Miscues plague Jayhawks in 77-60 loss at Iowa State

AMES, Iowa – A season-high 24 turnovers was too much to overcome as the No. 5/6 Kansas Jayhawks fell to Iowa State, 77-60, Saturday night inside Hilton Coliseum. Freshman guard Quentin Grimes led the Jayhawks with 19 points, however 13 3-pointers and 20 points off the 24 Jayhawk miscues proved enough to push the Cyclones to their first win over KU in Ames since 2016.
 
The Jayhawks fell to 12-2 on the year and 1-1 in the Big 12, while Iowa State also moved to 12-2 in 2018-19, and 2-0 in the league.
 
Despite a sloppy opening 20-minutes of play, the Jayhawks managed to keep the Cyclones within arm’s reach. The shooters were cold to start on both sides, combining to go 2-of-13 over the first five minutes of action. The Jayhawks’ early struggles were compounded by posting six of their 14 first-half turnovers all within the opening 5:16 of the game.
 
Even with these the early miscues KU managed to stay close. With help from back-to-back 3-pointers from Lagerald Vick and some hard-nosed scoring in the paint, the Jayhawks found themselves even with the home side, 18-18, with nine minutes remaining in the opening half.
 
From there, Grimes took over the scoring load and helped his squad keep pace with the Cyclones before the intermission. The freshman out of The Woodlands, Texas ended the half with 11-straight points, including a 3-point play that handed KU a four-point lead, 29-25, at the 4:06 mark. However, ISU headed into the locker room with some momentum, ending the half on an 11-3 run to take back the lead and enter the break with a 36-32 lead.
 
It appeared the game would stay tight after the early minutes of the second half, with Grimes connecting on his second 3-pointer to pull his team within three points at 38-35, but that is as close as KU would be able to get.
 
Iowa State’s Marial Shayok, who ended the night with a game-high 24 points, responded with a three of his own before Nick Weiler-Babb connected on a triple on ISU’s next possession, kickstarting the Cyclone offense and giving their team some breathing room.
 
Marcus Garrett’s runner in the lane at the 12:06 mark gave the Jayhawks one more glimpse of a possible comeback, pulling Kansas to within seven points, 54-47. But another set of back-to-back Iowa State triples once again stomped out the KU momentum.
 
Those two ISU threes contributed to a 23-13 ISU run to close out the game, as the Cyclones handed the Jayhawks their first loss in Ames in two seasons, 77-60.
 
For the third-straight game, Grimes scored in double-figures, leading the Jayhawks with 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting. Dedric Lawson posted his 10th double-double of the year as the redshirt junior tallied 13 points and pulled down 12 rebounds. Garrett and Devon Dotson posted eight points apiece.
 
The story of the game though was Kansas’ 24 turnovers, the team’s most since 2014, when ISU also forced 24 KU giveaways in Ames. The Cyclones turned those 24 Jayhawk giveaways into 20 points, while KU managed just four points of off Iowa State’s 12 turnovers.

QUOTES – Full Quotes
Head Coach Bill Self
Opening statement:
“That was a beatdown. We got off to such a bad start and we were ahead. I looked up (at the scoreboard and wondered) How in the world were we ahead? We had five turnovers by the first TV timeout, then it just kind of go worse from there … Their guards are really good and they showed us how guards are supposed to play; you move it, you share it, you drive it, you pass it. You shoot it when you’re open, you don’t take bad shots. We’ve been living on the razor’s edge a lot. Granted, we don’t have a lot of where we can go to guarantee us having a great possession. We really don’t have good ball handlers right now… You give them (Iowa State) 12 more possessions in their building to get a shot and you don’t get one, you’re never going to win that game and that was definitely the case tonight.”

On who the team turns to in order to get back into the win column, with the absence a true leader:
“We’ll get back into the win column, but I don’t know. If you look around the locker room, Dedric (Lawson) probably more so than anybody. But there’s not a lot of stuff going on in there from a leadership standpoint. Kids care, but it’s so much different for them, and out of character (to be a leader)… We’ve got a lot of stuff we’ve got to hammer out and hopefully we can do it relatively soon. We’ve got two practice days to try to get better. There’s no question, eventually you’re going to play like you practice. So, certainly, we’ve got to be better in practice, I think, and that will probably translate to better performances in the games.”
 
NOTABLES – Full Notes

  • The loss made the KU-Iowa State series 181-65 in favor of Kansas, including a 26-22 KU edge in games played in Hilton Coliseum
  • Kansas finished with 24 turnovers marking the most turnovers in a game since KU also tallied 24 turns at Iowa State on Jan. 13, 2014.
  • Kansas’ four-point deficit at halftime was just the fifth time that the Jayhawks have trailed at the break. KU dropped to 4-1 this season when trailing at halftime.
  • The Cyclones’ 19-point lead (75-56) with 2:46 remaining marked the Jayhawks’ largest deficit of the season.
  • Kansas’ 60 points at Iowa State was the fewest points scored by the Jayhawks this season and was the fewest since KU also scored 60 points in its Elite Eight loss to Oregon (74-60) on March 25, 2017.
  • KU only managed four points off ISU’s 12 turnovers, marking the fewest points off turnovers since Jan. 23, 2016, when the Jayhawks only scored three points off turns against Texas in Lawrence.
  • The Jayhawks outrebounded the Cyclones, 41-26. KU’s 41 boards marked the fifth game in a row that Kansas grabbed 40 or more rebounds.
  • KU led for just 5:55, the shortest amount of time it has led this season and the fewest since the Jayhawks never led in a loss at Oklahoma State (3/3/2018) last season.
  • ISU forward Marial Shayok’s 5-of-5 clip from 3-point range marked the first time a Jayhawk opponent has been perfect from beyond the arc with at least five attempts since Oklahoma State’s Desmond Mason also went 5-of-5 against KU on Feb. 7, 2000.
  • Dedric Lawson notched his 10th double-double of season and 46th of career his career after recording 13 points and 12 rebounds.
  • Quentin Grimes recorded a double-digit scoring effort for the third-straight game after netting 19 points, two points shy of his career high. Grimes has scored in double figures six times this season.
  • Grimes scored 14-straight points for the Jayhawks, starting at the 6:16 mark of the first half and ending at the 18:53 mark in the second half.
  • In his last three outings, Grimes is 6-of-16 from 3-point range. This after going 2-of-22 from beyond the arc in his previous eight games.

UP NEXT
The Jayhawks return home to take on the TCU Horned Frogs on Wednesday, Jan. 9 on ESPN. Tip-off from Allen Fieldhouse is set for 8 p.m. Kansas is 16-2 all-time against TCU, including a 7-0 advantage in Lawrence. The Jayhawks won the last clash a season ago, a 71-64 win on Feb. 6 at Allen Fieldhouse
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