MBB: Iowa State-Texas Tech Game Sold Out

[Jeremy]

MBB: Iowa State-Texas Tech Game Sold Out
Media Relations

Iowa State (15-14, 6-9) vs. Texas Tech (19-11, 8-7)

March 3, 2007 • 7 p.m. • Ames, Iowa • Hilton Coliseum (14,356)
Radio: Cyclone Radio Network; John Walters (pxp), Eric Heft (color)
Television: Big 12 Network/ESPN Regional; Dave Armstrong (pxp), Larry Farmer (color)
Television Affiliates: WOI (Ames/Des Moines), KFXA (Waterloo/Cedar Rapids)

Gameday Quick Facts

Iowa State (15-14, 6-9), winners of three of its last five games, plays its final home game on Saturday against Texas Tech (19-11, 8-7)...ISU is currently tied for eighth in the Big 12 standings...ISU can be anywhere from a 6 to 10 seed at next week’s Big 12 Championship...Missouri, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Iowa State and Nebraska are in a mad scramble for the sixth spot...ISU owns tiebreakers on Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska, while Oklahoma State has the tiebreaker over ISU...Saturday’s game will be the last for four seniors...Jessan Gray, Chris Ceaser, Jeff Bergstrom and Dustin Streff will wear an ISU uniform for the last time in Hilton Coliseum...ISU has won seven of its last eight Senior Night games.

Cyclone-Red Raider Quick Facts

Iowa State leads the all-time series vs. Texas Tech at 8-6 and has a 5-1 mark against the Red Raiders in Ames...the Red Raiders have dominated the series recently, winning five of the last six games in the series, including last season’s 76-73 victory in Lubbock...the Red Raiders are coached by Bobby Knight...Knight has been a thorn in the Cyclones’ side during his Hall of Fame career...Knight has a 9-1 all-time record vs. Iowa State, going 4-0 as the head coach at Indiana and 5-1 as the head coach at Texas Tech...Knight is 3-1 in his career in games played in Hilton Coliseum...the Cyclones picked up their lone win against Knight in the last meeting between the two teams in Ames, as ISU downed the Red Raiders, 81-68 on Feb. 12, 2005...this will be ISU head coach Greg McDermott’s first meeting against Texas Tech and a Bob Knight-coached team.

Cyclone Update

Iowa State (15-14, 6-9) picked up its second conference road win with a 69-63 victory at Nebraska Wednesday night...the Cyclones have won three-straight games in Lincoln for just the fourth time in school history (1944-47, 1961-63 and 1995-97)...ISU held a 16-point first half lead before the Huskers chopped the deficit to three points late in the second half...however, ISU made its free-throws down the stretch and came up with the big play when it needed it...the Cyclones received strong efforts from Wesley Johnson and Corey McIntosh, who both recorded career-highs in points to pace the Cyclones to their sixth conference win and their third in the last five games...Johnson tallied 22 points, tying for the 21st-best scoring performance by a Cyclone freshman...he is just the third Cyclone to reach 20 points in a game this season (Taylor- 9, Hubalek-1)...McIntosh had 14 points, making 3-of-5 from the floor and 6-of-6 from the free-throw line...McIntosh, who is averaging 4.5 ppg on the season, is averaging 11.3 points in his last three games...McIntosh was 3-for-20 from the field (15.0 percent) in his first 11 Big 12 games...he is 10-of-19 from the floor (52.6 percent) in his last four games...Johnson hit a pair of treys and grabbed six boards in the win...Johnson has 29 treys on the season, ranking fourth on ISU’s freshmen 3-pointers made list...he needs two rebounds to pass Nick Collison (Kansas, 1999-2000) to the No. 6 spot on the Big 12 all-time freshmen rebounding list...Johnson has 233 boards this season and ranks third in the league in rebounding (8.0 rpg)...Mike Taylor drilled three treys en route to 19 points...Taylor has made a 3-pointer in 25 consecutive games, which is a school record...Taylor, who ranks 10th in the Big 12 in scoring at 16.3 ppg, has 72 treys this season, ranking sixth on ISU’s single-season chart and 15th on the ISU career chart...ISU shot 47.9 percent from the floor, ending a three-game stretch of below-40 percent from the field...it was the third-best shooting effort for ISU in a league game this year...ISU is now 11-0 when outshooting its opponent and is 14-4 when holding opponents to under 70 points...ISU held Nebraska to 38.3 percent from the floor, the 12th time ISU has held an opponent to under 40 percent shooting this season...ISU was 8-for-17 from 3-point range, the 13th time this season where ISU made seven or more treys in a game...ISU has made 191 treys this season, 10 shy of the single-season school record (201) set by last year’s (2005-06) team.

