The way this game played out went according to what UNI wanted. Iowa State shot poorly, UNI was able to control the pace of the game, and the end result was a big W for the Panthers.
With ISU playing on the road, it isn't a shock there was a letdown. It's hard to shoot for high percentages on the road, and it's hard to battle through adversity when the entire crowd doesn't want you to do well.
UNI gets a ton of credit in this game. They played their game, forced ISU to play their game, and they won. O'Rear for UNI has to be player of the game here. When he was out of the game, ISU and Ejim was able to get going offensively. When he was in the game, ISU stalled. Defended Ejim well, drew a lot of fouls, and grabbed every board in his reach.
What we saw from Iowa State is highlighting two big weaknesses of this team. First, the offensive strategy when we got in the half court game was to dribble around and jack up a 3. You have nothing to fall back on when you aren't making 3s. Additionally, ISU is not a good rebounding team. So when you are shooting only 34% from the floor, you are not creating extra opportunities to make easy buckets.
Iowa State needs to work on running something that resembles more of a half court set if they are going to play well in a slug-fest type of a game. Disappointing, but in the long run, I hope it's a learning experience for the team and the staff. Lots of things to work on, and they have a couple of practices to get going and work on Cal.
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