Niang’s foul trouble ends Iowa State’s comeback hopes

CHICAGO — The Iowa State men's basketball team found itself in a deep hole against the slowest team in the nation constantly looking for the basket that would ignite a run.

A significant portion of that do-or-die time was spent with the Cyclones' biggest playmaker in Georges Niang on the bench in a precarious situation with personal fouls.

Niang played the 11 1/2 minutes of the first half with two fouls and kept the Virginia lead buoyed around 14 heading into the break, but his second-half fouls — particularly his fourth — was part of the offensive undoing.

No. 4-seed Iowa State's 84-71 loss to No. 1-seed Virginia fell largely on the shoulders of the defense, but it was also partly the stretch of time during an offensive spurt that kept the Cyclones (23-12) from mounting a comeback against the Cavaliers (29-7).

'We still had confidence because (Niang) had confidence in us,' said senior Jameel McKay. 'We still had confidence. We came down, got a few stops. When we went out, we missed maybe three open shots. Some nights we hit those shots and I guess tonight we just had one of those nights. I wouldn't take anything back. As long as Georges believed in us then we was all right.'

After being down 17 in the first half, Iowa State cut the Virginia lead to seven with just more than 14 minutes to go, but less than a minute later Niang picked up his fourth foul. He sat on the bench for about four minutes while the Cavaliers pushed their lead back up to 15 — they never led by less than 12 the rest of the way.

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'Any time Georges isn't in the game, it's a little struggle offensively because he's the focal point of so many of our offensive actions,' said junior Matt Thomas. 'We run a lot of our plays through Georges so when he's not in the game, things sometimes seem to get stagnant.'

Niang's versatility, especially in the second half, was a problem for the Virginia defense and allowed him to have a game-high 30 points on 11-of-20 shooting.

'We need Georges on the floor,' said Iowa State coach Steve Prohm. 'You watch our team and you know we need Georges on the floor. That was tough right there. We just couldn't get him back in quick enough. That's why on back-to-back possessions when they went from 10 to 15, that's why we had to get him back in.'

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