When sophomore Wesley Johnson headed to the locker room with 11:37 to play in the first half Tuesday night against Colorado, the Cyclones knew they were in a tough spot.

Trailing 12-6 at the under-12-minute timeout, Johnson, the team’s leading scorer, left the floor and was taken to the locker room to have his right ankle evaluated.

After spending the remainder of the first half in the training room, Johnson returned to the floor for the second half but never re-entered the game due to what is being called a sprained right ankle.

“He’s out indefinitely,” ISU coach Greg McDermott said of the injury. “What that means yet, a lot of that is going to depend on how he feels in the next day or two. I think he came down on somebody’s foot, and if he bends it backwards when he lands, that irritates that area. How bad it’s irritated is yet to be seen.”

Without their leading scorer out on the floor, Iowa State struggled to a season-low 15 first half points on just 21.7 percent shooting. Entering Tuesday’s game with the Buffaloes, Johnson was the third-leading scorer in Big 12 play at 19.2 points per contest.

Before suffering his injury, Johnson managed just two points in eight minutes, breaking a streak of four consecutive 20-point performances and ten straight games scoring in double-digits.

Guard Sean Haluska said the Cyclones made some halftime adjustments on the offensive end because of Johnson’s injury.

“At halftime, we decided to set those ball screens up top. I think using that ball screen we were trying to get the ball into Craig [Brackins] and Jiri [Hubalek],” Haluska said. “We did make some adjustments, and I think it all worked out for us.”

In Johnson’s absence, the Cyclone bench recorded a season-high 27 bench points, led by Haluska’s career-high nine points. Cameron Lee added six points for Iowa State and Cory Johnson and Diante Garrett each added five.

McDermott said the players coming off the bench were critical in Johnson’s absence.

“I’m just really proud of guys like Cameron Lee, Sean Haluska and Cory Johnson that haven’t necessarily played a lot of minutes, but that really gave us a big lift tonight,” he said.

With a tough three-game stretch ahead of them in which they travel to Nebraska, then play host to No. 10 Texas and No. 23 Texas A&M, McDermott said the Cyclones may be forced to change their approach if Johnson is not able to play in the next few games.

“I’d be concerned because of Wes’ importance on the offensive end and on the backboards,” he said. “It hurts us on the backboards because you’re much smaller and not as athletic without Wes out there, but we’ll find a way to stay in games.”