Kansas
Iowa State basketball: 3 takeaways from the Cyclones’ revenge win vs. Kansas State
Iowa State basketball: TJ Otzelberger on Cyclones back on track
Iowa State basketball closed the regular season on a high note and was in a good mindset coming into Saturday’s game at Kansas State.
MANHATTAN, Kan. − With Iowa State basketball’s regular season concluded, all eyes are now on the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City.
Before the action tips off, let’s take one final look at the end of the regular season and Iowa State’s 73-57 win over Kansas State on Saturday at Bramlage Coliseum.
The Cyclones will be the 5-seed in the Big 12 Tournament. They finished the regular season with a 23-8 record and 13-7 in Big 12 Conference play.
Curtis Jones led the way Saturday with 24 points, five boards, five assists and two steals. Joshua Jefferson had 14 points, seven rebounds and two steals, while Dishon Jackson added 11 points, four boards, three steals and a block.
Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s win:
Iowa State basketball’s role reversal of the Feb. 1 loss to Kansas State
The Wildcats left the Hilton Coliseum crowd speechless when they upset the Cyclones and broke their long 29-game winning streak at home last month. Kansas State had been struggling at the time and entered that contest without a single road win. The Wildcats won convincingly during the 19-point upset.
Iowa State came with a renewed effort on Saturday after losing three of its last four games.
The Cyclones won in crucial margins of the game in which the Wildcats previously bested them.
They forced 17 Kansas State turnovers, which they converted into 22 points on the opposite end. Iowa State trimmed its turnovers down to 11 for the game.
Offensively, Iowa State was more efficient, shooting 47.1% overall and 35.0% from deep, while Kansas State shot just 37.7% and a meager 2-for-21 (9.5%) from long range.
The Cyclones started strong once again and never let the Wildcats get back in it, unlike their previous showdown, and ended up winning in wire-to-wire fashion.
Kansas State did outrebound them, 32-30, but it was a better rebounding margin than the 10-board difference the Wildcats had in the first meeting.
They also limited the Wildcats to just eight second-chance points after they piled up 21 second-chance points and 14 offensive rebounds in the earlier meeting.
These were all key ingredients in helping Iowa State finish the regular season on a high note and spoil Kansas State’s senior day.
“Today, the pride kicked in − the pride on the front of the jersey, but for a lot of guys, the pride on the back of their jersey as well,” said Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger. “Playing for their name, their family, the work that they put in is important as well, and so I thought both of those playing for the name on the front and the back was present in our pride today.”
Cyclones allow defense to fuel the rest of their play
For a team that’s recently allowed offensive lulls to impact defensive execution, the Cyclones were consistently more physical and tuned in on the defensive end throughout Saturday’s game.
In the previous meeting, the Wildcats shot 10-of-20 (50.0%) from beyond the arc and 44.8% overall − the fifth-highest shooting percentage by a Big 12 opponent this season.
Outside of a few short-lived spurts, Kansas State never seemed comfortable on offense.
“Our physicality and our urgency to get stops,” Jefferson said. “We did a much better job sprinting back, stopping the ball and keeping them out of the paint. I thought that was a big difference in how we were approaching the game.”
Iowa State’s ability to feast off turnovers emerged once again.
“Those are big plays for us,” Otzelberger said. “We take a lot of pride defensively and being able to generate turnovers with our ball pressure and our rotations, being in gaps and our guys had a really good focus in that area. You get those points in transition, we had 22 points off those turnovers and we win that margin by 16 − that’s the difference in the game.
“We’ve got to continue to be that team every single night out. When we will and when we do that, we’ll be successful.”
Now it will be a matter of maintaining that consistency on the defensive end moving forward in the postseason.
“We’ve seen what our team can do when we’re playing well,” Otzelberger said. “We talk all the time about wanting to be at our best and that hasn’t happened yet. In order for it to happen, you just got to stack days.”
Keshon Gilbert missed Saturday’s game, but expected to be good for Big 12 tournament
Shortly before tip-off, the Register’s Travis Hines reported that the Cyclones would be playing Saturday’s game without Keshon Gilbert due to a muscle strain.
Gilbert is Iowa State’s second-highest scorer, averaging 13.8 points per game. He is also averaging 3.6 rebounds, a team-high 4.3 assists and is one of the Cyclones’ top defenders.
