Iowa State basketball: Milan Momcilovic on first round in Milwaukee
Iowa State sophomore Milan Momcilovic reacts to returning home to Wisconsin and playing there for the NCAA Tournament opening weekend.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. – If anyone was prepared to handle the complicated logistics of NCAA Tournament travel, it was the Momcilovic family.
Navigating connecting flights, the rental car counter and hotel reservations in sometimes-obscure locations must come as second nature now for Nick and Zorica, who have been following their son, Milan, and his Iowa State basketball team across the country for the better part of two years.
That means time, energy, money and, perhaps most of all, sleep get sacrificed for road trips from Pewaukee, Wis. to Ames and back or tight flight connections across the Big 12 footprint.
The Momcilovics were set to put all that experience to use this week, but, as they settled in to watch Selection Sunday, a small surprise graced their TV screen.
“I don’t think a lot of people had high expectations that (the Cyclones) were going to end up in Milwaukee,” Nick Momcilovic told the Register in a phone interview this week. “That was one of the first brackets to get revealed, and it was pretty exciting.
“My wife screamed, and we were pretty happy knowing we weren’t going to have to worry about the logistics of travel and everything that goes along with that.”
The Momcilovics hail from Pewaukee, which lays about 20 miles to the west of Fiserv Forum, home of the Milwaukee Bucks and, this week, the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
Third-seeded Iowa State plays Lipscomb there Friday (12:30 p.m.; TNT), freeing the Momcilovics from their role as travel experts. But the location is making them something of ticket brokers for the legions of family and friends looking to get in the building.
“We’re trying to manage the ticket situation,” Nick said with a laugh. “That’s probably the biggest challenge right now. Trying to figure out who gets what.”
The Momcilovics have been a fixture at Iowa State games since Milan arrived as a highly-touted recruit in the summer of 2023 and who has now started 62 games for the Cyclones. Whether at Hilton Coliseum or any other gym where Iowa State is playing, Nick is easy to spot with the family resemblance (though a couple inches short of Milan’s 6-foot-8 frame) and the No. 22 jersey he’s always wearing.
There’s not an exact tally of the number of games attended, but the Momcilovics have been at a vast majority of the Cyclones’ games the past two seasons.
“It’s been pretty surreal,” Nick said. “Sometimes you’ve almost got to remind yourself that there’s not a lot of people that get to experience this and get to go through what we’ve been going through.”
As rewarding as it has to be to watch your son excel at the highest levels of the sport, it’s not without its own issues.
Pewaukee is about a five-hour drive to Ames – one way. That’s 10 hours in a car in a single day for a single game, usually with a very early-morning return.
“That can get pretty tough,” Nick, who opted for a hotel the night of the 8 p.m. double-OT game against BYU, said. “The 7 o’clock game puts us home almost exactly at 3 a.m. Driving across Iowa after 11 p.m., you don’t see many headlights. It can get a little challenging late at night trying to keep the eyes open.
“Coffee can help some of that a little bit.”
That caffeine comes in handy a few hours later, too, when the workday starts.
“That stuff doesn’t stop so if there’s a 7 a.m. meeting, the alarm’s got to go off,” Nick said, “and I’ll be on a call when that starts. It usually makes the next day or two a little bit challenging, but it’s well worth it.
“I wouldn’t change it for a minute. The sacrifices we make are minuscule to all the work Milan and the team put in.”
That work brings the Cyclones to something of a second postseason home in Milwaukee, which has hosted them three times in the last eight years in the NCAA Tournament. The Cyclones are 3-1 in that time, having advanced out of the Fiserv Forum to the Sweet 16 in T.J. Otzelberger’s first year at Iowa State of 2021-22.
“It’s exciting for me to go back home,” Millan said, “but all the fans, too. That’s a five-hour drive so a lot of fans can make it. It’ll probably be a home-court advantage for us.
“It’s really cool to play at the Fiserv, and obviously going to have a lot of fans from (Iowa State) and home watching me.”
Iowa State columnist Travis Hines has covered the Cyclones for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune since 2012. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.
