Cyclone players reflect on loss to Ole Miss in NCAA tournament
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — The Iowa State Cyclone men's basketball team suffered a disappointing loss Sunday night in the NCAA basketball tournament, ending a season of promise in which the team reached its highest AP ranking ever at No. 2.
The Cyclones fell short against Ole Miss in the Round of 32, by a score of 91-78.
'They're a team that plays with a lot of toughness,' said Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger. 'They're connected defensively, their switching can be disruptive. At times it wears on you mentally, you're not able to get the ball in the paint and not get the normal plays that you want to make.'
WHO 13 Sports' Mark Freund has a wrap-up of the game and players' reactions to the heartbreaking end of the season.
Ole Miss moves on to the Sweet 16 for just the second time in program history.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Neuheisel told me if I came out there, I'd play running back. He needed a big running back. Miami was already loaded at running back. You got James Jackson and Clinton Portis. Me and Willis McGahee were in the same recruiting class. Greg Schiano wanted me to play safety. The only thing I knew how to do is just run the football. Myers: We called 43-veer. That meant offensive tackle Elliot Silvers was to release inside and veer through to the first backer in the box, which would be the weakside backer, and they had taken their defensive ends and put them head up on the tackles. On the second or third series, we went to that arc option part of the scheme (reading Miami's defensive end) so that we could get their defensive end to tackle (fullback) Pat Conniff. And, if he didn't, then Conniff was to get the ball in the option, and we wouldn't end up pitching the ball. Elliot is a really, really smart kid. Their guy was really squeezing down. Elliot and (guard) Chad Ward said to me, 'Coach, we need to arc this stuff because we can't get through.' We ended up optioning the safety, the corner was being blocked and we went right down the sideline. It was awesome. Tuiasosopo: The option kept them on their heels and off-guard. It was gonna be a quick pitch. I got nailed. I was lying on the ground, but I saw him get around the corner and make that first guy miss, and I looked at their end who was on top of me and I smiled. 'That's a touchdown!' Alexis: I really didn't think he was going to pitch it. I went to the left with him, till he dove in with a quick dive, and he just pitched it to me, and I just took off. I couldn't believe I made the touchdown. I mean, I was just in shock. You watch the replay, I froze. I didn't know what to do. I was holding onto the ball. I didn't even know how to celebrate. I just ran by Mike (Rumph), the late Al Blades, I saw all these guys, and I couldn't believe I just scored. I was just so overwhelmed with joy. Washington led 27-9 with a little over six minutes remaining in the third quarter, but Miami started to heat up offensively as Portis broke some big plays and Morgan recovered a Tuiasosopo fumble to set up another UM touchdown to make it 27-22 with 3:50 left in the third. Washington, though, never wilted and kept responding. On defense, Tripplett was a menace. He had two sacks, blocked a field goal and recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter. Miami had one last chance to rally, getting the ball back with 20 seconds left at their own 20 down 34-29, but Dorsey couldn't rescue the Canes. Neuheisel: We ended up beating them because we played some slight of hand with some option and had some decent concepts to trick them in the red zone. We were able to run the ball against them some, which not very many people could. Gonzalez: I think if we have probably eight to 10 more seconds at the end of that game, we win it. There was a moment in that game where things kind of just started clicking. Advertisement Rumph: They had like 800 recruits there, and their head coach looks at us as we're leaving the field, and he goes, 'You don't want to go play there. You want to play here. You don't want to go to Miami. Play here.' I vividly remember that. And as we exited through that tunnel, their players were barking at us. We were actually trying to fight them a little bit, but they were barking. Gonzalez: It was just a s—-y situation to start the season. When you start off the season, you have all of these hopes and aspirations for all of these big things that you're going to do. You never want to start off, in any sport — no matter if you're playing Pee Wee or whatever — you never want to start off 1-1. More so in college sports at that time, one loss in any part of your season meant that you weren't a contender anymore for the national championship. You fast forward to the end of the year, and we get screwed, even after beating Florida State head to head. Because of us, really, that's why they changed the BCS. Miami finished the regular season 10-1 with wins over No. 1 Florida State and No. 2 Virginia Tech (by 20 points), but those were the Canes' only wins over ranked opponents. Washington also went 10-1, with its lone loss coming at Oregon, three weeks after beating UM. The Huskies also had just two Top 25 victories, with their other win over No. 23 Oregon State. The Noles ended up getting the title shot against No. 1 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, even though the Canes were ranked No. 2 in the coaches and AP polls. They were ranked third in the BCS. Delvin Brown, Miami, DB, 1997-2000: What happened that year that people don't remember is Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech had a game that was canceled because of lightning. Lee Corso's car got struck by lightning, and because Virginia Tech didn't play Georgia Tech, our strength of schedule was actually weak. If we would have had a stronger strength of schedule, even despite our loss to Washington, we would have played in the national championship game. The good news is we still got to put a spanking on Florida (in the Sugar Bowl) that year. That was the year we fought them on Bourbon Street. Alex Brown ended up being a first-round pick for Chicago. We beat him up in the bar. He was in the postgame with a black eye. Gonzalez: I remember walking out this white painted tunnel with pictures of Washington greats all around, in pain with my f—ing ribs, and just f—ing sitting there and saying, 'All this f—ing work wasted.' But I think that sparked the fire in us. To get slapped in the f—ing face the way that we did by Washington, it could have been very easy for us to go the other way. How did that become the turning point? 