Kansas Jayhawks Basketball vs Iowa State Cyclones Recap

Kansas got an early lead and managed to hold off Iowa State on Big Monday, taking a 76-72 decision.

Recap

The Jayhawks struck first on a Josh Jackson driving layup, and Kansas and Iowa State were off to the races in the first half. Frank Mason broke an 8-all tie at the 14:16 mark to spark a 10-2 KU run, and the Jayhawks built first half leads of 18-10, 26-16, and 29-20. Iowa State wasn’t about to get run off of their home court, though, and kept the game close with Kansas taking just a 6-point lead into halftime at 43-37.

Kansas came out big in the second half, rebuilding double digit leads at 47-37 and 50-40. However, ISU would quickly close to 54-50 on a Monte Morris 3-pointer with 13:46 to play. Before you knew it, though, the lead was back to 9 following a Landen Lucas bucket at 61-52 with 8:25 to play. Iowa State made it interesting late with some made threes with under a minute to go, closing to within 73-70 with 30 seconds to go. But Kansas did just enough and time ran out on Iowa State as the Jayhawks prevailed, 76-72.

This and That

Kansas dominated the boards, being credited with 42 rebounds to Iowa State’s 24.

Montee Morris started the game 5-5 and 8-11, but finished 9-15 shooting from the floor. He did have a game-high 23 points.

Once again, Kansas only played Carlton Bragg and Lagerald Vick off the bench, however, unlike last game, they each saw what I would call significant minutes.

Josh Jackson struggled with his shot tonight, hitting just 3-11 including a pair of ugly 3-point attempts. However, he did pick up 8 rebounds and had 5 assists.

Frank Mason appeared to have knee trouble in the second half, but finished the game with 16 point on 7-12 shooting, including 2-3 from deep.

As a team, Kansas hit 6-15 (40.0%) from behind the arc.

Iowa State was just 9-27 (33.3%) from deep.

KU only shot five free throws, and only made two of them.

There were only 26 fouls called on both teams combined over the course of the game.

Up Next

Kansas will take the rest of the week off and host the Texas Longhorns on Saturday, January 21, at 1 PM inside Allen Fieldhouse.

We'll have more on the Iowa State game in the next day or two, but for meow, the comments section is yours.