Big 12 play is underway, and it was No. 7 Texas that provided Iowa State with a 75-67 reminder Saturday in Austin, Texas.

The Cyclones (11-5, 0-1) responded well to the road challenge, and lurked on the tails of a comfortable Longhorns’ (12-3, 1-0) squad all afternoon. The pattern, however, became very familiar, and very frustrating for the Cyclones.

Texas jumped to an early 29-16 first half lead, but the Cyclones countered with a 11-4 run to close the half at 33-27.

Three more times in the second half Iowa State went on runs to cut the lead just enough to conjure visions of a top-25 upset. But after all three Cyclone efforts, the Longhorns quickly erased upset notions with three runs of their own. The third, a 9-2 run that put Texas up 12 with two minutes to play, finally sunk the resilient Cyclones.

“We had to come in here and play a pretty perfect game to beat Texas,” said coach Greg McDermott after the game.

The Cyclones were far from perfect — shooting 38 percent from the field and sending Texas to the charity stripe 28 times – yet far from disappointing.

“I was proud of how we competed today,” McDermott said. “We got down by 13 points in the first half and [Craig] Brackins was on the bench with a couple of fouls. I was pleased how we battled back and got ourselves in the game.”

McDermott said the Cyclones defensive plan was to neutralize Texas’ inside scoring and A.J. Abrams,Texas’ leading scorer at 17.5 points per game. A wise plan. A season ago, Abrams torched Iowa State for with seven threes and 25 points.

The Cyclones followed the defensive plan well, holding Abrams to just eight points on 2-of-10 shooting. The plan, however, left open mid-range shots all afternoon for Damion Jones and Gary Johnson, who made the Cyclones pay by combining to score 36 points.

“That was a chance we had to take,” McDermott said about the defensive strategy. “We’re relatively young and inexperienced inside at a couple spots, and to provide some help on the block, we chose to see how well those guys could shoot it from the mid-range level. To their credit, especially Gary Johnson in the first half, they made us pay for it.”

To make matters worse, Cyclones center Craig Brackins, the Big 12’s third leading scorer at 18.4 ppg, picked up two quick fouls and spent a large chunk of the first half on the bench. He scored one first half point and during his absence, Texas stretched the lead to nine points.

“They kept throwing different players at me, trying to disrupt what I was trying to do,” Brackins said. “But in the second half, I felt like I played a little better. It’s something that I definitely have to work on.”

Brackins’ definition of “little better” translated to 19 second half points, as he helped keep the Cyclones in contention. Brackins finished with 20 points and 13 rebounds for his sixth double-double of the season.

Lucca Staiger also played well for the Cyclones, dishing out a season high five assists, and scoring 15 points.

Texas ended the Cyclones four game winning streak, denied Iowa State of its first win over a top-25 team since a win over Colorado on Feb. 5, 2006, and extended the Cyclones Big 12 road losing streak to nine games.

Despite the loss, Brackins felt the game against Texas gave Iowa State a good opportunity to measure its progress.

“I think we’re doing pretty well,” he said. “I think we’re going to learn from this game a lot. We found out where we are and we need to progress with that, and get better.

Iowa State comes back home to face Nebraska (11-3, 1-0) 7 p.m. Wednesday.