What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.
This week, it’s Hilton Magic and my first trip to Iowa State for basketball.
I’m only one man with a small travel budget, a day job and a desire to watch college basketball every weekend. How I do it isn’t necessarily for the faint of heart I suppose.
Take last weekend. I wrapped up the day job on Friday, hopped on a plane to Des Moines, got a nice meal and then headed to Ames the next day for what the locals call “Hilton Magic.”
It’s all you hear about when it comes to Iowa State basketball — “Hilton Magic.” Named for the arena, which is formally called James H. Hilton Coliseum after a former ISU president, it’s what happens when opposing teams come to Ames and lose in the strangest of ways. Or, if you’re a local, it’s how Iowa State wins in the most dramatic ways.
What is ‘Hilton Magic’?
I’ve asked many players and coaches about “Hilton Magic” over the years and, frankly, they don’t seem to have the clearest way of describing it other than “it’s incredible” or some variation of that. So, when I got the Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball schedules last year, I found the perfect weekend to try and experience it — the men played Oklahoma State one day and then the women played West Virginia the next day. Perfect.
I’ve been to Ames several times, but for football, not basketball. The people are great. The Clone Cones are great. But the vibe is different.
Hilton Coliseum was built in 1971. More than 50 years old, I don’t think the arena itself shows its age. It’s what I could call a “no frills” arena. The concourse is simple, the concessions are simple (I recommend the cheese sausage) and the exterior is simple. In my travels I’ve found that arenas like that are built by schools that care about the game and not so much about showing off for locals or visitors. Apparently, it was built in a way in which it holds in sound. That’s the mark of a school that wants its games to be loud.
That makes getting around easy. One thing I love about arenas — and something many football stadiums don’t do nearly enough of — is turning the arena into a living history lesson of the program. Kansas does a great job of this at Allen Fieldhouse. Baylor has done a good job of this with their new Foster Pavilion. The trick at Hilton is that the history lesson is on the interior concourse on the south baseline side, so you can still watch the game while exploring the arena’s — and “Hilton Magic’s history.
Anchored by an elite statue of former coach Johnny Orr — who was the coach during the period that launched “Hilton Magic” — the area features memorabilia and trophies from Orr’s era. Unforms, pieces of the floor, hats and autographs surround Orr’s statue. The names at Iowa State don’t get much bigger than Orr, who led Michigan to two Elite Eight berths in the 1970s before he left for Iowa State in 1980.
It was an odd choice. The Cyclones had reached the NCAA Tournament just one time in its history before he arrived. But believe it or not, Orr got a pay bump and led the Cyclones to four NCAA Tournament appearances in 14 years, including the program’s legendary 1986 Sweet 16 team — which just happened to be honored the day I was there.
Iowa State won 76.7% of their home games under Orr and beat 20 Top 25 teams. The Des Moines Register traced the origins of “Hilton Magic” to Feb. 8, 1983. That game saw Barry Stevens score 40 points against No. 10 Missouri and led to an Iowa State win. It didn’t have a phrase until Register columnist Buck Turnbull used it for the first time in print in 1989, per the Iowa State Daily. That time, he was describing the Cyclones’ win over No. 3 Missouri. Man, no wonder Mizzou left the Big 12.
The magic didn’t disappear after Orr retired in 1994. From Tim Floyd to Larry Eustachy — who took the program to its only modern-day Elite Eight appearance — Greg McDermott, Fred Hoiberg, Steve Prohm and up to current coach T.J. Otzelberger, the magic lives on. It’s embodied in the 23 NCAA Tournament appearances, seven conference tournament championships and two regular-season conference championships since Orr arrived.
Hilton Coliseum Vibes
The arena has one cool touch you’ll almost never see on television. Across the ceiling they’ve hung pieces of what appear to be pieces of wood trim that, if you look at it from across the arena, looks like a basketball floor. It’s a terrific optical illusion. It’s distinct and, in my travels, one of a kind.
When you get an arena built for a school that cares about basketball, cares about making sure every seat is a good seat in a 14,000-plus seat arena and cultivates a culture around the importance of coming to games, you get something like Iowa State and “Hilton Magic.” You get a fan base that will set out to the corner of University Drive and Lincoln Way in the dead of winter for every game. What Iowa State has now is durable and magical.
I caught two games. The Iowa State men beat Oklahoma State and the Iowa State women lost to West Virginia. I will admit I didn’t get the “complete Hilton experience.” Students weren’t back on campus yet. The band wasn’t either, though the Iowa State Alumni Band was there for both games and they’re tight. Still, the locals came for both games.
Of course, the arena now has modern touches, like the blackout lighting for player intros and key moments in the game to rev up the crowd. The new scoreboard installed in 2024 is like the one at BYU’s Marriott Center, with the additional scoreboards and videoboards in the underbelly so the high rollers can watch replays without craning their necks. But this arena caters to a basketball fan base that loves the sport and loves their Cyclones.
Sadly, I never got that “Hilton Magic” moment, that Barry Stevens jumper. But just the thought that it could happen on any given night? That’s part of the allure, walking into that arena for a big game and knowing anything can happen. That’s what more than 35 years of “Hilton Magic” has done for Iowa State, for Ames and the Big 12.
You should go experience it for yourself sometime, even if I’m not much closer to putting what that magic is to words than I was before that weekend. But the feeling of “Hilton Magic” is unmistakable.
