Haliburton Returns to Hilton Coliseum as Pacers Face Wolves in Preseason

Tyrese Haliburton is going back to school. The Pacers guard will play a preseason game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Hilton Coliseum, the home floor of his old Iowa State Cyclones. Tickets go on sale Sept. 9, and Haliburton called the return special, thanking the organization for making it happen.

This isn't a nostalgia footnote for a role player. Haliburton is entering his seventh NBA season — his fifth in Indiana — and he's already stacked All-NBA Third Team nods in both 2024 and 2025. He led the entire league with 10.9 assists per game in 2023-24 and steered the Pacers to the NBA Finals in 2025, only the second Finals trip in franchise history.

The Iowa State roots run deep. As a Cyclone in 2019-20, Haliburton topped the Big 12 in both assists (6.5) and steals (2.5) while averaging 15.2 points, all before a season-ending injury cut him off at 22 games. He still finished as a Bob Cousy Award finalist and made the All-Big 12 Second Team.

He's since become the first former Iowa State player to win Olympic gold, doing it with Team USA at the 2024 Paris Games. Hilton has hosted Cyclone legends before — Jeff Grayer, Jeff Hornacek, Fred Hoiberg — so Haliburton walking back onto that court fits a long tradition.

The Fantasy Angle

Here's the blunt truth for your draft: a preseason exhibition on a college floor means nothing for your season-long build. Coaches script minutes, stars sit early, and nobody's grinding out a triple-double in October in Ames. Don't read a soft or a huge preseason line as a signal either way.

What actually matters is Haliburton's floor as a top-tier fantasy point guard, and that's built on the assist and steal volume we've seen for years, not one exhibition. Watch how Indiana manages his workload this preseason — that's the only real data point worth tracking. Otherwise, keep drafting him where an elite dual-threat guard belongs and ignore the box score noise from Hilton.