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They pounded Rutgers 61-0 with the rematch against Washington, who had beaten No. 11 Michigan, up next. But then 9/11 happened. Like most games that weekend, it was postponed. The game was tentatively rescheduled for Thanksgiving weekend, when both schools had open dates. Advertisement Neuheisel: We had just beaten Washington State. We were beat up. We were 8-2. I told (Washington AD) Barbara (Hedges), 'Barbara, just tell them that we'll do it another year. We don't need to go.' She said, 'Oh, we have to.' I said, 'No, we don't. Other people have turned it down. We'll play 'em another year.' We went and got waxed. Myers: I can remember sitting in the staff room and Rick was adamant about not playing that game because we didn't need to. A lot of people around the country weren't replaying that game they'd missed early in the season because of 9/11. Rick was not happy about it. In addition to beating Michigan, Washington had defeated No. 10 Stanford and No. 9 Washington State. Miami had blown out No. 13 Florida State on the road and beat No. 15 Syracuse 59-0. The Canes — and their fans — were primed for the Huskies. Myers: As soon as we got down there to the Orange Bowl parking lot, they were throwing oranges at our bus. The fans were ready for us. That was crazy. Tripplett: They were throwing oranges at us. Little kids were giving us the finger. They were really pissed at us. On the second play of the game, Miami linebacker Jonathan Vilma intercepted Washington QB Cody Pickett. Miami needed one play, a Portis run, to score its first touchdown. In the next series, UW went on a 15-play drive. Alexis broke a 31-yard run up the middle to the 2, but the Canes stiffened and stuffed four successive runs. Myers: From then on, we didn't move the ball hardly at all. It was like we poked the bear. They just bludgeoned us after that. We couldn't move the big man from the Patriots, (Vince) Wilfork, at all. Gonzalez: We beat them up and down every f—ing which way, and every facet, every metric that you could imagine in the f—ing game. And I remember that the athletic director for Washington said that they would never play us again. I do remember Larry Coker calling a timeout only to allow the seniors to come out of the game because we're already winning by a lot. And I do have a beautiful picture of me and (offensive lineman Martin) Bibla in the center of the Orange Bowl with our helmets up, walking off the field in the middle of the fourth quarter, whatever it was. Advertisement But I do remember at some point in that game, I don't know when that was in the second or the third quarter, I remember standing up on top of the bench and calling the whole team together and (saying), 'Don't you ever f—ing forget what these guys did to us last year. You f—ing shove it down their f—ing throat and you f—ing make them feel the f—ing pain that we felt last year.' Those were the exact words that I used. I remember that. My hands are shaking. I'm ready to f—ing run through a f—ing wall right now. I remember telling the guys that.' Miami led Washington 37-0 at halftime and won 65-7. Pickett fumbled twice and was sacked four times. The Canes intercepted six passes. Miami went on to win the national title, with the 2001 team regarded as one of the greatest in college football history. Tripplett: I don't know if they felt this way or not, that cross-country flight is a beast. That was a challenge. I'm not using that as an excuse, but it definitely plays a role, and I wonder if it played a role at their end as well. They had a different mindset. They were trying to beat us down, and that's exactly what they did. We were not ready. We had Cody Pickett, he was young. Reggie Williams was a freshman. This was not the Tui-led Huskies in that game. Rumph: Damien Lewis, Dan Morgan, feel bad for those guys. I mean, the 2000 team was probably just as good or better than the 2001 team. But we lost that game. Tripplett: I remember when I got into the league, I played with Reggie Wayne (with the Colts), and I'd joke that they were basically an all-star team. They had so many first-rounders (15) and the only first-rounder we had was our tight end, Jerramy Stevens. Many of the players in the 2000 and 2001 Miami-Washington games now have sons who are college recruits themselves. Miami head coach Mario Cristobal was a grad assistant on the UM staff in 2000 when the Canes lost but wasn't on staff when Miami got its revenge in 2001 because he'd taken the O-line job at Rutgers when Schiano became the Scarlet Knights head coach. One of Cristobal's big recruits in the 2026 class is a South Florida kid whose family knows all about the Washington-Miami rivalry — running back Javian Mallory, the nephew of Rich Alexis. Alexis: It was a full circle moment because we had a lot of people amongst our family who are Canes at heart. Now, you got one that's actually going to be a Cane. We got one, at least. (Top photos of Rick Neuheisel, Reggie Wayne: Otto Greule Jr. / Allsport)
