Considering the airball chants on

the road at Texas on Tuesday night, a spot in SportsCenter’s “Not

Top 10” on Friday and a night filled with dreams of missing free

throws just hours before taking the floor at Hilton Coliseum, Royce

White had a lot on his mind heading into Saturday’s showdown with

No. 5 Kansas.

However, after getting some extra

free throws up in pregame warm ups with coach Fred Hoiberg — a 84.4

percent free throw shooter as a Cyclone — the sophomore forward

converted on six of eight free throws in the second half to help

Iowa State knock off the Jayhawks 72-64.

“It felt good,” White said after

leading the Cyclones with 18 points and nine rebounds. “It’s like a

type of relief and going up to the line it becomes like an island

up there when you’re on a bad streak, and it felt good. It felt

good.”

The Minneapolis native entered

Saturday’s game shooting a paltry 38.8 percent from the free throw

line in conference play, making only 19 of 49 attempts. His 6-11

night at the charity stripe on Saturday marked the first time since

the Dec. 18 game against Central Michigan that he had attempted

more than five free throws and made more than 50

percent.

“Royce has been shooting the heck

out of the ball in practice,” Hoiberg said. “He hit two huge ones

down the stretch, those were as big of free throws as we’ve had all

year and he steps up and knocks down two when we needed them

most.”

After draining the first of those

two free throws with 1:47 left in the game, White walked a few

steps past the free throw line and squinted at the net, sending a

message to his adversary in Thomas Robinson, the KU junior forward

and national player of the year candidate .

“That was for Thomas because he said

I was going to miss them, and I made one. That was for him,” White

said.

White did not just send a message to

Robinson at the free throw line, but he and the rest of the ISU

bigs flustered the 6-foot-9 double-double machine on defense

forcing him into five traveling violations. Seven-foot tall KU

junior center Jeff Withey — who had 13 points, 11 rebounds and

seven blocks in their first meeting this season — battled foul

trouble throughout the game picking up two defensive fouls on White

and heading to the bench with his fourth overall at the 9:19 mark

of the second half.

“I thought we did an above average

job on [White] and not on their team in the first half and actually

guarded their team better in the second half but did a bad job on

him,” said KU coach Bill Self. “He’s good. He’s a good player, and

obviously Jeff and Thomas had their problems with him in the second

half.”

Hoiberg lauded his team’s offensive

effort down the stretch as the most poised it has been all season

as they made it difficult for Kansas to pick which part of the ISU

offense to guard more closely.

“Royce White is a tough guard for

us, and it’s tough to guard when they’ve got so many shooters and

him penetrating like that,” said KU senior guard Tyshawn Taylor.

“We had to kind of pick our poison, and it felt like if we tried to

trap him or whatever they made a shot, and if we laid off and

stayed on the shooters then [White] got to the rack. They just

played really good tonight.”

No stranger to feeding off energy

from the fans, White was happy with the win, but a little upset

that he was herded away from the floor by security after Cyclone

Alley poured onto the court in celebration when the final buzzer

sounded.

“I kind of wanted to get in there

and rush in there and party with them, but it was a good thing that

they were excited, it was a good win for us,” White

said.