AMES, Iowa (Nov. 15, 2009) – Junior Christian Wall (New Orleans, La.) led Chicago State men’s basketball (1-1) with 19 points in its road opener Sunday at Iowa State (2-0), but the host Cyclones used big runs in the first and second halves to capture a 72-50 win at ISU’s Hilton Coliseum.
ISU posted an early 6-0 leading margin within the first two minutes of the game that ended with tail end of back-to-back jumpers by sophomore Justin Hamilton at 18:25. The visitors came back with a quick 7-3 scoring drive to pull within 9-7 at the 14:27 mark following a jumper from junior Hajji Martin (Chicago, Ill.) in the paint. A three-pointer by junior Charles Boozer and a jumper from junior Diante Garrett hiked the Cyclones’ advantage to 15-9 with 11:25 left in the stanza, but baskets from sophomore Kabangu Tshinga Kasamba (St. Catherine’s, Ont.) and senior Marquis Young (Chicago, Ill.) sliced CSU’s deficit to 15-13 just a minute later. The home team closed the half with a 16-9 run over the final 10 minutes to head into intermission with a 31-19 lead.
The second half opened with the Cyclones scoring the first eight points over the first two minutes to increase its leading margin to 20 points at 39-19 after Garrett connected on a pair of free throws at the 18:12 mark. A three-pointer by freshman Victor Scott (Chicago, Ill.) at 17:58 jumpstarted a 15-8 scoring drive over a five-minute span that closed CSU’s deficit to 47-34 that ended at 12:51 following a pair of free throws by senior Marquis Young (Chicago, Ill.). Following a 14-2 scoring run that lasted five minutes to give ISU its biggest lead of the game at 61-36 with 7:51 led in the game, the Cougars could get no closer than 19 points down the stretch.
“We’re encouraged by the fact that we came here tonight and held them (Iowa State) to 40 percent shooting from the field. We scrapped and played hard all game, but we just couldn’t put the ball in the basket,” CSU head coach Benjy Taylor said after the game. “We executed well but we missed a lot of easy shots. We’ll just have to go back to the drawing board and get ready for Wednesday’s game.”
Young finished the game with eight points for Chicago State, while junior Carl Montgomery (Chicago, Ill.) tallied eight rebounds and a game-best three steals, and Scott tallied two assists for the Cougars.
Iowa State was led by junior Marquis Gilstrap’s double-double of a game-high 15 rebounds and 11 points. Sophomore Scott Christopherson posted 12 points and senior Jamie Vanderbeken added 11 points, while junior Craig Brackins tallied eight rebounds and a game-high six blocked shots on the evening.
CSU begins a three-game homestand at the Jones Convocation Center this Wednesday with an afternoon non-conference contest against Trinity International with a start time of 1 p.m.
~CSU~