No. 5 Iowa State exited the Maui Invitational with a dominant 99-71 victory over Colorado Wednesday. The win came about via a career-high point total for forward Milan Momcilovic and the Cyclones’ ability to turn turnovers into points.
After a 2-1 showing in Maui, Iowa State now sits at 5-1 on the young season.
Momcilovic leads the way
In the first two games of the Maui Invitational, Momcilovic had solid showings with 12 points against No. 4 Auburn and 10 against Dayton.
His best game of the tournament came in the final one. Not only did Momcilovic lead the Cyclones in scoring with 24 points, it was his career-high point total.
Momcilovic made it happen by shooting 9-for-13 from the floor and led the team from deep, going 6-for-9 from 3-point range. The rest of the Cyclones combined went 5-for-16 from beyond the arc.
Last season, Momcilovic’s point high was 21, which came at the ESPN Events Invitational against Virginia Tech, the Feast Week tournament Iowa State played a season ago.
There must be something about these early-season tournaments that Momcilovic likes because he tends to shoot well and score a lot.
Scoring runs, strong shooting throughout
Iowa State and Colorado each went on a run of its own in the first half. The Cyclones had theirs first and had a 13-7 lead after a 9-0 run that featured five points from Momcilovic.
A few minutes later, Colorado went on a 9-2 run that featured three 3-pointers for the Buffaloes. The run was interrupted by a layup from Iowa State forward Joshua Jefferson.
With a few minutes remaining in the half, Iowa State responded with another big run. This one was 10-0 over three minutes. Within that run, the Cyclones forced four turnovers.
Iowa State had 20 points off of turnovers in the first half.
The brunt of the first-half points came from Momcilovic, who had 18 points on 7-for-9 shooting in the first half. As a team, the Cyclones were lights out from the floor and shot 58% in the opening 20 minutes.
From three, Iowa State shot 33% compared to Colorado’s 43%. More than half of the Buffaloes’ first-half points came from beyond the arc.
On the Cyclones’ side, Momcilovic hit four of the Cyclones’ five first-half 3-pointers.
In the second half, Iowa State used another 9-0 and 10-0 run to pull away and build a gap. Even as the shots continued to be put up, the shooting percentage never wavered.
The Cyclones shot 64% from the field in the second half and at the end of the game shot 60% on the day.
Six Cyclones ended up scoring in double-digits, including Momcilovic, guard Curtis Jones with 19 and guard Keshon Gilbert with 15. Three players scored 10 points, guard Tamin Lipsey, forward Joshua Jefferson and center Dishon Jackson.
Seven of the eight Iowa State players who scored shot at or over 50% in the game.
Turnovers lead to points
One of the strongest points of Iowa State’s team is the ability to trap, force turnovers and score off of them. That was exactly the case against Colorado.
The Cyclones forced 18 turnovers and got 37 points off of those turnovers, 20 in the first half and 17 in the second. Entering the game, Iowa State averaged 16.7 takeaways per game.
The one who led the charge was Lipsey, who had four steals. Lipsey had a tough tournament on the offensive side, but defensively he came up clutch against Colorado.
With the amount of turnovers and points that resulted from them, it was a big reason why Iowa State went on some of the scoring runs it did. The Cyclones’ 10-0 run in the first half included four turnovers from the Buffaloes.
If the defense can continue to turn to offense like it did Wednesday, Iowa State will be in good shape throughout the season.
A mauling in Maui
Though the first half was close until the final few minutes, it didn’t take long into the second half for Iowa State to run away with the win.
The Cyclones led by as much as 30 and ended up winning by 28. Iowa State outscored Colorado 54-37 in the second half.
In the opening games in Maui, the Cyclones lost by two and won by five. To beat a team by nearly 30 points on the final day of playing three games in a row is tough, especially since all eight teams in the tournament are quad-one teams.
It was an important win from a conference perspective too, considering the Cyclones and Buffaloes will play twice in the Big 12 portion of the schedule.
Now that the Maui Invitational is over, Iowa State will head back home to prepare for Marquette, which visits the Cyclones in Hilton Coliseum Wednesday. The game is set for 7 p.m. and will be streamed live on ESPN+.
