By Steve Lansdale
AMES, Iowa — An argument could be made that the Texas men’s basketball team’s game at Iowa State might not have resulted in an 81-52 Cyclones win if UT had not lost forward Jericho Sims to injury earlier in the week … except for the fact that ISU also lost its best player for the year when point guard Tyrese Haliburton was shelved for the year with a wrist injury.
The Longhorns [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]fell to 14-11 overall and 4-8 in Big 12 games, while Iowa State improved to 11-14 and achieved the same 4-8 mark against Big 12 opposition.
Sophomore Texas guard Courtney Ramey led the Longhorns with a career-high 21 points, but none of his teammates could muster more than the 8 points guard Andrew Jones cobbled together on 3-of-11 shooting.
The Cyclones cruised to a comfortable 37-26 lead at halftime, and mustered an even more important second half, outscoring UT, 44-26, after the intermission.
Freshman center Will Baker, who was pressed into a larger role because of Sims’ injury, gathered a career-high 7 rebounds, but as on the scoreboard, the Longhorns were crushed in the rebounds battle, 40-27. ISU scored the first nine points of the second half to stretch its lead to 46-26, and never allowed Texas to get closer than 18 points again.
The Cyclones hit 28 of 49 field goals (57.1 percent), the highest shooting percentage by a Texas opponent this season. The Longhorns connected on 28 of 49 (57.1 percent).
The Longhorns don’t have long to recover. They return home to host TCU at 7 p.m. Wednesday in a game that will be broadcast on the Longhorn Network.
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