KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Alex Thompson missed a jump shot from the top of the lane, but Rahshon Clark grabbed the rebound and went back up. His lay up rolled around the rim and finally off, but this time Craig Brackins grabbed the offensive board. He dished it back outside to Clark for a wide-open three-pointer. Brick.

It was that kind of night for the ISU men’s basketball team. The Cyclones couldn’t find the bottom of the net, shooting just 27.4 percent in a 60-47 loss to Texas A&M in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament.

“To win in this game you have to make shots,” said coach Greg McDermott. “We missed some free throws, we missed the front ends of one-and-one(s). We had some open looks in the first half from the three-point line, and missed some opportunities down deep to make shots.”

It didn’t matter where on the court Iowa State was shooting from. The team shot 30.4 percent (7-for-23) from three and 50 percent (6-for-12) from the line. The Cyclones had particular trouble scoring close to the basket. Iowa State scored just 14 points in the paint and had eight shots blocked.

“The statistics are very telling,” McDermott said. “We couldn’t get anything to fall. It wasn’t necessarily jump shots.”

It was just that Iowa State was shooting poorly. A&M has been one of the top defensive teams in the Big 12 all season, holding opponents to just 39.1 percent shooting on the season.

Iowa State didn’t catch a free pass. The Cyclones went more than three minutes without scoring on four occasions, and almost six minutes twice.

“A&M has been successful this year in large part because they’re so sound defensively,” McDermott said. “.But we’re [leading] 7-2 and the next time you look up there, we’re down 14-7. A stretch like that against a team that’s.Wasn’t long ago this team was almost a top ten team in the country, it’s hard to come back from.”

The offensive futility wasted a tremendous defensive effort. The Cyclones held A&M 12 points below its 72.2 per game average. Normally a 35.7 three-point percent shooting team, the Aggies made just three from downtown on the way to 25 percent shooting from beyond the arc.

As a fitting end to a season and a career, Clark spent the game tirelessly chasing sharp-shooter Josh Carter around screen after screen. Carter, who led the nation in three-point shooting last year, went just 1-for-6 for the game and just 1-of-3 from beyond the arc.

“Basically I just tried not to let him get the ball,” Clark said. “I knew if he was able to get a couple shots off, good looks, that he’d start getting some momentum and start making shots, so I just tried my best not to let him touch the ball.”

It was a disappointing way to end a career for both seniors, Clark and Jiri Hubalek. The duo came in averaging 21.3 points per game, but combined for just two in their final game as Cyclones. They combined to go 1-for-15 from the floor.

But despite the way it all ended, McDermott doesn’t want his seniors to remember this last game when they think about Iowa State.

“My message to Jiri after the game was don’t you dare take this away as a memory from your experience at Iowa State,” McDermott said. “This needs to become the furthest thing from your mind.”