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PROVO — On a night Houston clinched at least a share of the Big 12 title in the Cougars' first season in the league with a 67-59 road win over UCF, another newcomer was pushing Iowa State's perfect 17-0 record at home to the brink.
To quote esteemed lawyer Elle Woods: "What, like it's hard?"
Maybe not. But winning on the road in the Big 12 is never easy.
Tamil Lipsey had 19 points, six rebounds and five steals as No. 6 Iowa State rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit to hold off BYU 68-63 to cap an undefeated regular-season home record Wednesday night in front of a capacity crowd of 14,267 at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa.
Curtis Jones added 18 points for the Cyclones (24-6, 13-4 Big 12), who scored 18 points off 17 turnovers and held the Cougars to just 7-of-30 shooting in the second half.
Richie Saunders led BYU (21-9, 9-8 Big 12) with 20 points and three rebounds, and Jaxson Robinson added 11 points for the Cougars, who outscored Iowa State 37-22 off the bench. Fousseyni Traore added 6 points and a season-high 11 rebounds.
BYU outrebounded the Cyclones 45-35, including a 14-13 edge on the offensive glass. But Iowa State scored 11 second-chance points to the Cougars' 9, and forced 10 steals among their 17 turnovers to secure its first undefeated season at home since 2000-01 with an unblemished 18-0 mark.
But the dagger was the Cyclone defense, which ranks second in adjusted defensive efficiency in KenPom's metrics and held BYU to just 7-of-30 shooting in the second half including 2-of-15 from 3-point range in outscoring the visitors 41-25 after the break.
"We shot it well in the first half. I loved the shots we got for the most of the second half," BYU coach Mark Pope told BYU Radio after the game. "But down the stretch, the last 4-5 possessions, we turned the ball over. When you are on the road playing one of the better defenses in the Big 12, we need to be better there.
"We desperately needed a timeout, and I burned through one early. … There's a ton of stuff we would want to take back from this game, but I'm proud of the way our guys competed."
The Cougars had just one field goal — a 3-pointer by Trevin Knell — from the time Traore's layup swished the net with 6:54 remaining until the clock showed zero. Iowa State ended the game on an 8-0 run, mostly from the foul line as BYU trailed just 63-62 with 3:33 left.
BYU missed its first five 3-point attempts before Robinson checked in and immediately drained a triple with 12:41 left in the half to pull the Cougars back from a 7-2 early deficit.
The senior sharpshooter from Ada, Oklahoma, was an immediate spark off the bench for BYU, tying the game at 16-all before Saunders hit during a 15-2 run with a corner three that gave the Cougars a 27-18 advantage. The run included nine consecutive makes before Dallin Hall's 3-point attempt rimmed out, but Spencer Johnson tipped the follow-up to stretch the lead to 29-20 with 5:35 left in the half.
The Cyclones shot just 32% from the field, including 2-of-6 from three in the first half, led by Jones' 8.
BYU's bench outscored the hosts 24-8 before the break, led by Saunders' 15 and 7 more from Robinson to punctuate a 58% shooting performance with six 3-pointers en route to Iowa State's largest halftime home deficit of the 2023-24 season, 38-27.
Jones hit back-to-back with a triple midway through the second half to cut Iowa State's deficit to six, 51-45. Pope called timeout and Saunders scored on a 3-point play the old fashioned way to stop the bleeding.
The Cyclones tie it up! 👀
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 7, 2024
(via @CycloneMBB)
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But Jones and the Cyclones kept coming, similar to Texas Tech in a similar double-digit comeback against the visiting Cougars weeks ago.
The senior who transferred from Buffalo had 10 points in the second half, and Lipsey's trey with 7:52 remaining capped a 9-0 run to tie the game at 56-56.
Hason Ward, who was ejected for a flagrant foul in the Cyclones' trip to Provo, hit a pair of free throws with 7:24 left that gave Iowa State its first lead since 16-14 in the first half. The Cyclones held BYU without a field goal for more than four minutes, and the Cougars made just one field goal in the final 6:50.
The loss eliminates BYU from contention for a top-four seed at next week's Big 12 tournament in Kansas City. The Cougars can secure the No. 5 seed with win Saturday against Oklahoma State in the regular-season finale (7 p.m. MST, ESPN+).
"We're right in the thick of it. I'm excited with where we are," Pope said. "The sum of things is, we're still playing great basketball. We had a 6-7 minute stretch where we got sped up and wound up a little bit, and we didn't have any timeouts left to calm that down in an environment where nobody else has been able to win either.
"It's exactly what it is … but I think these guys have earned themselves an incredible position this late in the year. I couldn't be more pleased with everything about us. I wish we could protect the ball a couple of times down the stretch, and make a couple of shots, but the sum of this all is amazing."
