Cyclones hit cold spell in loss to Northwestern
CHICAGO (ISU) — Iowa State shot 28 percent from the field in the second half in a 67-65 loss to Northwestern in the championship game of the Chicago Invitational Saturday night.
A second-half cold spell doomed the Cyclones as ISU went through a 12-minute drought where they made just one field goal, turning an 8-point ISU lead into a NU advantage.
It was the first loss of the season for the Cyclones (6-1). The Wildcats improve to 5-1.
“If you are going to beat a team like Northwestern, you can’t give up lay-ups,” ISU head coach Greg McDermott said. “You can give up some 3s, but you can’t give up a bunch of lay-ups. The five or six lay-ups we gave up during the course of the game was certainly the difference.”
After spotting a 3-pointer from John Shurna to open the game, Iowa State rattled off 10-straight points to go ahead 10-3 with 14:27 left in the first half.
The Wildcats bounced right back with consecutive 3-pointers by Shurna, one from beyond the arc and the other the conventional way, to cut the gap to 10-9.
The Cyclones then went cold as the Wildcats mounted another run to take the lead at 22-17 with 8:46 left in the first half after Shurna made another conventional 3-point play. The Wildcats weren’t whistled for their first foul until 7:16 left before intermission.
The Cyclones finally revived their offense as Lucca Staiger drained back-to-back 3-pointers to push ISU back out in front 30-28 with just more than five minutes left. The Cyclones made 8-of-9 shots from the floor in the latter part of the second period to help retake the lead.
Staiger finished the first half with 12 points behind four treys, as ISU went into the break with a 39-34 lead. Shurna had 17 first-half points to pace the Wildcats.
Two quick buckets to start the second half, one coming from a alley-oop lob from Diante Garrett to Craig Brackins, gave ISU a 43-34 lead. However, NU’s Jeremy Nash canned back-to-back 3-pointers to stop the momentum and make it a 43-40 Cyclone lead with 16:16 left in the game.
Jamie Vanderbeken made a trey to give ISU a 48-40 lead with 13:20 left, but things went south for the Cyclones as the Wildcats went on a 16-5 run to go ahead 56-53 at the 7:48 mark of the second half.
ISU continued to go cold, making only one field goal in the 12-minute stretch to fall behind 61-55 after Davide Curletti buried a trey with 3:54 remaining.
Brackins was fouled with 10 seconds left, making 1-of-2 shots at the line, but his miss went out of bounds off a Wildcat. Vanderbeken got the ball in the corner and launched it, but it was off the mark.