The 6-foot-4 senior played in the Cyclones’ double-overtime loss to BYU on Tuesday, logging 13 points, three rebounds, eight steals, two blocks and three turnovers.
He also played in Iowa State’s win over Arizona on March 1, but he was previously sidelined with a muscle strain for road losses at Houston (Feb. 22) and Oklahoma State (Feb. 25).
Otzelberger expects that Gilbert will be good to go for the Big 12 Tournament.
“He and I just talked in the locker room after (Saturday’s game) about him attacking practice on Monday morning, getting back after it,” Otzelberger said. “Our focus is to get him back on the practice court on Monday, him having a great practice, carry that over to Tuesday and then lead into the game Wednesday.”
Eugene Rapay covers Iowa State athletics for the Des Moines Register. Contact Eugene at erapay@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @erapay5.
Bullet point summary by AI
- The Chiefs are exploring long-term solutions at tight end beyond Travis Kelce’s expected 2026 retirement.
- One potential move involves targeting a veteran player from a team transitioning to a new starter at the position.
- The deal’s structure hinges on future playoff performance, creating a high-stakes incentive for both franchises.
While the 2026 draft is just in the books, it’s never too early to start thinking about the 2027 season — and if there’s one team that’s already looking that far ahead, it’s the Kansas City Chiefs.
Star tight end Travis Kelce is almost certainly retiring after the 2026 campaign despite an inflated new deal, and looking at the Chiefs’ depth chart, backup Noah Gray is not starting-caliber material. You could argue the team can scout for star talent in next year’s draft, but that would come with significant risk and opportunity cost if a prospect isn’t immediately NFL-ready.
Instead, there’s a potential solution general manager Brett Veach can utilize by acquiring an excess asset from another team.
This Chiefs-Bears trade solves Kansas City’s Travis Kelce problem
The Chicago Bears are clearly moving forward with 2025 first-round pick Colston Loveland as their TE1, in addition to taking blocking specialist Sam Roush out of Stanford in this year’s draft. All of which leaves backup — and previous starter — Cole Kmet on the outside looking in. The 27-year-old still has a lot of high-quality football left to play, and he’d certainly sign off on the opportunity to get starting snaps for a team with a championship window still wide open.
The problem is going to be convincing Chicago to pick up the phone in the first place. Kmet signed a restructured deal in April which disincentivizes the Bears from moving him until next year. A pre-June 1 deal would cost Chicago $4.1 million against the salary cap, while any swap after that date only saves the team $1.4 million.
So, with the present season not really an option, these two teams would need to be negotiating with next year in mind as Kmet is projected to cost the Bears $15.4 million against the cap in 2027. That’s the incentive Chicago needs to move him.
At the moment, Kmet is worth a conditional 2027 fifth-round pick — which may sound cheap, but the devil is in the details. Chicago will certainly dictate that an escalator be attached to the pick: For example, if Kansas City misses the playoffs in 2027, then it remains a fifth-rounder but may be deferred until 2028. If they qualify for the postseason then it could stay in 2027. A championship could push it up a round or two (though that would be a tough sell for the Chiefs).
Kmet has topped 500 receiving yards in three of his six seasons in Chicago, so there’s a good reason for Kansas City to inquire about his availability. The Bears, in turn, used a third-round pick to select Stanford’s Sam Roush – signaling they too are preparing for Kmet’s eventual departure.
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Stormont Vail Healthcare is in a legal battle with the state government, alleging the Medicaid program was wrong to refuse payment for the hospitalization of a pregnant patient with complications.
At issue is a disagreement between the Topeka hospital and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment over whether inpatient health care services were medically necessary for the Medicaid patient’s last two weeks of pregnancy.
The Kansas Court of Appeals did not resolve that dispute, but it did side with Stormont Vail in a May 8 decision. The unanimous three-judge panel reversed a decision by Shawnee County District Court Judge Thomas Luedke and vacated an order from KDHE’s State Appeals Committee. The matter now goes back to the appeals committee for reconsideration.
The appellate panel was comprised of Judges Jacy Hurst, Thomas Malone and Stephen Hill, which heard oral arguments on Aug. 5. Hurst wrote the court’s opinion.
