 team in the country. Surely it couldn’t have won without filming the huddle, right? Tang certainly thinks so.
The students don’t care. They had a laugh at his expense and stormed the court.