The Lowdown

When Kansas State walked onto the court at Hilton Coliseum on Saturday, it met a hungry ISU offense.

No. 25 Iowa State swept away Kansas State 87-71 on Saturday in Hilton Coliseum behind a 20-point, 12-rebound performance by forward Chelsea Poppens. The win gave the Cyclones (17-5, 8-4 Big 12) their fifth consecutive win against the Wildcats (12-11, 3-8 Big 12) in Ames.

Iowa State jumped out to a 23-8 lead just more than eight minutes into the game and never looked back against a Kansas State squad that has lost six out of its last eight games in Big 12 play.

X-Factor

Chelsea Poppens — With Kansas State, an outside shooting team by nature due to lack of size down low and vulnerable in the paint, Poppens took full advantage of the opportunity to control the glass and shots down low.

In the first half, Poppens tallied 20 points, shooting 7-of-11 from the floor and 6-of-6 from the free throw line. She also earned 12 rebounds, half of Iowa State’s first half rebounds as a team.

K-State guard Brittany Chambers was the do-it-all player for the Wildcats ending the game with 34 points and 12 rebounds in her team’s loss.

Turning Point

After a 3-pointer by Chambers at the 10:49 mark of the first half to cut the Cyclones’ lead to 23-14, Iowa State responded with a 11-0 run to give the team a 20-point lead.

Kansas State fought back with a layup by Chambers before Poppens made a free throw to complete a 3-point play and forward Hallie Christofferson scored five quick points to bring the ISU lead to 42-18.

By the Numbers

979: Rebounds by Poppens in her career. Poppens effort in the win was good enough to move her to second all-time in career rebounds at Iowa State passing former Cyclone, Megan Taylor.

13: Assists by point guard Nikki Moody in the win. Iowa State’s win against Kansas State on Saturday was the fifth consecutive game in which Moody surpassed at least 6 assists for the game.

40: Points in the paint by Iowa State. Kansas State finished with 26 points from close range.

34: Points by Chambers. She was averaging 18.7 points coming into the contest on Saturday.

Quotables

“You can’t really make up for size all the time how hard you’re going to outwork the person next to you. We play girls bigger than us every night and it hasn’t been this big of a deficit so I think tonight was just a lack of effort down there.” — K-State guard Brittany Chambers on the matchup with Iowa State post players

“Lately in these last few games we knew we were playing better in the second half and we knew we needed to work on coming out with energy and enthusiasm in the first half and I think we did that. We came out and just did our thing, we were making shots and rebounding and doing everything we needed to do.” — ISU forward Chelsea Poppens on the Cyclones’ fast start against the Wildcats

“I thought the first half, we couldn’t have played any better. We were efficient, defended, shot the ball great, and got the ball in the post against a team we had an advantage on. Second half, obviously, the fouls. [We have to] clean that up somehow. Important for our team to win this game knowing  in two weeks we’ve got to go back to K-State and play them [again].” — ISU coach Bill Fennelly’s initial reaction to Iowa State’s win Saturday