First-half barrage buries Iowa in Cy-Hawk Series

AMES - Games like these have almost become a blur for the Iowa men's basketball team. There are spurts where the players compete and fight, and others, well, where they get buried.

Such was the case Friday night at cross-state rival Iowa State. The Hawkeyes hung early, fought late but in the middle tripped over themselves on both ends of the floor. The result was an 86-76 loss, the Cyclones' record-tying third straight win in the annual Cy-Hawk Series.

Iowa trailed by just two at 15-13 with 13:24 left in the first half. The Hawkeyes weathered an early four-possession barrage by Iowa State's all-everything Royce White and competed possession by possession. Then Iowa went on a five-minute scoring drought lasting eight possessions, enabling the Cyclones to go on a 10-0 run.

The environment, the Cyclones' defense and Iowa State's varied scoring attack stifled the Hawkeyes during that run and throughout the game.

"That's just something we have to get over as a team, just the mental toughness," said Iowa sophomore guard Devyn Marble, who scored a game-high 21 points. "Like I said limit people's runs. Teams are going to have runs but we've got to limit them as much as possible."

"We weren't playing to our potential," Iowa sophomore forward Melsahn Basabe said. "We were playing like we were afraid tonight because of the crowd, because of the environment. We weren't really guarding anybody. These aren't high school guys that are just going to be missing at this level."

The Cyclones built a 21-point halftime lead, and shot 59.4 percent from the floor. But the Hawkeyes rallied throughout the second half. Iowa chopped the Cyclones' lead to 13 points and had the ball with 13:39 left in the game. But three consecutive misses at the basket - two by Aaron White, one by Eric May - stalled one possession.

After Aaron White completed a three-point play, Iowa was down 12 points with less than 12 minutes left. Then Iowa State's Scott Christopherson drilled a wide-open 3-pointer and Melvin Ejim followed with a three-point play to push the lead back to 18 points with 11:28 left.

Iowa continued to scrap, getting Iowa State's lead down to 13 points four more times before the final minute.

"We're down 13, we're not down 40," Iowa guard Matt Gatens said of his team's thoughts. "It's great to see us fighting back and getting into that position. It's tough against a team like that to come all the way back."

"We wish we weren't even in that predicament in the first place," Marble said. "But that's going to happen sometimes when you're down and you're at a certain number, usually it's around 8-13 points where you just sit there for a long time. You get easy looks that normally go in and just weren't going in. I guess that's what happened."

Iowa chopped its deficit to eight points with 32 seconds left on a three-point play by Josh Oglesby. But all the failures of the first half prevented Iowa from rallying any closer. Iowa outscored Iowa State 49-38 in the second half.

"Obviously we executed better, and we played better defense," Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. "We didn't make as many mistakes. I thought our shot opportunities were good, and we made a much higher percentage. I thought the way we fought was great. You can't give 59 and a half on the road in the first half and expect to win."

Iowa played most of the game without point guard Bryce Cartwright, who is continuing to recover from a hamstring injury suffered last week. Cartwright didn't start and played just six minutes in the first half before he was pulled.

IOWA (5-5)

Basabe 7-12 4-6 18, Marble 5-12 10-11 21, Gatens 3-7 2-2 11, McCabe 3-4 2-2 8, May 2-5 0-0 5, Oglesby 2-6 1-1 6, Brommer 0-1 0-0 0, Cartwright 0-1 0-0 0, White 2-7 3-3 7. Totals 24-55 22-25 76.

IOWA ST. (7-3)

Babb 3-9 2-2 10, Ejim 5-7 3-3 13, Allen 3-7 2-2 9, Christopherson 6-11 1-2 16, White 7-8 3-5 17, Railey 0-0 0-0 0, Palo 2-5 9-15 14, Booker 0-0 0-0 0, Gibson 1-2 0-0 2, McGee 1-2 2-2 5. Totals 28-51 22-31 86.

Halftime_Iowa St. 48-27. 3-Point Goals_Iowa 6-13 (Gatens 3-6, May 1-1, Marble 1-1, Oglesby 1-4, White 0-1), Iowa St. 8-19 (Christopherson 3-6, Babb 2-6, Palo 1-1, McGee 1-2, Allen 1-3, Ejim 0-1). Fouled Out_White. Rebounds_Iowa 30 (Basabe 9), Iowa St. 32 (White 8). Assists_Iowa 12 (Marble 5), Iowa St. 17 (Palo 6). Total Fouls_Iowa 24, Iowa St. 22. A_14,356.

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