MILWAUKEE — Despite a late push, No. 3 seed Iowa State could not overcome its early shooting struggles in its 91-78 loss to No. 6 seed Ole Miss Sunday night. With the loss, the Cyclones’ season officially ends with a round of 32 exit in the NCAA Tournament.

Starting the game, Iowa State looked to take a commanding lead over the Rebels following a 9-0 run that gave the Cyclones an early 13-5 lead.

Following that, things would start to increasingly go in favor of Ole Miss. The Rebels answered Iowa State’s early lead with a 20-2 run that gave Ole Miss an 11-point lead.

During this time, the Cyclones’ shooting struggles would truly begin, as they shot a combined 1-of-12 from the field that resulted in the early hole that would end up being the difference maker Sunday.

One of the players who struggled the most not just during this streak, but the overall game was sophomore forward Milan Momcilovic, who put up five total points on 2-of-12 shooting from the field, 1-of-8 from 3-point range.

After he led Iowa State in its first-round matchup against Lipscomb with 20 points, Momcilovic hit rock bottom in Sunday night’s game against the Rebels, as he could not get anything to go in front of a homecoming crowd.

“On offense, I couldn’t hit a shot,” Momcilovic said. “It’s tough to not perform at the highest moment. It’s tough when I miss a lot of shots, so it’s just about getting back to work and in the coming years, I play better in these games.”

In the first half alone, the Cyclones scored a grand total of 29 points on a combined 12-of-32 from the field (37.5%), 3-of-11 from deep (27.3%), while going an abysmal 2-of-5 from the charity stripe.

Junior forward Joshua Jefferson also struggled in this game, but primarily in the first half, as he put up seven points on 3-of-8 shooting from the field, missing both his 3-point attempts and making one of his three attempted shots from the free throw line.

As someone who typically finds success from the charity stripe, Sunday night was one of Jefferson’s worst days at the line as he finished going 6-of-11 from the line.

“The first half was hard for us to make shots,” Jefferson said. “I struggled a lot at the free throw line, more than I normally do. They did a really good job of making us take tough shots and taking us out of our comfort zone.”

While the second half would provide more success for the Iowa State offense with 49 points on a combined 15-of-24 from the field (62.5%), 5-of-11 from deep (45.5%) and 14-of-19 from the charity stripe (73.7%), it would prove too little and too late for the Cyclones who were simply outmatched by Ole Miss.

Part of the shooting struggles also come from Ole Miss’ defensive versatility, as the Rebels tend to hold their own by switching defenders at a constant rate.

Whether it was putting a smaller guard on a bigger forward/center, or the other way around, Ole Miss used its ability to switch on defenders with ease to take control of the way Iowa State ran its offense.

“They’re a team that plays with a lot of toughness,” Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “They’re connected, defensively. Their pressure can be disruptive, their switching can be disruptive. At times, it wears on you, mentally, that you’re not able to get the ball into the paint and not get the plays you want to make.”

Despite the overall day being chalked up as a bad shooting day, it wasn’t all bad for some players, mainly senior guards Curtis Jones and Nate Heise.

Jones led Iowa State’s offensive production with 26 points off the bench in his final collegiate game, while Heise added 13 on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting from the field, 3-of-3 from deep.

“Just being able to know that I can do it,” Heise said. “There was a stretch there for a while where I was struggling where I questioned myself. But being able to get through that, I’m happy about that and look forward to using that motivation towards next year.”

Regardless, the offensive production ended up being one of the main reasons that resulted in the Cyclones’ season coming to an end.