CONWAY, S.C. (AP) — Iowa State gave coach Steve Prohm the response he wanted to see.
Donovan Jackson scored a career-high 26 points while the Cyclones overcame their shooting struggles to beat Appalachian State 104-98 in Thursday’s first round of the relocated Puerto Rico Tip-Off.
The Cyclones (1-2) entered shooting 39 percent, but finished at 52 percent with 10 3-pointers. There also was an efficient second-half stretch that put Iowa State up double figures and kept them out front the rest the night, allowing them to avoid their first 0-3 start in nearly 30 years.
“I thought everything was a lot better,” Prohm said. “We’ve been preaching about the right way to play. We don’t run a lot of sets. I don’t want to walk it up and run sets. I want to move the basketball, play with great pace, cut, share the ball.
“And when we were moving the ball and not holding it, we got good action.”
Indeed. The Cyclones led by 18 points, then kept the Mountaineers (2-1) at arm’s distance in the highest-scoring game in the 11-year history of the Tip-Off — which is being played in South Carolina due to hurricane damage in Puerto Rico.
Iowa State ran off a pair of 12-2 bursts in the second half, including one stretch in which the Cyclones scored on 10 of 14 possessions.
Freshman Justin Forrest scored a season-high 32 points for the Mountaineers, including a tournament-record 26 points after halftime. Ronshad Shabazz scored 21 of his 32 points before halftime in a two-man show for Appalachian State.
“We’ve got to be better than we were today,” coach Jim Fox said. “I thought we went through some spells there where we tried to play as people we were not. And what happens is it carries over to the defensive end and we really struggled there.”