Iowa State men’s basketball’s slide reaches new low with home loss to Oklahoma

AMES – There have been understandable and forgivable reasons for Iowa State’s recent slump during a grueling part of its Big 12 schedule.

The Cyclones have been injured. They’ve been on the road. They’ve faced elite competition.

None of those applied Saturday, when Iowa State’s slide slipped from disappointing to outright concerning.

No. 21 Iowa State blew an early lead, fell behind big and never recovered in what can only be described as a damaging and worrisome loss to last-place Oklahoma, 61-50, at Hilton Coliseum.

“For our team, having more personal pride is important,” said Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger. “It’s more about us having pride to play hard every possession. Having pride to finish plays. Having pride to bring tremendous effort every single possession.

“We feel like our backs are against the wall to do that. It’s certainly disappointing.”

The Cyclones (17-11, 8-8) have now lost three straight for the first time this season, and they’ve dropped seven of their last nine games.

More:Bigger lineups leading to fewer forced turnovers for Iowa State men’s basketball

Just two weeks ago, Iowa State was very much a Big 12 contender with an inside track to a spot in the Des Moines NCAA tournament regional, but has since seen its fortunes collapse and the red flags pile up.

The Cyclones are almost assuredly going to get an NCAA tournament berth regardless of what happens in their final two regular season games and the conference tournament. But the focus of that homestretch will now be on trying to ramp back up to a higher level of play, rather than jockeying for a league title or a plum tournament assignment.

Oklahoma (14-15, 4-12) entered the game as the Big 12’s cellar dweller, having lost six of seven. Five of those losses were by double-digits. The Sooners lost to West Virginia by 32 and Kansas by 23 during that stretch.

Against Iowa State, though, the Sooners erased a 10-point first half deficit by getting hot from long distance and bottling up an Iowa State offense that has bottomed out over the last three games.

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Oklahoma shot 56.3% from the field in the second half while connecting on 10-of-23 from 3-point range for the game. Meanwhile, the Cyclones converted 26.9% of their shots after halftime and were 4-of-15 from deep in the game.

Iowa State seemed to have everything going for it Saturday. Caleb Grill was back from a two-game absence due to injury, the game was in a building where they’ve been largely dominant this season and it was against a hugely vulnerable opponent. The Cyclones’ performance Saturday calls into question their ability to capitalize on a season that began with modest expectations but grew to one of great opportunity.

Iowa State was 7-3 in the Big 12 and 16-6 overall on Feb. 4 with wins against now-ranked No.4 Kansas, No. 8 Texas and No. 10 Baylor. The Cyclones had the look and resume of a Big 12 contender who could be playing their first two NCAA tournament games 30 minutes from home.

More:Peterson: 3-word headlines for Iowa State’s miserable men’s basketball adventure at Texas

Saturday, they lost to the Big 12’s worst team by 11 points, having been outscored by 22 over the final 28 minutes.

“We have to look back at what we did wrong and just look ourselves in the mirror and say what can we do better and how can we flip the script?” said Iowa State senior Gabe Kalscheur. “It’s disappointing. We don’t have much (time) left here.”

A no-doubt NCAA tournament berth should be considered a huge success for a team picked to finish eighth in the Big 12 by the league’s coaches in the preseason, but a late-season implosion and a potential early tournament exit is simultaneously a failure for the team Iowa State was less than a month ago.

The Cyclones suffered a similar stretch of struggle late in the regular season last year, and that team ultimately reached the Sweet 16. So time, potential and precedent remain very much on their side.

More:Iowa State men’s basketball has finally hit the crucial stretch run of games in Big 12

Momentum and optimism, though, have abandoned them.

Offensive collapse

There are plenty of culprits for Iowa State’s current three-game losing streak, and, more broadly, their 2-7 stretch, but offensive inefficiency has taken center stage.

The bottom started to fall out in the second half of the Cyclones’ loss at Kansas State a week ago, and the fall has been consistent and prodigious. In the last five halves of basketball, Iowa State is shooting 32.8 percent from the floor and 20.8 percent from 3-point range.

“People are pressuring us more and trying to make them beat them up of the dribble and play for one another off the dribble,” Otzelberger said, “and we haven’t done a great job doing that.

“We’ve got to be better when people pressure, more attacking.”

Iowa State can attack all it wants, but it won’t matter if it can finish at the rim. The Cyclones were 14-of-43 (31.8%) on 2s against Oklahoma and 11-of-28 (39.3%) in the paint.

“We had a lot of looks at the rim, a lot of looks in the paint,” Otzelberger said. “Things we work on on a daily basis and we need to demand we finish those plays and come away with those points.”

Among the biggest problems for Iowa State right now is its top-two scorers, Jaren Holmes and Kalscheur, are struggling mightily.

In the last six games, in which Iowa State has gone 1-5, Kalscheur is shooting 26.6% from the floor and Holmes 29.3%. The pair has combined to shoot 24.6% during this three-game slide.

“They need to also take the right opportunities that are there and not feel like they need to press,” Otzelberger said, “but it comes down to us having better ball movement, us playing for each other.

“Everybody doing what they can do to contribute to the offense. Everybody’s got to step up and finish plays when they have that opportunity.”

Opposing teams’ pressure has certainly limited the number of quality looks for both players, giving the appearance their recent struggles aren’t so much a shooting slump as it is being a defensive priority for other teams. With Iowa State being limited offensively elsewhere, it makes it extremely difficult to adjust effectively.

“We talked about not getting outworked with (Kalscheur’s) cutting and not messing up any switches,” said Oklahoma coach Porter Moser. “You can’t mess up switches with them. You mess up switches with them, they make you pay because they have such quick releases.”

Even with how well Iowa State has consistently played defensively all year, an offense producing at this level is going to make it exceedingly difficult to squeeze out wins.

“It’s the time of the year, especially for some of our older guys, we just need to step up and make plays,” Otzelberger said. “We need to finish plays at the rim. We need to take great shots.”

Grill returns from two-game absence

Much of Iowa State’s recent trouble could be attributed to a back injury that has kept Grill either sidelined or limited over the last five weeks.

Grill, though, returned from a two-game absence, both Iowa State losses, against the Sooners.

He finished the game with 7 points in 28 minutes of action. He went 1-for-6 from the field, with five of those shots coming from beyond the arc. He went 4-for-4 from the free throw line. Grill is shooting 37% from 3 for the season, so despite a tough return shooting, the hope is he can help alleviate things offensively for Iowa State in these final games.

“Hopefully it allows us to space the floor and spread people out more,” Otzelberger said, “because you get to this point in the season and people are really playing personnel heavy.”

His presence also allowed Iowa State to play smaller lineups that helped generate 18 Oklahoma turnovers.

“Our defense is built more on a four-guard, fly around, generate turnovers, speed people up,” Otzelberger said, “so we had a little bit more of that today.”

Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him at @TravisHines21.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State men’s basketball slides further with third-straight loss