Feb 21, 2023; Austin, Texas, USA; Texas Longhorns guard Tyrese Hunter (4) shoots over Iowa State Cyclones guard Gabe Kalscheur (22) during the first half at Moody Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-USA TODAY Sports
Iowa State’s 72-54 loss to Texas on Tuesday in Austin was in doubt for approximately four minutes of game time.
That’s how long it took Iowa State to build a 10-4 lead before the first media break in the first half at the Moody Center. Texas promptly answered with a 16-0 run and led by double digits nearly the entire rest of the game.
The Longhorns connected on 12 3-pointers, including nine in the first half.
You knew Texas was hot when Tyrese Hunter went 3-of-5 after coming into the game shooting 29 percent from deep in Big 12 play. You knew it was officially Texas’ night when Arterio Morris knocked down two from deep before halftime after making only six in Texas’ first 14 Big 12 games.
This night belonged almost entirely to the Texas Longhorns, and that shouldn’t have been unexpected after the way the first game between these two teams transpired.
One team played considerably more inspired basketball than the other and the scoreboard reflected that fact.
There was still plenty Iowa State did to help Texas’ cause, though, and some of those areas have become lingering cause for concern.
This first of those concerns is turnovers, of which Iowa State had 16 against the Longhorns, leading to 28 points off of turnovers for the home team. Texas turned the ball over 12 times for 17 Iowa State points.
Iowa State’s inability to handle the ball through pressure has become this team’s Achilles heel. They don’t dribble the ball confidently against it. They don’t pass the ball confidently against it.
If you were asking me to chart a game plan opposing Iowa State this season, this would be one of the first things to make the list. Pressure the heck out of them because they’ll shoot themselves in the foot and give you the basketball.
That simply can’t be the case when you play the style of ball Iowa State does.
It is starting to become a matter of simply valuing the basketball. It felt earlier in conference play like every Iowa State possession was sacred. It was the Cyclones’ time to have the ball and they weren’t going to let you have it back until they either got an open shot or they were forced to take one by the shot clock winding down.
Now, it feels more and more like this team will turn the ball over against pressure, and if they don’t do that, they’ll start hunting ill-advised shots that have essentially the same effect.
Iowa State went 4-of-19 from 3-point range against Texas and it wasn’t the number of shots that were frustrating, but the types of looks Iowa State was getting consistently. The Cyclones are simply taking way too many difficult shots right now.
Gabe Kalscheur made a living on those difficult shots early in Big 12 play, but he struggled again against Texas, tallying 10 points on 3-of-14 from the field and 3-of-11 from 3-point range.
When Kalscheur has been at his best, even in the times when he has made difficult shots from deep, he’s made himself more difficult to guard by hunting every shot in his arsenal from attacking the rim to the mid-range to taking solid looks from deep.
Nearly all of his shots are coming from one place right now and it is the most difficult place on the court to make shots on a consistent basis. That has to change for this offense to get back to its peak form.
The constant hunting 3-pointers and taking difficult shots could be helped if this team were more consistent in its ability to feed the post. Osun Osunniyi scored a team-high 12 points and was 5-of-7 from the field with one of those misses being a 3-pointer in the first half.
The problem is Iowa State can’t consistently get him — or any of Iowa State’s posts — the basketball.
There can be dual faults there with posts still required to get good position and seals for entry passes, but there have been too many times where Iowa State gets a big switched onto a guard or just gets a good standard post seal only for the ball to either be stolen or thrown out of bounds before it can get to the big fella.
Right now, if a Big 12 team chooses to switch their guards onto Osunniyi, that should be almost an automatic trigger entry. They can’t be allowed to do that with how well Osunniyi has played around the rim and in the paint in recent weeks.
At the very least, it will get teams into scramble situations where Osun will have to make effective passes out of the post. Best case scenario, he’s able to make a quick move over the top of a much smaller defender.
I would take the easy buckets over smaller defenders over hoisting up contested 3-pointers every day of the week and twice on Sunday, but I don’t know about you.
The bottom line to me is it feels like Iowa State’s offense has lost a lot of the connectivity that we’ve seen throughout most of the regular season. They’re not running their stuff with near the same pace in the half court and the entire operation has felt considerably more disjointed.
Surely, not having Caleb Grill in the mix these last two games has played a role in those woes, but there is no indication when he’ll return to the lineup so the issues have to be solved as is.
None of this would have really mattered on Tuesday in Austin, though.
Texas played great ball. It took only four minutes to sort that out.
