Iowa State Upsets No. 3 Kansas, Breaking 51-Game Winning Streak At The Phog

Iowa State got 20-plus point performances from three starting guards as the Cyclones, who have played like butt for the majority of the season, downed No. 3 Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse behind a school-record 18 three-pointers. The loss marked the first time in 51 games that the Jayhawks have fallen to a visiting team, with their last home loss coming in 2014 against San Diego State.

Iowa State received yet another monster performance from its talented backcourt, with Monte Morris, Deonte Burton, and Nazareth Mitrou-Long combining for 79 points on 51 shots. The veteran guards all shot at least 50 percent from behind-the-arc, as the trio propelled the Cyclones to their best win in what has been an otherwise dreadful season for the 14-8 squad.

Kansas led by 15 at halftime and kept at least an 8-point gap for the first nine minutes of the second half before a trey from Morris with 11:38 left in regulation made it a 4-point game. The Cyclones trio almost single-handedly kept their team in the game from that point on, draining trey after trey down the stretch. After a Frank Mason free throw knotted the score at 78-all with 4:35 remaining, neither team was able to break away. After a three-pointer from Morris put Iowa State up one, Mason had a chance to give Kansas back the lead when he was fouled by Burton with 50 seconds left; the senior misfired on the front end of his trip to the line and instead sent the game to overtime tied at 82.

In the extra period, Burton and Morris gave the Cyclones a 5-point lead on a pair of jumpers. Kansas again had an opportunity to retake the lead, but both Josh Jackson and Devonte’ Graham split their free throws, leaving the Jayhawks trailing by four when Morris found a wide-open Donovan Jackson in the corner—Jackson’s man, Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, had his eyes glued on Morris while he drove to the hole, allowing Jackson to fade down to the corner and calmly drain what would be his fourth shot of the game.

The Cyclones were 2-4 in their previous six Big 12 games, with Saturday’s win breaking a two-game losing streak. Kansas, a likely No. 1 seed that entered the game fresh off its Wednesday win against second-ranked Baylor, will go another two games before it faces a ranked team. Surely, nothing of interest will take place around the Jayhawks program before then.