The way the Cyclones have played at home this year, there wasn’t a more fitting way to end their Hilton season than Wednesday night’s 83-77 victory over Colorado.

“What I’m happy about with this win is that we sent our seniors off the way we sent them off in front of a great home crowd,” ISU head coach Wayne Morgan said.

Emotions ran high even before the game began as the six ISU seniors were introduced to the crowd of 12,873.

Seniors Jackson Vroman, Jake Sullivan, Andrew Skoglund, Marcus Jefferson and Justin Fries started the Senior Night game for Iowa State and jumped out to an early 8-2 lead.

“They’re such a great group of young men, and we wanted to do that to honor them,” Morgan said. “They’ve put in a lot of sweat and bruises and sometimes blood, and they got us off to a great start.”

The lead wouldn’t last long, however, as Colorado simply could not miss from the 3-point line in the first half, hitting its first eight threes. The Buffaloes took a 47-41 lead into halftime on 8-of-10 shooting from behind the arc.

As the second half began, it looked as though Iowa State’s grip on the game was slipping, falling down by as many as 13 points early in the half. But the Cyclones regained their composure and took a 62-61 lead on a fastbreak lay-up by freshman Curtis Stinson.

From then on, it was a seesaw battle until Sullivan hit a big 3 to give the Cyclones a 75-71 lead they would not lose.

“Our team’s been great in terms of having a big heart and knowing they can come back,” Morgan said.

Sullivan said the Cyclones gets more confident when they’re behind.

“We’ve been a second half team all year,” Sullivan said. “We’ve done this a lot lately; even in our last two road games we’ve come back. We’re confident when we’re down, we just kind of wear people out sometimes.”

A big factor in the Cyclone victory was the Buffaloes’ 26 turnovers, 15 of them coming in the second half, largely due to Iowa State’s full-court press.

“We tried [the press] against them at their place and they killed us against it,” Sullivan said. “Tonight we caught them off guard and executed well.”

Colorado turned it over repeatedly during a 16-2 ISU run.

“[The press] worked really well,” Vroman said. “After you get a couple of steals, it makes the other team a little nervous to bring the ball up the court.”

The Buffaloes also didn’t shoot as hot from the 3-point line in the second half, making only four of their 10 shots.

Michel Morandais led Colorado with 17 points, with center David Harrison throwing down 16.

Vroman and Stinson led Iowa State with 19 points apiece. Jared Homan and Sullivan chipped in 11 and 12 respectively, but no contribution may have meant as much as Jefferson’s 15 points in just his third game back with the team after missing much of the conference season for personal reasons.

“[Jefferson’s] performance was huge,” Sullivan said. “I think he kind of caught people off guard a little bit.”

Jefferson’s mother died last May after a battle with cancer. Wednesday, the senior said his mother’s memory played a big part in his performance Wednesday night.

“I really had my mom on my heart tonight and I played hard and really wanted to win,” Jefferson said.

Jefferson said his performance was big — but he isn’t done yet.

“It feels good, but we’ve still got to get a road win,” Jefferson said. “I don’t want to have been here three years without getting a road win, so now we’ll move on to the next game.”