CHICAGO — When tournament time comes around, one loss earns you an early ticket home.

Fortunately for the Cyclones’ men’s basketball team, losing their first game of the year at the Chicago Invitational Tournament doesn’t end their season.

Struggling with less than 24 hours of preparation and a streaky shooting touch, up and down the bench, the Cyclones fell from the ranks of the unbeatens, losing to hometown Northwestern University, 67-65, in the championship game of the Chicago Invitational.

Coach Greg McDermott couldn’t get a strong defensive effort down the stretch to overcome a 7-for-25 field goal mark in the second half.

“We did a lot of things well, but we didn’t shoot the three-point shot as well in the second half, and we missed some shots around the paint that we normally would finish,” McDermott said.

“There were only 28 possessions in the second half, and that was not how we wanted this game to be like.”

The quick 6-0 start to the season had fans and critics wondering how good this edition of the Cyclones’ men’s basketball team would be, and while they had shown the ability to blow out weaker opponents, beating Saint Louis on Friday night was the team’s greatest accomplishment to date. Having to play a disciplined and balanced Northwestern team 22 hours later turned out to be too much to handle.

“We fell asleep on defense a little bit, and Northwestern is very disciplined — it’s something we need to learn from. It was an offense we hadn’t seen all year, and we had a day of prep, so it was difficult to guard their stuff,” forward Craig Brackins said.

The Wildcats attacked the Cyclones with a Princeton-style motion offense, to the tune of 26 points in the paint on a night Northwestern hit 10 three pointers.

“If you’re going to beat a team like Northwestern, you can’t give up lay-ups. You’re going to give up a few threes, but you can’t give up lay-ups,” McDermott said. “And the five or six lay-ups we gave up over the course of the game was certainly the difference.”

Northwestern’s balance developed down the sretch, but, early on, sophomore forward John Shurna made himself known to Iowa State’s defenders. Shurna knocked down 17 points in the first 12 minutes of the game and finished with a game-high 23 points, which were enough to solidify his nod for tournament MVP.

“I guarded him when I was in Serbia [at the University Games], so I’ve played against him before. I knew how good a shooter he was,” Brackins said. “We were talking before the game, and we smiled at each other. We hung out when we were in Colorado. He’s a great kid and a great player.”

Brackins came on strong late defensively, but the star junior struggled shooting the basketball, going 6-for-16 from the floor, including 3-for-10 in the deciding second half.

“Maybe we were trying too hard and we were fatigued and were letting that get to us, trying to score, instead of grinding the time,” Brackins said.

The problems Brackins encountered from the field did not limit themselves to his hands, as Iowa State held to a season low 26 points in the second half. Despite the low output from the floor, McDermott said he felt his team’s 28-percent second half pace was not the significant problem.

“Offensively, we played well enough to win, but we just didn’t do the job defensively,” McDermott said.

The Cyclones were held to 65 points in both finals games at the Chicago Invitational — against Saint Louis and Northwestern — and the opponents from the major Atlantic-10 and Big 10 conferences were responsible for the lowest shooting marks from the season. The neutral site is an enigma in college basketball, but, despite the turnout of a couple thousand Cyclone fans, the ball just wouldn’t drop in the basket.

“Coach always tells me, ‘If the shot is open, be ready for it.’ Lucca and I were talking about how the rims were really hard and so we had to be sure it didn’t touch the rim. I was feeling it pretty well, it just wasn’t enough,” Vanderbeken said.

Getting their first loss out of the way may alleviate some of the pressure of being undefeated, but losing to Northwestern opens a whole new set of doors, with difficult match-ups against Northern Iowa, California and rival Iowa Hawkeyes in the next two weeks.

“This is a big stepping stone for us. For us older guys, we’ve been here before, so we have to help the new guys and that we can let this go and move on to the next,” Brackins said.

Vanderbeken, who finished with 12 points, echoed the sentiments of the team leader.

“With the first loss, we know what it feels like now, and we can’t be comfortable beating teams by 20 anymore,” Vanderbeken said.

Point guard Diante Garrett logged his sixth career 10-assist game during the contest, and guard Scott Christopherson was held scoreless for the first time in his brief Cyclone career.

Iowa State’s next contest is back at Hilton Coliseum, against McDermott’s former school, the Northern Iowa Panthers, at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.