Iowa State Holds Off the Upset with Arizona State
Iowa State is the highest ranked basketball team in the Big 12 Conference at the moment. Arizona State is a middle of the road team in the Big 12 Conference and the two teams collided on Saturday afternoon.
Coming into this game the Cyclones from Iowa State were a team that have made things tough on the rest of the Big 12 Conference. The plan on Saturday was to do the same to Arizona State. That plan just about fell apart for the number three team in the country.
Iowa State point guard, Curtis Jones, made sure the plan to get out of Tempe with a win was adhered to.
Jones picked the perfect time to have a career high. With the Cyclones struggling from the field early in the game it was Jones who decided to keep Iowa State within striking distance of the Sun Devils. Curtis Jones went for a game high and career high of 33 points to lead the Cyclones to a resurgent second half comeback to beat Arizona State 76-61 at Desert Financial Arena.
The Cyclones started the game ice cold. Iowa State didn’t register a point until a little over four minutes into the game. Iowa State didn’t take it’s first lead until there was a little over nine minutes left in the first half at 15-13. The bright side of things was that the Sun Devils were not tearing it up from the field either. In fact, the Cyclones biggest lead of the first half was only five points when they were up 20-15.
From that point on in the first half, the Cyclones were outscored 25-13 by the Sun Devils. ASU finished the first half on a 10-3 run and went into the locker room up 40-33 at halftime.
The obvious adjustment for the Cyclones was to break into that Arizona State seven point lead quickly. Led by Josh Jefferson, Tamin Lipsey, and Dishon Jackson that seven point halftime lead was cut down to one only three minutes into the second half.
However, the Sun Devils had a run in them as well and got the lead back up to seven points. The teams exchanged little runs by about the half-way point and the close to sell out crowd saw the teams tied up at 50 with about 11 minutes left in the game.
At that point, this game was anybody’s game to win and it had the feel of whoever had the ball last could win the game. Arizona State fans were on their feet and were sensing an upset of a Top-3 ranked team in the country. It also had the feel that Iowa State, regardless of what they tried to do, was not going to get the job done.
Iowa State finally got the lead around the nine minute mark. However, for the next five minutes or so of game clock the two teams tangled to get control of the game. A basket by the Cyclones Keshon Gilbert with 4:43 left finally got the lead for Iowa State. Gilbert also scored the next seven points and pushed the one point lead for the Cyclones to an eight point lead and essentially out of reach. The other contributing factor in the last few minutes was that the Sun Devils went scoreless for the last 3:07 of the game.
Iowa State escapes with the win. It wasn’t pretty or easy, but as the saying goes, “A win, is a win, is a win”.
Michael J. Wilson-The Daily Waiver
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