Iowa State Cyclones guard Tamin Lipsey (3) high-fives with Iowa guard Curtis Jones (5) after making a three-point shot during the second half in the Big-12 men’s basketball at Hilton Coliseum on Jan. 7, 2025 in Ames, Iowa. © Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
AMES — Tamin Lipsey simply followed orders.
Iowa State’s first-team All-Big 12 point guard attacked the paint Tuesday against Utah at his head coach, T.J. Otzelberger’s urging, and his interior intensity led to 14 trips to the free-throw line in his team’s 82-29 win before a crowd of 13,496 at Hilton Coliseum.
“I was super aggressive,” said Lipsey, who scored 20 points as the third-ranked Cyclones improved to 13-1 overall and 3-0 in Big 12 play. “T.J.’s been telling me to play through the paint. Just trust it, and obviously I got to the line a lot. So just attacking closeouts is something we’ve been big on in offense, not catching it straight up and down; being ready to make a play, (to) catch it and drive it.”
Fellow guard and so-called “sixth starter” Curtis Jones led ISU with 23 points on 10 of 17 shooting. Transfer forward Joshua Jefferson added 17 points and went 6-for-6 from the free-throw line. The Cyclones outscored the Utes (8-6, 0-3) 22-to-8 from the stripe — and that aggressiveness Lipsey spoke of proved to be the difference.
“Tamin was particularly amazing,” Otzelberger said. “How he stood out in guarding the basketball, hunting down rebounds, driving the ball with force, getting to the foul line, making plays, I felt like it was his best game, probably, this year because his mentality set the tone of the game for everybody else on both sides of the ball.”
Otzelberger’s mentality helped to reset that tone during the under-12 minute timeout in the first half. Utah had taken a 17-14 lead on guard Gabe Madsen’s 3-pointer that fueled an 11-0 run, which knocked the Cyclones on their heels. ISU responded by closing out the first half on a 21-3 splurge to take a 38-25 lead into halftime. But the Utes wouldn’t go away, cutting the Cyclones’ lead to just six three times early in the second half before a barrage of points off turnovers reestablished a double-digit edge that would only expand down the stretch.
“They wear on you, right?” Utah head coach Craig Smith said. “They grind you out. They just have great playmaking ability and they make you pay. It feels like every time you make a mistake, they make you pay.”
ISU outscored the Utes, 26-5, in points off turnovers, but gave up 10 offensive rebounds in the first half alone for the second straight game. That helped Utah build a five-point lead early before the Cyclones’ dominant first-half finish. ISU also took just three shots from outside the paint or inside the 3-point arc, so despite struggling in the latter area (6-for-22), the offense played efficiently and effectively most of the game.
“Defensively, whether they were man or zone, gapping guys, triangle-in-two — they threw a ton of stuff out there defensively,” said Otzelberger, who’s faced Smith at each of the three head coaching stops of his career. “So it’s important we stress with our guys that regardless of how people choose to defend us, we have a rhythm and a flow and a way that we play offense that we’re gonna continue to do. So when Tamin is able to drive it and live at the foul line, that puts them in a challenging spot. When Curt’s driving it, getting all those floaters that he has, that’s providing another set of problems.”
Few teams harbor any answers beyond stopgap measures. Sprinkle in Keshon Gilbert‘s wide-ranging scoring abilities — and skilled big men such as Jefferson — and the Cyclones are difficult to contain, let alone stop, for a lengthy period of time.
“Keshon is probably as good of a finisher as any guard at the rim in the country,” Otzelberger said. “So to have those guys, with their ability to attack the paint and play to their strengths, it was a huge weapon and asset for us tonight.”
