KANSAS CITY, Mo. – ISU sophomore guard Matt Thomas is back and his arrival could not have come at a better time. 

The ISU men’s basketball team (3-0, 0-0 Big 12) overcame Alabama (3-1, 0-0 SEC) 84-74 in the first round of the CBE Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City, Mo.

Without Thomas, however, the Cyclones’ victory might have been seriously in doubt.

“There was definitely nerves before the game but once I got in there and knocked down that first three, after that everything started to flow,” Thomas said.

The sophomore sharp-shooter promised on numerous occasions in preseason interviews that he would hunt his shot as soon as he got a chance to step onto the floor.

It was a promise he kept.

Thomas finished the game with 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting, including two bombs from deep that quelled an Alabama run early in the second half after the Crimson Tide had roared back to a 51-50 lead.

“I think this year you will see a lot of that,” Thomas said. “Last year I may have been timid at times and what not being a freshman, but what I did tonight is what I am looking forward to doing all season.”

Perhaps even more impressively, Thomas grabbed eight big rebounds and provided life off the bench for Iowa State, something the Cyclones missed during the first two games of the season.

Due to his highly efficient production, Thomas remained on the floor for the stretch run to end the game, as he saw crucial second half minutes that had been previously afforded to senior Bryce Dejean-Jones. 

Dejean-Jones was averaging 17.5 points, nine rebounds and 5.5 assists through Iowa State’s first two contests but struggled against the Alabama zone, scoring only seven points on 2-6 shooting.

“I went with the guys I felt were playing the best out there and that is how we are going to roll all season long,” said ISU coach Fred Hoiberg. “But Matt, he was one of the best five players out there for us tonight.”

Another one of the five best players for Hoiberg was junior Georges Niang, who dropped in 18 of his 28 points in the first half and served as the primary catalyst for Iowa State’s 43-37 halftime lead.

The Crimson Tide rolled in furiously, flooding the Sprint Center with a barrage of 3-pointers and silencing the stadium dubbed “Hilton South” by ISU fans.

It was Niang driving, spinning and finishing with a jump hook, a sequence ISU fans may become quite familiar with by season’s end, that stemmed the Tide.

Niang also found success from long-range, as did most of his teammates, as Iowa State shot 9-21 from deep as a team.

“They were really doing a good job of extending out and pressuring us,” Niang said. “When we got out in transition, I felt like knocking those two threes down really helped me get going.”

Basketball is often a game of runs, but those runs are typically made by teams and not individual players. That was not the case for Iowa State against Alabama.

Niang scored eight straight in the first half, while Thomas and junior Naz Long each had personal runs of six and eight points respectively for the Cyclones in the second stanza.

Those short bursts that make the Cyclones so dangerous offensively bolstered an ISU shooting percentage that topped out at 58 percent.

Iowa State’s accuracy from the field helped compensate for the 15 turnovers the Cyclones handed the Tide as well as the nine offensive rebounds the Cyclones allowed.

“Several of [our turnovers] were against the zone, which you’d think if a team goes zone you could at least take care of the ball and get a good shot up on the board,” Hoiberg said. “We wanted to be in attack mode all night long…and I thought we got a little stagnant there.”

Hoiberg said he and his staff would review the mistakes as they planned to spend a long night preparing for the tournament final on Nov. 25 against Maryland.

The Cyclones will square off with the Terrapins for the CBE title at 8:30 p.m. in the Sprint Center.