The team at the top was just out of Cyclones' reach Wednesday

This is the first draft of my column for Thursday's Gazette. It's longer. Which is a nice way of saying it isn't as tight.

AMES -- Texas is No. 1 and Iowa State isn't in men's basketball, which is nothing we didn't know Wednesday morning and nothing we couldn't see Wednesday night.

The Cyclones still have pieces to add if they are to ever join the Big 12's upper echelon under Greg McDermott. For a night, however, they hung with a team as good as any in the nation and made it feel like old times in Hilton Coliseum when a marquee name was the guest.

Much of the contest was wildly entertaining and marvelously competitive. The Cyclones led 44-42 at halftime. Then, class told and Texas won, 90-83.

This Longhorns team that has beaten Top 25 residents Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Michigan State by double-digits had its second-closest game in its 16 outings, all of them wins.

“They made North Carolina look like they weren't North Carolina,” McDermott said. “They made Michigan State look like they weren't Michigan State.”

Iowa State looked better than Iowa State of late. For all but the first five minutes of the second-half. That was enough.

Texas came out of halftime in swarming burnt orange waves, slapping a 10-0 run that established control of the game for the rest of the night.

“Other than that,”McDermott said, “we outplayed them.” But there was no claim of a moral victory in his words. He isn't chasing any wins other than the ones that count in his fourth season here.

Iowa State would have needed a nearly flawless effort to give the Longhorns their first ‘L,' but the Cyclones were far from flawless thanks mainly to the opposition. The old-time Hilton sound and fury were on the court and seemingly in every voice of the 12,066 fans.

I don't know if Texas is really the No. 1 team in the land, even with its dossier of triumphs. But it sure has Final Four stamped all over it.

The Longhorns are so quick, so opportunistic, so confident, so aggressive, so smart, so deep. So good.

If you're Iowa State – or anyone else in the Big 12 – how discouraging it must be to see a freshman Texas guard getting better in large increments all the time.

Avery Bradley took a half-season to get acclimated to college ball. He's officially legitimate. Bradley has 53 points in his last two games, 24 of them here.

Each year, only a handful of freshmen in the nation make and don't hesitate to take shots in close games. Especially on the road before an amped-up crowd.

Bradley never flinched here, canning 10 of 14 field goal tries and scoring 24 points. He also had six assists and three steals.

“This is my first look at Bradley,” McDermott said. “I'm telling you, there's not a better guard in the league than that kid.”

Iowa State has a probable first-round NBA draft pick in power forward Craig Brackins. He was but a face in a very talented crowd Wednesday.

Brackins had 18 points and battled against fellow Big 12 forward-deluxe Damion James. But he had to scratch for everything he got.

James, a senior who became the conference's all-time leading rebounder in the game, had 23 points and 14 boards. Sometimes, Brackins backed James down. Sometimes, James stifled him. It was a good duel within a good duel, but James had more help.

Not that a streaking comet of a forward named Marquis Gilstrap and backup big man LaRon Dendy didn't have a lot to offer themselves for the Cyclones.

Gilstrap was worth the ticket price in himself. He made just 9 of 20 shots, but he was the energy source his team fed off the most. He went down with an excruciating painful leg cramp midway through the second half, yet scored on a doozy of a reverse baseline drive a few minutes later.

Though the game was out of reach in the last minute, Gilstrap had a powerful jam off his 13

^th

rebound that reminded Texas that it got a ballgame here.

“They're a really good basketball team,” Longhorns Coach Rick Barnes said about the Cyclones, and he knows something about really good basketball teams.

“We thought it would be a one-, two-possession game coming in.”

OK, Iowa State isn't as good as Texas. We knew that. Now the time has come to find out if the Cyclones are better than enough of the Big 12 to go to the NCAAs.

“This team has ability,” McDermott said. “You saw tonight that if we play with intensity and stay together, we've got a chance to do some special things.”

But truly special things are being 16-0, having scalps over Pitt, North Carolina and Michigan State, and winning a road game like this in an atmosphere that could kindly be called hostile.

The Cyclones genuinely competed against a special team. Unless they were simply rising to the occasion, that should bode well for the next two months.