Iowa State dug itself a hole during the second quarter of Friday’s 68-53 loss to Vanderbilt in the South Point Shootout in Las Vegas that it ultimately couldn’t get out of.
With just four points in the second frame, the Cyclones went into halftime trailing by 12. Despite a 15-point deficit early in the third quarter, Iowa State nearly rallied back to tie the game, but Vanderbilt’s scoring output proved too much to handle.
“What we’re struggling with, and I think this was coming, was the physicality,” coach Bill Fennelly said on the Varsity Network postgame show. “We’ve got to find a way to play through the contact. We’ve got to find better ways for (our players) to feel more comfortable.”
This wasn’t the first time the Cyclones had seen a less than ideal quarter as a team. It’s loss to Drake earlier this month had a similar look to it.
“We came back again, it was eerily similar to the Drake game,” Fennelly said. “We just cant seem to get over the hump on some plays.”
With the amount of inexperience on its roster, its to be expected at times, especially earlier in the season.
However, as each game is played, the coaching staff is looking for improvement and ways to fix its issues.
“The biggest thing was that we got stops, and then we got out in transition and hit some shots,” Fennelly said. We just can’t sustain it… (It’s) certainly a situation where we know exactly what we need to do, we’ve just got to find a way to coach it.”
One of those struggles is as simple as it gets. The Cyclones were 5-10 from the free throw line while Vanderbilt hit 15 of its own shots from the line.
That’s an area Fennelly takes pride in for his teams, and although its a smaller sample size, he knows they need to improve.
“We continue to really struggle with that,” Fennelly said. “There’s a lot of things – but two things right off the top – understanding a scouting report – we talked ad nauseum to not let (Justine Pissott) get an open three, 14 seconds in she hits one.
“Yeah, we made some mistakes, and good teams make you pay, but offensively, you can’t miss layups, you can’t miss free throws,” Fennelly said.
Audi Crooks finished with a team-high 14 points in the game, with Addy Brown adding 11 and Nyamer Diew collecting 10 before fouling out late.
Jalynn Bristow led the way in rebounds with eight in 21 minutes on the floor. Arianna Jackson led the group in assists with five.
The Cyclones will finish off their trip to Las Vegas against Syracuse at 1:00 p.m. Saturday on FloHoops.
“That’s a really tough Syracuse team, they’re better than Vanderbilt,” Fennelly said. “We’ll see how mentally tough we are coming back in the morning.