What Happened Last Time?

The Cyclones and Red Raiders last met a year ago in Lubbock, as the Cyclones fell 76-73 (Jan. 14, 2006)...ISU had a pair of chances late to win the game, but a traveling call on Rahshon Clark with :13 seconds left and a charge by Curtis Stinson in the final moments ended ISU’s hopes...Jarrius Jackson scored 23 points for the Red Raiders...Will Blalock led ISU with 21 points...Jiri Hubalek had 13 points and four rebounds.

Texas Tech (19-11, 8-7)

Texas Tech (19-11, 8-7) is still hoping for an invitation to the NCAA Tournament as it enters Hilton Coliseum...the Red Raiders won four of their first five Big 12 games followed by five-straight losses...however, TTU has rebounded by winning four of its last five, including an 85-74 victory over Baylor Wednesday night...the Red Raiders have three huge wins on their resume, defeating Texas A&M twice and downing Kansas, a pair of teams that are ranked in the top-10...senior preseason all-league pick Jarrius Jackson has lived up to all expectations in his final season, ranking second in the league in scoring at 20.1 ppg...Jackson is TTU’s second all-time-leading scorer with 2,148 points...the senior ranks sixth in the league in 3-pointers made (72) and third in 3-point field goal percentage (44.4 percent)...Jackson has three 30-point games this season, tallying 31 points at Oklahoma and at Texas A&M...junior Martin Zeno is Jackson’s backcourt partner, averaging 16.5 ppg...Zeno is shooting 49.5 percent from the floor and has scored in double figures 27 times this season...Zeno leads the team in rebounding (5.5 rpg) and assists (3.4 apg)...junior college transfer Charlie Burgess is averaging 9.0 ppg and has hit 29 treys this season, making 46.8 percent of his shots from downtown...the Red Raiders don’t shoot a lot of 3-pointers, but they do it at a high efficiency...the Red Raiders rank second in the Big 12 in 3-point shooting percentage, hitting at a 41.7 percent clip on the season...TTU has also been outstanding at the free-throw line, ranking second in the conference at 73.4 percent...the Red Raiders are last in the Big 12 in rebounding margin (-4.0).

Senior Night

Saturday will be the final home game for four of ISU’s seniors...Jeff Bergstrom, Chris Ceaser, Jessan Gray and Dustin Streff will make their final appearance in Hilton Coliseum...Gray is the only scholarship senior...the other three are walk-ons...Gray is averaging 3.6 points and 2.4 rebounds while starting three games this season...Ceaser has played in 13 games this year, while Bergstrom and Streff have appeared in eight games each...ISU has fared well on Senior Night (final regular season home game) as of late...the Cyclones have won seven of their last eight Senior Night games, including four-straight...ISU’s last loss on Senior Night was a 79-76 loss to Texas on March 2, 2002.

