By Hawk Fanatic

Iowa men’s basketball coach Ben McCollum obviously had his team ready to play against No. 4 Iowa State on Thursday in Ames as the Hawkeyes controlled the tempo and the momentum throughout the first half, and for stretches in the second half.

However, it takes two halves to finish the job and that’s where Iowa fell just short as the Cyclones scored the first 16 points in the second half and then hung on for a 66-62 victory after trailing 33-25 at halftime at Hilton Coliseum.

Iowa cut a 10-point deficit in the second half to just one point on a 3-point basket by senior point guard Bennett Stirtz with 1 minute, 38 seconds left to play.

Iowa State then answered with a basket, expanding its lead to 64-61 with 1:20 remaining.

Stirtz then made a free throw to cut the deficit to 64-62 with 1:04 left to play.

But Iowa State forward Josh Jefferson finally decided this intense instate battle by making two free throws with nine seconds remaining, giving the Cyclones a 66-62 lead, which would hold up.

The Cyclones outscored Iowa 41-29 in the second half, helped, of course, by scoring 16 straight points to start the half.

“We executed, especially in that first half,” McCollum said on the Learfield post-game radio show. “In the second half, we came out so dead. We had guys that had foul trouble and then they came out and then just weren’t ready to go. And so that run just crushes you.

“And then it was just like, okay, we’ve got to get a bucket and we couldn’t get a bucket because you’ve really got to run consistent offense to be able to get buckets. And then it was just a snow ball effect.”

Freshman guard Tate Sage finally ended the second-half scoring drought for Iowa with a dunk. The Oklahoma native then followed that with another basket, cutting the deficit to 41-37 with over 14 minutes left to be played.

Iowa would continue to chip away at the deficit, but the Cyclones did just enough to quell the upset bid.

But even in defeat, Iowa put forth an inspiring effort against an Iowa State team that crushed then No. 1-ranked Purdue 81-58 last Saturday in West Lafayette, Indiana.

As much as the Cyclones tried to build a comfortable lead in the second half, Iowa just didn’t let it happen as multiple Iowa players made key baskets down the stretch.

Iowa nearly pulled off the upset despite Stirtz only scoring 10 points, which is eight below his team-leading 18-point per-game game average.

“I thought he played a great game,” McCollum said of Stirtz. “He’s just going to have to handle the physicality and move on from there.”

Junior forward Tavion Banks was huge for Iowa down the stretch, scoring 11 of his 14 points in the second half.

He also had four rebounds, helping Iowa have a 31-28 advantage on the boards.

“That was our goal, offensive and defensive boards, just be the more physical team and to make sure they knew what they were dealing with down low,” Banks said on the Learfield post-game radio show. “I feel like we could have had a better effort. But everybody fought and I’m proud of the team and proud of the game.

“It’s a new team and we’re in a new program and we’re still learning and getting a taste of the Big Ten and the power five teams.”

Banks and Stirtz are among six former Drake players that followed McCollum to Iowa after McCollum was hired as the head coach late last March.

McCollum landed the Iowa job after having led Drake to a 31-4 record in his only season as head coach.

Iowa’s performance on the defense in the first half was masterful as the Cyclones only scored 25 points, which is 10 fewer than they had scored in the first half of any game this season.

Iowa State made just 10-0f-30 field goal attempts in the first half, including 2-of-10 from 3-point range.

Iowa, on the other hand, shot a blistering 63.6 percent from the field in the first half, making 14-of-22 field-goal attempts, including 5-of-7 from 3-point range.

Stirtz only scored six points in the first half, but his teammates helped to pickup the slack as five of the eight players who saw action for Iowa in the first half scored at least four points, led by Cam Manyawu with eight.

Redshirt freshman forward Cooper Koch made a basket to give Iowa a 19-12 lead in the first half.

His basket was significant because it marked the largest first-half deficit that Iowa State has faced this season.

Iowa also also outscored the Cyclones 9-0 in bench points in the first half.

But there was another half still left to be played and that was plenty of time for the Cyclones to mount a come back, which they did by scoring the first 16 points in the second half to take a 41-33 lead.

“Certainly, in the first half they were the more physical team,” Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger said of Iowa. “They were more physical defensively. They were more physical offensively. Certainly challenging our guys at halftime knowing that that was going to be a big part of it, our ball pressure, generating turnovers, scoring off our turnovers. I felt like even in the first half, sometimes on a turnover we walked it up. We didn’t have the same pace or the same relentless force to get into the paint or to the rim.

“So I think that run after half ends up being the difference in the game for us. We’ve been in spots before at halftime where the game was tight. But not where we were down like that. We talked about it at half; that was more adversity than we have had at halftime in any game this year, both by they had the game going by a style standpoint and how they wanted it and then the other part of it was us being down and having to fight back out of it.”

Iowa would never lead again in the second half while falling to 8-2 on the season.

Iowa State has now recorded wins over Iowa in men’s and women’s basketball, football and wrestling this season.

The Iowa women’s basketball fell to Cyclones 74-69 on Wednesday in Ames.

That game was was similar to the men’s game in that the Iowa women also battled back from a double-digit deficit in the second half, only to fall short at the end.