For much of the non-conference season, the ISU men’s basketball team has struggled down the stretch in games. The Cyclones (9-3) have seen times within those games where communication has lacked and opponents have gotten back in it.

But on Wednesday night at Hilton Coliseum, coach Fred Hoiberg said his team played a complete game, finishing off Lipscomb 81-64, and responding well to runs the Bison made during the game.

“Some of [the shots Lipscomb made] were draining — they drained me on the sideline,” Hoiberg said. “Our guys stuck with it. [We] called a couple timeouts where earlier in the year they’d come over with their heads down, [but tonight] they ran over, made eye contact, they went out there and responded.

“We found a way to close out the game.”

The Cyclones held Lipscomb (6-8) to 38.5 percent shooting as a team, but saw Ames native Jordan Burgason have a night to remember.

The former teammate to Cyclone Bubu Palo finished with 30 points on 9-of-16 shooting from 3-point range, tying the Hilton record for 3-pointers made in a game.

“It was a dream come true,” Burgason said. “It’s always nice hitting a bunch of threes. I had a hot hand tonight and my teammates found a way to get me the ball. They did a great job of getting me open, so I owe a lot to them.”

Hoiberg, as an Ames native and sharpshooter himself, could only laugh and shake his head when asked about the performance.

“Burgason, obviously, came out and shot the lights out,” Hoiberg said. “I can’t believe he missed five of them. It was one of those nights, as a shooter, you just dream about.”

While Burgason had a standout night, he was nearly matched in points by two Cyclones. Scott Christopherson and Chris Allen had 24 and 23 points each.

Allen, who matched his highest point total this season, said he and his coach had a meeting where they talked about him being more aggressive on the court. It showed, as the senior went 6-of-14 from the floor and 4-of-9 from 3-point range.

“Just being more aggressive and playing confident, that was the main thing,” Allen said. “We got everything figured out. It doesn’t matter what else happens, he just wants [us] to play hard and play aggressive, and that’s what I’m gonna try and do for him from now on.”

Hoiberg said he liked what he saw from Allen and echoed what his player said about wanting him to go out and be aggressive. The coach saw this as one of Allen’s best performances.

“Chris Allen really came out for the first time all year — this and the Providence game — where he just came out really aggressive,” Hoiberg said. “He certainly did that tonight and got us off to a great start.”

Iowa State didn’t see much in the way of scoring from forward Royce White, but the sophomore made an impact distributing and rebounding the ball, finishing with six points, eight assists and 10 rebounds.

“Royce was phenomenal as a facilitator,” Hoiberg said. “It’s hard to explain. He’s a very well-rounded player, I’ll say that. He takes three shots and is one of the most dominant players on the floor. He did a lot of things very well tonight.”

Overall, Hoiberg said he believes this could be a point his team can look at as a moment where they put all the pieces together and finished a game as a team. He said he’s feeling better about where this team is headed.

“We’ve had games where we’ve played well offensively, not defensively, [games when we] had poor offensive efforts, but we stepped up on defense,” Hoiberg said. “This was a game I thought we played well together. It was fun to see our guys step up and play a game together for a full 40 minutes.

“It’s a group that — they keep fighting. They want it. They’re working extremely hard. I like these guys. They’re starting to come together as a team and hopefully starting to get it.”