Column: Quite the Sunday sales pitch by Cyclones

AMES - For the hubbub about Dick Vitale's first visit to Hilton Coliseum, the attention paid to a five-star recruit making his official visit to Iowa State, the happy reminiscing when Johnny Orr walked in the arena with Fred Hoiberg before tip-off, the game was the thing.

ISU students camped outside Hilton Coliseum Saturday night to secure prime spots in the arena once its doors were opened Sunday afternoon. The opponent was a household name, the seventh-ranked Michigan Wolverines, and this was midseason excitement in mid-November.

If, that is, the basketball lived up to the circus.

It did. Playing from behind most of the game, the Cyclones outscored the name-brand team from the Big Ten 20-8 in the last eight minutes for a 77-70 win that will do ISU some good with the NCAA tournament's selection committee in March.

It also led to perhaps the earliest court-storming by fans in college basketball history.

Really? On Nov. 17? Over the top?

Of course. But it served a purpose. It gave great video to ESPN, further enhancing Iowa State's national image as a basketball funhouse. It also was a closing argument to high school senior Rashad Vaughn, from a prep school in Nevada via Golden Valley, Minn.

He is a 6-foot-5 shooting guard who supposedly has NBA 2015 written all over him. Hoiberg has wooed him since Vaughn was a ninth-grader. And the player whose Twitter handle is @ShowtimeMr tweeted this late in the game:

ISU is rockin tonight #HiltonMagic !!

“Today was huge,” Cyclones coach Hoiberg said after the game. “Late last night, you start looking at social media and you see the students outside of Hilton Coliseum in tents. That tells you all you need to know about the importance, about the excitement of the national runner-up coming into our building.”

If Hoiberg can land Vaughn, wonderful. But Cyclone fans should stop and smell the roses. They have a beauty of a senior forward in Melvin Ejim, who had a storybook game Sunday.

Less than three weeks ago, Ejim hyperextended his left knee in practice. He would be out from four to six weeks, we were told. But he missed only the Cyclones' first two games, very miss-able matchups with North Carolina-Wilmington and Texas A & M-Corpus Christi.

“I told him in my office yesterday if you get the green light (to play), I'm going to gradually ease you back into this,” Hoiberg said. “I think I took him out for two minutes of the second-half.”

Ejim played like the brace on the injured knee was a wristband or shooter's sleeve. He was the best player on the court, which is saying something considering two 2014 NBA first-round picks-in-waiting, Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III, were on the other team.

“He just crashed the glass hard,” said 6-10 sophomore McGary, who was so good in Michigan's NCAA tourney run last March. “He's a high-motor type of guy.”

Ejim had 22 points, nine rebounds and three steals in 28 minutes. With the Cyclones down 60-54 with 8:33 left, Ejim didn't hesitate to launch a 3-pointer off that left leg. It was all net, and the game turned because of it.

“I was over there yelling to shoot it,” Hoiberg said. “He just rose up with confidence and had great rhythm, and knocked down a big shot.

The next time downcourt, Ejim double-clutched and banked in a jumper. And the coliseum was the Thunderdome Hilton from then until after the student body was done serenading Dickie V.

“You should be very happy here that you have it rolling,” Beilein said. “It was a really great thing for us to be a part of today.”

It was fun whether you were 74-year-old Vitale or 17-year-old Vaughn.

Should the latter play college ball elsewhere, it won't be because Iowa State didn't make a heck of a sales pitch.