Hlas: Again, Bears maul Cyclones’ Hilton fortress

AMES — Last Feb. 25, Iowa State suffered a 79-70 home men's basketball loss to Baylor that ultimately cost it a share of the Big 12 regular-season title.

Kansas won the league with a 13-5 conference mark. It was 9-0 at home. The Cyclones were 12-6 in the league, 8-1 at home.

Saturday, Baylor owned Hilton Coliseum in the game's final five minutes and won, 94-89. With a long Big 12 road left that includes trips to Texas and Kansas State within the next week, the Cyclones are 1-2 and have a shrunken margin of error if they are to contend for the conference championship.

'Margin of error' may be the operative phrase with this team. The Cyclones were effectively reduced to a 7-man team with last month's news of senior guard Naz Mitrou-Long calling it a season because of hip problems.

Saturday, Iowa State Coach Steve Prohm's starting five played all but five minutes in the second half. And in the minutes they didn't get — with Georges Niang and Abdel Nader on the bench — Baylor had an 11-0 run over four possessions to turn a 58-47 ISU lead into a 58-58 deadlock.

Meanwhile, the Bears left town with a win because of their bench. Sophomore forward Johnathan Motley did virtually everything right in piling up a career-high 27 points and 13 rebounds, and soph forward Terry Maston had 13 points. The bench scoring was Baylor 44, ISU 5.

Baylor senior Rico Gathers, eighth in the nation in rebounding (11.3 per game) before Saturday, played just 15 forgettable minutes. It didn't matter, because the bench picked him up. Iowa State, meanwhile, has a bench as thin as a DVD.

'We've got a really good team,' Prohm said. 'We've got really good players.

'We're 4-1 (now 4-2) against the Top 50. We've beaten really good basketball teams. So we've got plenty.'

They just can't get hurt, or get in foul trouble, or get tired. In other words, it's a DVD-thin margin of error.

But with better defense Saturday, the discussion here probably wouldn't involve a mention of ISU's depth. Baylor got too many good looks inside, too many baskets in transition.

'We gave them too many second-chance opportunities,' said Niang, who had 22 points and 8 assists. 'That's on the bigs and me. We've got to get down there and rebound more.'

Asked what a key to winning was, Motley said 'Making sure we control the paint. And I think we controlled the paint.'

It wasn't as if the Cyclones were defenseless. They played great 'D' early in the game in methodically building a 20-8 lead, and were aggressive on the defensive end again in the first 6:12 of the second half in building that 58-47 advantage from their 38-34 halftime lead.

But Baylor (12-3, 2-1) seemed calm when dread would have been the more logical feeling. Maybe winning here last year gave the Bears an inner peace. They're the only visitor to win in the last 32 games here, and now they've done it twice in a row.

'We have a secret sauce we have here in the pregame meal,' Baylor Coach Scott Drew joked.

The Bears had been 0-12 in Hilton before 2015. Bon appetit.

Countless times, history has taught us college basketball seasons aren't determined by Jan. 10. Prohm tossed plenty of cold water on those who would assign either gloom or doom to his team.

'The Kansas City Chiefs were 1-5 and haven't lost in 10 weeks,' he said.

'Don't panic, stay the course. I've been in a lot of worse situations that came out great.'

But the Cyclones may have to go 7-0 at home the rest of the way to be a factor in the Big 12 title derby, and Oklahoma and Kansas have yet to arrive here.