Iowa State hangs tough early, wilts late in Big 12 tournament loss to No. 3 Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — They showed fight. Grit. An ability to go toe-to-toe once again with what could end up being the No. 1 overall seed in next week's NCAA Tournament.

It wasn’t enough, though.

The Iowa State Cyclones erased an eight-point halftime deficit in Saturday’s Big 12 men’s basketball tournament semifinal against No. 3 Kansas, but couldn’t sustain that energy and fell, 71-58, at the T-Mobile Center.

“I just think at all times for us we’re gonna always play off our defense,” said Cyclones head coach T.J. Otzelberger, whose team split the regular-season series with the Jayhawks. “It’s gotta be the 50-50 balls. The loose balls. We’ve always got to make the energy plays and I thought we did that to get back in it and then it kind of got away from us again later in that second half.”

Senior guard Jaren Holmes led ISU (19-13) with 16 points and center Robert Jones added 11 points. Jalen Wilson paced the Jayhawks (27-6) with 25 points and 10 rebounds — and he scored 11 of those points in the game’s opening four minutes.

Suffice it to say, then, that Kansas started fast, bolting to an 8-0 lead fueled by a pair of 3-pointers from Wilson. The Cyclones never led in the opening 20 minutes, but managed to prevent the Jayhawks from forging a double-digit advantage until late in the game.

That’s because ISU began stringing together stops and finally pulled within four, at 29-25, on Robert Jones’ layup with 1:59 left in the first half. The Jayhawks closed the half with a Wilson layup and a thunderous fast-break dunk by K.J. Adams to lead, 33-25, forcing the Cyclones to regroup at halftime.

ISU did just that, fully erasing that eight-point disadvantage in less than six minutes as reserve guard Demarion Watson briefly gave his team a 39-38 lead with a pair of free throws.

“We fight,” Iowa State’s Gabe Kalscheur said. “That’s the thing about this team, we’re gonna continue to fight. We’ve got a great group of guys that will just leave it on the line.”

Turnovers and several missed shots at the rim continued to hamper the Cyclones’ best efforts, however, and Kansas answered Watson’s lead-changing free throws by going on a 10-2 run. ISU trailed by at least two possessions for the final 11:40 and saw a three-game win streak against the Jayhawks in Big 12 tournament play snapped.

“They played a hell of a game,” Holmes said of Kansas. “But at the end of the day, this is about us. It’s about getting back to what we do best.”

That includes forcing and scoring off of turnovers. The Cyclones entered the game ranked second nationally in opponent turnover percentage according to KenPom, but Saturday coughed up 22 of their own while being outscored off such miscues, 25-6.

“(We’re) that nitty-gritty team, that junkyard dog, underdog type of team,” Holmes said. “Playing hard. Getting those loose balls. 50-50 balls. Making the game as grimy and dirty as possible. Unfortunately we didn’t do that today.”

The Cyclones reached the Big 12 tournament semifinals for the first time since winning the championship in 2019 and now return to Ames to await Sunday’s announcement of their NCAA Tournament fate. As of Friday afternoon, ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had ISU pegged as a No. 5 seed facing Charleston in Greensboro, N.C.

So it’s time for another new season, though the same “nitty-gritty, junkyard dog, underdog” rules must apply.

“We’re gonna play the same way the whole time,” freshman point guard Tamin Lipsey said. “That’s what the coaches want us to do. That’s what they tell us to do and we go out there and play hard all 40 minutes.”

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