His ISU teammates were in the midst of a second-half run that would propel the ISU men’s basketball team to an 84-73 win against Illinois and the Emerald Coast Classic championship.

But Jameel McKay found himself riding the bench.

Because of matchup issues, ISU coach Steve Prohm elected to play a smaller lineup down the stretch Saturday in Niceville, Fla., something that worked well.

“The matchups were just so funky,” Prohm said. “They were basically playing four guards out there.”

The big man scored a season-low five points and pulled down six rebounds in the win, a far cry from his season averages of 13.8 points and 10.4 rebounds per game. He played just 27 minutes as he rode the bench during a crucial second-half stretch.

After the game, McKay sent out a few tweets that seemed to voice some frustrations. It was nothing malicious and nothing with bad intent. It was just a way to blow off steam.

He also sent out numerous tweets praising his teammates for winning the game and the tournament championship, but now McKay said he’s giving up Twitter for awhile. 

Going off Twitter for a while nothing’s going on just wanna focus on school and making my last year as special as possible see u in Houston

— ShowTime ✨ (@ShowTime_McKay) November 29, 2015

“Right now, I just want to focus on my team and school,” McKay said. “Sometimes, I get emotional.”

Now that McKay has had a little time to cool off, he said he was overreacting a little. He understands the matchup issues that were limiting his minutes and effectiveness.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter.

“After thinking it over, I couldn’t really be that emotional,” McKay said. “We won the game. That’s all I really cared about.”

Iowa State will set its sight on North Dakota State, which it will play Tuesday night. Prohm said nothing will change in regard to McKay.

“Everything’s good,” Prohm said. “He’s good. He knows he’s a huge part of this team. It’s just the matchups right there. That group was playing well, and he understands that.

“I look forward to him having a great game tomorrow and as we go forward.”