Iowa State drew the Fighting Irish on St. Patrick’s Day as their opponent in the N-C-A-A tournament. The Cyclones are seeded tenth will play seventh seeded Notre Dame on Friday in Dayton Ohio.

Cyclone Senior Korie Lucious talked about the selection. “I’m just excited to be back in the tournament, unfortunately we are going to Dayton, I don’t really know if it’s too warm there….I’m just happy to be playing,” Lucious says.

Iowa State was in the last region announced, but Lucious says they were confident they were in. “We felt like we were going to be in for sure, we just really wanted to see where and who we were going to be playing. We’re playing Notre Dame and now it’s time to get ready and get to work,” he says.

Freshman Georges Niang, likes their opponent. “That’s a good draw, I’ve got a couple of Massachusetts buddies on Notre Dame, so it’s going to be good to see them….I’m excited we are in the tournament, this is my first experience at this,” Niang says. He says they are going to be ready to go and “shock the world.”

Niang was a little nervous as it took awhile to see their name called. He says he kept asking if they were going to get in until their name showed up. “I’m just happy to be playing meaningful basketball in March,” Niang says.

Coach Fred Hoiberg has the team in the tournament for the second straight year. “I’m excited, I’m happy we got in, it took a long time where last year I got spoiled in my first go round as we were the second team called,” Hoiberg says. “It’s exciting, it’s a great team, it’s a great program…I look forward to breaking them down on film and trying to put a game plan together.”

Hoiberg was a little worried that it took so long to see his team on a bracket. He says he was sweating a little as one of the analyst said they were 98-percent in, and he wondered if the analyst knew something.

Notre Dame is 25-9 and the 10th seed after losing 69-57 against Louisville in the Big East tournament semifinals. Iowa State is 22-11 overall after finishing 11-7 in the Big 12.

For the first time since 2005 Iowa State has won at the Big 12 Tournament. The Cyclones erased a 12 point deficit in the final 10 minutes to beat Oklahoma 73-66.

“To win this one for our fans who have been coming down here in waves for so many years — its been a long 7 year drought — to find a way to get them a win, it’s really special, and I think our players sense that too,” Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg says.

Hoiberg says rebounding in the second half helped lead the comeback as he says they never led the lead get above 13 and that helped as they made a run and started playing harder. Melvin Ejim led the Cyclones with 23 points and 10 rebounds.

“We just stuck in there, we worked hard in the second half…for the most part of the second half it just wasn’t going our way but we started getting rebounds, we started getting shots and it just started going our way,” Ejim says.

Ejim says it was a huge win for the Cyclones and they knew what was at stake coming in and playing a team that had blown them out. He says at halftime they knew they weren’t playing their best, but knew they could come out and turn it around to get a win.

Iowa State improves to 22-10.

Iowa State was no match for Top ranked Baylor. The Cyclones fell behind 41-13 at the halftime break and the defending national champions rolled to a 75-47 win in the championship game of the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament in Dallas.

Cyclone coach Bill Fennelly says Baylor put on a show in the first half and he is disappointed his team didn’t respond better, but he says Baylor has done the same thing to a lot of teams.

Baylor six-eight center Brittany Griner scored 31 points on 14 of 17 shooting. Anna Prins led Iowa State with 20 points as the Cyclones fell to 23-8. It was ISU’s first appearance in the Big 12 title game since 2007.

Iowa State will travel to Kansas City this week for the Big-12 Tournament. The fifth seeded Cyclones play fourth seeded Oklahoma in Thursday’s opening round and ISU coach Fred Hoiberg feels there are a number of teams that could come away as the champion.

“Anybody could do it, just look at the wins that teams have had over the top teams in the league. You saw what West Virginia did to us in the second half, they did the same thing to Oklahoma in the second half in the previous game, so they are a dangerous team,” Hoiberg says.

After finishing the regular season with two victories the Cyclones appear to have a very good chance of playing in the NCAA Tournament but Hoiberg says they have a chance to add to their resume this week. “I think this last week was huge for us, the fact that we knocked off Oklahoma State at home — the 13th ranked team in the country that had won 11 out of 12 — and then we get a big road win at West Virginia,” Hoiberg says.

The Cyclones Will Clyburn has been named the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year. The senior transfer from Utah is averaging better than 15 points and seven rebounds per game. “I knew he was going to be a good player just from watching what he did on the scout team last year…the thing that I saw was just a very versatile basketball player, especially on the offensive end,” according to Hoiberg.

Fellow senior Tyrus McGee was named the Big-12 sixth man of the year. McGee leads the league in three point shooting and Hoiberg says he accepted his role coming off the bench, and gives them a big scoring punch.

Iowa State is 21-10 overall.

Anna Prins scored 32 points as the Iowa State women clobbered Oklahoma 79-60 in the semifinal round of the Big-12 Tournament in Dallas Texas. “All of our players did what we needed them to do, individually and collectively. Obviously Anna Prins had what I think was the best games she’s had at Iowa State,” Cyclone coach Bill Fennelly said.

The Cyclones will play top ranked and defending national champion Baylor in tonight’s title game. Fennelly says it’s a great thing to play in the conference championship game and now they have to see what they can do “on the biggest stage against the best team.”

Fennelly says the Cyclones will need to play well and get some help. “You look at the model or the plan to beat them, if there is one, it’s they’ve got to turn the ball over and help you, shots have to fall, things have to go your way and they have to help you. Let’s be honest, it’s a team that has just been unbelievably blowing by people in every sense of the word,” Fennelly said.