Christopherson sparks Cyclones

Sharpshooter scores career-high 30 in Iowa State’s narrow 75-72 victory over Iowa

Iowa State guard Scott Christopherson celebrates a three-pointer in the second half against Iowa earlier this season.

? Iowa State’s Jamie Vanderbeken thinks teammate Scott Christopherson is the best shooter in the nation.

After the performance Christopherson put on Friday night, it’s hard to argue with him.

Christopherson scored a career-high 30 points, including 24 in the second half, and Iowa State rallied to beat Iowa, 75-72, on Friday night for its first win in Iowa City since 2002.

Christopherson was 7-of-12 from three-point range — and the Cyclones needed every one of those seven bombs to beat the Hawkeyes for the second year in a row.

After Iowa pulled within two with 1:08 left, Christopherson buried a three from the corner with 40 seconds left to put the Cyclones ahead 73-68.

“You show me a better shooter in the country right now. I’d like to see it,” Vanderbeken said.

Freshman Melvin Ejim added 15 points for the Cyclones (8-2), who stormed back from a 40-31 halftime deficit and held off Iowa late.

Devyn Marble was fouled behind the three-point line with 17 seconds left, giving the Hawkeyes a chance to make it a two-point game. But he made just one free throw, then committed a turnover that Diante Garrett converted into a game-clinching layup.

Matt Gatens had 15 points and Melsahn Basabe added 12 points, 14 rebounds and seven blocks to lead the Hawkeyes (5-5), who saw their only winning streak of the season snapped at two games.

The matchup marked the first between Iowa coach Fran McCaffery and Iowa State’s Fred Hoiberg. Each was hired last spring to revive these once-proud programs.

At halftime, it looked like McCaffery’s Hawkeyes had the upper hand.

Iowa State looked utterly lost for much of the first half. But the Cyclones shook off those early struggles in impressive fashion and picked up their first true road win of the season.

Vanderbeken’s three tied the game 42-42 with 15:45 left, and the red-hot Christopherson hit back-to-back threes from the corner and the top of the key to put Iowa State back on top 57-52.

Garrett shot just 1-for-14 in the first 20 minutes. But he found Christopherson for a three and Ejim for a transition dunk that gave the Cyclones a 61-52 lead, and his basket with 3:34 left put the Cyclones ahead 68-58.

“We were down by nine points, and we needed to score,” said Christopherson, who is shooting an astonishing 59.3 percent on threes this season. “That’s one of my roles on this team, to get out there and knock down shots.”

Marble hit a three and Zach McCabe added two free throws to bring the Hawkeyes within 70-68 late, but the deficit proved too large to overcome.

McCabe banked in a long 3 at the buzzer to make the final seem closer than it was.

“I think there were a lot of good things in this game for our team, obviously some things that to me that are disappointing, not the least of which is we seem to continue to have the same struggle over and over,” McCaffery said. “When another team goes on a run, we tend to quick-shoot the ball, and we did not do a good enough job on Christopherson.”

Iowa State was often at least one step ahead of Iowa in opening the game with a 12-4 run.

But the Hawkeyes answered with a 19-2 spurt, and Garrett’s cold shooting was just one of the reasons the Cyclones fell behind early.

Like Christopherson, Garrett picked it up in the second half. He finished with 10 points, six assists and four steals, although he shot an unsightly 5-of-24.

The win over the Hawkeyes joins a buzzer-beating victory over Creighton in Des Moines as Iowa State’s biggest to date.