A sluggish first half start saw the Cyclones trailing 6-0 just one minute into the game, and 38-36 at halftime, but the sharp-shooting of senior guard Kantrail Horton proved to be too much for visiting Global Sports. Iowa State held on to prevail 91-85.

The final score was not indicative of the way things played in the second half, as a barrage of late three-pointers by Global Sports closed the gap in a game that was getting out of hand.

Guard Kevin Norris hit three three-pointers in the final 1:27, and Kwame Evans added another with nine seconds remaining to cap a 12-2 run by the visitors to end the game.

Horton shot poorly in the first half, but got hot early in the second half, hitting all six of his three-pointers in the second frame. He finished with 20 points on six of 11 shooting, including six of eight from three-point land.

Before Horton’s heroics, Iowa State couldn’t find an answer to the inside-outside attack of Global Sports.

The visitors held their own with the 25th-ranked Cyclones throughout the first half, even amassing a lead of eight points with 3:47 to go in the first period. Iowa State did manage to pull within two to close out the half on one of Jamaal Tinsley’s patented spin-move layups.

Much to Global Sports’ dismay, the second half belonged to Horton and company.

Iowa State went on a tear midway through the second frame to build a 19-point lead with 8:06 remaining in the game that put things out of reach for the visitors.

Senior forward Paul Shirley led the charge in the second half and finished with 27 points and seven rebounds.

The Cyclones did little to please head coach Larry Eustachy with their sporadic play. “We’re a product of our practices. We practice in spurts, so we play in spurts,” he said. “We could have just as easily played real well and then had a spurt where we played real bad.”

Preseason All-American point guard Jamaal Tinsley did much to excite the crowd Wednesday night, but failed to play anything resembling a complete game, concluding the game with 13 points, 10 rebounds, and game-high nine turnovers.

“He’s not very good at all [said of Tinsley’s play Wednesday]. Look at the nine turnovers, he’s like the rest of the team; he’s a product of his practices,” Eustachy said following the game.

Eustachy did take away some positives from Wednesday’s contest, including the play of newcomers Omar Bynum and Tyray Pearson, to go along with his team’s streaks of good play. “I thought under the circumstances they were positive,” he said. “They don’t have any experience as opposed to a lot of guys on this team that do. I thought they executed really well under the circumstances.”

For the visitors, Evans and Norris finished with 20 and 17 points respectively.

“It was all right,” Horton said of his team’s play. “We’ve got a long way to go. We gave up 85 points; that’s something we don’t do. And we had 17 turnovers; that’s not in our game.”

Next on tap for the Cyclone men is a date with Morningside College Tuesday Nov. 21 at 8 p.m.