Feb 28, 2026; Ames, Iowa, USA; Iowa State Cyclones guard Tamin Lipsey (3) and Texas Tech Red Raiders guard Tyeree Bryan (1) battle for a lose ball during the second half at James H. Hilton Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Reese Strickland-Imagn Images
AMES — Hilton Coliseum’s crowd roared, yawned, then roared again as No. 4 Iowa State tried in vain to fully rally back from a 20-point deficit Saturday against Texas Tech.
The first roar came when point guard Tamin Lipsey drove for a layup to cap a 10-0 run that pulled the Cyclones (24-5, 11-5) within six, at 65-59, with 7:08 left.
The yawn came after the 16th-ranked Red Raiders immediately extended their lead back to 17 points.
And the final roar accompanied ISU’s last-gasp run that cut the deficit to six points with 42 seconds left — but Texas Tech immediately recovered to hand the Cyclones their first home loss of the season, 82-73, before a sold-out crowd of 14,267.
“Obviously, we wanted to go undefeated at home, so that stings a little bit,” Lipsey said. “But at the same time, We’ve got Arizona (on Monday night in Tucson) and we’ve got another home game to finish (the regular season) off, so at this point there’s no point in sulking.”
There never is. Not in the Big 12 — and not with the matchup with No. 2 Wildcats looming in roughly 52 hours. The Red Raiders (22-7, 12-4) simply outplayed the Cyclones, withstanding their trademark ball pressure well enough early to render those late surges moot.
“We came in with the utmost respect knowing that if we turned the ball over (a lot), we’d might as well fire the bus up and go sit on it, because you don’t win in here if you turn the ball over,” said Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland, who saw his team shooting 58.5 percent from the field and 48.3 percent from the 3-point line. “And we almost did it too many times late.”
ISU turned 10 second-half turnovers by the Red Raiders into 12 points, fueling those two roar-filled rallies that ultimately fell short. The Cyclones actually had a chance to cut their deficit to three points with 23 seconds left, but Milan Momcilovic’s fallaway 3-pointer failed to meet the mark, and any hopes of completing the comeback went with it.
“It looked good, I thought it was on line, just a tad short,” said Momcilovic, who sank five 3-pointers and finished with 20 points — two shy of leading scorer Joshua Jefferson, who scored 22 points. “I think we’ve just gotta be better at the end of the day.”
Particularly in terms of rebounding. ISU head coach T.J. Otzelberger stressed the importance of that aspect of the game in the days leading up to Saturday’s matchup, and Texas Tech crafted an early 14-to-7 edge on the boards and finished with 35 rebounds to the Cyclones’ 29.
“I’ve got to do a better job as a coach in terms of demanding rebounding effort, two-handed rebounds, finishing on the glass, finishing plays by any means necessary, and I didn’t do that today,” Otzelberger said. “Ultimately, we’ll get back to work, and that’s something that we understand — that when we’ve been successful, we win the rebounding battle. When we’ve lost, we haven’t.”
They also generally don’t allow team’s to pierce that ball pressure, but the Red Raiders’ assortment of skilled guards who can quickly move the basketball, coupled with a scheme to evade traps, led to wide-open looks, which they knocked down with regularity.
“They were the team today that had a greater sense of urgency,” Otzelberger said, “They played with an unbelievable competitive spirit, and they took it to us from the start.”
But like Lipsey said, there’s no time to “sulk” — and that’s not how Otzelberger’s teams roll, anyway. Toughness is the baseline demand. Executing in tough times springs forth from it.
“Right now, it’s a tremendous focus on what we need to do in practice (on Sunday), so we don’t put ourself in the same spot on Monday that we did today,” Otzelberger said.
