ISU men’s basketball coach Larry Eustachy didn’t forget that his team was just playing an exhibition game, even though his team defeated Next Level Sports 86-62.

“We’re about a two on a scale of one to 10; 10 is where we want to be,” Eustachy said. “Maybe a two and a half.”

The Cyclones once again looked to sophomores Jake Sullivan and Marcus Jefferson, who scored 16 and 15 points, respectively. Sullivan shot seven of 13 from the field and Jefferson grabbed 14 rebounds.

Senior forward Tyray Pearson also added 15 points for the Cyclones. Sophomore Shane Power put in 12 and junior Omar Bynum scored 10.

“I think we started off the game right, and then, we went a little low there,” Power said of the first half.

Eustachy said the big problem that remains with this team is a lack of experience and maturity.

With a slightly noticeable improvement in defense from last week, Eustachy credited his team’s practices.

“I’m happy with how we practiced between games,” Eustachy said. “This team is all about practice.”

And that is what has been determining Eustachy’s distribution of playing time and the starting lineup. Freshman center Jared Homan was the only change in the starting lineup from last week, replacing sophomore Andrew Skoglund – who only played three minutes.

“The guys that grow up the quickest will get the minutes,” Eustachy said. “I thought Homan is ahead of schedule. He’s had good practices.”

Homan, who was somewhat plagued with foul trouble, put up nine points in 14 minutes on four-of-five shooting.

“I was pretty happy with my performance, but there’s always room for improvement,” Homan said. “I missed a couple of free throws. I could have played a little better defense on the post.”

Eustachy was also looking to improve toughness with this game, but only noted little improvement, crediting the score and a points in the paint advantage to Next Level Sport’s fatigue.

“Toughness, I think we got a little bit better; we were soft with the ball at times,” Power said. “I think we did a good job of taking advantage of that,” Power said, referring to Next Level Sports exhaustion.

Eustachy is looking forward to a week of practice before beginning the regular season at home against Hartford Monday.

Eustachy also said turnovers are something that needs to be worked on. Pearson led the team with five.

“Turnovers are big with us,” Eustachy said. “That’s the problem with this team, we lack experience.”

Eustachy once again eluded to practices as to where the improvements need to show up.

“If you don’t do it in practices, it won’t show up in the games,” he said.