In the first of three in-state battles this season, the ISU men’s basketball team wasted no time taking its first step toward the mythical state championship with a 68-61 victory over Northern Iowa on Tuesday night.

Curtis Stinson led the Cyclones with 19 points, but it was a career night in scoring from Anthony Davis that made the difference against the Panthers.

“Anthony Davis really came through,” said coach Wayne Morgan. “He was like a silent assassin.”

Davis finished with a career-high 15 points and contributed a 3-for-4 effort from 3-point range. Davis’s previous career high was 13 against Portland State.

“I really felt the difference was guys like Anthony Davis and Shawn Taggart,” said UNI coach Greg McDermott. “They stepped up and made some shots outside their comfort zone.”

The Cyclones avenged last year’s 99-82 loss in Cedar Falls in convincing fashion, holding the Panthers to just 23 percent shooting (6-of-26) from behind the arc and avoided dropping consecutive home nonconference games -it would have been the first time since 1990 for them to do so.

“It’s no secret we built this team on the ability to shoot it,” McDermott said.

The Cyclones led 36-33 at halftime and outshot Northern Iowa from behind the arc, going 5-for-10 in the opening half, including a 2-for-2 effort from Davis. Iowa State finished at 44 percent on three pointers, going 7-of-16.

The Cyclones had been shooting 27 percent from downtown on the season going into the game.

“I thought we had a lot of shots that left our hand that would be good but ended long,” said sophomore guard Tasheed Carr.

“I still don’t think we played that well offensively, but I liked our intensity and we executed well.”

Davis led Iowa State with eight first half points with Taggart and Rahshon Clark following with six apiece.

Clark was the focus of a scary moment late in the first half when he hit the court hard on a put-back attempt. He had already connected once on a high-flying dunk and was about to attempt the same maneuver with less than a minute to play, but had his legs taken out and crashed to the floor, where he remained, favoring his right arm, for more than a minute.

Clark went straight to the locker room after trainers tended to him on the floor, but returned to the game with 12:53 to play in the game and his right wrist heavily taped. He did not score in the second half.

The ISU defense also came up big, holding Panther standout Ben Jacobson in check the entire game. Jacobson managed only seven first half points and finished with 17, but the Cyclones kept the Panthers’ leading scorer from ever finding his rhythm from outside.

Things started to get heated midway through the second half.

After a foul was called on Davis, a fracas broke out between Clark and Northern Iowa’s Grant Stout.

After Clark and Stout finished exchanging pleasantries, both were hit with technical fouls. The incident seemed to ignite the Cyclones, who then went on a 12-5 run, capped by Davis’s third three-pointer of the night to give Iowa State its biggest lead of 11 points at 66-55.

“That last three was really like a dagger that sealed the game for us,” Morgan said.

Tasheed Carr and Taggart were the other two Cyclones to score in double figures with 11 and 10 points, respectively, while Will Blalock poured in 10 assists to go with five points.

The Cyclones see their next action when they host Fresno State at Hilton Coliseum at 7 p.m. Saturday.