The Big 12 has announced the mens basketball conference opponent games that the Iowa State Cyclones will play at home for the 2026-27 season.
The Cyclones take major pride in playing at the Hilton Coliseum, holding a 49-3 overall record at home in the last three seasons.
It is no secret that Iowa State is a tough team to play at home.
Iowa State will face the following conference opponents at home this season.
Arizona BYU Cincinnati TCU Kansas State Utah West Virginia Kansas Oklahoma State Next, I will be ranking these opponents based on returning talent and new additions like transfers and incoming freshmen, ranking from projected least to greatest.
9 Utah The Utes only have three players returning, and none of them were starters.
Utah lost two star guards, Don McHenry and Terrence Brown, who both averaged over 17 points per game.
Utah finished last season with an overall record of 10-22, and they were a measly 1-10 on the road.
Utah is getting some incoming Division I transfers, highlighted by Jackson Holcombe, who averaged 16.0 points per game at Utah Valley, and international recruit Noam Yaacov, who has great potential to enter the NBA Draft someday.
These two hope to replace the scoring that was lost from the previous season.
Compared to the powerhouse teams of the Big 12 conference, the eye test looks like Utah will be on the easier side of Iowa States matchup at home.
The poor road record for Utes, the lack of an experienced group, and not getting the highest transfer and freshman recruits compared to the Big 12 make the case for why they are at the projected number nine spot.
8 Kansas State While Utah only had three players return, Kansas State topped the Utes numbers by only having one returner, Andrej Kostic, who averaged 5.2 points per game last season.
The Wildcats will be a big-time wild card, especially after finishing last season with a 1-10 record on the road and a 3-15 conference record.
However, Kansas State is now aiming to have a team gel together that has transfers like Brandon Rechsteiner from Colorado State, Dezdrick Lindsay from Oregon, JT Rock from New Mexico and more.
Two unranked freshmen, Devin Hutcherson and Jaylen Alexander, will also be a part of the Wildcats.
Kansas State also lost its best scorer and player in P.J.
Haggerty, who averaged 23.4 points per game.
Finding a new number one scoring option against an always tough defensive Iowa State team will be hard to find.
The Wildcats will possibly look to have a more balanced scoring attack, but their team looks very questionable as of now.
7 Cincinnati Cincinnati lost its entire roster and brought in a full new team to put on the hardwood for the 2026-27 season.
The Bearcats went as heavy as they could for getting transfers.
Cincinnati signed 6-foot-9 three-level scorer Tyler Tejada from Towson to pick up the scoring load, along with two athletic slashers in Tylen Riley from Tulsa, and Myles Colvin from Wake Forest.
Cincinnati also picked up lockdown defender and rebounding guard Trevian Carson from North Dakota State.
The Bearcats did not have any high school recruits come in yet, and are banking on the signing of experienced college players to be able to put up a contest against Iowa State at Hilton.
The biggest question will be if this talented group will have good chemistry to beat some of the expected tougher teams, like the Cyclones.
6 Oklahoma State The Cowboys were able to lasso back in four returners for the next season, one key being Kanye Clary, a steady guard who averaged 10.6 points per game with nearly five assists a night as well.
Oklahoma State brings in some solid transfers, including Jordan Burks from UCF, who averaged 13.3 points per game last season, and the Cowboys hope that he can give some good positional size and 3-point shooting at the power forward position for them.
The Cowboys also bring in talented freshman wings like Latrell Allmond and Anthony Felesi, who can turn some heads early on.
Oklahoma State also brings in scoring guard Jacob Walker from Sam Houston and two big men, Julius Halaifonua and Andrija Grbovic, who look to patrol the paint.
The combination of experience of the new Cowboys team will try to look to pull off an upset when they travel to Hilton Magic.
5 TCU TCU comes in at number five for my projected ranking for a team coming into play vs.
Iowa State.
TCU is returning several key players, like starting point guard Brock Harding, and two rotational forwards in Xavier Edmonds and Micah Robinson.
Both Robinson and Edmonds averaged over 10 points and four rebounds last season.
The solid group of returners is big for veteran experience, which is a key to winning on the road against tough opponents like Iowa State.
TCU has also brought in some high-scoring transfers, one being Gavin Sykes, who averaged 19.4 points per game at Long Beach State last season.
TCU also landed two Power Four transfers, Luke Bamgboye from Texas Tech and DJ Thomas from West Virginia, who hope to develop into rotational players or starters.
4 West Virginia West Virginia will look to challenge Iowa State on the road this year, as they have a strong recruiting class coming in.
West Virginia is bringing in two former top 100-ranked high school stars who hope to be immediate impacts for the Mountaineers right away.
No.
17-ranked Miles Sadler, an explosive point guard, paired with the No.
75 ranked Amadou Seini, a paint beast at 7-foot-0.
West Virginia also added several high-major transfers that look very promising, showcased mainly by high-scoring guard Finley Bizjack from Butler, Mouhamed Sylla from Georgia Tech, another shot-blocking and rebounding plus for West Virginia and Javan Buchanan, who had a fantastic year at Boise State, averaging 12.6 points per game and almost five rebounds, a proven threat.
3 BYU The loss of AJ Dybantsa will cause a major dent in scoring for the BYU Cougars, but key returner Rob Wright III will look to be the main scorer and leader at the guard position, after averaging 18 points per game this last season and giving a great performance against Iowa State last season at home.
The Cougars also landed Collin Chandler from Kentucky, one of the better shooting guards in the transfer portal, who will be a great shooter on the court for BYU.
Tough shooting is a great way to beat the Cyclones, especially with the no-middle defense they play.
BYU is also adding talented incoming freshmen like Bruce Branch III, who was the sixth-ranked incoming freshman and a talented wing for BYU to add to their roster.
BYU also added two transfer bigs in Jake Wahlin from Clemson and Tyler Betsey, who can spread the floor and shoot the ball, making Iowa States defense a hard task.
2 Kansas The Jayhawks come in with a big loss to essentially all their scoring, but have picked up two major five stars in Tyran Stokes and Taylen Kinney, who look to put up bunches of scoring and be one-and-done prospects.
The addition of 7-foot-2 Charleston transfer Christian Reeves and 6-foot-9 Keanu Dawes from Utah will be terrorizing on the glass for the Jayhawks, giving Iowa State problems on the glass, a theme from the last couple of matchups last year.
The scoring and rebounding for Kansas will present problems for Iowa State, causing lots of issues for the Cyclones when its time for these two star teams to match up.
1 Arizona Arizona looks to reload on another sensational team from last year.
The Wildcats were able to bring back two of their best posts in Ivan Kharchenkov and 7-foot-2 paint patroller Motiejus Krivas.
These two will be major trouble in the paint for Iowa State on both ends of the floor.
Arizona also brings in a talented transfer class, highlighted by North Carolina guard Derek Dixon at point guard, who holds potential at 6-foot-5 as a playmaker and defender for Arizona.
They also added 6-foot-11 wing Ugnius Jarusevicius, who averaged 16.2 points per game at Central Michigan and a matchup nightmare for Iowa State with the size of Arizonas frontcourt.
To top off the major adds and returners for Arizona, five-star Caleb Holt will be joining them at the guard and another guard/wing, Cameron Holmes, will look to be one-and-done prospects for Arizona, both looking to replace the scoring that Brayden Burries and Jaden Bradley filled out last season.