Drake’s public address announcer has his own special call for a Bulldog 3-point basket.

“That’s a 3-pointer – I’m lovin’ it!”

Bulldog fans got their share of that call on Wednesday night, as did the thousand or so Cyclone fans that made the 37-mile journey to the Knapp Center in Drake’s 79-44 victory over Iowa State.

Drake came in averaging 10.5 threes a game – ninth-best in the nation – and got just over that with 11 on Wednesday. After hitting six in the first half, Drake turned its 35-20 halftime lead into a 49-22 lead with 17:31 left in the game, effectively taking away any lingering hopes of a Cyclone comeback early in the half.

“The coaches stressed – really stressed – we want to play how we did before we came into the locker room,” said Drake’s Josh Young, who finished with 23 points and 4-of-5 3-point shooting. “Just because you’re up 15 doesn’t mean you should switch your style of play or hold the ball more, you know – you’re still looking to score. We just wore them down with our offense, and we were still able to get drives and kick it out for wide open shots.”

After falling behind, 35-14, the Cyclones were able to get a little bit of momentum back with back-to-back threes of their own by Alex Thompson and Wesley Johnson before heading into halftime. ISU coach Greg McDermott said he knew the most critical part of the game would be how his team came out in the second half – the point where the game fell out of reach.

“I was probably most disappointed with the start of the second half,” McDermott said. “We got the game back within 15, and the start of the second half was what would determine whether we would have a shot . we went with the lineup that we thought would give us a little more quickness, and they still were able to beat us with the 3-point shots.”

Drake coach Keno Davis said that, coming into the year, he knew the philosophy would be to rely on 3-point shooting with good shooters in Young and seniors Leonard Houston and Klayton Korver.

“We lost some extremely talented players, but we replaced them with really good shooters, so I think we knew that was going to be a strength of our team, and we kind of tweaked the offense to try to take advantage of that,” Davis said.

That philosophy is carried over to any situation in the game, even after dominating the first 20 minutes.

“That’s the last thing I said to the coming out of halftime,” Davis said. “You can’t play any differently when we’re up 15 and we’re down 15. We can’t turn down shots that we’re taking at the beginning of the game because of the situation that we’re in.

“I said, ‘I will tell you when to stop shooting the ball. We’re not going to be upset about that, that’s what we do the best.'”