No. 3 Iowa State, after rallying to beat Iowa, confident it belongs at the top of the sport

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Curtis Jones dropped a game-high 23 points to lead Iowa State past Iowa on Thursday night. (AP/Charlie Neibergall)

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Curtis Jones knows how good the group around him truly is, even if most of the attention at the top of the college basketball world is largely elsewhere.

The last six minutes at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Thursday night proved that.

No. 3 Iowa State rallied back from a 13-point deficit on Thursday to grab an 89-80 win over Iowa — which played about as good of a game as it could’ve asked for before slipping down the stertch. That pushed the Cyclones to 8-1 on the season with conference play around the corner.

While there are plenty of other great teams out there, both in the Big 12 and elsewhere, Jones isn’t pulling any punches when it comes to ranking him and his teammates. They belong right at the top.

“I don’t feel no pressure about it. I feel confident about it,” Jones said. “Yeah, we are one of the best teams in the country.

“I feel like it shows. We’ve got the talent, we’ve got the staff, we’ve got the togetherness. I feel like we’ve got everything it takes to go far, and I’m just really confident in our abilities.”

Iowa State rallies to beat Iowa

Iowa gave the Cyclones just about everything it had on Thursday night. And for most of the game, it looked like it was going to work.

The Hawkeyes, who drained seven 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes, jumped out to a 13-point lead just before halftime. Every single time the Cyclones punched back in the second half, Iowa responded to stay a step ahead. But, unlike at the Lahaina Civic Center in Maui last month, Iowa State held strong.

The Cyclones finally surged ahead in the final six minutes of the game once Iowa went cold. The Hawkeyes made just two field goals from then on, both of which came in garbage time, and Iowa State took full advantage. It was a slow battle — they didn’t take the lead for the first time until the three-minute mark in the second half — but they…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/no-3-iowa-state-after-rallying-to-beat-iowa-confident-it-belongs-at-the-top-of-the-sport-043808104.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-12-13 04:38:00

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