Royce White hit a shot with 1.8 seconds to go as Iowa State beat Kansas State in Ames 72-70 Tuesday. The Cyclones were down by 14 in the second half until they made their comeback run. White says it was important to come back with a win after the upset over Kansas on Saturday.
“We didn’t want to lose this game because then losing on your home court in conference cancels out anything great that you do like beating a great team like Kansas. The was a big emphasis and I think we didn’t come out like we should, but we were able to fight back,” White said.
White says while they didn’t play well in the first half, they had something in the second half that helped them through. “Urgency, I think it was urgency. We got to the 50-50 balls, we got some big rebounds, we actually got out in transition after getting some big rebounds, and hit some big shots,” White said.
White led I.S.U. with 22 points and had8 rebounds. Chris Allen had 15 points and Scott Christoperson added 11. Coach Fred Hoiberg said they were able to play through the early rough stretch. “It was a hug win for us, you’ve got to find a way to win some games like that, we were to say bad is to put it mildly, we were not very good in that first have,” Hoiberg said.
Hoiberg said they got exactly what they wanted at the end of the game, getting the ball into White and setting a screen for him to get the shot while taking the clock all the way down.
The Cyclones move to 16-6 overall and 6-3 in the conference. Iowa State travels to Oklahoma on Saturday.