{"id":69598,"date":"2026-03-20T19:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T00:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/20\/march-madness-iowa-states-final-four-hopes-dealt-blow-as-jefferson-hurt-in-rout\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T19:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T00:02:13","slug":"march-madness-iowa-states-final-four-hopes-dealt-blow-as-jefferson-hurt-in-rout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/20\/march-madness-iowa-states-final-four-hopes-dealt-blow-as-jefferson-hurt-in-rout\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness: Iowa State\u2019s Final Four hopes dealt blow as Jefferson hurt in rout"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Jefferson hurt left ankle on untidy early landing<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Miami (Ohio)\u2019s charmed season ended by Tennessee<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Kentucky reach second round after OT thriller<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Iowa State forward Joshua Jefferson sprained his left ankle in the opening minutes of the second-seeded Cyclones\u2019 108-74 rout of No 15 seed Tennessee State on Friday, leaving the All-American\u2019s status in question for the rest of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The Cyclones\u2019 second-leading scorer and top rebounder did not appear to be touched as he drove the lane for an open layup. But his entire 240lb body came down on his left ankle as it turned beneath him, and Jefferson immediately dropped to the floor in front of the Iowa State bench as a hush came over a crowd filled with Cyclones fans.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/mar\/20\/ncaa-tournament-first-round-upsets-scores-recaps\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jefferson hurt left ankle on untidy early landing Miami (Ohio)\u2019s charmed season ended by Tennessee Kentucky reach second round after OT thriller Iowa State forward Joshua Jefferson sprained his left ankle in the opening minutes of the second-seeded Cyclones\u2019 108-74 rout of No 15 seed Tennessee State on Friday, leaving the All-American\u2019s status in question &#8230; <a title=\"March Madness: Iowa State\u2019s Final Four hopes dealt blow as Jefferson hurt in rout\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/20\/march-madness-iowa-states-final-four-hopes-dealt-blow-as-jefferson-hurt-in-rout\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about March Madness: Iowa State\u2019s Final Four hopes dealt blow as Jefferson hurt in rout\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}