Iowa State men’s basketball overcomes sluggish start to beat North Dakota, 63-44

AMES — Caleb Grill had never made as many as four 3-pointers in a game at Hilton Coliseum.

Until Wednesday.

The suddenly hot-shooting Iowa State guard drilled 4 of his 5 long-range shots to help the No. 23 Cyclones overcame a sluggish start in a grinding 63-44 win over North Dakota.

“This is a tough (one-) game turnaround after a big tournament, and then you have two big games moving forward,” said Grill, who finished with a game-high 16 points. “We just have to be better mentally focused going into games like this.”

Those big games on deck — a Big 12/Big East Battle meeting Sunday with unbeaten St John’s at Hilton and the Dec. 8 Cy-Hawk game against Iowa in Iowa City — came after the Cyclones toppled then-No. 1 North Carolina in the Phil Knight Invitational before falling to No. 8 UConn in the event’s championship in Portland, Ore.

But ISU (6-1) wasn’t looking ahead nor backward while it struggled to put the Fighting Hawks (5-4) away for most of Wednesday’s game.

The Cyclones simply missed several lightly-contested shots at or near the rim, which allowed North Dakota to stay with striking distance until the final eight minutes.

“If we finish a reasonable amount of those, we’re probably going into the locker room at half up 10 or 12 (points) and it feels like an entirely different game,” ISU head coach T.J. Otzelberger said.

Instead, the Cyclones limped into halftime nursing a 26-24 lead — and four of ISU’s five top scorers entering the game were a combined 1-for-16 from the field.

Grill’s performance, along with six points in the paint from forward Rob Jones, helped keep ISU afloat for the first 20 minutes. Grill continued to sink clutch shots after halftime, but perhaps the two biggest baskets of the game came consecutively from true freshmen Demarion Watson and Tamin Lipsey.

The Cyclones led the Fighting Hawks, 47-39, with 7:58 left and Watson swished his first career 3-pointer to restore a double-digit lead.

Then Lipsey — after a steal and assist from fellow guard Jaren Holmes — put ISU ahead, 53-39, with his first career 3-pointer 44 seconds later to help his team fully seize control.

“Yeah, those are big shots,” Otzelberger said. “And I felt like Tamin was really good for us tonight. Commanded the game, controlled the pace, moved the ball — if we would have finished a little better he would probably have had a few more assists, and that’s certainly part of it, too.”

Lipsey scored 11 points on 5-for-7 shooting to finish in double figures for the second straight game. Watson added a game-high 10 rebounds in 21 1/2 minutes of playing time, including a game-best four offensive rebounds.

“He’s one of the few of us that took our offensive rebounding challenge to heart tonight,” said Jones, who chipped in 10 points and five rebounds. “He really produced and I felt like those offensive boards kind of helped us stay around in the game (and) helped propel us forward in the second half.”

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