Iowa State Finds Groove Against Illinois

Day one in Maui started off rough for the Cyclones. They played well for the most part against Arizona, but late shooting problems doomed them. Shooting appeared to be an issue for the Cyclones early in this game also.

The beginning of the game was a drag. There were a lot of fouls, missed shots, sloppy turnovers. This went both ways. Both teams were back-and-forth, no team took control of the game.

Illinois started to find a groove and began to knock down jumpers. Meanwhile, Iowa State couldn’t hit anything. No one on the team was in a rhythm and it was leading to a lot of offensive fouls and missed threes. This led to the Fighting Illini taking a 39-34 lead into the break.

The Cyclones shot just 3-13 from three in the first half and 10-25 overall.

Iowa State opened up the second half of the game hot. Iowa State started the period on an 18-2 run to take the lead, all without Marial Shayok and his 4 fouls. They never looked back after this.

Talen Horton-Tucker started to dominate. He had 22 of his 26 points in the second half. THT played tough, hit huge shots, and had this amazing pass.

ISU beat down Illinois for the rest of the game on both sides of the ball. They outscored Illinois 50-29 in the last half of the ball game to finish the game off at 84-68. They also appeared to of fixed their shooting problems, going 57% from the field and 50% from three in the second half.

Four players were in double digits. THT got his, Jacobson had 23, Shayok scored 17 despite the foul trouble, and Weiler-Babb added 10 points.

Iowa State will play San Diego State for 5th place tomorrow at 1:30.