Cyclones Fall Short to Kansas at Home 70-61

The Jayhawks in Ames always brings out a deep hatred inside the hearts
of the true cardinal and gold. With a gut-punching one-point loss at Alan
Fieldhouse still fresh in mind, the Cyclones had a golden opportunity to
knock off a top 10 opponent at home.
Prior to game time, Ochai Agbaji was declared out due to health and safety
protocols. This would pave the way for former Cyclone Jalen
Coleman-Lands to get his first start of the year for Bill Self’s Kansas squad.
While Coleman-Lands didn’t have a large impact on the game as a whole,
he lit the spark early for the Jayhawks, and the Cyclones never recovered.
David McCormack was a bright spot for Kansas all night, and he didn’t miss
a beat after the opening tip. McCormack started the game on a 4-0 run, but
Gabe Kalscheur answered with a 4-0 run of his own to tie the game about
two minutes in. Christain Braun responded with a triple for the Jayhawks. Tyrese Hunter
followed up with a jumper to cut the Jayhawk lead to 7-6. And then… the
spark by the former Cyclone.
Jalen Coleman-Lands only scored 6 points in his 17 minutes on the floor,
but he made them count. Coleman-Lands buried two 3-pointers on a 6-0
Jayhawk run that put the score at 13-6 for nearly four minutes. A Tyrese
Hunter’s free throw and a beautiful step-back three ball from Tre Jackson
sent Hilton into a frenzy and put the score at 13-10 Kansas.
Kansas had a scoring drought of over 5 minutes, but the Cyclones
struggled with a 4-minute scoring drought of their own. Kansas strung
together a 6-0 run with buckets from Dajuan Harris and Christain Braun to
give the Jayhawks a 19-10 lead.
The Cyclones closed the gap slightly with an Izaiah Brockington jumper
and a Tristan Enaruna layup, but Kansas responded with a five-point run of
their own to put the score at a 24-14 Jayhawk advantage. The closest the Cyclones came to sealing the scoring gap was on an
8-point run lead by Izaiah Brockington, which included dunks by him and
Caleb Grill to cut the Kansas lead to 2 and energized the crowd. Kansas
quelled the noise with a 6-2 run of their own to put the halftime score at
30-24.
The only Cyclone to shoot more than 2 shots in the first half was Izaiah
Brockington, who put up an 8-4-3 line on 4-12 shooting. Dajuan Harris and
David McCormack both had 8 points on 4-4 shooting for Kansas. Kansas
had a 16-9 edge in both turnovers and rebounds, and both teams shot 1-2
from the free-throw line.
Despite the Jayhawks outshooting the Cyclones by 19% in the first half,
stifling defense and steal-and-scores kept Iowa State within striking
distance coming out of the break, as the 16 Kansas turnovers were the
most they gave up in the first half all season.
The second half started off with a Brockington jumper to cut the Kansas
lead to 4. After back-to-back Jayhawk buckets, Hilton went bananas when
Robert Jones stuffed a dunk with one hand. Shortly after, David McCormack silenced the Cyclone faithful with a dunk of his own, putting the
Jayhawks up 36-28.
After a stretch of back and forth scoring, the Cyclones managed to cut the
Kansas lead to 44-39, which is the closest the Cyclones would get to the
Jayhawks for the rest of the night. The Jayhawk attack remained balanced
between the regular four starters who all totaled 13+ points (Jalen Wilson,
David McCormack, Dajuan Harris, Christain Braun) and was supplemented
by Joseph Yesufu’s 7-point performance.
The stifling Cyclone defense crumbled in the second half and allowed easy
buckets at the perimeter and at the rim. Even when the defense held, tough
shots fell in favor of Kansas, much like in the first matchup at Alan
Fieldhouse. The final score read 70-61 Jayhawks.
As per usual, the bright spot for Iowa State was Izaiah Brockington. He
posted a 24-8-3 line with 3 steals. Tre Jackson was the bulk of the
perimeter attack for the Cyclones, shooting 4-6 from distance. Gabe
Kalscheur had a respectable night of his own with 11 points on 55%
shooting. The big men (Robert Jones, Tristan Enaruna, Jazz Kunc, George Conditt) struggled to score as they only had a combined 4 points on nine
field-goal attempts.
The harsh reality of facing Bill Self and the Jayhawks is that they know-how
to hurt you with their whole roster. Despite not having Ochai Agbaji after a
tough loss against Kentucky just days before, the Jayhawks went into a
hostile Hilton Colesium and showed why they are currently on the Big 12
standings.
With the loss putting the Cyclones at a 16-6 (3-6 conference) record, they
await a tough road test at Texas on Saturday at 1 PM.