Ames, Iowa ? Kansas University basketball coach Bill Self’s decision to have Brandon Rush guard Iowa State’s Mike Taylor didn’t just disrupt Taylor’s scoring ability.

It all but shut down the Cyclones’ entire offense.

With six minutes left in the second half, Self moved Rush off of Rahshon Clark and onto Taylor, who at the time had canned four three-pointers and already had 19 points.

From that point on, Taylor missed four bad three-point attempts and scored just two points in the final 11 minutes of regulation and overtime.

Not coincidentally, ISU lost, 68-64, on Saturday in Hilton Coliseum.

“We didn’t really change anything,” ISU coach Greg McDermott said. “The impact it had the most wasn’t necessarily on Mike’s ability to score, but on Mike’s ability to find who was open in some of the plays we were running because Brandon’s so long and athletic.”

McDermott recruited the bulk of ISU’s scoring in just a few weeks when he landed the job last spring, and the Cyclones, he noted, still are a work in progress.

“We ran a couple where I thought it was there, and Mike didn’t deliver the ball,” McDermott added. “Mike should make that decision. If he doesn’t have a good look at it, we don’t want him to throw it up for grabs.”

McDermott kept his postgame news session as positive as possible, and he pointed out there was plenty for the Cyclones to build on, including a defensive performance which forced 16 Kansas turnovers and held the Jayhawks – fresh off of an 87-point performance just 72 hours earlier – to a paltry field-goal percentage of 41.9.

“Tonight, we were ready for everything Kansas was going to bring us,” said Taylor, who had a game-high 21 points. “I still think we executed the gameplan coach McDermott had for us to the T’ except for some bad shots and bad plays. Overall, I think we did a good job defensively, and you could not ask more of the team.”

Even though no one muttered the words “moral victory,” Iowa State’s players, who have jelled quicker than many outsiders might have thought during an 11-6 start, made a statement Saturday.

But sometimes experience can trump everything else.

“I think we have been ready for any amount of minutes we will have to play,” junior big man Jiri Hubalek said. “We gave it our all. Unfortunately, Kansas made up for it down the stretch.”