It seemed like the Cyclones were missing something for most of their game Tuesday against the Missouri Tigers.

A quick look at the stats showed what was wrong.

Curtis Stinson – 0 points.

Halftime came with Stinson a mere 0-of-1 from the floor and still searching for his first points. The second half began. One, two, five minutes in – still no points.

Finally, with 12:49 to play in the game, Stinson nailed two free throws to enter the scoring column, but was still without a field goal.

After struggling to keep their collective heads above water in the first half and being unable to pull away during the opening 10 minutes of the second half, Iowa State appeared to be lacking the spark necessary to win the game.

That all changed with one shot.

With 8:58 to play in the game and the shot clock down to three, Stinson notched his first field goal when he buried a 3-pointer to put Iowa State up 10 at 60-50.

“I didn’t really notice I was in a drought,” Stinson said.

“We were playing good basketball. Maybe I wasn’t scoring but we were playing good defense and getting stops.”

The shot got the crowd back into the game and gave the Cyclones new energy, confidence and their biggest lead of the night to that point.

“Seeing that he’s scoring, that he made the shot [gave us some confidence],” said ISU coach Wayne Morgan. “Any time you have a lead and it goes to double-digits, then you start to think ‘OK, we’ve almost got this thing.’ I have to give Missouri credit though, they kept fighting.”

Missouri answered with a 7-0 run to pull within 60-57 but Stinson had found his groove and scored seven of Iowa State’s next 10 points to thwart the Tigers rally and finished with 13.

Stinson also added eight assists – four in his scoreless first half – setting up his teammates to get the points he was struggling to get.

In the end, Stinson said, all that matters is the fact the Cyclones got the win.

“It feels good to win any game,” Stinson said. “It feels good to have the seniors go out with a win. I’m really glad we got this ‘W’.”