MANHATTAN, Kansas – During the week, Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger emphasized toughness and physicality during practice, and it showed.

The No. 10 Cyclones, led by a dominant defensive performance, took down Kansas State 73-57 in the final game of the regular season.

“It’s my job to make sure our guys understand, winning’s the most important thing, the team is the most important thing. You always control effort-based doable things like guard the ball, rebound the ball, take care of the ball, those things that get you more possessions,” Otzelbeger said earlier in the week. 

That was Otzelberger’s message following Tuesday’s loss to BYU. He felt his players weren’t doing the little things that contributed to winning consistently enough, especially when their shots weren’t falling. 

“I think for guys, you score a certain amount of points, or you play to a certain level, or you’ve had things go well offensively for you,” Otzelberger said earlier in the week. “And then you feel like, ‘Man, I want to keep averaging that many points, getting those shots or having that assist to turnover ratio or whatever it is.’ And then you get distracted from how you built to that point.”

The Cyclones seemed to hear Otzelberger’s message loud and clear because they looked anything but distracted on Saturday afternoon, especially on the defensive end. 

Iowa State held the Wildcats to just 57 points, the lowest total it held an opponent since Feb. 8 against TCU. 

The Cyclones held Kansas State to 37.7% shooting from the field and 9.5% shooting from 3-point range. Saturday was only the third time in five seasons that Kansas State had shot under 10% from behind the arc. 

Iowa State held two out of Kansas State’s four leading scorers, senior guard Coleman Hawkins and junior guard Brendan Hausen, completely in check. 

Hawkins scored four points while shooting 2-for-7 from the field and 0-for-3 from 3-point range, while Hausen also scored four points after going 2-for-7 from the field and 1-for-5 from 3-point range.

Hawkins and Hauser scored 17 and 15 points in the team’s first matchup.

“Our urgency to get stops, we did a much better job keeping them out of the paint, so I think that was a big difference,” junior forward Joshua Jefferson said. 

Iowa State also forced 17 Kansas State turnovers, the most Kansas State had committed since Feb. 1 in the team’s first meeting. 

There were plenty of contributors for Iowa State on the defensive end. Five Cyclones recorded a steal, while four recorded multiple. Senior guard Nate Heise and senior center Dishon Jackson led the team with three steals apiece, while Jefferson and senior guard Curtis Jones each had two. 

“When we have our focus in the right place to generate those turnovers with our ball pressure, things go our way,” Otzelberger said. 

While forcing turnovers is good, it doesn’t always guarantee success, and the Cyclones know this from experience. In Iowa State’s last game against BYU, it forced a season-high 29 turnovers, but that did not translate to a victory. 

The difference in Saturday’s game was that the Cyclones capitalized on those turnovers. 

“Unfortunately, in the last game, we weren’t able to turn it into points, we should have created a greater margin, because we turned them over frequently. Today, we were able to take those turnovers and convert them into points, and that’s so important,” Otzelberger said. 

Iowa State won the points-off-turnover battle 22-6 over the Wildcats, with that 16-point margin being the exact margin of victory for the Cyclones on Saturday. 

“We have 22 points off those turnovers, we win that margin by 16. That’s the difference in the game, right? So we’ve gotta continue to be that team every single night out,” Otzelberger said. 

Notably, the Cyclones put together their impressive defensive performance without the help of one of their best defenders in senior guard Keshon Gilbert, who was a last minute scratch due to a groin injury. 

“[Gilbert] plays great defense, so you know, just trying to get stops, dig in on defense,” Jones said. 

This type of physical, sound basketball was exactly what Otzelberger was looking for as Iowa State heads into the postseason. 

“Really proud of our guys today, with their effort and response,” Otzelberger said. “We knew coming in here today, we were gonna have to be the more aggressive team physically, taking care of the basketball in every aspect of the game and we’re fortunate our guys stepped up for us in a major way.”