The Cyclones were right with West Virginia at halftime Tuesday night at Hilton Coliseum.

Heading into the locker room, they were down just four.

Looking at how the Cyclones started the game — falling into a 12 point hole and committing five turnovers in the first seven minutes — they probably shouldn’t have.

Iowa State was out-rebounded in the first half, committed 10 turnovers and allowed the Mountaineers to grab half of its points inside the lane.

Yet down the stretch, Bob Huggins and company proved to be too much for the Cyclones to handle. No. 7 West Virginia (19-4, 7-3 Big 12) beat Iowa State (13-8, 4-4 Big 12) 85-72, handing the Cyclones its second straight loss.

And while the box score doesn’t show it, Iowa State wasn’t too far behind the Mountaineers in the first half. The Cyclones shot 56.5 percent from the field in the opening period, and were led by Matt Thomas’ 13 points — nine of which came from behind the arc.

“Obviously we didn’t get off to a great start, but I think we took their first punch and responded really, really well,” Proym said. “When you really break down the first half, we go in the locker room [down] four, they had three banked threes and Adrian hit a floater, that’s 11 points. Now they all count, but I thought we matched their toughness defensively. We scored 40. We were making shots and playing really well.”

Early in the second half, though, the Cyclones couldn’t buy a bucket. They went on a stretch hitting just one of nine buckets from the field — and ended up shooting just 28.6 percent that half. Yet Iowa State was still within just six points with nine minutes left in the game.

It was soon there after that West Virginia went on a 9-0 run to give it a 15-point lead.

From there, the Mountaineers rode out Iowa State’s last effort to mount a comeback and won the free throw battle late in the game — something West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said is the main reason his team held on to the lead.

“Well from what I understand that’s the history of this building. Leads go away,” Huggins said. “We made free throws. If we were at the free throw line and missed free throws, things would have got close again. We were fortunate enough to be at the free throw line, and 17-of-20 is pretty good.”

West Virginia, who runs a hectic full-court press that causes many teams issues, caused Iowa State to speed up its pace of play throughout the entire game.

And while Thomas insisted Fatigue wasn’t a factor in Tuesday’s loss, Deonte Burton — who finished with 11 points and 10 assists — said the faster play caused issues on the offensive end.

“As soon as we passed half court, we sped up,” Burton said. “If we slowed down, we would have had a better outcome.”

Seniors Monté Morris and Naz Mitrou-Long also had issues Tuesday.

Mitrou-Long finished with 10 points, but went 4-of-13 from the field and just 2-of-7 from behind the arc. Morris finished with just eight points and two assists, going 4-of-14 from the field.

“I bet 10 of [Mitrou-Long’s shots] were probably pretty good looks that he can make. A couple of those were right at the rim. A couple of those were open threes,” Prohm said. “They did do a good job of taking Monte away and really just harassing him, so we tried to get him off the ball a little bit. But that’s what you’re going to see when you play against them.”

Iowa State will turn around to take on No. 3 Kansas on Saturday in Lawrence, Kansas, and will likely face many of the same issues it did against West Virginia.

Burton’s answer for what went wrong Tuesday, though, was simple.

“We weren’t getting shots,” Burton said. “We need to rebound more and [commit less] turnovers.”