Mar 10, 2017; Kansas City, MO, USA; Iowa State Cyclones forward Solomon Young (33) scores over TCU Horned Frogs forward Chris Washburn (33) in the second half during the Big 12 Championship Tournament at Sprint Center. Iowa State won 84-63. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
KANSAS CITY — Do you guys remember that Saturday in January when Iowa State traveled to Fort Worth and got absolutely destroyed?
Steve Prohm – nor the Horned Frogs recognize that group these days.
“If you watched that game at TCU, you’d be like ‘What team is that? What are they running? Why are they playing like that? Who is that bad coach? That’s what all of the tweets were about,” Prohm said following Iowa State’s convincing 84-63 victory over TCU on Friday night at the Sprint Center. “It was bad. We are a lot more physical.”
Just ask TCU’s Vlad Brodziansky, who went off for 21 and 14 in that Jan. 14 Horned Frog victory over the Cyclones. Brodziansky doesn’t like contact.
That’s one example as to how Solomon Young has essentially been a big free agent signing for Iowa State. The freshman post has totally changed what the Cyclones are able to do defensively down low and Friday night was great proof of that. Brodziansky struggled to a 4-of-13 night while Young had nine points, nine rebounds and a career-high four blocks for the good guys.
“It really kicked off in that loss to West Virginia,” Young said. “We felt like they out-toughed us. We built from that game to be a tougher team.”
It was refreshing to see Iowa State actually out-rebound another Big 12 basketball team too, which the Cyclones did 32-31.
Starters get rest
Led by Deonte Burton’s 20 points, Iowa State led by double digits for almost the entire game.
This allowed Prohm to get his starters some key rest with their third game in three days approaching in the form of tomorrow’s Big 12 Tournament championship game (5 p.m. on ESPN).
“It was good for Monte to only play 29 minutes,” Prohm said. That’s great. Whether if it is West Virginia or Kansas State, tomorrow is going to be a really physical game.”
It will be West Virginia, who beat Kansas State 51-50 in the other semifinal.
“We got Matt a little bit of rest because he needed it with his foot,” Prohm said. “It was good, especially for Monte.”
Prohm on playing West Virginia again
“It would be great from a standpoint that they beat us up pretty good twice. It would show a lot of character about our guys that we were able to fight through it and beat them. They are really good and they present a lot of problems for us. If it’s them, we have to be ready to put ourself in a position to win the game. We haven’t done that the last two games.”
History
Monte Morris, Matt Thomas and Naz Mitrou-Long have all won eight conference tournament games, which is a new school record.
Morris, who had 15 points and three assists on Friday night, tied Georges Niang as the winningest player in Iowa State history with 98 career victories.
