No. 8 Iowa State crushes Kansas State 95-61 in historic road win

The Iowa State men’s basketball team had never beaten a conference foe by 34 or more points on the road.

Until Sunday afternoon’s drubbing of Kansas State in Manhattan.

That’s when the No. 8 Cyclones coolly compiled staggering, yet balanced numbers across the board while walloping the Wildcats, 95-61, before a thinning crowd of 8,031 at Bramlage Coliseum.

ISU (20-2, 7-2 Big 12) dished out an astonishing 28 assists on 33 made baskets while handing Kansas State its most lopsided loss under head coach Jerome Tang.

“As much as I’m proud of our guys for how we played, what’s more important is how (we) continue to practice, how (we) continue to invest in one another,” Cyclone head coach T.J. Otzelberger told reporters after his team’s fourth straight win. “We've got tremendous leadership on our team, and that shows up when you look at assist numbers.”

And in other balanced numbers, as well.

Five ISU players scored in double figures, led by Joshua Jefferson with 19 points. The 6-9 senior also grabbed a team-best eight rebounds while distributing five assists. Milan Momcilovic added 18 points on 5-for-9 3-point shooting, and Tamin Lipsey chipped in 16 points, nine assists, five rebounds and four steals. Killyan Toure had 13 points and Nate Heise notched 11 — with most of them coming during a pair of decisive first-half runs.

“It feels great out there,” said Lipsey, who has played a role in 89 ISU victories — the fifth most for a player in program history. “We’ve got guys who are feeling super confident in their shot. Obviously, Milan is shooting at a high percentage and Nate was shooting great. Joshua’s still shooting great. But (it’s about) how we’re moving the ball, getting it from side to side, and breaking down the defense, making then guard for 20 to 25 seconds, and then just moving in until we find a great shot.”

Five Cyclones — Jefferson, Lipsey, Blake Buchanan, Heise, and Toure — collected five or more rebounds, and three ISU players — Lipsey, Jefferson and Heise — doled out five-plus assists.

Heise produced a line of 11 points, five rebounds and five assists while serving as the captain of a defense that crafted a 21-to-6 edge in points off turnovers.

“He does all the little things for us, and then when it’s his time to shoot the ball he shoots it well,” Momcilovic, the nation’s most accurate 3-point shooter, said of Heise. “You’ve seen it in conference play and couple of the other big non-conference games. He’s played well in those games.”

The Cyclones notched their third win by 30-plus points in the past four conference games. To put that recent wave of blowouts in perspective, ISU entered the season with a total of just nine league wins of 30-plus points in program history, so this amounts to a historic stretch of dominance. The Cyclones have ascended to No. 4 in KenPom’s analytics-based team rankings and entered Sunday ranked fifth in the NET.

But those are just numbers. Otzelberger’s team is all about embracing the grind and never settling — in practice or in games.

“I'm proud of our group for how they're continuing to keep their focus on the practice court and getting better,” said Otzelberger, who joined Johnny Orr and Fred Hoiberg as the only ISU coaches to win 20 or more games in four-plus seasons. “I know that by continuing to do that, it will carry forward for us in the games, and we're fortunate for that to happen here (Sunday).”

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