How does the Iowa State men’s basketball team spell relief? D-E-F-E-N-S-E.

ISU’s tenacious man-to-man defense held Wisconsin-Milwaukee to 36 percent shooting from the floor in a 63-52 victory at Hilton Coliseum Tuesday night.

“I can’t find a whole positive (out of the game) other than defensively we had a great effort,” said ISU head coach Tim Floyd.

On a night when ISU’s leading scorer, Dedric Willoughby with 16, was held to 4-14 shooting, the Cyclones were forced to look elsewhere for a spark.

Carlo Walton provided that spark off the bench in the first half. Down 12-10, Walton came up with a steal off the dribble and drove the length of the court for an easy lay-in.

Walton ended up with three steals and three assists in only 10 minutes of playing time in the first half, but also contributed three turnovers to Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s cause.

“I think that Carlo makes an awful lot happen defensively, and once he settles down a little bit he is going to be a very good basketball player,” Floyd said.

The only player who drew unbridled praise from Floyd after the game was 6′-6″ junior Shawn Bankhead.

“I guess if anyone maybe did the job tonight, it might have been Bankhead,” Floyd said. “He played inspired and limited his turnovers.”

Bankhead had only one turnover in 33 minutes of action and contributed seven rebounds and nine points to the team’s cause. Bankhead’s lay-up with 32 seconds left in the game gave ISU its biggest lead at 59-45.

Both teams started slowly on the offensive. The first points of the game were not scored until over four minutes were gone on an off-balance lay-up by Willoughby.

Both teams traded leads before ISU went up by double-digits following an 11-point run. Bankhead scored two straight baskets during the run that put the Cyclones up 29-18 with 3:33 left in the half.

Wisconsin-Milwaukee was held to 31 percent shooting in the first half, but poor free-throw shooting by ISU kept the Panthers in the ball game. The Cyclones converted only 60 percent of their foul shots in taking a 32-25 lead at half.

“I can handle poor shooting, which we did tonight, … but I couldn’t handle the casualness in every other phase of the game offensively,” Floyd said.

“If we would have been on the road tonight, we would gotten beat by 15. Fortunately our crowd was into it long enough to gets us over the hump just a little bit when they made a run at us.”