In one last tune-up before they travel to Kansas City, Mo., for the Big 12 tournament, the Cyclones traveled to take on the reigning national champion Baylor Bears Saturday.

After losing by five to the then-top ranked team on Jan. 1, Iowa State went through an entire conference slate before the opportunity for a rematch presented itself.

The Cyclones dug themselves a large hole early on the road and were able to crawl back into the game before eventually losing. A valiant comeback in the second half and a freshman record being eclipsed by their point guard helped them make the game interesting.

Ice cold start

The Cyclones went up by two early thanks to a Gabe Kalscheur layup. From there, it was an ambush from Baylor.

The Bears went on to score 27 of the next 29 points to go up 27-4 after 12 minutes of play and did it using a completely dominant style of play.

They out-rebounded the Cyclones 18-8 over that stretch, turned Iowa State over six times and forced a 2-17 start from the field.

T.J. Otzelberger saw his team score just 36 points at home against Oklahoma State just a few days earlier and couldn’t have imagined a worse start from his team in the regular season finale.

The Cyclones went nearly nine minutes without a made field goal and missed 14 straight from the field in the process. It was a nightmare start on the road against a team that capitalized on the cold start shooting.

Tyrese Hunter sets freshman assist record

The phenom freshman from Racine, Wis., has already been thrust into a position most 18-year-olds would find daunting by starting every game in the Big 12.

Not only has he risen to the occasion, he etched his name in the Cyclone history books as the most helpful freshman in Iowa State history.

Hunter’s sixth assist to George Conditt with 40 seconds left in the first half gave him 147 helpers on the season, passing Gary Thompkins for the most assists by a freshman in school history.

Coming in averaging 4.7 assists per game, Hunter reached double-digit assists just once this season coming into the game, when he dished out 10 against Kansas State on the road on Feb. 26.

Hunter finished the game with 13 assists, a career-high, and will have more games this season to set himself apart even further in the record books.

Comeback falls just short

After falling down 28-4, panic mode certainly could’ve set in for a team that is no stranger to offensive outages this season.

But if there was panic, it certainly didn’t show.

Otzelberger and his team got the deficit down to 10 at halftime thanks to 17 combined points from Robert Jones and Conditt and seven first-half assists from Hunter.

Out of the locker room, it was nine straight points from Kalscheur to keep his team in it as he went toe-to-toe with James Akinjo through the first four minutes of the second half.

From there, it was a switch to zone on defense and a three-point barrage that allowed the Cyclones to tie the game at 58 with just over eight minutes remaining.

The dramatic comeback made for a hotly-contested final stretch, as neither team was able to gain a significant advantage until the waning moments after Iowa State tied the game back up.

Baylor was able to make shots and free throws when it mattered most, and the Bears pulled out a 75-68 victory to clinch a share of the Big 12 regular season title.

Iowa State outscored the Bears 64-48 after being down 27-4, but were unable to come all the way back and pull of the stunner in Waco.

The Cyclones will enter the Big 12 tournament as the sixth seed and will take on third-seeded Texas Tech Thursday.