Breaking Down Why Iowa State Basketball Can Contend Without Milan Momcilovic – Sports Illustrated

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Even though the college basketball season just recently came to an end, the Iowa State Cyclones have been a very busy team of late. 
While the 2025-26 campaign was a memorable one for the program, the team also has to be a little disappointed with how it ended. In their first game of the NCAA tournament, Iowa State saw their star player, Joshua Jefferson, go down with an ankle injury that effectively ended his tournament. 
Even though the Cyclones were able to win two games without their star, they were ultimately eliminated by the Tennessee Volunteers in the Sweet 16. If Iowa State had their star in that game, the results feel like it could have been different. 
While it might have been a disappointing ending to the year, it was certainly a great season, and there were numerous players who performed well. One of those players was forward Milan Momcilovic. The talented forward was able to have an historic season shooting the ball. 
Following the completion of the campaign, Momcilovic let it be known that he was going to explore going into the NBA Draft but reserved the right to come back to the Cyclones. Now, he announced that he will be going into the transfer portal, but his primary focus is to be drafted. For Iowa State, they now know that they won’t have him for next year. 
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Even though they are losing a top player in the country, a lot of credit has to go to T.J. Otzelberger and the coaching staff for working early in the transfer portal and adding four new players. Perhaps they had an indication early on that Momcilovic wasn’t going to be coming back based on their early aggressiveness. 
Iowa State was able to add three forwards with Tre Singleton, Taj Manning, and Leon Bond all coming over. Furthermore, they also added guard Jaquan Johnson, rounding out what has been a very impressive job by the team in the portal so far. 
Even though they have added a ton of talent, what they have lost shouldn’t be understated. With Momcilovic gone, the team has now lost their three top players from last year, and a great bench player in Nate Heise. 
While the losses for the team are significant, they have some good young players coming back in their backcourt and added some more help in the portal. The team is going to be much different looking, but it can still be a title contender. 
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Nick Ziegler is an alumnus of the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. He has been working in sports media covering the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL for nearly a decade with various publications online. With his free time, Nick enjoys being at the Jersey Shore with his wife, daughter, and their golden retriever. You can follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @NickZiegler20.
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