Iowa State Basketball Sees Extremely Encouraging Sign from Freshman Guard

The Iowa State Cyclones were recently eliminated by the Arizona Wildcats in a thrilling Big 12 tournament matchup, but there is reason to believe that there could be some great things ahead for the program.

Even though the Cyclones would have much rather been victorious on Friday night, they proved that they are one of the best teams in the country after having a thriller against the Wildcats.

Both of these programs played very well in the game, and this will go down as one of the best conference tournament games of the season. With it being just in the semifinals, it shows the strength of the Big 12 this year and should help elevate their viewing heading into the NCAA tournament.

Coming into the Big 12 tournament, there was some concern about how the Cyclones were playing. This was a team that had lost three of their last five games heading into the tournament but had seemingly found some momentum once again.

In their first two games, they were able to completely dismantle the Arizona State Sun Devils and the Texas Tech Red Raiders, which should result in them being a two-seed. As expected with some of the dominant performances, there was good play from many players in the tournament. However, one of the performances against the Wildcats was eye-opening, and that was the play of Killyan Toure.

Toure Snaps Out of Funk

Killyan Toure Got His Swagga Back pic.twitter.com/DSuPXxDNkO
— Iowa State Men’s Basketball (@CycloneMBB) March 13, 2026

Even though he has been a starter for the Cyclones, the play of the freshman guard has not been great of late. Toure was able to shine right away for Iowa State as a great defender with the ability to be good enough on offense.

Unfortunately, over the last couple of weeks, especially, his offensive play has taken a major hit. This has seemingly affected his confidence, and he would frequently pass up wide-open shots from the perimeter. His inability and struggles shooting from beyond the arc, especially, were picked up on by opposing teams, and they would either simply let him shoot or double-team players like Joshua Jefferson off of him.

However, while the team might not have beaten Arizona, they did see one of the best offensive performances from Toure in a long time. The freshman totaled 12 points on five-for-nine shooting, which included going two-for-three from beyond the arc.

If Toure is able to get his groove back offensively, paired with his ability on the other end of the court, the Cyclones are going to be able to play with any team in the country, and it is a major boost.