Hlas: Big Monday Monte and Cyclones topple another giant

AMES — There's no need to caucus about this: It was a second-half landslide in Hilton Coliseum Monday night.

Bernie Sanders was on Iowa State's campus Monday to woo voters. Comic actor Tim Meadows posed as Dr. Ben Carson inside Hilton Coliseum early Monday night to tape a comedy bit for a Hulu program. Even Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, was here before the game to be, well, insulting.

But not even that notoriously acid-tongued puppet could be as rude as the Iowa State men's basketball team was to hated rival Kansas in the second half of Hilton's Big Monday main event.

The 16th-ranked Cyclones beat the No. 3 Jayhawks, 85-72, and it wasn't anything you could see coming for much of the game. ISU never led in the first 31 minutes.

But the final basket of the night was Matt Thomas flying to the hoop for a dunk after he stole the ball, and that was emblematic of the Cyclones' fury at both ends of the court as they outscored the Jayhawks 49-29 in the second half.

What happened? Defense happened. Kansas ran patient, precise offense in the first half in building a 43-36 lead. It was 50-42 almost five minutes into the second half. Then?

I just told you. Defense happened.

The 57.6 percent the Jayhawks shot in the first-half was reduced to 40 percent in the second-half. The virtual layup drill Kansas had run in the first-half was shut down. ISU forced 10 second-half turnovers.

'We were good with our hands,' ISU Coach Steve Prohm said. 'We weren't reaching and fouling.'

But take away all the glowing second-half numbers, and this boils down to star power. Senior forward Georges Niang. Junior point guard Monte Morris.

Niang was in the middle of a frustrating game. He wasn't scoring. He was getting traveling calls he couldn't understand. He was losing an individual battle against fellow elite senior forward Perry Ellis. He picked up his third foul with 13:12 left and was taken out.

He returned with 9:46 left. Eleven seconds later, Niang made a jump-hook to tie the game at 57. And away he went, with more beautiful finishes for scores to come. He had 15 second-half points.

'My teammates instilled confidence in me in the second half,' said Niang.

Only one team has two players of the 20 who are on the watch list for the Oscar Robertson Trophy, the United States Basketball Writers Association of America's award for the Player of the Year. That's Iowa State, with Morris and Niang.

'That guy over there,' Niang said in the postgame press conference, pointing to Morris. 'We go as he goes.'

Morris had 21 points, nine assists, zero turnovers in 40 minutes, and got better as the game got older. Kansas' Frank Mason was the more-effective point guard in the first half. Morris outclassed him the rest of the way.

'He's playing real well right now,' Prohm said. 'I like the ball in his hands.'

'Morris is the one who was the best player in the game,' Kansas Coach Bill Self said. 'He dominated. I mean dominated.'

'But Georges had a great stretch … he gets (to the basket) in a plethora of ways.'

They are two special players. Their team, 1-3 in the Big 12 just eight days earlier, is 4-3 and one game out of first place with a lot of season left.

Back-to-back Big Monday home wins over Oklahoma and Kansas is a pretty effective way to be taken seriously again.