Iowa State Unleashes Relentless Run, Steamrolls Colorado in Statement Win
AMES, Iowa - For just under five minutes, Iowa State didn’t just take control - they took the air out of the building for Colorado. A 21-0 blitz, sparked by a Tamin Lipsey layup and punctuated by a deep triple from freshman Jamarion Batemon, turned a competitive game into a showcase of Cyclone dominance. And once that avalanche started, the Buffaloes never found their footing.
By the time the dust settled, No. 8 Iowa State had strung together a staggering 31-1 run and walked off the Hilton Coliseum floor with a 97-67 win - their second straight 30-point victory in Big 12 play and one that sent a loud message to the rest of the conference.
“When we take pride in getting stops like that - I think at one point it was, like, 10 stops in a row - our offense just flows for us,” said Batemon, who led six Cyclones in double figures with 17 points. “So if we just buy in and get stops, we got going really easy.”
That’s not just talk. Iowa State’s defense didn’t just set the tone - it dictated the entire rhythm of the game.
Colorado made just one free throw during that 31-1 stretch, and while the Buffaloes have had their struggles this season, they hadn’t been blown out like this. Not even close.
Before Thursday night, their worst loss was by 11. Iowa State tripled that margin.
The Cyclones’ energy on both ends was relentless. Milan Momcilovic poured in 16 points on an efficient 6-of-9 shooting night, Lipsey added 14 points with five assists, and Joshua Jefferson brought physicality and poise with 13 points, eight rebounds, and five dimes of his own.
And then there was the bench - deep, productive, and dialed in. Freshmen Killyan Toure and Dominykas Pleta each added 12 points, with Pleta making his presence felt in the paint.
The 6-foot-11 German big man grabbed a game-high four offensive rebounds and played a career-high 16-plus minutes, showing exactly why head coach T.J. Otzelberger has been pushing him for more consistency.
“We’ve really been after him,” Otzelberger said. “He’s capable of what he did tonight… It’s not an outlier.
It’s not a, ‘hey, he’ll do that once a month.’ We need that level of production.”
Pleta knows the expectations are rising - and he’s embracing them.
“I work on that every single day in workouts and in practice,” he said. “So I knew what I had to do: Get the rebounds with two hands and be more physical than the other guys, so, yeah, it felt pretty good.”
So did the all-around performance from senior Nate Heise, who quietly filled the stat sheet with eight points, eight boards, and four assists. Heise’s impact doesn’t always show up in the headlines, but his leadership and defensive tenacity are cornerstones of this Cyclone identity.
And that identity? It’s built on stops.
Built on effort. Built on a chip-on-the-shoulder mentality that Otzelberger says has resurfaced in recent practices.
“We practice with a very competitive spirit and I think the last 10 days or so it’s really ramped up and our guys have had a chip on their shoulder,” Otzelberger said. “We’ve gone back to being the hunter… and I think that’s when we’re at our best.”
That mindset has the Cyclones sitting at 19-2 overall and 6-2 in the Big 12 - the best start in program history from a win-loss standpoint. But it’s not just the record that’s turning heads - it’s how they’re doing it.
With depth. With defense.
And with a level of buy-in that’s tough to match.
Next up: a road test at Kansas State. But if Iowa State brings this same brand of intensity - the kind that turns five minutes into a 21-0 haymaker - they’ll be tough to slow down.