Utah no match for No. 4 Iowa State’s pressure defense in 16-point loss

No. 4 Iowa State looked like a team that was ready for a bounce back when the Cyclones met up with Utah on Tuesday night at the Huntsman Center.

The Cyclones were coming off a 79-69 loss at BYU three days before, just their fourth loss of the season.

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Seven minutes into the matchup with the Runnin’ Utes, though, Iowa State seized control and never let go.

Utah led 12-10 early, but the Cyclones used a 12-0 run to build a double-digit lead for the first time, and from there, Iowa State’s pressure defense was simply too much for the Utes to realistically hope that they could keep pace.

Utah ended up turning the ball over a season-high 18 times against the Cyclones, who converted those takeaways into 20 points.

“The pressure, it’s hard to replicate that pressure in practice. We let our guys know it was coming, but it’s hard to stay in a game with a team like that when you turn the ball over, especially that many times in the first half, I think it was 11,” Utah coach Alex Jensen said.

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“But (there’s) a lot of things to learn for us, again. We made some good plays, but then we struggled to keep replicating that. All the credit to Iowa State, a good team.”

Iowa State also had the edge in points in the paint (38-26) and bench scoring (26-8), two signs of the Cyclones’ superior physicality and depth.

Eventually, the Utes wore down.

“Across the board, our guys took a lot of pride in guarding the basketball and making sure that we continue to be disruptive throughout the course of the game,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “For us, that’s when we’re at our best, and our guys did a great job with that.”

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Utah still made it interesting for a minute in the second half after trailing 41-31 at halftime.

Over the first 3:09 of the second half, Utah went on a 9-4 run, trimming that deficit in half.

The final field goal in that stretch was particularly impressive — just 20 seconds after Don McHenry scored to make it 45-38, Keanu Dawes came up with a steal, then the Utes moved the ball quickly around before it went back to Dawes, whose slam made it 45-40.

That brought the Huntsman Center crowd to life.

Unfortunately, the Cyclones had an answer.

Iowa State clamped down defensively again, and Utah — who shot just 38.1% in the second half — only scored four points over the next six and a half minutes as the Cyclones (24-4, 11-4 Big 12) pushed their way to a game-high 17-point lead at 61-44.

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That stretch squelched any hopes that Utah (10-18, 2-13 Big 12) could pull the upset.

Forward Joshua Jefferson, an All-Big 12 second-teamer a year ago, paced Iowa State in the second half. He had 13 of his 21 points after the break and also had six rebounds, three assists and two steals.

“It felt pretty good,” Jefferson said, when asked about his ability to bring the fight in a physical game. “You know, (I’ve) been dealing with physicality all season, so I expect it at this point. People are just going to try to muscle me up, but it’s just on me to outmaneuver them every single time I can.”

Milan Momlicovic hit three of his four 3-pointers in the second half and had 14 points for Iowa State, who shot 47.5% for the game.

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Jamarion Batemon (13 points) and Blake Buchanan (10) also scored in double-figures for the Cyclones.

Early on, it looked like Utah might make a game out of it. The Utes made five of their first nine field goals, on a night where Utah shot 45.7%, including a four-point play from McHenry on the Utes’ opening possession.

Once Utah got out to that 12-10 lead, though, the Cyclones’ swarming defense got Utah to speed up, and Iowa State used a 18-5 run to go up 28-17.

“I think everybody saw it, the full-court pressure,” Jensen said of Iowa State’s suffocating defense. “Again, hard to replicate it. … I think it just got us sped up and out of our game plan a little bit, and then, you know, (it) gets discouraging when it’s hard to pass the ball.”

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The Utes got the crowd back into the contest with an 8-0 spurt, headlined by back-to-back 3-pointers from Seydou Traore and Terrence Brown, to cut the Iowa State lead to 29-27.

Iowa State, though, again had a response, going on a 6-0 run over the next minute, including a fastbreak layup off a steal, to push its lead back out to 35-27.

The Cyclones took a 41-31 lead into halftime, after forcing 11 first-half turnovers from Utah and converting those into 14 points.

Utah’s guards led the way for the home team, as Brown, McHenry and Obomate Abbey combined to score Utah’s first 21 points and 24 of their 31 in the first half.

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Brown scored 18 points and shot 6 of 10 from the field and 6 of 8 from the free-throw line. He added four rebounds and three assists, but Brown also had a seven-worst seven turnovers.

McHenry put up 14 points and added two assists and a steal.

Dawes, meanwhile, had his fifth double-double in the past eight games, finishing with 10 points and 12 rebounds. He also had two assists and a steal.

For the Utes, there was plenty to learn from the loss — including how they can attack the pressure that teams like Iowa State will throw at them.

“You got to use the aggressiveness against them, get a lot of back door cuts,” Dawes said. “And I think we got them a little, especially in the second half. We just got to do that more and figure out what works more earlier on in the game.”

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Utah will be on the road for two of its final three games of the regular season.

That starts with a trip to Arizona State on Saturday (1:30 p.m. MST, TNT).

After Utah faced another physical team in Iowa State — its the fifth top 5 Big 12 defense the Utes have had to deal with the past three weeks, along with Houston, Kansas, West Virginia and Cincinnati — Jensen simply tipped his cap to the effort from Iowa State.

“Give a lot of credit to T.J. and Iowa State, it’s a good team, well assembled. They play hard, their guys play their roles. They sustain effort, and they get better as the game goes on,” he said.