Craig Brackins was a little bit slower Wednesday, but more productive than the

past.

The freshman forward made his first five shots of the game as the Cyclones (9-

5) defeated USC-Upstate (2-12) by a score of 72-48 Wednesday night before an announced crowd of 12,100 at Hilton Coliseum.

“I just need to slow down,” Brackins said. “I rush a lot.”

On Wednesday, he rushed his Cyclone team to an 11-3 lead in the first half. Brackins helped cap off an 11-0 run for Iowa State with a jump shot. The freshman made a pair of shots during the run and finished the night with 10 points.

“What happens when your double-teamed a lot within a game, when you get an open look, you tend to rush it before the double team gets there,” said ISU coach Greg McDermott. “That’s just a young player learning how to read defenses and play out of a double team.”

The double team that he’s seen most of the season didn’t come Wednesday. Instead, the Spartans played man to man and zone defense, allowing Brackins to work around junior forward Bobby Davis. Brackins pulled down seven rebounds and was 5-of-7 from the field.

“He took his time, got some good looks at the basket, so I thought he was really effective,” McDermott said. “I thought his teammates did a good job of getting him the ball in a place where he could be effective.”

What they didn’t do a good job of was holding onto the ball. After allowing

just one turnover in the Cyclones previous six games, junior point guard Bryan

Petersen turned the ball over four times in the first half, with his last coming with 1:44 remaining in the half. Spartans’ guard Josh Chavis intercepted a Petersen pass and hit USC-Upstate guard Luke Payne for a jump

shot. The basket marked the end of a 9-0 run to end the second half.

“Outside of the last five or six minutes of the first half, I thought we did exactly what we needed to do,” McDermott said.

The Spartans carried that momentum into the second half making their first three shots of the period before Petersen connected on a pair of three-pointers.

“Just (a) bad team effort,” said senior center Jiri Hubalek. “We did a lot better job at the beginning of the game and throughout some parts of the second half but I think we just made some mistakes we’ve got to correct.”

The entire effort held the Spartans to under 50 points for the first time this

season. The Cyclones’ defense held USC Upstate to only 55.6 percent shooting in the second half.

“We were having a terrible time scoring in a half-court offense,” said Spartans coach Eddie Payne.

The Cyclones have one more game on Saturday hosting North Dakota before opening Big 12 play on January 12 when they travel to Baylor. It’ll also give Brackins one more chance to slow things down.

“My shots were falling,” Brackins said. “It just felt good to throw up some shots and actually have them go in.”