The lawsuit stems from a 2018 case of a pregnant patient, who is not named in appellate court documents. She was 28 years old at the time and had an intellectual disability among other complications, including rapid weight loss caused by hyperemesis gravidarum.
The woman was originally admitted at Newman Regional Health in Emporia before she was transferred to Stormont Vail. Part of the hospitalization during her third trimester was covered.
But the final two weeks were not because Sunflower Health Plan, one of the managed care organizations in the state’s privatized Medicaid program known as KanCare, refused to reimburse for the patient’s continued hospitalization through the day the child was born via cesarean section.
“We are here because the Kansas Medicaid program has wrongfully refused to pay for some of an inpatient hospitalization while a Medicaid beneficiary was at Stormont Vail,” said Amanda Wilwert, an attorney for the hospital, during oral arguments. “Stormont believes the inpatient care was medically necessary as defined by the Kansas Medicaid regulations.”
Court records and oral arguments show the state expected Stormont Vail to look into having a home health agency care for the patient in Emporia instead of continued hospitalization — even though home health generally does not take care of pregnant patients and her doctors believed the expectant mother was not stable enough to discharge.
“The way it’s supposed to work,” said Darren Sharp, an attorney representing KDHE, “is the managed care organization, in this case Sunflower Health, on behalf of KDHE reviews the medical records, asks about the appropriate level of care and whether there’s any other interventions that would be more cost effective or appropriate depending on the level of or depending on the patient’s records and the patient’s status.”
Sharp argued medical records showed the patients was getting better because of total parenteral nutrition, or TPN.
“This is when a tube, a PICC, is inserted and your minerals and your electrolytes and all of your nutrition is then intravenously provided,” Sharp said.
He said the treatment “was eliminating her vomiting, her diarrhea, she had no fever, her glucose levels were stabilized.”
In their ruling, the judges indicated the KDHE appeals committee primarily cared about the cost saving of using home health versus hospitalization while disregarding the treating physician for insufficient reasons and ignoring evidence on potential benefits or harms to the patient.
But the judges declined to resolve the dispute. Rather, unless the decision is appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, the matter goes back to the KDHE administrative process.
There, the agency’s appeals committee must reconsider the case consistent with the Court of Appeal’s ruling. The published decision sets new precedent interpreting state laws and regulations on the Medicaid program.
“While this court provides no opinion on whether the disputed inpatient healthcare services met the definition of medical necessity,” Hurst wrote, “the record shows that some of the (appeals committee’s) factual findings were not supported by the record as a whole and that the (appeals committee) inaccurately applied the law when it failed to consider (the patient’s) individual characteristics and assess the harms and benefits of the healthcare intervention.
“In making a medical necessity determination, the reviewing agency must make an individualized determination based on the record as a whole.”
Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.
The Kansas Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 7, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Pick 3 numbers from May 7 drawing
Midday: 6-2-2
Evening: 0-5-9
Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning 2 By 2 numbers from May 7 drawing
Red Balls: 07-15, White Balls: 02-16
Check 2 By 2 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from May 7 drawing
05-08-21-44-48, Bonus: 01
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize
All Kansas Lottery retailers will redeem prizes up to $599. For prizes over $599, winners can submit winning tickets through the mail or in person at select Kansas Lottery offices.
By mail, send a winner claim form and your signed lottery ticket to:
Kansas Lottery Headquarters
128 N Kansas Avenue
Topeka, KS 66603-3638
(785) 296-5700
To submit in person, sign the back of your ticket, fill out a claim form, and deliver the form along with your signed lottery ticket to Kansas Lottery headquarters. 128 N Kansas Avenue, Topeka, KS 66603-3638, (785) 296-5700. Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. This office can cash prizes of any amount.
Check previous winning numbers and payouts at Kansas Lottery.
When are the Kansas Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10 p.m. CT Tuesday and Friday.
- Pick 3 Midday/Evening: 1:10 p.m. and 9:10 p.m. CT daily.
- 2 By 2: 9:30 p.m. CT daily.
- Lucky for Life: 9:38 p.m. CT daily.
- Lotto America: 9:15 p.m. CT Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Super Kansas Cash: 9:10 p.m. CT Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 10:15 p.m. CT daily.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Kansas editor. You can send feedback using this form.
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