They came in as the only team in the Big 12 never to have won at Hilton Coliseum, and that’s exactly how the Bears left.

The Cyclones were able to force their will on the Bears in the second half, slowing the game down for a 71-62 win at Hilton on Tuesday night in front of an announced crowd of 10,407.

Included in the score was six first half three-pointers for Iowa State, beating the single season school record of 203 three-pointers in a season set by the 2007 team. Senior guard Bryan Petersen tied the mark with a three-pointer with 4:06 left in the half and junior forward Jamie Vanderbeken set the new mark on a three-pointer with seven seconds left in the first half. Iowa State finished the game with 10 three-pointers.

“It was really fun out there today,” Petersen said. “We played really well as a team and just got rolling and it just feels really really good to get a win.”

A back and forth first half saw neither team establish and keep the tempo they wanted. Baylor tried to push the ball and the Cyclones tried to get into a half-court game. The Cyclones imposed their style on the game to open up the second half, scoring the first nine points of the half on their way to a 42-29 lead as the Bears switched from zone defense to man-to-man and failed to stop the Cyclones’ offense.

Baylor wouldn’t get closer than 10 points again as the Cyclones rolled to victory.

Sophomore forward Craig Brackins led the way for the Cyclones with 19 points, including five hard dunks. He also led the team with 12 rebounds for his 12th double-double of the season. Petersen added 10 points for Iowa State and Diante Garrett also added 10.

As a team, the Cyclones were perfect from the free-throw line, going 15 for 15.

Tweety Carter led all scorers with 20 points for Baylor.

Although Iowa State was able to open up a big lead and roll in the second half, the first half was much closer.

The Bears decided to come out of the tunnel with a little bit bigger line-up than usual. 7-foot-1 senior center Mamadou Diene, who is only averaging 10 minutes a game, got the start over 6-foot-7 Quincy Acy and played the first 6:30 of the game.

“I think the key for them was probably just to have him use his length and try to throw me off if I try to, you know, throw up a shot or something,” Brackins said. “They played pretty good pack defense on me, didn’t want me to really drive the lane or do much. But we swung it around to our teammates and they came through.”

The switch seemed to work well as Diene scored the opening basket of the game and finished the game with 4 points, more than double his season average. Diene also played tough defense on Brackins to begin the game, allowing just two shots, both contested, and both misses.

Baylor used this solid defensive play to hold the Cyclones to five points for almost nine minutes, and looked as though they might run away with the game as they took a 15-5 lead.

“We didn’t get off to a very good start on the offensive or defensive end,” McDermott said. “They exploted a few things we were doing defensivly with our ball screen defense, and were able to get some baskets in the first seven or eight possetions.”

The Cyclones used a myriad of players in the game with eleven different Cyclones seeing the court within the first 10 minutes, and many of those players continued to play intermittently throughout the game. The only eligible players to not see the court were Clinton Mann and Cameron Lee.

“I was just looking for a combination that would work,” McDermott said. “Sometimes, for whatever reason, you get five guys out there together and it’s just not clicking.”

Eventually, they found the players they wanted as Garrett, Brackins, Vanderbeken, Lucca Staiger, and Wes Eikmeier got hot as those five played the majority of a 13-2 run to take an 18-17 lead on a 3-pointer by Eikmeier.

“To get us back in the game it was huge,” Petersen said. “But I think over the last couple of games we’ve shown we can make a couple runs after a team.”