For the first time since transferring from Utah two years ago, Will Clyburn got to face his former in-state rival Cougars on Saturday as a Cyclone. Clyburn put on a show, scoring 22 points in the first half to guide the Cyclones (5-2, 0-0 Big 12) to a 83-62 victory.

Clyburn got his successful afternoon going by nailing his first four shots, all of which were 3-pointers. As if that wasn’t enough to get the Hilton fans fired up, Lucious found Clyburn for an alley-oop slam just two minutes in.

The Utah transfer’s first 12 points came from threes, and said after the game shooting was a focus in practice this week.

“Like I said, we’ve been doing a lot of skill work this week and just getting a lot of shots up building confidence,” Clyburn said. “The shots was there so I took it.”

Clyburn finished with 32 points and five rebounds, including 4-7 from beyond the arc. When Clyburn played for Utah, he averaged 20.5 against BYU in his final season with the Utes.

In addition to playing well against BYU on Saturday, the win carried a little extra meaning for Clyburn.

“I’m glad I finally got a win against them,” Clyburn said. “I went 0-2 before this game so it was a great feeling.”

Brigham Young (5-3, 0-0 WCC) kept the first half close in large part due to seven points from three different players. One of the three was Tyler Haws, a sophomore guard who was averaging over 20 points per coming into Saturday.

Iowa State go-to defender Chris Babb had the tall task of containing Haws and held him to just 3-9 shooting in the first half. Haws finished with nine points total, which Babb credited to a successful scouting report.

“We had a chance to watch a lot of film on him; we felt like we were very prepared going into this game,” Babb said. “Any play call they called out, we pretty much knew what they were going to do.”

Even BYU coach Dave Rose took note of Babb’s defensive ability.

“He’s really, really physical,” Rose said. “He’s a guy who’s got great quickness and size and I thought he did a really nice job on Tyler [Haws].”

The last five minutes of the first stanza were likely the most exciting five minutes of play the team has had all season. First, Tyrus McGee forced Matt Carlino into a five-second violation on an inbounds pass with five minutes to go.

A minute and a half later, Lucious found Clyburn for a two-handed alley-oop to increase the Cyclone lead to 40-32. The assist from Lucious was his seventh of the game. Lucious finished with 12 points and nine assists.

Earlier this season, Hoiberg talked about the team trying to hit too many home runs and commended Lucious’ 9-2 assist to turnover ratio.

“It was a good job of getting out there and making the right plays, making simple basketball plays,” Hoiberg said. “And that’s what we talked about all week.”

Finally, with the clock winding down, Melvin Ejim blocked a layup attempt by Carlino to set up a final shot of the half for Iowa State. Lucious ran the clock down and a few passes later found Babb on the wing for a 3 to give Iowa State a 48-37 lead at the break.

Iowa State didn’t let the halftime break take them out of their groove and the Cyclone scoring continued.

BYU big man Brandon Davies shined in the second half for the Cougars, scoring 13 of his 20 total points during the final 20 minutes of play.

In a game with plenty of whistles, Iowa State connected on 20 of its 25 free throws on Saturday, with the Cougars making 10 of 17. Hoiberg said afterward it wasn’t the most physical game they’ve played this season but it’s up there.

“Today, we knew it was going to be a battle,” Hoiberg said. “Those guys play for dinner on every play, they don’t take any days off.”

Rebounding has been something Iowa State has come to pride itself on this season after outrebounding Cincinnati and UNLV last week. On Saturday, the Cyclones won the rebounding tilt 40-37. Percy Gibson utilized his playing time with seven boards on his own to do his part.

The lead fluctuated between 15 and 20 throughout the second half in Iowa State’s favor as the Cougars failed to find a way to climb back in. Hoiberg and Co. remains at home to take on Florida Gulf Coast on Tuesday at 7 p.m.