AMES — Iowa State basketball stormed back from a 21-point deficit in the second-half against BYU on Tuesday, but after two overtime periods, the ending was anticlimactic and disappointing for the cardinal and gold.
Down by two, the Cyclones got a stop against BYU and had one final possession in the closing seconds of double overtime. After calling a time out, the Cyclones froze up offensively with the shot clock winding down and heaved up an off-balance 3 that missed everything.As a result, No. 23 BYU held on for the 88-85 upset to spoil the Cyclones’ senior night.
“We knew we had our opportunities I think, so that should be frustrating,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “What you do is you learn from it, become better for it. In terms of the game itself, certainly the last 7-8 minutes of the first half into the first 7-8 minutes of the second half, when we dug ourselves a whole and we’re down 21, that’s unacceptable on our end. … I think that is where the game to me was more decided, over that 15, 16-minute stretch where we put ourselves in such a tough spot.
“Credit to our guys and their fight for continuing to compete and get back into it, but at the same time, you can’t do that against good teams. You’ve got to have more pride. It’s a lesson that we should have learned by now and that we need to never learn again.”
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Iowa State fell behind by four points to start the second overtime period after back-to-back turnovers resulted in Cougar baskets the other way. Iowa State stayed within reach but never evened up the score in the second overtime.
“They guarded it well,” Momcilovic said of the Cyclones’ final possession in the second overtime period down by two points. “We were trying to get it inside to Joshua. I think they denied it, and then it was kind of a broken play at the end. It ended up my hands, shot an airball, not what I wanted, but it happened.”
In the first overtime period, BYU also took a four-point lead to start. The Cyclones had back-to-back baskets, a 3-pointer by Milan Momcilovic and a layup by Tamin Lipsey, to take the lead, 73-72, with 2:30 remaining. They traded baskets and points for the remainder of the period. Iowa State had the final possession with the game tied at 79-79, but turned it over and BYU’s half-court heave at the buzzer was no good.
Joshua Jefferson had a team-high 19 points. Momcilovic had 18 points and shot 4-of-10 from deep. Curtis Jones chipped in 16 points off the bench. Lipsey finished with 15 points, eight assists, three steals and no turnovers. Keshon Gilbert had 13 points, eight steals and two blocks.
Momcilovic ignored the Cougars’ close-out and drilled the game-tying 3-pointer with 21.8 seconds in regulation.
BYU’s Richie Saunders drew a foul and sank both free throws on the ensuing possession to regain the lead for the Cougars. Jefferson answered back when he nearly had an and-1, but sank two free throws to tie it up with nine seconds left to force overtime.
Iowa State shot 25-of-64 (39.1%) overall and 8-of-28 (28.6%) from deep. It got outrebounded by BYU, 52-24, but it won the turnover margin. The Cyclones forced 29 Cougar turnovers and only committed 11.
“Whole time we had that big lead, I was waiting for (Iowa State) to respond,” BYU coach Kevin Young said. “We knew it was coming at some point. It was just an onslaught of physicality. They made us find a way to earn that one. That was just the toughest game. We had 29 turnovers and still won. I’ve never really seen that before, but we were 52-34 on the glass, so that kind of evened the table.”
It was a defensive battle to start. Neither team scored for the first 4:42 of the game, until Jones finally got a shot to drop to put the Cyclones on the board.
They played with great intensity defensively for the first 10 minutes of the game, building a 14-5 lead while a hot-shooting BYU team struggled to find its footing. The Cougars also committed nine of their 29 turnovers during this stretch.
But then BYU started to find a groove, going on a 28-8 run that spanned over nine minutes.
Iowa State struggled to keep up with BYU’s shooting touch. The Cyclones grew stagnant on the scoring end while the Cougars built their lead. Mawot Mag sank a couple of free throws to give BYU a 21-20 lead with 4:00 left in the first half. He also closed the run with back-to-back baskets to make it 33-22 with 1:03 left in the first half. Jones had a pair of free throws to trim the BYU lead down to 33-24 at the break.
BYU sank back-to-back 3s to start the second half, before going on to push its lead up to as high as 21 after Dallin Hall’s alley-oop slam made it 54-33 with 13:16 remaining.
After a time out, the Cyclones rumbled and rattled off a 17-2 run that helped them cut the deficit down to single digits. Momcilovic topped off the run by scoring six straight points to make it 56-50 with 7:19 left.
The Cougars broke the Cyclones’ run and extended their lead back into double figures for a brief moment, but Iowa State persisted.
“We were just in the moment, we felt the momentum change and the crowd was into it,” Jones said of the Cyclones’ comeback effort. “Just trying to pressure as relentless as we could. I felt like that really helped us get back in the game. That’s really just what we focused on.”
Saunders led BYU with 23 points and six rebounds. Hall added 22 points off the bench. Egor Demin had 12 points. Mag had 10 points. Keba Keita had seven points and 15 rebounds.
Iowa State dropped to 22-8 and 12-7 Big 12 Conference play with the loss. The Cyclones will close out the regular season on the road at Kansas State on Saturday. Tip-off is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. CT.