Iowa State Team Quick Facts

• Iowa State has just four returning scholarship players from last season.
• Of the 13 players that were alloted scholarships and were scheduled to return after the 2005-06 season, only five are currently on the roster (Hubalek, Clark, Marsden, Gray, Cory Johnson).
• 62.8 percent of the minutes played (3662) this season are by newcomers on the roster.
• 66.4 percent of ISU’s points this season (1228) are from players who did not play a minute last year.
• ISU’s 6-0 start tied for the fifth-best start in school history...only nine teams had won its first six games.
• ISU head coach Greg McDermott is one of two coaches in ISU history to win his first six games at the helm.
• ISU head coach Greg McDermott is the first native Iowan to coach the Cyclone men’s basketball team since Clayton Sutherland (1948-54)...McDermott is from Cascade; Sutherland was from Nashua.
• McDermott entered the season with the 41st-best winning percentage among active Division I coaches.
• Wesley Johnson broke Will Blalock’s school-record for standing vertical leap at 34 inches...Blalock’s record was at 33 1/2 inches...Johnson also had a 41-inch step vertical leap to break the school record.
• ISU head coach Greg McDermott is in his first season with the Cyclones, but he is already the seventh-longest tenured coach in the Big 12...of the six new coaches in the league (Mike Anderson, Missouri; Bob Huggins, Kansas State; Doc Sadler, Nebraska; Jeff Capel, Oklahoma; Sean Sutton, Oklahoma State; Greg McDermott, Iowa State), McDermott was the first to be hired.
• ESPN.com picked Hilton Coliseum as the "Hot Arena" in the Big 12...coaches in the league noted that, "regardless of talent, the Cyclones have a home court like no other."
• Fans voted Iowa State and Hilton Coliseum as the nation’s No. 1 team in regards to school spirit in a poll duing ESPN’s "student spirit" week.
• Iowa State’s student spirit group for men’s basketball is called "Cyclone Alley"...a record number of over 3,000 students are members of Cyclone Alley, where the students sit behind both ends of the baskets.
• ISU held Louisiana-Monroe to 27.3 percent from the field, the first time a Cyclone opponent was held under 30 percent shooting since Dec. 31, 2002 (Arkansas-Pine Bluff).
• 12 different Cyclones have made a 3-pointer this season.
• ISU tied the school record by making 13 treys (13-25, 52.0 percent) vs. SEMO, including 11 in the first half.
• ISU has recorded six games with 10 or more 3-pointers this year.
• ISU ranks sixth in the Big 12 in 3-pointers per game (6.59 3FG).
• ISU tallied a season-high nine blocks vs. Northern Iowa, the most since blocking 10 against Drake (11-23-04).
• ISU has made a 3-pointer in 61 consecutive games.
• ISU has been outrebounded in its last four games after outrebounding eight of its first 11 league opponents.
• ISU has outshot its opponents from the free-throw line, 327-218 in home games...but is getting outshot at the charity stripe, 244-155 in away games.
• Only 11 teams (Northern Iowa, Drake, Iowa, Bradley, Ohio State, Southeast Missouri State, Colorado, Texas A&M, Missouri, Texas, Kansas) have scored 70 or more points against ISU this season...22 teams scored 70 or more points against ISU last season.
• ISU ranks 23rd nationally in least amount of fouls per game (16.1)...only eight teams (Northern Iowa, Iowa, Kansas-2, Colorado, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas) have committed less fouls than ISU in a game this year.
• ISU is 11-0 when outshooting its opponent and is 13-5 when shooting above 40 percent.
• Only three Big 12 opponents have shot above 46.0 percent against ISU this season (Missouri, Texas, Kansas).
• ISU’s ranks sixth in the league in field goal percentage defense (42.3 percent)...only five teams this year have shot 50 percent or above against ISU.
• In ISU’s 15 Big 12 games, the Cyclones are averaging 8.9 turnovers (134) in the first half and 6.1 turnovers (91) in the second half.
• ISU is 3-3 when having the lead at the half in Big 12 games...ISU is 3-6 when its opponents have the lead at the half in Big 12 games.
• ISU is last in the Big 12 in FG percentage (40.8 percent) and is shooting just 39.1 percent in league games.
• In league games only, ISU’s top three players (Mike Taylor, Wesley Johnson, Jiri Hubalek) have combined for 67.2 percent (605/900) of its scoring and 65.1 percent (533/819) of its field goal attempts.
• Mike Taylor has scored 20 or more points in a game nine times...only two other Cyclones (Jiri Hubalek- 26 vs. Oklahoma; Wesley Johnson-22) has reached 20 points in a game this year.